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Love Your Life Show: Personal Growth, Mindset, + Habits for Busy Moms
Menopause Myths—And the Truth That Sets You Free
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Perimenopause & Menopause: What You Need to Know - Warriors! I am so excited to bring you this episode. Earlier this month, I went to a perimenopause and menopause training with top experts like Dr. Mary Clare Haver, Dr. Kelly Casperson, Dr.
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Warriors, hello and welcome. This is episode 347 of the Love youe Life show. I am your host, Susie Pettit, a certified life, wellness and relationship coach. I am wearing my health hat today and bringing you a topic on menopause, telling you the top four myths that we need to know that are harming our health. And I encourage you, no matter your age or gender, to listen to this all the way to the end because menopause affects 100% of the women that are living okay. And so we want to know as much as we can about the menopause and we do not. We have. There's a lot of errant information out there. So listen in to the myths that are harming our health and learn how we can, at the end of this, feel better, take better care of ourselves and be empowered. Let's go warriors. I'm so excited you're here.
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Hi.
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This is the Love youe Life show with Susie Pettit, certified life and wellness coach. Join Susie as she helps you with your wellness and mindset so you can live a life you love. Let's go warriors.
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Oh, guys, I am so excited to record this episode. Earlier this month, I attended an all day menopause training with some of the world's leading women's health expert, like Dr. Mary Claire Haver, Dr. Kelly Casperson, Dr. Louise Newsom, Dr. Vonda Wright, to name a few. They shared so many amazing things and I learned so much and I really wanted to bring it to you because I know my listeners do a lot to care for themselves and take care of their health. And yet, unfortunately, there is some errant information out there that the things that we're doing that we might think are healthy are actually not and we need. They're outdated because our. For many reasons. But I want to bring to you these things so that I can help you and I, I want you to listen to the end because my intent with this episode is not for you to feel like, oh my gosh, I've been doing that for all these years. Like, no, I want you to feel inspired and excited to start getting, to start getting started with some of these simple things that I talk about. And, and I'm sort of laughing at myself because, you know, those podcasts are like, and I am not a medical doctor, nor do I play one on tv. I am not a medical doctor, and yet I have more perimenopause and menopausal training than most medical doctors. The average doctor receives under an hour at best of training on menopause so unless they, like me, have gone out of their way in the past 10 years, recently, okay, it has to be recent research to read the book, study the studies, watch all the videos I've watched and follow up on, and take these trainings when they're available. They have outdated knowledge, and it is coming out in their appointments with us. And so I'm passionate about coming on here as a sort of PSA announcement, mainly because I hear so many people confused, scared about hrt, hormone replacement therapy. Whereas study after recent study shows that it's one of the best things we can do to protect our brains, our bones, and our heart for the long term. So let's get into it, because your brain might be like, what about this study? I want to get into this, and I want to look at four things that we, as women in our 40s and 50s and 60s, used to think were true. But now with more studies on women's health, we know are wrong, incorrect, and actually damaging. But if you don't spend your free time, like me, geeking out on women's health and perimenopause, how would you know? And it breaks my heart when I hear people that are like, oh, my gosh, if only I knew. Okay, so let's not do that. Let's get going. These are gonna be four main myths I once also believed, followed by. By some steps you can do with each one to take care of your future awesome self. And I'm starting with the biggest bang, which is the most dangerous belief that I hear out there. And the biggest health myth is that hormone replacement therapy called hrt, some people call it hmt, that HRT causes breast cancer. This is one of the biggest and most damaging myths out there and has caused so many women to suffer unnecessarily, to have dementia, to have. Oh, I can't even. It's so saddening to me. And the truth is that the study that scared everyone in the early 2000s was misinterpreted. HRT does not cause breast cancer. It does not. I want to scream it from the rooftops. That is what I heard from these four experts. And at the Sydney Opera House, it is what several tests that were more wide ranging and more encompassing than the 2000 test, they've come out since 2020. 2025, there was a big one showing that HRT does not cause breast cancer. And in fact, for many women, HRT protects us from cancers.
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Okay?
