Dr. Maria Luque on Menopause, Body Image and Midlife Health

Dr. Maria Luque is a renowned fitness expert, menopause coach, former health science professor, and proud Air Force veteran. With over two decades of experience, she is deeply committed to empowering menopausal women to become stronger, healthier, and embrace a life full of adventure. Holding an M.S. and Ph.D. in health sciences, as well as a range of certifications, including Certified Health Education Specialist, ACE Certified Personal Trainer, and NASM Women's Fitness Specialist, she combines her expertise with a passion for transformation. Dr. Luque is the founder of Fitness in Menopause, a company dedicated to helping women navigate the challenges and rewards of midlife. 

Maria and I covered so much - we discuss all of the below and more!

  • Body image, identity and mental health as spices in the menopause soup

  • Belly fat and body composition

  • The “fitness crisis” you might experience

  • ONE thing you need to add to your training now

  • Overtraining and the practice of ease

  • Fasting and mixed messages

Prefer to listen? Get the podcast here Fitness and strength in menopause

This conversation with Dr. Maria Luque is such a fun one. Dr. Maria Luque comes to us with a huge amount of experience both in fitness and in menopause. Great combination, right? She is a former health science professor, so has both an MS and a PhD in health sciences and has been researching and looking at menopause way before it's been a thing on TikTok. In fact, way before TikTok even existed. So I'm so grateful to have her expertise here. Dr. Maria Luque is a proud Air Force veteran. She has decades of experience and has a company called Fitness and Menopause, which I'll link to down below. She's got certifications across the board and is really passionate about women being strong, healthy and embracing a life full of adventure at any age, which feels so aligned. And I'm so grateful to her for her time here. We dive into so much around body image, the way we see ourselves. We talk about resistance training, strength training, what we could do and implement as the smallest step there. We talk about fasting and what's in the media versus maybe different perspectives on that.

We talk about, actually give you a quick fix, secret of everything in this podcast. So you'll have to listen to find out. And I'm so grateful to her for her expertise, her sharing her experience in both body composition and fitness capabilities and everything that she's bringing to us from her lived experience and her research and science. So thank you, Maria, and I'm excited for you all to dive in and listen to our conversation.

Maria, thank you so much for joining us and having this conversation with us. I'm so excited to speak to somebody who is a fitness expert. Would you tell us who you are, where you are and what your work is around supporting midlife women?

Yes, first of all, thank you for having me. I love having these conversations. So I always am thankful for anyone that likes to spread the message because women in midlife need all the support they can get and all the information. So I'm Maria Luque. I'm a fitness expert and menopause coach. And I'm also a college professor, health science professor. I have a PhD and a master's degree in health sciences and focused about 10 years ago.

When I was going through my dissertation, I picked menopause as my dissertation topic because I was seeing a lot of women in my circle suffer or being challenged by menopause. So that's how I got into the menopause space and I've never looked back. It's been a really rewarding space to see how I can support women. So I'm now combining my expertise in fitness and movement as well as a body image coach as well, so morphed into more of the mindset part rather than just fitness specific. So helping women through those challenges in midlife and with credible and scientifically backed information, which is one of those things that is going out the window these days.

I love how you're combining that piece of what am I doing for my behaviour? What am I doing for my fitness? And how do I see myself? How do I see myself as a woman? Because both of those things shift so much when we think about thirties to fifties and beyond. Constantly shifting when we think about ourselves and who we are in the world.

And with those changes in our body, what we're capable of, I can imagine that impacts our minds so much more. Often the one-on -one clients that I work with are surprised when I speak to hormones or body or exercise or movement as part of their strategy for combating burnout or for protecting health.

They're highly cognitive, intellectual people and they're like, what body, what hormones? Has that got a role to play here? When you see the challenges that you were talking about in your peers, in your clients, what would you say the predominant ones are?

I would say that most women are surprised by what menopause and those changes in hormone brings. There is still, although we're starting to talk more about the breadth, the depth of symptoms that come with hormone changes. I think the majority of women think that it is reduced to hot flashes and periods changing and that kind of sums it up and they don't look for anything else that could be challenging and so I find that a lot of women start having more of a changes in their mood and mental health and just being more challenged in life but they attribute it to life. Have a job, have a family, it's stressful, there's things so they don't add that other layer and that can be really devastating because if we don't know that there's a different spice in that menopause soup, then we don't know where that heat is coming from. And so the information now that I'm really thankful that we're having more conversations about it, but that I find is the biggest challenge because if you don't know what's coming or what to expect or how to recognise it, then it is hard to work on it.

And so taking those layers apart can be really helpful for women just to understand. When I talk to women, often they describe certain symptoms I like to say, but just challenges. And I say that is definitely menopause related. And you can see how the puzzle pieces fall into place. And they're realizing, wow. Well, that's been going on for years. If I only had known.

