Speaker 1: Lifeln Cut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands
Speaker 1: were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders
Speaker 1: past and present.
Speaker 2: Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was
Speaker 2: recorded on Cameragle Land. Hi guys, and welcome back to
Speaker 2: another episode of Life on Cut.
Speaker 1: I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and today we have a very
Speaker 1: exciting episode.
Speaker 3: You probably all have heard of.
Speaker 1: Michelle Bridges or seen her in some capacity. She is
Speaker 1: a TV queen, a fitness icon, a best selling author
Speaker 1: of seventeen books.
Speaker 3: Now I don't even inteen. Who has the time?
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know who has the time. But she's
Speaker 1: the creator of the twelve week body Transformation. She's helped
Speaker 1: literally thousands of women regain their health, confidence and fitness.
Speaker 1: But you might have seen her recently on a TV
Speaker 1: show with me. I'm a celebrity, Get me out of here.
Speaker 3: This is where it was really hard. I had like
Speaker 3: a highlight peak at that point where bread. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, recently Michelle and I got dumped together and
Speaker 1: we I say, we got stuck together. There were two
Speaker 1: bunk beds. You know, I'm a celebrity. To get me
Speaker 1: out of here that were literally off to the side,
Speaker 1: away from everyone. Anybody wanted nobody wanted them in the bush,
Speaker 1: and that's where Michelle and I were, and I think
Speaker 1: that's where we bonded so much because no one else
Speaker 1: talked to us.
Speaker 3: So Michelle, welcome, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.
Speaker 5: It's a real pleasure to be here and to you know,
Speaker 5: I see you again and to meet you for the
Speaker 5: first time.
Speaker 3: Michelle.
Speaker 2: It's this is such an interesting one because there's so
Speaker 2: much about your career, your history within media in general
Speaker 2: that I want to talk to you about. But that's
Speaker 2: not the purpose of why we have you here. We're
Speaker 2: doing a two part This is if you guys missed
Speaker 2: the first part. We interviewed an expert around metopause and
Speaker 2: we also wanted to interview someone who is living it
Speaker 2: and has personal experienced. Has you know, skin in the game,
Speaker 2: one might say, And you've spoken a little bit yourself
Speaker 2: around your experience reaching that point in your life as
Speaker 2: a woman, and also how hugely under researched it feels,
Speaker 2: not just for yourself but the medical professionals that you've
Speaker 2: experienced feeling as though they don't know enough about something
Speaker 2: that every single woman is going to go through at
Speaker 2: some point in time. Now, before we get into your
Speaker 2: experiences around this, I would love to know what is
Speaker 2: your accidentally unfiltered story, your most embarrassing story, the thing
Speaker 2: that keeps you up at night on those dark groom days.
Speaker 3: Well, you're like, throw you in.
Speaker 5: How long did you show stacks? I could just keep
Speaker 5: them coming. But one that happened recently. I was at
Speaker 5: a launch for a product with Sonya Krueger and a
Speaker 5: couple of other lovely ladies in media, and I left
Speaker 5: and went back to walked across the road to my
Speaker 5: car with my little goodie bag, got in my car
Speaker 5: and drove down the street and I thought.
Speaker 4: Why is there so much noise? In the car?
Speaker 5: Was so loud, And I realized that the boot of
Speaker 5: my four wheel drive was open.
Speaker 4: And I'm driving down.
Speaker 5: The street right I'm like, ah, so I pulled into
Speaker 5: a side street and there's traffic and I'm like, oh
Speaker 5: my god, and I've just had to pull off onto
Speaker 5: the side of the road and get out of the
Speaker 5: car and there's people waiting behind me, and I'm like.
Speaker 3: Sorry, sorry, just closing my pood just closed, you know.
Speaker 5: Get back in the car and off I drive. Now
Speaker 5: it was pretty embarrassing. But then as I was driving away,
Speaker 5: I realized the whole thing was being filmed by paparazzi
Speaker 5: for Daily Mail, and it ended up on their Daily Mail,
Speaker 5: and I.
Speaker 4: Thought, you.
Speaker 3: It was very funny.
Speaker 1: It had Michelle walking out, has it walking out looking
Speaker 1: like fierce and hot, and then it just has to
Speaker 1: the car.
Speaker 3: The booty is open.
Speaker 1: It just has to get into the car, fierce and hot,
Speaker 1: closing intoor, fierce and hot, it driving down the road.
Speaker 5: And seriously, when I saw it on Daily Mail, I
Speaker 5: was like, ah, and I thought, you know what, lean
Speaker 5: into this. So I grabbed the footage and put it
Speaker 5: on my Instagram and I even put some background like
Speaker 5: stupid music and put it and just leaned right into it.
Speaker 5: And the women loved it. They were like, yo, how
Speaker 5: many times has this happened?
Speaker 2: It's kind of the only way that you can win
Speaker 2: though circumstances. Though that's the problem now, like every time
Speaker 2: that's not accumuliating that happens and it's on Daily Mail,
Speaker 2: or I've seen like a hideous headline about myself. The
Speaker 2: only thing that makes me feel like I've regained a
Speaker 2: little bit of power in that situation is to like
Speaker 2: repost the awful heabline that's being written and be like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I can.
Speaker 3: I can make a joke too. I find it funny
Speaker 3: because dying and die.
Speaker 1: If you bully yourself first, no one else can bully
Speaker 1: you as brutally. Well, Michelle, you did create your own
Speaker 1: program recently surrounding menopause and perimenopause, so you can help
Speaker 1: so many women because you are going through it. Can
Speaker 1: talk to us a little bit about where you're at
Speaker 1: now in your life because I know you have an
Speaker 1: interesting story that actually surrounds I'm a celebrity and menopause.
Speaker 5: Yes, I do have a story about that. I thought
Speaker 5: that I was about to be menopausal. For your listeners
Speaker 5: that may or may not know, menopause is classified as
Speaker 5: being between forty five and fifty five. Perimenopause can start
Speaker 5: anywhere between seven to ten years prior to that age category,
Speaker 5: so it's not unheard of for a woman thirty five.