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Estrogen is all over the body. Think of estrogen like the hormone of longevity and vitality okay. When we have it, we are feeling energized and we have a long life in front of us. And yet it tanks in our 40s and 50s and affects us in so many ways. Yes, hot flashes are one of some of the main ways we think about, but that's not all of them. There are actually over 50 symptoms of decreased hormones and hormones, the main ones that are decreasing estrogen, progesterone. But I don't leave testosterone out of the party because that's something. When I went to this training, like I came away and I was like, oh, I need to find out about the testosterone.
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Okay.
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It is not a male hormone. It is a female hormone that we have too. That is. Anyhow, I'm not going to go off my testosterone whatever right now. But let me go back to this. That the symptoms that we're looking for. Brain fog, anxiety, dry eyes, ringing ears, rage, frozen shoulder, dry, itchy skin, our hair falling out, achy joints, urinary incontinence, more UTIs than usual, a loss of muscle, mid body weight gain, and on and on. There are so many. I will put a picture in the show notes@smbwell.com347 that I really like because it has a lot of them on there.
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Okay.
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I also made a special super duper free menopause resource list for you that has a whole bunch of things on there. I just want everyone to have it. That's gonna be@smbwell.com menopause okay? Because we want to be looking at this. If a drop in our hormones causes this thing, what is a logical thing to do? Supplement those hormones. It drops starting, they say like the average age when we're feeling this. Perimenopause is the period before menopause. And perimenopause starts anywhere from our mid-30s on up until 50.
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Okay.
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So if starting in our mid to late 30s, we start feeling these things and not one of the main things women say is they're like, I just don't feel like myself.
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Okay?
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And it's not going anywhere good. What do we want to do for the rest of our lives? So we want to look at looking at the cause of the problems instead of what happens to many of us, myself included.
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Okay.
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My experience is it was like I played whack a mole medicine. I would go in and say I have more anxiety and so they'd refer me to a mental health professional. Or I would say I have achy joints and they'd say, go to a physiotherapist or I'd say my skin is breaking out. They're like, go to a dermatologist or my sleep is messed up. Okay, let's, like, get your. Like, let's meet with a thyroid doctor. Like, there are so many different things, but who was looking at the underlying cause? So please, please, please, if you take nothing else away from this today, I want you to consider hrt. It is. So that means I want you to consider getting on some hormones.
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Okay?
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That looks like an estrogen patch. Take progesterone and possibly some testosterone.
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Okay?
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It is not a. Hormones are not the magic wand that will fix everything. Because when we were 28, we still would have problems if our lifestyle was not in alignment with health. But it is the thing that will get you back to baseline, and it does address the underlying cause of these things so that you don't feel so overwhelmed or out of whack. And before you say I don't have any symptoms, I don't need to consider it, please keep listening.
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Okay?
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HRT protects our brain, our bones, and our heart. There is a reason why dementia and bone breakage has been rising in the two decades since that faulty study and women were pulled off hormones. Just because we're not having symptoms doesn't mean that we don't still want to consider HRT so that it protects our brain, our bones, and our heart.
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All right?
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It's like saying, my breath isn't that bad. I'm not going to brush my teeth.
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Okay?
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If you're in perimenopause or menopause, grab my free menopause resource, smbwell.com menopause okay, I love Dr. Mary Claire Haver says, you know, it's up to each of us what we do with hrt. And she says, like, if you choose to live the last 30 of your life without estrogen and testosterone, it is your body, your choice. She and I just want to make sure that your choice is not based on fear, misogyny, paternalism, lack of education, or misinformation. I want you to be informed. All right, on to myth number two. Myth number two is that high intensity exercise is best. This is one I believed for so many years, and it is so hard for me to accept.
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Okay.
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And yet you probably remember, and we still are told it by people who are uninformed about women's health. We are told to push harder, more hiit workouts, more intense cardio sweat, more burn more calories. But guess what? That's not what works best for women, especially when we're in perimenopause and menopause. Our hormones are shifting and intense exercise can, can actually increase our stress hormone cortisol, which leads us to store more belly fat, leads us to feel more tired, and leads us to more sleep disruption. Three things that I'm pretty sure none of you were like, oh, I want some more belly fat to feel tired and have disrupted sleep. No. So we want overall warriors to start shifting our brain from a focus on the scale, like what the weight is to a focus on inflammation. Thinking about what we're doing or what we're eating or what we're drinking, that causes inflammation. And what can we do to decrease inflammation? High intense workouts increase inflammation. How crazy is that? That, like, we're thinking like we're doing this thing that's so good for us and it's actually not helpful for us. And this goes. Even if you're listening to this and you're still getting your period, okay. You to do high intensity workouts, you want to do them, there's a certain time in your cycle to do them that it doesn't cause the cortisol to rise. And from my understanding, it is right after you bleed, like, you know, a couple days after your period ends up until you ovulate. So if you're sort of breaking the cycle into four weeks, it's like day two of the first week and then the whole up until the whole second week. Go at it.