I could have treated it differently, I could have had a different outlook or my mindset would be changed. I could have had treatment. So this is why I think it's so important to have these conversations. So women before they enter menopause are prepared to know that these changes could be coming and to be prepared if they do come.

When you think about that in terms of fitness, exercise, body, what would you say to look out for if you're somebody in your mid thirties or your late thirties and you're starting to feel a little bit different in my body. How would we know at that stage of our lives that maybe this is something that's got an underlying hormonal route to it.

Most women report that change in body composition, which is the most frustrating part. Suddenly there's an increase in belly fat, that is the biggest challenge that women report or be most bothered by. What am I doing? The things that I've been doing don't work anymore. I have all this fat around my middle. My body just doesn't look the same way as it did.

I'm tired all the time. I can't push through my workouts. It takes me longer to recover. Or maybe I just don't even enjoy what I used to do. So it's a little bit of a fitness crisis because especially for women that have been always active and they've always followed a certain path, XYZ will get me here. And suddenly that formula doesn't work anymore for whatever those goals are.

Then they're confused and frustrated. Well, it's always worked. Why is it not working anymore? And it is because we're not working with the same hormonal panel. Things are changing. So we have to be more aware of those things and learn that adjusting our movement and fitness regimen can be really beneficial from just how we feel about fitness and movement and also how our body feels about it.

And this is why I threw that mindset part about body image, because a lot of the fitness and the body image go hand in hand and that crisis of now I can't manipulate my body the way I used to. What do I do now? And then we have to throw in that mindset pace and saying, why are you feeling the way you're feeling about your body? It isn't just fitness. Are there underlying issues that we now need to either address or bury a little bit deeper.

So when I hear you talk, it's also reminding me of a conversation I was having with Kath Berry a couple of weeks ago on this podcast around the same behaviours that maybe served me in my 20s and my early 30s don't serve me anymore. And so I need to rethink how I do things. And I have to do that with a lack of information or too much information or misguided information or a bunch of influences telling me what to do and how I should do it. So when you advise women on kind of baseline foundational changes that they might look at in their exercise regime or fitness, what would a few of those be?

Well, first, I think the biggest question that someone has to ask themselves is what is the goal? Why are we doing this? Why are you doing fitness? Why are you moving? Because that is critical to the piece. If it's all related to how we look and that weight loss part of it, then there is a bigger challenge because like I said, we can't control those factors as well as we did before.

But from a longevity quality of life perspective, is undeniable that strength training has to be at the core of everyone's fitness routine. We have to include strength training in some shape or form. This does not mean that we're now looking into a box and it has to look the same for every person, but some sort of resistance training is crucial for quality of life. We need muscle to function. We need muscle for a metabolic aspect as well. When we're looking at body composition, more muscle means more metabolic output, which means better body composition. These are just things that we can tangibly change.

Can you spot reduce? Of course you can't. So those factors don't change, but if you're trying to set yourself up for the highest quality of life, you will need to grow muscle. And so, and that becomes harder especially in midlife because we lose muscle at an accelerated rate. And so that plays a part into it as well. So that's why I say if you are not doing strength training currently, that is the first step to take. How do we get you to move and do some sort of resistance training? And if you're already doing resistance training, then we need to evaluate.

A lot of women are over training. They're just doing too much and their body can't handle it. So sometimes it means doing less or being more efficient in how we work out. So lifting heavier weights and including high intensity interval training. So modifying some of those pieces of the puzzle can have a big impact on how someone feels. I do feel that the rest part becomes more important in midlife. We need to realise that we may need more rest or we need to prioritise rest and work ratio a little bit better.

Can I ask you some basic questions for those who are not as fluent in fitness language? Is resistance training and strength training the same thing?

Yes, I think that we can use them interchangeably. Strength training, resistance training, causes you to increase strength and the same vice versa. So yes, I think they're used interchangeably.

That means I can grow muscle when I'm doing strength and resistance training, strength or resistance training. And is that somebody lifting weights or what are some examples of resistance training?

Yes. It doesn't have to be a weight. It can be your body weight as well. So you are just exerting a force against your body or up or down. So it is lifting something. can be your body. could be a jug of milk. Can be dumbbells. Can be so anything, a sack of soil because you're gardening. So those things, your children, your dogs, anything that is weight related, that is resistance training.

But if we talk specifically about progressive resistance training, is really that progression of a planned structured routine to cause you to have growth in muscle. Then we're looking at obviously the most effective way is using some sort of resistance bands or dumbbells, kettlebells, so external weights, because you can control how much you're lifting and then you can plan.

So saying if I start here with my body weight. So for someone that has no history of resistance or strength training, you want to start with your body weight and just get started. I'm cautious to tell people to buy anything until they have a sustainable routine that they've already implemented that they're saying, okay, I'm doing two or three days a week where I'm doing body weight exercises. And now I feel I need a challenge.

