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