Speaker 5: If you do the math, could start feeling something's not
Speaker 5: right here. There's some symptoms.
Speaker 2: Having perimenopausal, Yeah, symptoms, Yeah, it can happen.
Speaker 1: That's also really scary because thirty five is this is
Speaker 1: coming from someone me that's thirty seven, but thirty five
Speaker 1: is so young. And now as women are pushing back
Speaker 1: their child bearing years for their careers, there are plenty
Speaker 1: of women that are still in their mid to late
Speaker 1: thirties that haven't had children yet that might start perimenopause.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's scary.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's definitely possible, and it certainly has happened, and
Speaker 5: I've met many women who it has happened with. You
Speaker 5: could have menopause brought on early at a young age
Speaker 5: too if there's cancer. So it's a very big group
Speaker 5: of demographic when you look at it. If we're talking
Speaker 5: late thirties, early forties and we're talking late fifties, it's
Speaker 5: a pretty big chunk of your.
Speaker 2: Lifetime twenty five thirty ye yeah, absolutely, So what are
Speaker 2: some of the symptoms when you say in terms of perimenopause, Like,
Speaker 2: what does that look like for most people?
Speaker 5: Everyone always thinks jumped straight to hot flashes, and it's like, eugh,
Speaker 5: that's so cliche, and it can be not denying anyone
Speaker 5: that has them because apparently I haven't had them before.
Speaker 5: That's not one of my symptoms, but they can really
Speaker 5: throw you off kilter. And you can be in board meeting,
Speaker 5: or you can be teaching children, or you can be
Speaker 5: you know, doing something being.
Speaker 4: On TV and have one.
Speaker 5: You've got estrogen receptors throughout your entire body, like they're everywhere,
Speaker 5: So when you get a loss of estrogen, your symptoms
Speaker 5: can be wide and varied. And in fact, one of
Speaker 5: the number one symptoms that I'm reading is not the
Speaker 5: hot flashes. It's about five on the list. It's more
Speaker 5: sleep deprivation or sleep changes. That was me waking up
Speaker 5: in the middle of the night because I I don't
Speaker 5: think I was having hot flashes, but I was sweating
Speaker 5: nights weeat comfortable, and then that has a knock on
Speaker 5: effect to the rest of your day because then you
Speaker 5: just feel like yuck for the rest of the day.
Speaker 4: And so that was definitely one of my symptoms.
Speaker 5: So there can be symptoms of brain fog, which sits
Speaker 5: right up there as well, and people start.
Speaker 4: Thinking, am I having early dementia or what's going on?
Speaker 4: You know, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 5: Because they have been not given any kind of information
Speaker 5: around what menopausal symptoms can be. I wake up in
Speaker 5: the middle of the night too. You remember the old
Speaker 5: internet dial up sound dude here, I wake up to that.
Speaker 5: That's my tenaitis it's.
Speaker 3: So bad, and it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: An artists is a symptom as well. Burning mouth is
Speaker 5: a symptom. Skin crawling is a symptom. Anxiety sits upright
Speaker 5: at the top as well. And I definitely felt that.
Speaker 1: Which is probably why it's so hard for people to diagnose,
Speaker 1: because the symptoms are so broad that it could be
Speaker 1: so many things. And I feel like the number one
Speaker 1: thing is like stress and depression. When you go to
Speaker 1: a doctor, someone's like, oh, you depressed her some anti
Speaker 1: anxiety or antidepressants.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting that you just mentioned burning mouth syndrome.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone would know what that is unless
Speaker 2: they have experienced it or they know someone who experiences it.
Speaker 2: My sister has burning mouth syndrome and it's so debilitating.
Speaker 2: It's like a chronic pain disorder where you feel as
Speaker 2: though your mouth is constantly on fire or burning, or
Speaker 2: you know that sensation that you have when you drink
Speaker 2: a cup of tea and it's too hot and the
Speaker 2: all your taste butter is highly activated because they're burnt.
Speaker 2: It is that sensation twenty four hours a day. So
Speaker 2: does she have that all the time constantly when her
Speaker 2: anxiety is really bad and her stress is really bad,
Speaker 2: it's twice as bad. Or if she has any sort
Speaker 2: of spicy food or anything that might aggravate it, it
Speaker 2: is worse. But it's a hormonal condition that's far more
Speaker 2: prevalent in women than what it is in men. But
Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was also a symptom that can
Speaker 2: be of menopause.
Speaker 5: Yeah, musculus gletal issues. One of the big ones is
Speaker 5: frozen shoulder, and that's really debilitating and can take up
Speaker 5: woods of a year to sort of get that sorted
Speaker 5: through physiotherapy and so on.
Speaker 2: So with your own experiences, so when you started to
Speaker 2: have this, like sleep disturbances and changes, were you conscious that, okay,
Speaker 2: this might be a symptom of did you think that
Speaker 2: maybe your body was at that stage or were you
Speaker 2: kind of just like and how did you tell me?
Speaker 5: In the fitness and health industry, you would think I
Speaker 5: would know this stuff. I now realize how clueless on
Speaker 5: this topic, really important topic because for such a big
Speaker 5: chunk of women that I was, and Unfortunately our medical society.
Speaker 5: Now there's lots of research coming in, but there's many
Speaker 5: very busy doctors that have got so much going on
Speaker 5: that haven't maybe potentially got the time to start delving
Speaker 5: into all of this new modern medicine research that's coming out,
Speaker 5: you know. And I've spoken to several doctors that said
Speaker 5: that their clinical studies, you know, spent no time on
Speaker 5: it or very minimal time on it, which I think
Speaker 5: it's going to probably take about a generation before we
Speaker 5: start sort of seeing menopause and perimenopause being more prevalent
Speaker 5: in our medical society, if you like.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not something that comes as a surprise.
Speaker 2: We've highly spoken about in depth how misogynistic the healthcare
Speaker 2: system is, and it does seem like something that comes
Speaker 2: up in conversation, this idea of like as we get older,
Speaker 2: as women, often women feel more invisible.