Then you start buying things. But a lot of times people go backwards. They want to, they sign up for the big gyms, they spend all this money on the equipment and then they're not motivated, but they've spent all this money. And then it's a failure on top of that because now you spent all this money. So always start where you're at. Start with body weight, then start maybe with bands because they're inexpensive. They can travel. You can do it anywhere and you don't need a lot of space. And that's how you grow. And I think when people take those baby steps, then they're more empowered to take that next step because it's doable. It's not something that's so scary. A lot of women, they resistance training, they think, now I have to join a CrossFit gym or I need to do these big grunting weights and stay in front of a mirror. So we have to change the narrative about what that means for women and for anybody.

So if I am listening to this and I want to start where I am and do body weight exercises, do I just Google body weight exercises? Do you have a resource? Is there a thing I can look at? Do I do a pushup?

Yes, you can. These are great questions because I think there is a hurdle to people just not knowing what to do. Yes, you can Google body weight exercise and there'll be millions of hits. I would definitely go with organisations more. There's bigger organisations like ACE fitness or NASM, that are a little bit more reliable from a video perspective, but there's lots of YouTube channels that do basically that. Just show you the basic function on how to do a perfect squat or how to do a pushup.

So if people want ideas, I also have a YouTube channel. I try to share tips. There's a good way to start and people can reach out to me as well, but there are millions of them. What we want, what I urge people to not do, because that can be paralysing when you suddenly have millions of hits pop up and you don't know which one and you know how it is, we then get end up down the rabbit hole of looking at all these videos. We watch other people do things instead of doing them ourselves.

Yes. So most of the time, if someone has not started to not get distracted from the outside noise, I just say, start by doing 10 squats onto your chair or your couch. Everyone can try to do that, or even one, if you're just starting and you are doing the bare minimum. That because you're assisted, you're next to something, but you can sit down and you come back up.

And then you get to a point where you don't need to maybe hold onto the chair anymore. You can just come down and come right back up. That's how you progress slowly and a pushup you do against the wall. And it's really just pushing yourself in and pushing yourself out and getting those small ideas. But if you can. For some people, this is not feasible, but if you can, it's always a good idea to hire a fitness pro for an hour, or go to a local gym and hire someone that will show you the basic movement so you're safe in doing it. And just upfront say, I just want to learn how to do some things by myself at the house and I'd like to hire you for an hour. And so hopefully you don't get the sales rule, but that is a good investment. So don't think that you have to hire someone forever, but just to teach you those things because following someone on YouTube or looking at a YouTube channel can be really challenging for people. It's still this, I don't know how to do it. And now I have to look at the camera while they're giving me all these cues and I don't quite understand. There's nothing like having a person next to you that can do it. Or maybe you have a friend that's a fitness enthusiast and you can ask them, say, Hey, can you just help me get started? Everybody tends to know someone that knows at least the basics, so reach out to your community.

Lovely ideas of starting where you are and not making it over complicated. And so many things that I want to come back to in that, but one of the things that you talked about earlier, you talked about over training and I find this such an interesting idea because I work with a fair amount of women who are at the end of their tether. In terms of vitality, life force, adrenal fatigue, we've worked so hard for so long, and they're in this life phase where there's so much coming at them in the 3D world in terms of ageing parents, children, work, career leadership roles. And so you talking about over training a lot of them are also doing intense exercise, they're training for marathons, they're using that as an anchor, and maybe that served them in the past. On top of all of that, their hormones are now fluctuating and running out and they're breaking down. They're physically collapsing mentally, emotionally depleted. Speak to us about overtraining. Cause I feel like we don't hear enough about that. We always hear do more, do more, do more. Tell us about doing less. That sounds great.

Well that can be the hardest part, Maude, when you tell someone to do less.

We are conditioned, right? Our entire life, we're conditioned that you should be doing more. You should be multitasking more. While you're working out, maybe you could be answering some emails while you're on the treadmill and doing this or taking a call while you're trying to unplug. From a physical perspective, when we're looking at the hormonal changes, there's already a lot going on. Your body is trying to adapt to a new formula that's going on.

It's like a new operating system that hasn't quite uploaded all the way. And it's like at 60 % and then the battery falls down and you're still trying to go at that same speed that you did before. At some point you hit a wall. And when we're talking at over training and a lot of people that aren't in midlife do this as well, you don't give your body enough time to rest, which at some point will lead to an injury.

It is impossible for you not to, or you're not getting the results that you want such as muscle growth because you're not giving your muscles time to grow. If you're constantly stressing them every day, you don't give them that rest that they need to regenerate. So I'm sure that everyone has heard muscle growth happens when you're not in the gym, when you're not working out, when you're giving those muscles and those cells time to repair.

