Success Stories

In a shout-out to Essential Workers during Covid-19, I’m sending aroha (love) to all our Farmers, not only here in New Zealand but also those of you around the world who are joining me here in the MyMT™ Community. Joy farms in New Zealand and Leann farms in Australia and both join me here this week to share some of their journey with you all. Farming is the backbone of the economy in New Zealand and during a pandemic there’s never been a more important time for farming to keep the economy going and for feeding the population. Having grown up on a farm myself, I know how hard all of the farming women on my programme work. My mother was the same in her 50’s too. But the additional pressure of not having contractors around to support farming activities takes its toll as well. Especially for those farming women who are struggling to sleep all night and/or like Leann from Australia used to find, have sore joints as well.

Here in New Zealand, Joy and hubbie run a sheep and beef farm. As she said to me this week, “The animals don’t realise what’s happening, so we still have plenty of work to do. But we are very lucky as we have plenty of space and actually we are just working as normal. I’m just thankful that I can now sleep so I have the energy I need to work out on the farm. I’ve completely changed how I look after myself now too. 

Before doing your programme, I was just doing what I usually do with farming activities and my baking tins were always full.  I knew that yum sweet food e.g. baking (which is always on offer in our house), wasn’t good for me but it was finding a substitute for that and now I enjoy cashew nuts or hummus as the snack – who would have thought!  I never leave the house without a water bottle on the farm now – in fact my husband now takes water as well and we never used to. Just these small changes make a huge difference to us being able to continue to farm as we get older.

I really think this programme is very beneficial to rural women going through the menopause transition. Working on a farm is physical and you’ve made me realise that we need to look after ourselves instead of just everyone else. But we also do need to make sure we keep our cardiovascular fitness up as we tend to sit on a quad-bike a lot more than we did 20 years ago.  I think for me, the best learning was to give ourselves time in our busy day and going for a walk is just as beneficial as all the other exercise that is on offer because of all the outside physical work we do.

I realise now that I wasn’t finding ‘balance’ in how I looked after myself. I’m feeling like such a different person and I now have walked with girlfriends the Abel Tasman and the Kepler Tracks. My joints stayed great as I kept following your principles that you had in your Joint Health module in the programme. 

The other thing for me, was being part of your facebook closed group for the programme. Living in such an isolated place, I found I was reading all the posts from women around the world and I liked how we could ask questions and bounce  ideas of each other.

I have absolutely loved being part of your programme, Wendy and recommend that all women should join, the beauty being that you can do this in your own time. The information that you are provide us with is so valuable.  There’s a lot of well researched reading and I really enjoyed the learning. My message to all women is ‘if you aren’t on board with My Menopause Transformation by Wendy Sweet, do it now!’ I’m so thankful to you and at last, I don’t feel as though menopause has been such a big deal with your guidance.”

Joy J., New Zealand. 

Leann is another hard-working farmer, that I want to do a shout-out to. Living in and with Australia’s harsh climate, it seems that she and her husband have only got over the fires and then there was drought and now Covid-19. Phew! It’s a lot of stress to deal with, which is why I am so pleased that for the past year, she has been with me on the MyMT™ weight loss Transform Me programme. 

“We are very busy planting winter crops, milking heifers, calving and I’m also helping my daughter who is pregnant with our second grand-child” mentioned Leann when I caught up with her over the past week. “But I’ve hired some exercise equipment from the local gym which had to close and following your plans still. This is the hill I walk up from home.”

I was blown away when I first met Leann at my live-event in Brisbane last year where I was presenting my Masterclass on Menopause.  She looked and felt amazing and when she shared the photo of her from only 3 years ago, she said to me, “I’ve had my ups and downs with all the stress of farming and it’s been a long journey.” That’s when I reminded her that the weight loss research from the National Weight Loss Registry in America, set up by Professor Rena Wing and Dr James Hill, acknowledges that slow is better. In fact, ‘successful’ weight loss is determined as maintaining weight loss for a year or more. I was so proud of what Leann had achieved. It’s really tough concentrating on weight loss when you are busy and have so much going on from day to day, so I applaude Leann’s determination to succeed. Not sleeping was a big concern when she joined me and as I mentioned to her, when we aren’t sleeping, then this means we aren’t changing our metabolism and burning fat overnight. It was such a privilege to help her turn this around so she could become more active again. 

Part of the solution with Leann, was helping her to understand what was going on with her joints as well. Swollen and aching, she couldn’t walk far initially. But our joints have oestrogen receptors in them too, so as we go through menopause and lose oestrogen, our joints become stiff and sore. Taking olive oil helps as does changing our diet, sleeping all night and reducing any excessive exercise. I was blown away when she said that she had completed her first 5km run just before the Corona-virus arrived.

Not many women understand that our joints lose the role of oestrogen as we move through menopause and this contributes to aching knees and muscles. I made this short video whilst I’ve been in lock-down, to explain what is going on as well as tell you about my stand-alone (and cheaper) Restore Your Joyful Joints module that I hope you might look into if your joints are sore and aching and you are in peri-menopause or post-menopause.