Speaker 3: But that also is within the medical world.
Speaker 2: It also is like having visibility around the conditions and
Speaker 2: the symptoms because a lot of things has just passed
Speaker 2: off with like, oh, that's just being a woman, deal
Speaker 2: with it. But then it's the lack of understanding around
Speaker 2: why or where those symptoms come from.
Speaker 1: But So when you went to the doctor, Michelle, when
Speaker 1: you were like, Okay, something's not right, but no idea,
Speaker 1: what yeah, what was the experience?
Speaker 5: Like, Look, I had had some disturbances in my menstrual cycle.
Speaker 5: Like I, I've always been a light flow. Suddenly I
Speaker 5: was really heavy, and I sort of thought, Okay, this
Speaker 5: could be the start of something, and then I just
Speaker 5: brushed it aside. So for the sleep disturbances and ringing
Speaker 5: in my ear and my hip, and I put it
Speaker 5: down to all the training that I've done over the years.
Speaker 5: My hip would ache and keep me awake at night
Speaker 5: as well, which is a muscular skeletal issue that happened
Speaker 5: for me. A little bit of arthritis in there. And look,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to deny we are all aging, but
Speaker 5: we age slowly. It's not like sudden drop off the cliff.
Speaker 5: When these symptoms kick in, it's a drop off the cliff.
Speaker 5: So it's not just yes, I'm getting older. There's something
Speaker 5: else going on. But for me, I felt flat and
Speaker 5: I felt I had a level of anxiety that I'd
Speaker 5: never experienced before, which.
Speaker 4: Was really unusual for me.
Speaker 5: So I went to the doctor and I spoke about that,
Speaker 5: and we did some blood tests, and as I was
Speaker 5: saying earlier before this interview, even if you get your
Speaker 5: hormones tested, it's not going to give you a pinpointed
Speaker 5: answer because when you're in perimenopausal there's a chaos of
Speaker 5: hormonal changes that's going on in your body. So I
Speaker 5: could get my hormones tested in the morning and they
Speaker 5: could look completely different that afternoon. Unless you're sort of
Speaker 5: about the doctors every single day getting your hormones tested
Speaker 5: and you can do like a full diagnosis, you can't
Speaker 5: even potentially pick it up in hormone treatment. And you know, again,
Speaker 5: there's just so much new information that's coming out that
Speaker 5: whether or not my GP was across all of that.
Speaker 5: But I basically was told, why don't you try any depressants?
Speaker 4: And I was like, look, I am flat. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm a bit off.
Speaker 5: I suppose maybe even a bit low, but geez, am
Speaker 5: I depressed. It seems like drastic, yeah, And it was
Speaker 5: a lot for me to take that on because I felt,
Speaker 5: chit is that really where I'm this, And to be
Speaker 5: fair in my perimenopausal obviously stages, I went and did
Speaker 5: something that my GP now said, geez, I would never.
Speaker 4: Have thought that would be a good idea what you did.
Speaker 5: And that was I went to the country, lived on
Speaker 5: a property, isolated myself from a lot of you know,
Speaker 5: family and friends, because it was what I wanted to
Speaker 5: do at the time. But she said, as a perimenopausal
Speaker 5: woman going off and living on a farm in an
Speaker 5: isolated country town, that would probably be the last thing
Speaker 5: I would suggest.
Speaker 4: It's a good idea.
Speaker 3: What made you want to go and do that?
Speaker 5: It was time for me to reassess my life. COVID
Speaker 5: came and I just thought, you know what, I just
Speaker 5: want to get away. And I had a down south
Speaker 5: and I just said, right, we're going.
Speaker 2: It's interesting this concept and conversation around anxiety. One of
Speaker 2: my really good friends, she's been through perimenopause, and I
Speaker 2: think now she's going through menopause, but she was talking
Speaker 2: about how she had been taken off medication that she'd
Speaker 2: been using for it, and her anxiety was back and
Speaker 2: through the roof, and it was very much interrelated to
Speaker 2: the menopause, and she said that it got to a
Speaker 2: point where she's like, this is.
Speaker 3: A medical emergency.
Speaker 2: The anxiety that I feel is so unreasonable, and I
Speaker 2: know that it is related to my hormones. But try
Speaker 2: telling your brain that this is not your brain, that
Speaker 2: it's your hormones.
Speaker 3: So when you decided that you didn't want to take.
Speaker 2: The antidepressants, I didn't and you did discover that maybe
Speaker 2: this was interrelated to menopause.
Speaker 3: What was the next steps and how did you process? Okay?
Speaker 5: It took me a while to kind of put it
Speaker 5: all together. And strangely enough, I'd had so many of
Speaker 5: my clients through twelve WBT who've kind of grown up
Speaker 5: with me. You know, they came to me when they
Speaker 5: were in their thirties and they're now with me in
Speaker 5: their forties and fifties. They'd all been asking me to
Speaker 5: do a program on me, and I was like, I really, yeah,
Speaker 5: I know, I know.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 5: It's funny because I was of the similar mind that
Speaker 5: I think society is still in and we're changing it,
Speaker 5: but it's still there, very much there that I don't
Speaker 5: know if I want to put my hand up and
Speaker 5: be that menopause girl, because that's admitting that I'm not
Speaker 5: at aging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm a scary thing for society now because
Speaker 1: we are ageists. We put all this pressure on people,
Speaker 1: especially women, to maintain their youth. And if you, you know,
Speaker 1: if you can't stop the aging process, at least look
Speaker 1: like you're stopping it, go and get talking, you know,
Speaker 1: like that's what that's what we're told that when you're
Speaker 1: an aging woman, you're not valuable anymore.
Speaker 4: I think that.
Speaker 2: We're the least version of that that we've ever been, though.