That's when it happens. If you're never letting it repair, then you're driving a broken car that you're hoping will still take you somewhere, but the tyre is falling off. The muffler is hanging by its last thread and you're still going and you think that you're going to make it somewhere. And that's the same way. And I find it always interesting. When we talk about our bodies, we don't do the same as we would for anything else.

We are much more careful about seeing the warning signs because we're taught to see those. But when it comes to our physical self, we are taught that you should do more, always more, burn more calories. Because in the end, it's all about weight loss and it's about body composition manipulation. And when we are telling ourselves, what if you took a day off and you focus more on recovery, mobility? I'm not saying that you should sit on the couch but self -care, mobility work, to keep your joints happy, maybe do some walking or hiking, do things that aren't as strenuous as you would normally do. And that can be so relaxing for your mind as well as your body that it can be rejuvenating. That's what I mean. But it is incredibly hard and I'm not trying to make it seem like it would be easy to say, I'm just gonna take a week off or I'm going to take three days off every day because we are so conditioned to it. But again, just like starting a routine, we have to start unlearning some of these behaviours. So what if we structure for all of those really high functioning A -type personalities, schedule a day that you're doing something that is recovery based. Again, this could be a massage. This could be going to a wellness centre and treating your body to a little R and R, it could be walking, could be yoga, could be mindfulness. It doesn't have to mean that you're doing nothing, but it means that you're not pushing your body to the brim. And then continue adding those times to it, maybe an extra day. so becoming used to doing that and prioritising that.

I think the point that you raise about how this needs to be a practice is such a good one, because what I see over and over again with my clients is how it's such an edge for us to do less. It's such an edge for us to give ourselves permission to rest, for life to feel a little bit softer, to feel a little bit easier. And it brings up so much in ourselves around what we should be doing, how we should be acting, what's good enough, our value and all of those kind of pieces. So there's that, that comes up in our mind, you know, and we're having like a gentle walk and inside ourselves, we're telling ourselves, it's not enough, it's not enough, it's not enough. You know, so that that practice of breaking it down of can I do that once? Can I expand that? Can I try that out? Can I experiment with it? Because there's other things that my body needs, I'm serving myself in different ways.

Yes. What you're saying was we have to reframe what the purpose of this rest is. It is to give your body time to do what you want it to do. Because if your goal is to, in this case, grow muscle, you're not going to reach that goal if you're continuously stressing it. So thinking of rest and self care and just recovery and mobility,

The same way it's exactly the same input. Your body needs both parts to do what you want it to do. And when we started realising that it is a crucial part, then it becomes something that we plan to do. But it's the same way, just like we take a baby step into moving differently or moving more. We also have to take baby steps backwards. And sometimes we'll meet in the middle somewhere, but perfect time, but it is going to be a tug of war for a long time.

And in a brain perspective, that mindset component is by far the hardest part of midlife is the mindset and how we feel about it. You know, we used to call it really that midlife crisis, and it's still called that. And I don't think it's a crisis. just think it's like I said, it's an upgrade. We have to learn to work differently because what we used to do doesn't serve us anymore.

So now we have to think about what we want the next 30 years of our lives to look like based on the knowledge of the things that we already know and let go of the things that we know that we don't want to do or have just on service anymore and really think of the things that we may have always wanted to do, but we're afraid to do because like you were saying, we should be doing this. We should be doing that. And as women, we have those added layers of always having to be caregivers and we're more as expected because you're supposed to have a career on top of maybe having a family at home and taking care of others. And you're always coming in at least second, third, or way at the bottom, depending on how many people depend on you. And so there's much more required. It is very hard to say, well, I'm going to bump myself up to number one so I can take care of everything else. That is really, really hard.

And we have to talk about how hard it is to do that, but it is possible, but we have to acknowledge that it is difficult, but it's doable.

One of the things that I find so mind blowing in our Western paradigm is our absolute negation of body and health. It is so difficult for us to put our health as a priority, as you're saying, because we've been socialised to take care of everything else first and ignore body, push it aside. It'll just have to cope. It'll just have to do.

I think this period of time is where body really makes itself heard. And it's saying, Hey, I need some attention or something needs a shift here. Something needs a change. And when we don't listen, we're setting ourselves up for years of ill health. Going forward. And for me, what's so transformational is when people have that long-term view.

I want to have a health span that is long. Want to be independent at 90. I want to be strong at 95. I want to be driving my own car or visiting my children or able to laugh or able to stand up from a chair rather than the short term, like, am I going to look hot in a bikini next summer? Not that we don't love looking hot. We can be looking hot all the time.

Well, hot has a different definition in midlife. We may be looking hot.

Absolutely.

