Are you in your late thirties, forties, or maybe even fifties. If you are, chances are you've heard of Perry the ten or so years prior to metopause in which hormonal changes can play absolute havoc on your body, on your sleep, and on your mood. So today we are very excited to share that Nutrition Couch has got you covered with our latest ebook release called The Perry Plan, and today we share what it is and why this research can
help you thrive through your Perie years. Hi, I'm Leanne Will and I'm Davie Barrow and every week we keep you up to date with our bi weekly podcast, The Nutrition Couch, which gives you everything that you need to know in the world of nutrition and health. So as well as Perry, today we chat about a supplement called creatine and why this might be interesting for women's health. And our listener question is all about strict diets and
specifically why do they or do they not always work out? So, Susie, the Peri chat is a very interesting one because a lot of ladies, I mean, it's not something even as I went through a UNI ten plus years ago now, it was never even mentioned, like they never even mentioned perimenopause or they mentioned menopause equals HRT equals that's all you need to know. So it's definitely an area that
even as dietitians we absolutely need to upskill in. There is a little bit more noise and chatter online recently. We're is great, but it's still a very misunderstand area and a lot of ladies until they knee deep into perial into those menopause all years where they've got the abdominal fat, the mood changes, the energy levels change, then
they go, oh, hold on, something's not right here. So we wanted to have a great discussion about the science behind Perry and why our new e book, The Perry Plan can help so many of our listeners out today. So I'm going to pass over to you because this is absolutely your area of expertise one hundred percent.
And I think it was when a few of the female led media themselves were in their forties and going through these changes that they were like, what is going on and why have we not heard about this? So Perry technically is the ten or so years prior to menopause, which is actually the last menstrual period, so juditional, we only spoke about metapause, when actually that's a very distinct point in time. It's more so those ten or so
prior years in which there's significant hormonal shoes. Basically as the body gets ready to stop reproducing.
An estrogen levels drop.
Now, the reason it's so relevant is that has such profound impact on our body composition and in particular, our metabolism because lean estrogen is highly protective of weight gun and potentially particularly centrally, which is why women in their late thirties, even forties and fifties will notice a thickening around their waste area and gaining weight in places they never had previously when they hadn't had to work so hard at their weight, and all of a sudden, you know,
they're five ten, fifteen, twenty kilos heavy, and they're like, what is going on? I haven't really changed my lifestyle so significantly. So certainly there hasn't been a huge amount
of specific information. There's a number of sort of podcasts and media personalities speaking about it, but certainly they're not giving the dietary specification and evidence space that we would want people to be getting in terms of looking after their metabolism as we go into those years, and I think there's also, like anything, you know, traditionally, you know, going back thirty forty fifty years, most of the medical profession was driven by males, so probably they didn't have
an overall huge interest in these years of a woman's life and optimizing health and well being, whereas now there's a much higher contingent of females who are interested in
this area. But also as we live longer lives, you know, really looking to age positively, because you know, it's one thing to be, you know, fifty sixty retired carrying a bit of weight, whereas if people are now living to eighty ninety, you certainly don't want to be twenty thirty kilos heavier in those years because you haven't proactively taken
control of those hormones. So the first thing I would say is that if you are in your late thirties forties and have noticed that there's been a bit of a change in your cycle, they're getting heavier, they're not as regular, but certainly if you're starting to feel not great, you're chronically tired, fatigued, you are moody, getting night sweats, not sleeping well, your skins, it's she these are all
signs that you could be in those pairy changes. And to give you an idea of why you have to really seek out a medical professional who is skilled in this area. I myself went and had some bloods done because I usually have low iron stores and I thought, I'm really tired, like it has to be low iron. I'm in my mid forties and my mum went through menopause mid forties, so obviously there's a strong correlation there.