Speaker 2: I think we are fighting full forced against it, and
Speaker 2: that didn't exist twenty years ago. But now I think
Speaker 2: that there is, like there is a ferocious community of
Speaker 2: women who are forging into their forties, their fifties and
Speaker 2: beyond who are like, absolutely not, I will not subscribe
Speaker 2: to this idea that my expiration date has passed.
Speaker 5: I gave myself a good uppercut and said to myself,
Speaker 5: hang on a minute. You've built your career or on
Speaker 5: empowering women, and you're buying into society in the way
Speaker 5: that we think about women's and women's aging.
Speaker 4: Michelle, what the hell? And I thought, well, it's authentic,
Speaker 4: it's real.
Speaker 5: Lean into it, bloody, get out there and start talking
Speaker 5: about it, and yes, you'll do that freaking menopause program.
Speaker 5: So I just dived into research and what I found
Speaker 5: was like, oh my God, when I got my blood
Speaker 5: test with the doctor, Yes, my good cholesterol was really high,
Speaker 5: which was great, but my bad cholesterol was high. And
Speaker 5: I hadn't changed anything in my diet, and oh my god,
Speaker 5: I am vitamin D deficient, not low, not really low
Speaker 5: freaking deficient. And they're two harmkers that I've now learned
Speaker 5: that are part of perimenopause. So I was like, okay, okay,
Speaker 5: things started falling into place for me, and so as
Speaker 5: I kept researching and kept researching for the program, then
Speaker 5: got my specialists in for the program, and the GP
Speaker 5: doctor Kelly tiegor I said can.
Speaker 4: You be my GP?
Speaker 5: After I'd spoken with her and she helped me kind
Speaker 5: of figure it out and get through and look, I'm
Speaker 5: not through it. I'm still, you know, moving along. I
Speaker 5: feel very blessed that I think I haven't really had
Speaker 5: massive symptoms, thankfully. I think some of that is due
Speaker 5: to my lifestyle has supported that quite successfully.
Speaker 4: And that's research, that's not opinion.
Speaker 5: We know for a fact that women who exercise between
Speaker 5: moderate to high exercise and do it consistently potentially can
Speaker 5: have lower symptoms than those that might do no or
Speaker 5: minimal exercise. That again, that's not an opinion, that's a fact.
Speaker 1: What were some of the differences and the changes that
Speaker 1: you noticed in your relationships before you realize what it
Speaker 1: was and you just were like, Okay, I'm flat, I'm
Speaker 1: depressed and whatever. Because I know you have a son, Axel,
Speaker 1: who you know, he's quite young, he's still at school.
Speaker 1: Did you find that that relationship at home changed in
Speaker 1: terms of your level of patience?
Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah, I mean it's hard to determine because having children,
Speaker 5: I think even when you're an absolute maximum one hundred
Speaker 5: best of health, they still get they can stay you that. Certainly,
Speaker 5: I found myself probably pulling away from people, and I
Speaker 5: think being in the country helped. But I found that
Speaker 5: I wasn't as social as I used to be, and
Speaker 5: that was certainly amplifying my feeling flat. But I just
Speaker 5: couldn't kind of get my head around it. And hence
Speaker 5: that's why I moved back. Moved back to Sydney nearly
Speaker 5: two years ago, and it was the best move I
Speaker 5: could have made because it's brought me back into society
Speaker 5: again and into my friends.
Speaker 2: We recently did an interview with a woman named Eleanor Mills,
Speaker 2: and we touched on menopause in that conversation, and it's
Speaker 2: interesting how on what it's like this fine dance that
Speaker 2: as women we need to do leaning into like the
Speaker 2: authentically the things that are happening to us, but also
Speaker 2: then being like typecast, like Okay, now you're in menopause,
Speaker 2: and that's the label that you need to carry around
Speaker 2: and you should talk about it. She was sort of
Speaker 2: saying that she felt as though being someone who is
Speaker 2: in she herself was in menopause, and she was like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 3: And it's for the reason that I don't want.
Speaker 2: People to label me as though I have to speak
Speaker 2: about it, as though that's the only thing that now
Speaker 2: I have to offer. She's like, it becomes such an
Speaker 2: identifying identity for women. Do you feel that it has
Speaker 2: been of value to you to lean into it or
Speaker 2: do you feel as though that there is this kind
Speaker 2: of like fine dance between becoming labeled to someone who
Speaker 2: is Okay, well you are menopausal.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean by that?
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it's like, oh, one hand, it's doing God's work,
Speaker 2: but on the other hand, you then have to carry
Speaker 2: that label.
Speaker 5: Look, I think it is what it is. You know, like,
Speaker 5: I hate that saying, but I just said it because
Speaker 5: that's where I'm at, you know, and I'm happy. There'd
Speaker 5: be a lot of women that don't want to talk
Speaker 5: about it, and I get that, and there'll also be
Speaker 5: women that might feel if I talk about it at work,
Speaker 5: am I going to be you know that she's you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: my hormoan or.
Speaker 4: And then just hard to work with, hard to deal with.
Speaker 3: Invalidates.
Speaker 1: Well, you get that label every time something goes wrong
Speaker 1: or if you want to make a complaint about something
Speaker 1: or everything's like oh she's yeah anapaus or like they
Speaker 1: just put groups you into something that maybe you shouldn't
Speaker 1: normally fall into.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I can see that. I can see that,
Speaker 5: But I still wholeheartedly believe that the more we get
Speaker 5: this information and knowledge and education out to as many
Speaker 5: people as we possibly can, including men, because they're living
Speaker 5: many of them are living with a woman that's in
Speaker 5: these stages of life. And if we don't know much
Speaker 5: about it, guess what, they know nothing? Because I think
Speaker 5: for future generations, you know, I just feel like, let's
Speaker 5: just shake it out of the tree, get it on
Speaker 5: the table, have medical SoC aiety looking after us, empowered
Speaker 5: with all the new modern medicine knowledge that that's out
Speaker 5: there and it's still to come, so that we can
Speaker 5: just like support ourselves and support the women in this
Speaker 5: time of life.
Speaker 2: How has it changed your sense of self when you
Speaker 2: were able to identify what it was and what it
Speaker 2: was that you're experiencing.