You bring up a good point as well, because we have to look at as wellness and self care has been talked about more, there's a whole industry that is ready to serve you with this wellness. You should do this, but all it does is create one more thing for you to prioritise, but you should be taking time off and you should be doing yoga and you should be doing this. And now suddenly taking care of yourself becomes another job and another chore to do. When in essence, what we need to do, we know what we need to do to take care of ourselves. We need to tune out that noise and not look for others to give us a solution to our path. It's like we're buying a map from someone that knows nothing about us and they're selling us this journey. This is your journey and you just have to follow this map.

We're conditioned to wait for someone else to tell us what this looks like when this is the prime time for us to write our own narrative, to map out our own journey of what that looks like and to do it ourselves. And we can listen to great podcasts such as this one and curate our feed and listen to people that we trust.

For help, engage people that we trust for help, but then tune out the rest of the noise in buying more things and more solutions that we know are not meant for us. It just keeps us busy. So instead of doing less, now we're having to watch videos on how to take care of ourselves. What's the point of watching an hour long video on how to move while we're sitting? When you would get more out of it if you just went outside and took a walk for an hour. When we think about just how simple this sounds, but it is what we do, how many webinars do we do about self-care and learning this? It's great if we do some of these because we do want to learn, but we're learning about how to move while we're sitting. So doing away with that and just starting.

When I talk to clients or I teach coaching classes, what I find that happens the most of the time is that people are afraid to take that first step. Because when you take that first step, that you don't know what's going to happen after that first step. But most women that take that even the tiniest of steps, they then feel really empowered to, they're less scared. So like, I didn't fall off a cliff. It's doable. But they didn't think that a tiny baby step would be allowed. And that is a big one. I think a lot of times when I talk to people, and I say, what is the smallest denominator for you tomorrow? What would it be that you could do? Well, I guess I could just, you know, do a three minute walk or I could just do five squats onto my chair. I said, okay, well that is it, but that isn't enough. It is enough because it's more than what you did today. And when they start doing that and you ask them the next day, then they did double of what they said they were gonna do because once you take that step, it's like a snowball that just kind of keeps on rolling and it becomes more positive every single time you see that step, but it is the magnitude of the step.

I feel that women are waiting for that headline step because we're told that it has to be headline worthy, that solution, this secret method that no one has ever heard of that comes in a 12 step program that you can buy for $49 .95. And so they think that it has to come down like that and it can't just be doing five minutes of yoga in the morning when you wake up because that's not worthy enough of a headline. And then they don't take that step. They never take that first step and they never are able to move out of that paralysing state that they are. And so there, I told everyone the secret to success.

The secret is there's no secret. That's what I tell people all the time. You've actually got to go and do it. It's much harder than taking the magic pill or buying the 12 step formula or watching the webinar. I loved where you started in this, you know, taking care of self. The industry has become another thing to criticise ourselves about and around. And I love about this with my clients all the time of how they notice what they're doing and they're like, I shouldn't be doing that.

I should be taking care of myself or I should be kinder to myself. And then it's another loop of self criticism. And I think one of the challenges in this midlife transition or perimenopause and post menopause at the moment is that it's become a lucrative industry. It's become something that people are turning their attention to and there's now influencers, celebrities speaking out, there's an abundance of information, supplements, strategies, as you said, 12-step programs, and they all come with a price tag. And so when you think about resources or places that people can get information from, what are your recommendations?

Well, the first thing I think is following and listening to people that are not telling you to be afraid of something, that is the biggest red flag when someone is selling you a solution to something that you're afraid of. So fear-based marketing or fear-based messaging or so that's a big one because that is all over the internet, all over social media is this fear. And I'm here to sell you the solution to get rid of this whatever fear-mongering tactic and then sensational outcomes. If someone promised you something that you know that is too good to be true, it is. It's just very simple.

But I want it. Please can I just take the pill? Can I have it please?

Yes, but you know what, it probably happens to you too. I talked to so many women and they said, you know what, I will buy it. I know better, but I'll buy it anyway because there is this innate what if. It's like the lottery. We know that you're probably not going to win it, but what if? The solution could be so good. But if these big magic pills were actually there, we would all know about it.

It wouldn't just be one person that is selling this thing. If you want to do it, there is something to the placebo effect. We know that it exists. If you truly believe that something's going to work and you're not taking something that is dangerous because there are plenty of dangerous things out there are just ingredients that are mixed up that shouldn't be mixed up. I will never tell someone don't do something that is potentially just really harmless or has no effect. If that is something that you feel really strongly about because you might feel the effects because it's a placebo effect. It's measurable. We know that this exists. If you're having to spend money anytime that someone's asking you to pull out your credit card, you should think, take two more steps and thinking if this is sensational.

Is this preying upon my fears? And if it is, just put that credit card right back where it belongs because that person is just selling you something that you don't need and they don't care. They're just selling you. And like you said, the menopause industry is, I think, supposed to be worth $50 billion in a couple of years. It is the most lucrative market on the planet and it will continue to grow. The supplements that are going to come out.