And she looked at my bloods, which were actually all normal, so there were no stars on my estrogen progesterone levels. And the GP looked and she said, oh, no, you're not tired because you're iron slow. You're tired because you're estrogen's low. And I said, it hasn't come up, and
she said it's still relatively low. So you really have to find a health professional, whether it's a female GP, whether it's an a endocrinologist, whether it's a gynecologist who has an interest in positive aging and is not just interested in ticking the box on menopause and really understands that a gradual decline in estrogen will have a profound effect on how you feel because a big part of this is managing it closely with the doctors to make
sure that you optimize homoe levels, that you have the right management and treatment of some of the symptoms, in particular the hot sweats and the poor sleep which affects so many of us, and profound mood changes. And hence was why I wrote the Pery Plan. You know, I had been wanting to get this book published for over twelve months. It was so difficult to even get someone interested, And in the end I said to you, I'm just going to do it as an ebook because the women
that I'm working with want this information now. And it's just as much about proactively avoiding weight gain as it is in managing perry and also getting weight off if you have gained it. So certainly for anyone even in your late thirties, you finish having kids and you're really looking to age well and keeping control of your weight and want to prevent that creep. It's really written and given a background on what is perry, What are these hormonal changes? How can you take control? What is the
best way to eat? Because what we are learning is that that entire peri menopausal state is basically a period of chronic information for a number of our body systems, which is why women are tired. It's just why we start to have issues with blood glucose regulation in cholesterol.
It's all tied in and there's so many different things you can do from a diet perspective, which isn't just about weight loss, but it is about optimizing things like your bone health, your mood, your inflammation in the body, your sleep. So that's what we've covered in the plan. You know, Leanne, you and I are dieticians. We're never going to write strict diets because we know that strict
restrictive diets don't work. This is a lifestyle plan which is designed to be implemented for anyone in those years who is looking to optimize metabolism as they get a little bit older, keep on top of their hormones and basically age as positively as possible, which, whether we like it or not, does have to do with.
Our body weight.
You know, it's not about being skinny and aesthetically you know, aspiring to ideals in society. For me, it's about my women, my clients feeling good in their body and generally speaking, if they're not eating well and they're gaining weight, they don't feel good in their body, and that makes it really difficult to turn up every day and be their
best selves. So it's about taking that control back. And there's a lot of information about mindset, how to approach diet and exercise through these years, and how to create a foundation nutritional intake for you that will optimize your metabolism keep on top of weight gain, but also your health as you go through those years. And I'm really happy with it, and I think everyone who's brought it so far has found it really helpful.
So check it out.
It's on our website at nutritioncouch dot com. And yeah, our latest product, the Perry Plan, written by me.
Absolutely, you're a superstar and it's helped so many ladies. The feedback that we're receiving so far as unbelievable. There's a reason that there's a bulk of Dartitians buying it, there's a reason there's a bulk of pets buying it, there's a reason that there's a bulk of doctors buying it. We see the emails coming in and we just love that we're able to help so many people through our podcasts and through our different types of products available online
as well. So if you head to the nutritioncouch dot com, there's a little tube that says our store and in there we've got our event recordings from last year. We've got our product guard takeaway Guarde and the brand new Perry Plan which retails for thirty four ninety nine. It's available worldwide, so if you're in America because your dollar is so good, it's even cheapla and if you're in the UK it's even cheaper because the pound is doing
really well. So available worldwide. It's not just specific to Australia. The recipes are things that you can buy all around the world. They're not using certain just Australian products either, so go and check it out. It's a real it's an absolute game changer, and Susie, you should be very very proud.
I think, and we think a big thank you Sallyanne, and particularly David who helps us get all of these products up on our website. He works for a very low pay rate, hopefull you sort him out the end. And of course our beautiful Bronti who helps us with all of our content. She has helped me format and get the book ready in a really short amount of time, So thank you to her. She helps us here on the nutrition couch in the background enormously, so massive thank you to both of them.
But moving on.
Actually, our news item of this week is not unrelated because we're constantly scanning the media for what's doing the rounds, and there was an article that came up on in Morning Herald last week with renowned health journalist Sarah Berry had pendit about the use of creating in women and muscle preserving muscle mass, particularly as they get older. And I can't remember if you sent it to me or I sent it to you and you said, oh, yeah,
I've heard of this before. So creating is a supplement that we've used in sports nutrition for many years, knowing that when it comes to sprint type athletes, creating helps the muscle cell regenerate energy quickly, so it can enhance performance in sprint type events. So people like one hundred meters sprinters and swimmers will often use creatin to optimize performance, even soccer players who need to do short bursts of high intensity exercise.
And also we use it.