Speaker 3: How did it change or impact the way that you
Speaker 3: viewed yourself?
Speaker 5: Well, I think the biggest thing for many menopause or
Speaker 5: women on perimenopause, of women is validation.
Speaker 4: I'm not going cross.
Speaker 5: I don't, I don't dementia Like it's validation. It gives
Speaker 5: you almost a massive, overwhelming sense of relief. I knew
Speaker 5: that there was something not right here, and now when
Speaker 5: you can put your finger on it and then figure
Speaker 5: out what you can do to support, and there is
Speaker 5: so much you can do to support, then it gives
Speaker 5: you a real sense of empowerment. Like I always say,
Speaker 5: you've got to become the CEO of your own life.
Speaker 5: No one's going to do it for you. But you
Speaker 5: know what, we're at an age group now that we
Speaker 5: don't give shit what people think about us. We're tough,
Speaker 5: we're strong, we're resilient, and we've got a future ahead
Speaker 5: of us. We're important to our family, We are in
Speaker 5: a place in our lives. For some women, they're kicking
Speaker 5: goals in their career, like this is a really important
Speaker 5: time of their life where we're losing women from the workforce,
Speaker 5: We're losing women from education because of this, and that's
Speaker 5: costing our country. It's in a holistic approach, so it's
Speaker 5: not just one thing or two things, or even three things.
Speaker 5: It's probably going to be maybe five or six things
Speaker 5: that you're going to have to work out being the
Speaker 5: CEO that's going to support you. So there's going to
Speaker 5: be lifestyle changers. There's going to have to be a
Speaker 5: moment where you find a GP that is specializing in
Speaker 5: perimenopause and menopause and they are out there. It might
Speaker 5: be that you've got to figure out your sleep health
Speaker 5: and how to clean that up. It might be having
Speaker 5: really heartfelt sincere conversation with your partner because you know
Speaker 5: there's a lot going on sexually or not sorry, there's
Speaker 5: not anything going on sexually. You know there's multiple things.
Speaker 5: Holistic approach. That's what kept coming out when I spoke
Speaker 5: to all of my specialists. It's a holistic approach. It's
Speaker 5: a holistic approach. It was always the words they were using,
Speaker 5: and that what I have found personally is absolutely true.
Speaker 1: So hormone replacement therapy or HRT is one of the
Speaker 1: first things that doctors will say, let's do that, like
Speaker 1: after they've said go on your antidepressants, and then they
Speaker 1: figured out that's not what it is. It's HRT.
Speaker 3: Did you go down that route?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have.
Speaker 5: And I went and spoke with my doctor, Kelly Teagle,
Speaker 5: who is one of the specialists on the ment pause method.
Speaker 5: I did a zoom conference with her because she's based
Speaker 5: in Canberra, and we went through my history, We went
Speaker 5: through my blood work, we went through lots of questionnaires
Speaker 5: around my mental health, around all sorts of stuff. It
Speaker 5: was really quite good and then I made the decision that, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm going to do it. So I take I have
Speaker 5: an estrogen patch that I put on my butt.
Speaker 1: Which is what I saw you putting on in the jungle.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I don't even know this. It sounds like
Speaker 3: like a little nicorette patch.
Speaker 4: That's pretty clear patch. It's about the size of a stamp.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I take a progesterone tablet every night and
Speaker 5: so I've been doing that now. I started taking them
Speaker 5: just before the jungle, So what's that five months? Six
Speaker 5: months and I have I have definitely noticed a difference. Again,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to say, oh, my symptoms was you know,
Speaker 5: thank God, because I know ladies that get hit pretty hard. Fortunately,
Speaker 5: my symptoms have been mild. The sleep thing was killing me.
Speaker 5: The earringing thing was a bit of a pain in
Speaker 5: the ass. I've definitely noticed a difference. And I've also
Speaker 5: noticed a difference in my attitude too.
Speaker 3: With my disposition, we only hear negatives though.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think when I in terms of metopause,
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone talks about it in a favorable way.
Speaker 5: That's the narrative I want to change. Yeah, that's a big,
Speaker 5: big thing for me because no one was talking about
Speaker 5: it in the past, but if they did, it was, oh,
Speaker 5: it's a jail sentence wave the white flag, your life
Speaker 5: is over. It's bad, it's terrible, it's the worst thing
Speaker 5: that's ever going to happen to you. And so any
Speaker 5: narrative around it was just so so negative. And I
Speaker 5: absolutely want to change that narrative because I have found
Speaker 5: positives and the women that I have worked with since March.
Speaker 5: We launched the Menopause Method in March, so we've had
Speaker 5: quite a long time now. We've had many women go
Speaker 5: through the whole three months worth of work and come
Speaker 5: back for more and they've found the positive. This is
Speaker 5: a really powerful time in your life because you know
Speaker 5: who you are, you've earned your stripes, you know what
Speaker 5: you want, you know what you don't want. Maybe your
Speaker 5: children have grown up, possibly even left home, and you
Speaker 5: don't want to be kicking goals at this time. And
Speaker 5: guess what you can? You absolutely can. They're just it's
Speaker 5: going to take. It's going to be a little bit
Speaker 5: of work. That's okay because most women with these symptoms
Speaker 5: are ready to do whatever it takes. And that's another
Speaker 5: reason why I think we've had so much success, because
Speaker 5: they're not like, oh, you know, maybe i'll do the program.
Speaker 5: Maybe other they're like, give it to me, I want it.
Speaker 5: I'm going to I'm going to get this sorted out.
Speaker 5: And I'm not saying I've got the solution, but we've
Speaker 5: certainly made some incredible differences to women and given them education.
Speaker 3: Something that's been so severely lacking.
Speaker 2: How does exercise impact or help people who are in
Speaker 2: this stage of life.