There are more, there are more solutions. More belly fat this and fasting that and this, all of these things that again, if that's where you want to spend your money and your energy judgment free here. But if you want to let go of these things, then you need to do a little work. And that's the hard part. And you probably know about this well, when you have to have that heart to heart, I think a lot of people are afraid to sit down and have to do something about this anxiety and fear that comes with whatever that stage of life is, because it's hard to look inward and it's hard to maybe find out why you have these body image issue because you don't know what's going to uncover. You do know what's under that layer and you're afraid to dig it up.

Not everyone's ready to make that step, but you will reap the most rewards if you sit down with yourself and do the work. And midlife is the perfect time to do it.

I was talking to somebody the other day of this almost being a time to lay the foundation for the next decades, physically, mentally, emotionally, and seeing this as, you know, a kind of a path through and with ourselves and how exciting that can be, how fun that can be. Fun's not a word we mention a lot at this time of our lives. And it can be so useful to bring that in and have that community and have that vision of, who am I now? How do I want to be with myself for the next couple of decades? So I love that you're bringing that in.

One of the things that you mentioned here is belly fat, the strategy that is fasting. That's big talk at the moment. intermittent and fasting for menopausal woman, perimenopausal woman. What are your views on eating and fasting or not eating?

I am not a huge fan of the fasting protocol. So intermittent fasting is there. There's science to support that it could potentially very much backfire for women. But again, science, you know, there's always one science that says that as you can find an article to contradict another article, I always like to bring it back to just common sense. We're telling women that they're supposed to be eating this amount of protein a day because it is essential for muscle growth. And then we're telling them in the same breath that they should eat less times during the day or go entire days a day or two without eating. So those two things do not match up. We have to think of what makes most sense. So we know this is unrefutable. We do need protein to grow muscle. We need it.

There's no one that can say that that is not true. How do we accomplish that? Not by eating less or less time. So if we're cutting our feeding window to four hours in a day, which are those more extreme ones, or even those that do two or three days of fasting, it's impossible for you to get a hundred grams or 150 grams of protein in.

And that to me brings it back to what is the goal and how do we achieve it? And then it tunes out that other noise of fasting. What I am a fan of, because some people, it makes sense, and for me, I will share my own experience. I have always been someone that wakes up in the morning and I have to eat. It's been all my entire life. I wake up within 30 minutes, I would get nauseous. I just need to eat something. Menopause has changed that completely. I started feeling nauseous if I ate. Just the thought of waking up and having something to eat made me really uncomfortable. My digestion is completely off. I just didn't feel good really. And it wasn't until about, I don't know, six months ago that I decided what if I just don't stress out over forcing myself to eat. So I have found that for me now extending my time period from dinner to breakfast to a 12 hour, 14 hour window is what feels good to me. But then I eat the rest of the day. So I don't fast. It's not a traditional fasting. It's just time restrictive eating. And it's not because I tried to cut calories. It's just because it felt good to my body. And that's what I try to tell women as well. Listen to what feels good because your body will tell you if something doesn't feel good. If you're eating too much or eating the wrong things, your body will tell you. You just have to listen.

But if we, and again, the fasting part, we can argue until the cows come home, because there will be someone to tell you one thing or the other. But if we're looking at metabolism and we're looking at muscle growth and we're looking at quality of life and muscle being a part of this, I think that going whole days or even big chunks of windows without eating is counterproductive to that goal. And for me, that is the main reason why I don't, I'm not an advocate for it.

And also for women that want to, that are athletes or that want to run those marathons or they want to strength train. How are you going? And I tell people this as well. You cannot go into a strength training session to lift heavy when you haven't eaten in 24 hours. It's impossible. You can lift, but you're not going to lift as well as when you're fueled. It's the same as taking a car on a cross-country trip with no gas in the tank. Those are the basics. I always try to bring it back to, does it make sense? And to me, it just doesn't make sense. But again, if that's your take, then go for it. But I don't think it is conducive to muscle growth and strength increases and maximising your metabolism and how you feel.

So protein is a thing that people are talking about, eat a lot of protein as a woman in this part of her life and just humans in general. And the other one is fibre. Protein and fibre. And those seem to be the big pieces to really pay attention to as we're going through this transition. One of the things you talked about was listen to your body, listen to what she's telling you, particularly at this time.

This is so challenging for humans who have been overriding their bodies for most of their lives. If you had to give a practice of how that would actually look, do you have one that you could share with anyone listening?

Yes, think that journaling is still the most effective way to reflect upon how you feel. Not forever, if that's not what you want to do. But I'm a huge fan of movement journal carrying, like doing a movement journal to figure out what movement felt good to you and connecting the emotions to an activity. I think that it's much more powerful to connect how we feel and how we feel about the activity than the activity itself.