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Okay.
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And then shift to something more low key, more, you know, get some walking and get some yoga, some stretching, some bike riding, that sort of stuff.
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Okay.
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If you're 40 and above on that, that menopause, the free resource that I have for you@SMB well.com menopause I have specific doctors that you can look to in videos where I share their advice about specifically what to do.
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Okay.
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Mainly we want strength training. We want to lift heavy. Lift heavy two or three times a week.
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Okay.
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Walking. And one thing I like highlighting is mini movements moving throughout the day instead of that, just that one long workout or like when we're gearing up and we're like, oh, on Tuesday I'll do this.
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Okay.
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Overall wellness is. We want it. Our bodies are meant to move and we want to look for more movement. So as I said earlier, HRT hormone replacement therapy is one part of our overall wellness. I'm on HRT and I get my daily vitamin M for movement. Our bodies are meant to move. And I know you're busy, so one thing I love thinking about here is how to microdose movement.
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Okay?
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Have little exercise, snacks, if you will. In fact, one of the best things you can do for your metabolism is to walk after you eat, and that counts for five minutes.
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Okay?
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So if you were to add that one thing, that after you eat lunch and after you eat dinner, you walk for five minutes, you're going to notice a difference. And that's really what I'm here to say today. Look for all these many things that you can do to add health into your day with this particular one in terms of movement and mobility. How can you add movement and mobility? Can you balance while you're brushing your teeth? Can you jump up the stairs with two feet at a time to help your bones? Hold onto the railing if you think you'll fall. There are so many ways. Five minutes after you eat, if it's pouring rain outside, go up and down your stairs. Lap around the living room. I'll stop talking about all the many things here because I don't want this episode to be four hours long. But I will be sharing on Instagram, and I'll be sharing in the Love youe Life school for you. I want you to start changing your mindset from this. Go hard or go home. It is incorrect for our female bodies, and we will end up spending time in homes if we continue with this. Okay, so we want to look at how can we add movement into our day. Mini verse. How can you start strength training two to three times a week? Lift heavy. It will actually take less time than that. HIIT class. These ladies that I will share with you, like Dr. Vonda Raitt, has a great exercise routine about heavy lifting. It takes me about 20 minutes. All right, moving on to this one's going to be a favorite for you. Myth three is that wine is healthy.
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Okay.
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Or that a glass of wine is no big deal. I will keep this one short because I know many of you don't want to hear this, but I cannot sleep well thinking that some people out there don't understand two things. One, that alcohol is unhealthy. It causes 13 kinds of cancer. And two, that as we age, we metabolize it slower, which means it moves through our system slower. Like they say, you know, one glass of wine or one drink with tequila or whatever your drink of choice is, can stay in your system for up to 72 hours.
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Okay?
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And so since it's metabolizing different, you're going to feel it more. Like one glass. You might feel it. Like, I hear people say, they're like, I Don't know if it's the wine, but, like, it just seems like, like, yeah, it's the wine.
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Okay.