Speaker 5: Well, it helps people in any stage of life. I'll
Speaker 5: just say that straight off the bat, I definitely feel
Speaker 5: that in perimenopause and menopause, exercise is a game changer,
Speaker 5: an absolute game changer. It can help with the muscular
Speaker 5: and skeletal issues that we spoke about. It can help
Speaker 5: with your anxiety, it can help with your sleep disturbances.
Speaker 5: It can help with building muscles so insulin resistance. Because
Speaker 5: one of the big things again is weight gain. It's
Speaker 5: more of a weight distribution. The changes, so you change
Speaker 5: from a little bit of a pair shape to a
Speaker 5: little bit more of an apple, so you're getting it
Speaker 5: around your midline. This is a dangerous visceral fat to
Speaker 5: have because this can then start to tap into cholesterol,
Speaker 5: blood pressure.
Speaker 1: But even like and I know this is surface level,
Speaker 1: but even esthetically it also leans into why women get
Speaker 1: so down as well, because their body is changing out
Speaker 1: of their control to something that they might not have
Speaker 1: ever experienced before. And anything that is out of your
Speaker 1: control obviously doesn't help. If you have layers of anxiety,
Speaker 1: but all of a sudden, your hormones are changing, your
Speaker 1: body's changing, you don't know what it is, you can't
Speaker 1: stop it, so it's like a snowball effect.
Speaker 4: It can be.
Speaker 5: But against exercise, nutrition, getting a good gp, working out,
Speaker 5: you sleep, all of that sort of stuff can absolutely help.
Speaker 5: I promise you, I absolutely promise you it can. And
Speaker 5: the types of exercise when we talk about insulin resistance
Speaker 5: is you know, strength training because you want to get
Speaker 5: that muscle on your body and lift your weights, push
Speaker 5: and pull heavy things. Because what that will do is
Speaker 5: it will build your muscle. You can build muscle in
Speaker 5: older life. I've seen it. It's scientifically a fact you
Speaker 5: can build muscle in your older life. And also by
Speaker 5: doing that, you're strengthening your bones. Now, this is really
Speaker 5: important stuff because when you start to strengthen your bones,
Speaker 5: and you can strengthen them even if you have osteoarthritis
Speaker 5: osteopenia which is the onset of osteo issues, you can
Speaker 5: still strengthen. You can still make them stronger and actually
Speaker 5: support your bones so so much. Now I'm going to
Speaker 5: give you a couple of little stats. See, fifty percent
Speaker 5: of females in this transition will have an osteoporatic bone fracture.
Speaker 4: Fifty percent.
Speaker 1: That's huge.
Speaker 5: Those stats just blew my head off, and many of
Speaker 5: them can be avoided because if you're looking after yourself,
Speaker 5: your balance, your coordination through forms of exercise and training,
Speaker 5: keeping your core strong so that you've got good balance,
Speaker 5: doing exercises that recruit your aware self awareness so on.
Speaker 5: You know, it's balancing on one leg and you know
Speaker 5: lifting a weight up overhead, you're having to really keep
Speaker 5: yourself stable. Those things potentially could stop you from taking
Speaker 5: a full Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about nutrition, you said, that's another thing that's
Speaker 2: so important in the stage of life. What changes should
Speaker 2: people take in terms of their nutrition?
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, so it can assist. Again, it's not the
Speaker 5: only thing. It's a holistic approach.
Speaker 4: As we know.
Speaker 5: The research now is saying it's a Mediterranean low carbohydrate diet.
Speaker 5: So that's what the menopause method nutrition plan is. Because
Speaker 5: you wanted to hang onto your muscle, you want to
Speaker 5: get protein. You want to be making sure that you're
Speaker 5: getting good amounts of protein into your diet, calcium rich
Speaker 5: foods for your bones, Amiga threes and looking Also, there's
Speaker 5: a lot of research coming out about gut health. I
Speaker 5: mean that's been around for a while, but now there's
Speaker 5: a link of perimenopause and menopause to gut health as well.
Speaker 5: Because I was vitamin D deficient. I take a vitamin
Speaker 5: D supplement, and I make sure that when I train.
Speaker 5: Sometimes I train outdoors, I'll put my sunscreen on my face.
Speaker 5: I'll make sure that i'm out there for ten to
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes, and then I'll apply my sunscreen because I
Speaker 5: know that's important. I don't want the sunscreen people coming
Speaker 5: after me. But we do need to get a vitamin
Speaker 5: D as well.
Speaker 1: Can you replenish if you know, can you replenish vitamin
Speaker 1: D enough with vitamins? Is it the equivalent of actually
Speaker 1: getting it from the source.
Speaker 5: Now that's this whole supplementation question because I think I'm
Speaker 5: taking all of my supplements and are they working. But
Speaker 5: I guess again, it's just a you know, you're trying
Speaker 5: to approach it from all angles. So I take a
Speaker 5: gut health supplement, I take a women's health supplement. I
Speaker 5: take my vitamin D in a spray, I take magnesium.
Speaker 5: I take creatine because there's some really good research on creatine.
Speaker 5: It's not just the bodybuilders. You know, it can supplement
Speaker 5: you maintaining good muscle health.
Speaker 1: So talk to us a little bit about the differentiation
Speaker 1: between perimenopause and menopause, because I know it's a blurry
Speaker 1: line with where you draw the line to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're out of perimenopause now and you're into menopause.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I didn't know about it. I didn't even know.
Speaker 4: This is how.
Speaker 5: Unnoledgeable I was about this topic. I didn't know about perimenopause.
Speaker 5: And I think there's a lot of people that's a
Speaker 5: big topic of discussion now, but there'll still be people
Speaker 5: out there that don't. So perimenopause can start, you know,
Speaker 5: let's say seven to ten years before the ages of
Speaker 5: forty five to fifty five, and that is when you will,
Speaker 5: in some cases get even more severe symptoms than when
Speaker 5: you're menopausal. But it's classified you are in menopause when
Speaker 5: you had no longer had a period for a full
Speaker 5: twelve months. So they could come and go, they could stop,
Speaker 5: they could start, you're still perimenopausal, go full twelve months. Okay,
Speaker 5: now you're classified as being menopausal. And I have a
Speaker 5: story which I shared with you in the jungle, which
Speaker 5: I didn't even think was possible. I did this interview
Speaker 5: before I got in the jungle about menopause and they
Speaker 5: I was saying, you know, so in your full twelve
Speaker 5: months your menopausal and that. One of the interviewers said,
Speaker 5: oh yeah, but what if you get you get to
Speaker 5: eleven months and you get your period.