In the gym, so a lot of my teenage athletes in the past or elite level rugby players rugby league will use Creatan to improve their muscles recovery, when muscle when weight training, so they can recover more efficiently and
basically livet heavier for longer, get stronger, gain muscle weight. Now, traditionally, when we've given Creating as a sports specific supplement you we used to load the muscle and then maintain a dose, and we used to do six weeks on of Creating six weeks off because it does store in the body
and can cause kidney damage if you don't cycle. Now, that has been used for many years as a sports specific prescription, but the latest evidence is really looking at it for use in postmenopausal women because we know that one of the biggest issues metabolically in those ages of forties and beyond is we lose muscle mass. And we lose muscle mass physiologically just naturally as we get older, but also a lot of us are now sitting down a lot more and we're not actively lifting weights and
doing resistance training. Now, muscle mass is the metabolically active tissue. It burns calories, So the less muscle mass you have, not only does it have a profound effect on how strong your body is and how agile is we get older. But of course it preserves metabolism. So if you're losing muscle mass over the years, you basically need to eat less and less, which isn't ideal for those of us
who like to eat more and more. So maintaining muscle mass is one of the best, most proactive things we can do to preserve metabolism as we get older and keep our bodies fitt and strong in agile for as long as possible.
So the growing.
Evidence out there is that creating can be particularly effective in preserving strength in women and supporting muscle mass in particularly those postmenopausal years when estrogen levels are much lower, and again it's easier to gain abdominal fat around the middle and lose muscle mass. We don't have a protocol because I just said to Liam before we hopped on today, how do you cycle it? Because my understanding your creation has always been that you have to have a wash
out period. We're not sure of that, so we want to be very clear. This is early research, but if you do have an interest in gaining muscle tissue, you're actively working out in the gym, you work with an exercise physiologist, a personal trainer. It isn't a bad idea to get an opinion of a sports dietitian or keep your eyes out for that because certainly in the past we've also used some things like amino acids and even
creating for brain injury patients in recovery. And I think we're going to hear a lot more in this space about proactive ways that busy women can and optimize muscle mass. And I think, yeah, there'll be growing evidence around creating, So we don't want to give a prescription for that, but it's something to certainly pay attention to. And there's some murmurings around about whether we will to use it as a supplement for women in their postmatopause or years.
Yeah. Absolutely, And what we know from creatine is, as you mentioned, it's very popular within our athletes now. Traditionally I have used it a little bit for particularly my vegan or plant based ladies who are looking to gain strength and gain muscle because what we know that you can eat enough creatine. Absolutely, creatine is mostly it's found in animal based products. So we're talking about milk, we're talking about fish, we're talking about red meats and white
meats like chicken as well. So if you are somebody following a plant based start, it is very very very difficult to get in enough creatine, and particularly is women. We don't eat anywhere near as much meat or protein is what males do. So I find that it's generally the males that are taking creatine supplements, but it's actually the females that will benefit the most from it, and particularly if you're following more of a plant based lifestyle
as well. Now the research is really interesting, as you mentioned, because a lot of the times the protocols are either a big loading dose or you can actually take it for just a smaller amount regularly and consistently. My Happy David takes it and he takes just a small amount a couple of grams every day or when he remembers.
But you can also do the big loading dose for I think it's from memory across about three to five days, where you take a much larger amount, but then you don't need to take it regularly or consistently long term
as well. And the big thing with creatine is as well, it tends to hold a little bit of water weight on you as well, so if you really sort of like obsessed with the scale or weighing yourself regularly, just be mindful of that your weight will go up, but it'll just be your body retaining that little bit more fluid as well. So I think it's a really interesting emerging area. And like you mentioned, as we get older,
we tend to lose muscle mass. But I think the other thing and why potentially it may be helpful in you know, women fifty plus as well as they tend to eat less protein, Like as we get older, our appetite drops down, our taste buds drop off. And I'm talking you know, seventies, eighties, nineties, not really fifties. But I know from doing a lot of work within the hospital system and with malnutrition, it's potentially a supplement that could benefit the elderly as well, just because they go
towards more of a tea and toast diet. Although I have like a coppersuit for dinner, Like, their protein amounts that they actually get in are so low. Plus also functionally that they've decreased. A lot of them a maul narration, and a lot of them aren't actually doing any exercise, let alone. The resistance based training that we want to support their muscle mass. So I think it's a huge growth area. But like we said, we don't have the exact protocol to recommend an exact amount for now, so
it's sort of like a watch this space. And if you are interested in you're a female, and particularly if you are taking more of a plant based diet, I would absolutely suggest linking up with a sports dietitian to really get you on the right amount or the right dosal protocol to benefit you long term as well. And then SUSI that brings us to our last section, which
we wanted to talk about some popular diets. We're not going to name them, but you know there's a lot of very restrictive diets and our listening question was really around why do these diets work or why do they not work? And I think, like anything, if you're going to be one hundred percent strict, most diets will work. But it's when they don't work that is a problem, when you fall off them because they are actually so restrictive.
