The conference room at the stadium was a bit cooler than we intended but maybe this was because the event manager saw the sign, ‘Welcome to your Masterclass on Menopause’ – maybe he thought he was doing us all a favour turning down the heat a bit. But it didn’t matter because the room was full of well over 100 mid-life women, so there was enough warmth and laughter from everyone who came. It was an old student of mine from the University of Waikato, Tracy Breuer, who invited me to come to Palmerston North last night to talk ‘menopause’. As an Exercise Physiologist and Personal Trainer, Tracy sees women struggling every day with their exercise because their joints are sore or they are too exhausted to train effectively. It doesn’t surprise me, because when I asked who wasn’t sleeping all night, nearly the entire room put up their hands.
As I always say, “If you aren’t sleeping, then your body isn’t healing and repairing from all that you are asking it to do from day to day and that includes exercise. As well, if you aren’t sleeping, then you aren’t burning fat.”
Debb knows this more than anyone. When she heard that I was coming to town, she messaged me to meet her for coffee. Here she is looking so radiant – 10 kg lost and I was blown away with her note saying, “I was lost, but now I’m back.”
It’s always so wonderful to meet women ‘in the flesh’ when you run an online programme and don’t get the face-to-face client contact. Debb and I had lots to talk about. It was Tracy who told Debb about my programme. I still remember when Debb came into the 12 week Transform Me programme, as she was at her wits end – her emails described not sleeping, no motivation for exercise, sore joints, feeling bloated, overweight and despondent that it wasn’t shifting with the exercise she was doing and the food that she was eating. That’s when I told her that unless she turned around her sleep then it was no good doing lots of exercise. If you don’t sleep, then you don’t recover very well and this creates more chaos with our changing hormones in menopause. It’s why the ‘Sleep All Night‘ module is the first one that women listen to when they come onto the programme. As Debb worked through the programme, it all started to come together for her … and of course, her weight started to shift too as she learnt how to revitalise her liver health. It’s our liver that is responsible for clearing toxins and in menopause, we need to love our liver and love our heart. Numerous studies have been conducted on the changes in the normal liver and in liver diseases in relation to ageing.
And as I said to all the women attending my seminar this week, our body is biologically ageing as we transition through menopause. As we head towards our late 50’s and early 60’s a low oestrogen hormonal environment and usual ageing, changes the blood flow to the liver and from the age of 60 there is an approximately 35% decrease in the blood volume of the liver compared
with those aged less than 40 years. It’s why I’m so passionate about women understanding that mid-life is not the time to on diets high in fats and proteins until we heal and restore our liver health. The neural fat and cholesterol volumes in
the liver gradually expand as one gets older, and the blood cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and fat levels also increase over time. [Kim et al, 2015].
Both these organs are affected by our changing hormones in menopause as are our muscles and I’m so pleased that the women in Palmerston North who attended their Masterclass on Menopause know a bit more about this stage of life – as Debb does now too.
Can’t get to my live-event? Then have a listen to my online summary of the ‘Masterclass on Menopause’ HERE.
References:
Brady, C. (2015). Liver disease in menopause. World J. Gastroenterol, 21(25): 7613-7620
Kim, H., Kisseleva, T. & Brenner D. (2015). Aging and liver disease. Curr. Opin Gastroenterol. 31(3): 184–191.