Speaker 4: And I said, I don't think that could happen. I
Speaker 4: guess what happened.
Speaker 3: Whilst you're in the jungle, like anyone got a tampa.
Speaker 5: I was in the jungle for three days. I was
Speaker 5: eleven months and two weeks wow, So I was two
Speaker 5: weeks off twelve months and it was Sky. I was
Speaker 5: sitting with Sky down in the jungle and we were
Speaker 5: sitting on the floor cross legged, and she looked across
Speaker 5: at me.
Speaker 4: She said, you get your period?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Like I haven't had it in a year?
Speaker 4: And I said, oh.
Speaker 5: I looked down. There was just a very slight mark
Speaker 5: on my shore. It's so embarrassing.
Speaker 4: And I was like, no, let's just do it. Can't
Speaker 4: be I'll go up to the toilet. Yep.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: And I was like, I'm sitting in the jungle toilet
Speaker 5: going also in.
Speaker 1: A place twelve months nearly twelve months when you don't
Speaker 1: think you have to think about it anymore because you're like,
Speaker 1: obviously I'm in menopause. Now, you don't bring a tampon
Speaker 1: into the jungle. Don't bring anything, and it's like the
Speaker 1: worst place.
Speaker 5: I had to come up to the girls and I said,
Speaker 5: where do we get that hampons? And it's just like
Speaker 5: I can't even believe once said that.
Speaker 3: Well, then what happens now?
Speaker 2: Does that mean that it resets for another twelve months
Speaker 2: or does it mean that it's kind of well.
Speaker 4: I've had a period ever since. Wow, I know.
Speaker 1: Do you think that was the stress, like the hormonal
Speaker 1: change in the jungle, because we know what stress can
Speaker 1: do on your body, But like it seems strange to
Speaker 1: have gone twelve months. Then you get thrown into that environment,
Speaker 1: then it's back regular now, Like that's wild to me.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I honestly do not know.
Speaker 5: And then because you girls were all talking about, oh,
Speaker 5: we've all got our periods at the same.
Speaker 4: Time, and I'm cute, maybe I've got wrapped into that.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's how that happened.
Speaker 3: Maybe I sucked you in because I have fault.
Speaker 1: Me for yourself not going into.
Speaker 2: Medical Is that I mean, like I wonder about that
Speaker 2: because it's One of the things that people always say
Speaker 2: is like the positive, well, at least you never have
Speaker 2: to deal with the period again, Like, is that how
Speaker 2: you felt about it?
Speaker 3: Will be like cool, well I'm done with that part
Speaker 3: of my life.
Speaker 2: That was Obviously it had a purpose, but for a
Speaker 2: lot of it, it was a fucking annoying Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, I've had all sorts of theories said to me.
Speaker 5: People said, oh, well, you know, it must mean that
Speaker 5: you're still you're healthy, or this or that, and I
Speaker 5: don't buy into any of it other than the human
Speaker 5: body is an incredible thing. Menopause and perimenopause is different
Speaker 5: for every single person. It's very individual. No two symptoms,
Speaker 5: you know, are the same, particularly what you get, what
Speaker 5: symptoms you might have will be completely different to the ones.
Speaker 4: That I have.
Speaker 5: And you know, it's just it's just a very interesting
Speaker 5: and yet wonderful time.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess it's the same as women that have
Speaker 1: their period. Like, no, two periods are the same. Some
Speaker 1: people get alive, that's right, symptoms. Some are gushing the
Speaker 1: red river and they're in constant pain and they get
Speaker 1: the hormonal headache.
Speaker 4: Some people are in I have never had really much
Speaker 4: period pain. At all.
Speaker 5: Actually, in perimenopause, I started getting more pain. That was
Speaker 5: interesting because I was always light, light flow, no pain.
Speaker 5: But then there'll be girls. I remember girls that couldn't
Speaker 5: even come to school. You know, it's so varied. They
Speaker 5: couldn't have a school, they owned so much pain and
Speaker 5: they were so heavy.
Speaker 3: Which I also find so interesting.
Speaker 2: I honestly think from like a medical perspective, because often
Speaker 2: research and information and people specialize in areas where they
Speaker 2: can see it being a lucrative industry for themselves, you know,
Speaker 2: where more money can be made. Like this is a
Speaker 2: thing that is going to happen to every single woman
Speaker 2: who every single woman who has a period is going
Speaker 2: to experience menopause at some point. So it's like it
Speaker 2: makes sense doctors, if you're out there, this is a
Speaker 2: great area of speciality interest to get into. Women need it,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It's something that we're all
Speaker 2: going to require.
Speaker 5: But I want to say that one third of the
Speaker 5: world's population is either perry menopausal, menopausal or postmenopausal. Yeah,
Speaker 5: one third of the female world population.
Speaker 2: And it's so fascinating that up until I think in
Speaker 2: the last of five or six years, it hasn't even
Speaker 2: been a conversation that's been had, and now there is
Speaker 2: more information. But for someone who works in healthcare, like
Speaker 2: you work in the fitness industry, you work within talking
Speaker 2: about bodies, talking about nutrition, talking about how bodies work,
Speaker 2: and even yourself was like, I had no information on this.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's so much incredible information coming from all
Speaker 5: around the world.
Speaker 4: I was only just listening to it in the car
Speaker 4: on the way here.
Speaker 5: Interesting research coming out of the UK around perimenopausal and
Speaker 5: menopausal women and how they process nutrition slightly differently, because
Speaker 5: they'll have women going to the GPS that work in
Speaker 5: these specialist areas and they'll say, oh, your cholesterol's high.