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Also think of this. If it's staying in your system for up to 72 hours after you have that one glass of wine, and that's one glass of wine, which is not usually our pour of what one glass of wine is. We usually pour what's two servings of wine. But if it's staying in our system, it. It is. It's like it's bathing our brain in this inflammatory, toxic substance. Okay, so like, literally, if you have one glass of wine a night, your brain is constantly coated in something they, they have proven causes dementia. So you do you. I just want you to know the information that big ad dollars and big companies run by men frankly, don't want you to know. Not only is alcohol not good for us, it disrupts our sleep. It increases depression and anxiety, it accelerates aging. And in perimenopause and menopause, if you're having symptoms, it makes those symptoms worse. Worse hot flashes, worse mood swings, worse night sweats, worse rage, worst achy joints. So if you've been struggling with any of these and you're trying to just not look at the alcohol, just try skipping it for a couple weeks and see what happens. I hear a lot of people saying they don't have a problem with alcohol. And if that's true, then stopping it, something that might be harmful for you for a couple weeks should be no problem. And if that feels incredibly scary, that's why I'm here. I help people with this all the time. I've had that same scary feeling. The bonus that I want you to focus on is that if you cut the alcohol off, you know what else you'll cut out? You will lose that fluff, that weight, that like, fluffy feeling. Like that's like we have like chipmunk cheeks and maybe like fluffy, like, it just feels fluffy.
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Okay.
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Anyhow, I will leave it there. I want you to have the real facts, and then you get to make the choices. Which leads me to myth number four. Faulty belief number four is that low fat eating is the way to go. Oh, my goodness. In the 80s and 90s diet culture do a number on us snack wells anywhere. I know we had fat free Oreos. Okay, That I ate. Not only do they not taste as good, they also give you diarrhea. But who cares if we get skinny, right? Oh, it's just I like, look back to my younger self. I'm like, oh, my gosh, okay. We were told to cut fat, avoid butter, eat low fat, everything that's healthy, but that is not. Here's the truth. Our brain, our hormones and our bones need healthy fats. Omega 3s, olive oils, nuts, seeds. These are essential for brain health and reducing inflammation. What I like again, we're trying to shift our mindset. I like focusing on in my life is not the number on the scale, but how I can reduce inflammation in my body. You can have a really low number on the scale warriors, but be super unhealthy inside not knowing the damage until you're 70 and beyond. One thing to note, if you want to keep it simple, processed foods inflame us. Eat fewer things with a barcode. Eat the perimeter of the store, go around the store in the produce section of the meat. Great. All right, I want to finish this up. This is all about not believing things that aren't true. I hate hearing from people. Things like, why didn't I know that I needed estrogen to protect my brain and bones? Why didn't someone tell me that alcohol was so bad for me? You know, why didn't I know? Okay, on why didn't I know that like my long distance running was causing me more stress and making. Yeah, I want you to know. I want you to leave today's episode feeling empowered, knowing that there are so many small things you can do to set your future self up for help.
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Okay.
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It's like this one big choice of figuring out HRT to support yourself and then making these little choices in our lifestyle. And the little choices have big time effects. We want to change our mindset from short term feel good, like how good that bubbly IPA tastes to long term, how nice it will be to recognize family members faces and names when we're older. Shifting our mindset from we've been good when we eat something with lower calories and fat to how proud we feel when we have a meal with a healthy dose of protein, olive oil and produce love food that loves you back. Long term, choose to view exercise as something you're doing for yourself. Get excited about learning more about hormones and what works best for you. It is not that hard. I put it all on that sheet.
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All right.
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And if you want more of this sort of stuff, including mini tips on small shifts that you can do to support you, please let me know. Like, I'm always looking for future podcast episode tips.
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Okay.
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Tell me at my email susiembwell.com or hop over to Instagram or you can even leave a review and tell me in there it is my life's mission to help as many women as possible live lives they love. Part of loving our life is feeling good in our body and mind to love the lives we're creating. And if we have the mindset of I'll just get through these symptoms to get to the other side, we're doing our future selves a huge disservice. I hope that this episode has helped. I really, I hope you can see the importance of finding some way to support yourself hormonally in the future. I know your life is busy and I commit to making this as easy, easy as possible for you. Once you get the patch and the hormone treatment that's correct for you, it literally is rinse and repeat. Okay, it can be that simple. Move daily. Don't drink or eat things that inflame you. Prioritize sleep. Think kind thoughts about yourself. I know I am thinking kind thoughts about you. That is, I send you big love and support and hope. Hope hope you download the Menopause guide and get started taking care of one of my favorite people in the world. You big love to you, dear warrior. Let's go.
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Thank you for listening to the Love youe Life Show. If you want to hear more from Susie and support the show, be sure to subscribe to this podcast on itunes. Also, leave a review and share this podcast with friends and family. Go get em, warriors.