Like I did a call with a lady this morning and she was saying to me she was exploring the possibility of joining my coaching service and I was saying to her, like, tell me about your background, on your past, and she said, look, I've tried every diet. The only one that actually worked for me was like, quit sugar. And she said, I stuck to it religiously. I lost all this weight and it was excellent. And I said, well, I'm going to challenge you because I would say that
that wasn't successful. If you've now fallen off the wagon, you're not putting sugar anymore, you've regained the ten kilos that you're lost. I would actually say that that was another unsuccessful diet. And she was quite for a moment and she was like, yeah, you're right actually, And so for me, a successful diet is something that you can
do long term. And a lot of these popular diets are so restrictive, but people think they're successful because I lose five, ten, twenty plus kilos, But if when you come off the diet, if the weight comes back on again, to me, that's not actually success long term. I don't know that you feel very strongly like I do around these restrictive diets as well, because although you might find them successful in the short term, you don't actually maintain their results long term.
Absolutely. You know, they do the diet rounds. They tend to be on the best seller list. You know, I had a client doing an eight hundred calorie diet. Some will do you know, lose ten kilos in ten weeks. But the actual question that I had had from a few of my clients were I've bought those diets as well, but they didn't work for me. You know, I see all these success stories online, but I got no weight loss. And what I just wanted to specifically mention in that
context was because I think there's two scenarios. There's a scenario where they lose on them but then put it all back on again, which is an issue metabolically because we know they've probably lost muscle mass and it makes it harder each time.
So that's the issue.
It's actually not successful because it's not sustainable. But for me, the other issue, or what I see and I specifically see with a c or with a client recently, was that she said I bought them and it just didn't
work for me, and why was that? And I said, well, what happens is if you have any degree of meta dysfunction, so for example, you may have instun resistance if you start to play around with calories, so for example, an eight hundred calorie which was grossly inadequate, and then also exercise, that disparity between calories and calories app is just too great, or if you have insulin resistance, it will just be
making it worse the lower the carbohydrate comes. So you might get a kill or two initially, and then it doesn't work. And what that tells me, Leanne, is that those diets are not programming the body to burn more efficiently,
they're basically starving the muscle. And so if you've had a history of diets or been a chronic overexerciser and under eater, certainly in both of those examples of that kind of very restricted calorie intake, it will make that metabolic inefficiency even worse, which is why it doesn't work for you at all. And then, of course, as you and I know, we've got massive work to do to rehab that muscle, to teach it to burn to again
because it's been starved for so long. So I've spoken before about how I have such a disdain for eight hundred calorie diets in general. And sure they may work initially, but for most of the women I now see in their forties and fifties, they often don't work at all because the body has been so used to extreme restriction. So that is usually the reason they may not work for you, and may work for other people. And usually the older you get, the more diets you've done, the
harder it becomes. So I've always suddenly and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And there's no quick and easy solution. It's about teaching the body to burn more efficiently and developing a style of eating that's sustainable for you long term. And if it is requiring you to be so strict on a diet that you can't eat normal food, you know. I heard one of the diets required the client to get protein powder and water and berries and mix it and that
was the meal. And I was like, God, you'd have to really want to be skinny to eat like that. I could think of nothing worse. So I think it's a little bit of that too. You've got to actually enjoy your food, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying whole, good quality food. You don't shouldn't have to eat like that to lose weight. You can certainly do it. Perhaps a little bit slower, but in a sustainable way without having to eat powdered protein and some berries in water.
Absolutely kind I had last week. Previously, I'd worked with a PT who said that she had to eat beef mints, spinach and walnuts for breakfast and that was in him meal plant and I was like, oh God, I just want to bath if I had to eat beef mints and walnuts for breakfast and with spinach every morning anyway, So do it, do it well, do it sustainable, and make sure it lasts. So that brings us to the
end of the Nutrition Gach for another week. We would love if you guys could subscribe to the podcast, leave us a positive review in the Purple Apple podcasts app and don't forget to check out our website, which is the nutritioncouch dot Com. Head to the product pages and you'll find all of our wonderful resources there to help you live a healthy, sustainable and balance lifestyle long term. Have a great week everyone, Thanks for listening.
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