Speaker 5: This is different and they're like, but I haven't even
Speaker 5: changed the way I eat.
Speaker 1: Tabolizing and processing the food and things like that.
Speaker 5: I haven't changed the war. I haven't changed a war exercise,
Speaker 5: but I'm putting on weight. What's going on?
Speaker 1: What's your advice for a woman right now that is
Speaker 1: entering she thinks she's entering perimenopause or she's entering menopause,
Speaker 1: she's struggling to prioritize her health and make the changes, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you say that starts in Brittany.
Speaker 5: First of all, i'd be start doing some research for yourself,
Speaker 5: start educating yourself. There's some incredible specialists. One that I
Speaker 5: follow out of the States. Her name's doctor Mary Claire.
Speaker 5: She's incredible. She's just written a new book called The
Speaker 5: New Menopause, and it's a heavy read.
Speaker 4: It's pretty it's.
Speaker 1: A heavy flow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a heavy flow.
Speaker 5: See what we do that, But it's incredibly empowering when
Speaker 5: you can arm yourself with education. The absolute number one
Speaker 5: thing you've just got to do is find yourself a
Speaker 5: GP that specializes in this area.
Speaker 4: And you can find them.
Speaker 5: They're out there and you can do like like what
Speaker 5: I did, a tele conference, so they don't even have
Speaker 5: to be, you know, in your neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Because chances are they're not in your neighborhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're lucky where we live, but so many
Speaker 2: people live in regional that's right areas, and it's harder
Speaker 2: to come by people who specialize in this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you can go onto the Australasian Menopause Society
Speaker 5: website and you can find the playlist of doctors that
Speaker 5: do specialize in this.
Speaker 1: It's so nice to talk to someone that's literally going
Speaker 1: through it, Like it's easy for us to go and
Speaker 1: speak to a specialist, but we aren't going through it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm still experience, No, my periods still regular.
Speaker 5: But it's the thing is for you, Britt and for
Speaker 5: both of you, is the knowledge is power. So most women,
Speaker 5: well I think probably of my generation definitely before we're
Speaker 5: just blindsided.
Speaker 4: But it's also different now what's going on.
Speaker 1: Because if I knew this when my mom was going
Speaker 1: through menopause, I would have been different. I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been such a brat. I would really band But do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like, once we're armed with
Speaker 1: the knowledge that we understand why someone's going through something
Speaker 1: and it's out of their control, Like I used to
Speaker 1: think when my mom went through it, and she went
Speaker 1: through it for quite a long time, like it really
Speaker 1: sat with her for a long time, and her hot
Speaker 1: flushes were next level and it would.
Speaker 3: Really throw her.
Speaker 1: Fatigue was chronic, and I'd be like, I give her
Speaker 1: a hard time, like while you're always sleeping and she's like,
Speaker 1: I physically can't keep my eyes open. And I don't
Speaker 1: think she knew she was in perimenopause at the time.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's another big symptom. Always tired.
Speaker 1: Always.
Speaker 5: It's so I think I said this to Callum on
Speaker 5: the show, Like if we said to the men of Australia,
Speaker 5: this is what's gonna happen. See your testicles down there,
Speaker 5: they keep your hormones level and so on. So when
Speaker 5: you get about, oh, let's say fifty two to fifty three,
Speaker 5: maybe fifty four, they're going to shribble up and go
Speaker 5: and look, you might have some erect ol dysfunction problems,
Speaker 5: you might put on a bit of weight, you might
Speaker 5: not feel good about yourself, but you know what, you know,
Speaker 5: stick with it. You'll get through it and you'll get
Speaker 5: up on the other side and you'll be fine. So
Speaker 5: you know, chin up, carry on. Like they'd be taking
Speaker 5: all the funding for those submarines and they'd be pumping
Speaker 5: it into you know, men's testicle research.
Speaker 2: You know, this is one of the things Ellen or
Speaker 2: Mills spoke about when we interviewed her, and it was
Speaker 2: so interesting. She was like, no one would ever expect
Speaker 2: a man to get up and have to talk about that.
Speaker 2: They would like fix it, but they would be researched.
Speaker 2: We'd get them a pill we'd fix it for them,
Speaker 2: whereas like women are expected to speak about the things
Speaker 2: that they're experiencing in order to get the research, in
Speaker 2: order to get exposure, because we have to advocate for
Speaker 2: ourselves in a way that men don't have to do.
Speaker 4: Well do Yeah, I love that word.
Speaker 5: You have to advocate for yourself and when you go
Speaker 5: to your GP, you have to advocate for yourself. You
Speaker 5: have to ask the questions, have to arm yourself with
Speaker 5: knowledge so that you can ask the questions that you
Speaker 5: need to to delve into it. And that again is
Speaker 5: why it's really important to go to a doctor that
Speaker 5: actually specializes in it, because they'll have that information already.
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing we say about any ailment
Speaker 1: or illness or change in your body is that you
Speaker 1: know your body better than the stranger of a doctor
Speaker 1: who sure they've studied for five years, but they don't
Speaker 1: know what your normal is because everybody's normal is slightly different.
Speaker 1: So if you know something is not wrong in your body,
Speaker 1: go on five for that exactly that go to one doctor.
Speaker 1: If they don't agree with you, or they don't suggest
Speaker 1: maybe or listen to you, go to someone else. Like
Speaker 1: you can go to more than one person.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's becoming the CEO of your own life. You
Speaker 5: can do it, and I'm one hundred percent guaranteeing you
Speaker 5: can definitely support yourself in this time of life. But
Speaker 5: it's going to take just a little bit of work
Speaker 5: just to figure it out, and again, a holistic approach.
Speaker 2: Michelle, thank you so much for coming and being a
Speaker 2: part of the podcast. Thank you for sharing your experiences.
Speaker 2: For anybody who wants to listen to part one of
Speaker 2: this episode, we will think it all in the show
Speaker 2: notes as well.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me in to talk
Speaker 5: about this really important topic.
Speaker 4: Thank you, it was a pleasure.