So when we talk about movement, maybe I think that I'm supposed to be running, but every time I run, I feel like crap. And if we write this down and we can read it, but then I did some whatever activity and I felt great the rest of the day, then we start creating our own little toolbox and the same for food. So if we pay attention to, in this case, my own experience, it was hard to give in to not stress out. Because I was conditioned, but I need to eat. What if I don't eat? My muscles are just going to start disappearing because I'm not eating enough food in the morning. These are the things that would go on in my brain. And I talk about this to people, but I still have those same struggles. Until I give in to just how I felt in saying, Maria, you feel sick every time you force yourself to eat. Why are you doing this to yourself? And I just let it be. Two hours later, I was hungry.

And then I ate two hours later, nothing happened in those two hours that I didn't eat. But keeping a journal and making note that when every time you force yourself to eat something or when you eat protein or specific protein, how you feel more satisfied or when you ate more fibre, your digestion felt better or when you ate. Connecting those things can be really powerful movers for you to just start doing those things more without you having to scribble down every single thing. Because I also am not a proponent of having to carry around a journal everywhere. We talk about gratitude journals at the end of the day, we talk about being grateful for everything, which is great. But what if we make those other parts part of our end of day routine? At the end of the day, we take five or 10 minutes to take account of what this mood day looked like from a movement perspective, from a food perspective, and from just an emotional perspective and adding those three things in one and just taking account on how we felt. When you are in a place that you're not feeling great, that journal can be your guide when you don't have the motivation or you feel the anxiety come in.

Menopause causes all of these things, anxiety, depression. You can take your own drill and say, what helped me when I felt like this before? And that can be really powerful because this is how we change how we change how we think about it. That can create lasting change that we did then, but it is a much slower process. I'm not selling you that this is going to happen in a week. It takes time and it takes you being determined to want to make a long lasting change. But I do think that it's incredibly powerful.

It takes you participating in that with yourself, right? It takes you sitting down and thinking about how did I move? How did I feel? What did I eat? What did I drink? It takes you challenging yourself of, I had two glasses of white wine and I didn't sleep well that night. And here I did it again and I did it again and I keep on doing it. And do I actually want to change this behavior or not? And what's standing in my way? And you kind of being an active participant in that inquiry with yourself, which is both challenging and what leads to change in your own life rather than outsourcing that to somebody else to create change for you or rather not create change for you.

When you think about hormone replacement therapy, HRT, is that something that you've had experience with and what was your decision for yourself around that? I know that's something that's such a hot topic in the media at the moment.

Yes, I have personal feelings about it and I have feelings about the narrative right now. I think that we have gone too far into the now we used to be afraid of doing it. And now the pendulum is swinging all the way to the other side where there's a lot of conversation saying you should be afraid to not do it because longevity, youth, everything. So it's the solution for everything.

We went all the way from over here, don't do it because you're going to get breast cancer to if you don't do it, then you're going to not live as long and not live as good. Yes. Again, these are all fear-based. I don't believe in it. And I think that it's a disservice to women. When we look at, I just look at my family, I'm from Spain or my parents are in Spain. So I'm European.

They don't do, none of them have done HRT and they live the Mediterranean lifestyle. My mom has never set foot into a gym, but she can hike up a mountain for three hours without any problems at 76. So we cannot say if you don't do something, this is what's going to happen to you. That said, I think that women should have the ability to choose and have the information because HRT is very beneficial for a lot of things.

I am currently trying it. So I have a lot of muscular skeletal pain that I've developed over the last two years, and it's just progressively getting worse. And I know it's associated to menopause because it's just the progression. And we know that it is associated to menopause or it can be. And so I thought, let me just try it after I got cleared and I talked to my doctors about my own personal history, family history. Thought this is worth a try for me.

And currently I have not felt any difference. I'm still working on tweaking and trying to see if more helps. I have a very open mind. I've always said, if I feel that this is going to be beneficial, I'm going to try it. And if it doesn't help, I'm going to come off of it again. To me, just isn't, if I don't feel a benefit, I'm not just going to do something because they're telling me that 20 years from now, I'm possibly gonna have this. I know that I'm gonna continue resistance training. I'm gonna take care of my body and my mind. And to me, those are things that I know will help me. I don't need to be pushed into doing something. But I do like the opportunity to have those conversations. And I want all women to have the opportunity to have those conversations, to reach out to the doctor and say, is this something that helps me? Also, we just don't have the science to support that hormones are the solution for everything. We know it's good for hot flashes, insomnia, GSM. We know that that's helpful for those things, but to say it's going to cure dementia is a theory. We don't have the data to support that quite yet, and hopefully it does, but it's a personal decision. So I love that we're having the conversation, but I hate that we are now scaring women into thinking that this is what they have to do when I don't think that there's reason to have that narrative. Again, fear-mongering. I hate when people are being scared into doing something.

One thing that you talked about there is the tweaking, right? You say, I'm in the process, I'm trying out HRT and I am making adjustments. And I think that's also something that we forget that this is a process in conjunction with your medical practitioner of what works for me. it oestrogen, progesterone, a combination? Testosterone? It's not one thing and then everybody feels fine and different people's bodies feel good in different ways and with different kinds of supplements. And I think that's also just something just to air here that it's not one size fits all and that it may be a process of a couple of months, maybe even a year of trying something out and then making a decision from that point onwards.

It’s important to say that I know that I'm privileged in the fact that I have the knowledge base already to ask the right questions to my healthcare provider and that I have healthcare providers that listen to me. We know that this isn't true for the majority of women that reach out to their providers, they get dismissed, they don't have the access to it, they don't know what to ask. So there's a lack of that information. And then when you reach out and someone's scaring you into having to take it, these women are being taken advantage of. And I'm very sad that that is happening, but I also recognise that that is the reality for a lot of women. They just don't know. So that's why we have all these questions. Well, am I supposed to, I hear this, I don't hear this. How do I access resources that are credible? And that that's hard. That is the hard part, especially when everyone that is an expert now or self-proclaimed experts or not even they don't even say they're experts. They're just selling things on Instagram and promising you these things. And so I'm saddened by the fact that a lot of women don't have access to the resources, but I also want women to feel like they have the power to say no to certain things. You need to clean up your social media. You need to clean up where you get the information.

You take control of some of those external noises that are constantly bombarding you. You need to start doing that. And that is something that every woman can control. You have to control where you're getting your information from. And again, just having those basic red flags. Is this making me afraid? Do I feel like I'm being pushed into something or am I being sold something that is promising too many things? Those are red flags. Just listen to your gut on that. And so tiny baby steps in that direction as well.

I think one of the things that you were surfacing here is also how healthcare providers themselves are often under qualified in this area, under informed and women then having this on the one side, this multifaceted plethora of information from people who are barely qualified. And then they're going to maybe a trusted expert who doesn't have enough information and almost meeting the both. And one thing that I recommend is to read the study in your local language. Local culture, local government, is there an organisation? Can you find out some information? Can you print it out and then go with some questions, go with those symptoms to your healthcare professional and maybe try and figure it out together, almost open that dialogue, which can be really helpful, but also requires some confidence in the face of a medical quote unquote expert, right?

I also think there's something here about this generation aging so differently. This generation of women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, not settling for the same kind of life or same kind of body condition that maybe previous generations did and how we, as you say, we don't have the studies to show the longterm effects yet because we're too early on because women's health has been ignored for hundreds and thousands of years, which we won't go into.

But it's really, you know, when we're waiting, we're like 40 years, 50 years, 100 years later, we'll know so much more. But right now we don't know the end effects of what those supplements are.

When it comes down to it, because the noise is going to get louder, we know this is going to happen. Menopause is too much of a moneymaker at this point. We have to try to come back to community, look in your local community, what is out there, try to be that first person that is raising these questions or ask people in your network or community about their experiences, referrals. I think there's so much value in knowing someone that has gone through that experience and has talked to a doctor that may, and they have a great experience with that, look here rather than going out. And when we're looking at credible sources, I always tell women it's a great place to start. The North American Menopause Society is a great initial resource for information. You know, it's all science-based. It's a great place to start. And then from there branching out or menopause.org. and then finding those people that make you feel supported. So if you trust one person, even on social media, if you reach out to them and say, Hey, who are five people that I should follow? Then that person will give you that. You can then you have to trust that that person that you trust is giving you good information. Reach out to people to help you rather than total strangers giving you advice on something that you know they're selling you.

Take a little bit of that control back and then branch out to your immediate network in your local community and then go out that way instead of going straight into the abyss of social media. We'll suck you right in.

We're throwing a little rope over there into the chasm. Come out, come out. Maria, thank you so much. I feel like I could talk to you for hours and hours and days and days. Is there anything that you haven't said that you feel like is important for women who are maybe entering menopause or entering this time of transition in their late thirties, early forties that you would want to say to them?

Yes, to learn to trust yourself. We have unlearned the skill over being worn down by marketing and just being told that we should trust other people. Learn to trust yourself again and learn to listen to those warning signs. We have them. Everybody has them. Acknowledge them and listen to them. And that will be a perfect guide for you to make it through menopause and beyond and live the best quality of life. That innate feeling, that yeah, there's something wrong, listen to it. We tell our children to do that. Listen to that inner voice. It's wanting to come out and say hi, say hello, my old friend, where have you been? Let's chat.

And that requires slowing down. So anyone listening here after this, take a breath, sit down, have a cup of tea, a glass of water and, and listen in.

And I welcome people to reach out. If you have questions, you can find me on Instagram or email me.

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Maude Burger-Smith