Transcript

Hello, everyone. It is Kylie here. Welcome to the hormone series. So today is our first day in our masterclass series. Every week. [00:01:00] You know, this week we will be jumping in because I wanna make sure that you’re in the right place. So you are absolutely in the right place. You’re listening to the right thing if you want to feel empowered and in control of your body, mind, health, and yes, those pesky hormones. If you want to wake up feeling refreshed from a good night’s sleep, if you want to throw back the covers and jump out, ready to take on the day. If you are ready to take back control of those mood swings, the anxiety, that crippling overwhelm, kiss those hot flushes goodbye, those night sweats, see ya. No more restrictive diets, crazy gym workouts, and trying to work out what the right foods to eat are. So I want you to stop hiding behind the layers, feel fabulous in everything that you pull out of your wardrobe. I want you to be able to enjoy a glass of wine if that’s your thing, because you want it not because you need it to survive.

And I want you to feel good [00:02:00] about who you see in the mirror. So if you want any of those things, you are absolutely in the right place for this masterclass series. All right. So let’s jump in today. We are gonna have a look at what does a hormone imbalance actually mean? You know, that term gets thrown around a lot and you know, it’s a bit vague.

So I’m gonna clarify that for you. So we’ll talk about what a hormone imbalance actually means. We’ll look at why it blocks your energy, your, you know, drains your energy, stops your weight loss, you know, drives us crazy, makes us not sleep at night, all of those things. And we’re also gonna have a look at five simple steps that you can take to balance your hormones out naturally, you know, without needing to diet, without needing to take a million supplements without needing to feel deprived. Okay. So does that sound good? And specifically, we’re gonna have a look at, you know, what you’ve been doing, and instead I’m gonna walk you through what works.

Okay. So you may [00:03:00] have heard me talk about the well balanced woman program, and I will sort of mention it here and there. So if you curious to find out more, let me know. But essentially it’s a four phase plan, which is designed specifically for busy women. So in their forties, their fifties, and you know, we wanna reboot your energy, shift that annoying, you know, belly weight, manage your hormonal symptoms naturally.

And look, if we, you know, need to support you because you’re on HRT or you’re on other medications, you’ve got underlying health problems. That’s okay. We work with you where you are at because none of us are a one size fits all. We all have different signs, symptoms that we present with. So this is what I wanna support you with.

Okay. So when your body stops responding the way you want it to, and it presents with all manner of weird symptoms, it can be really tough. We’re never told that our biggest hormonal changes happen in our forties and for some of us, even in our late thirties, and this is what we [00:04:00] call perimenopause. So this is what we go through, these big hormone fluctuations in the lead up to menopause. So if you’ve been pushed out the door by the doctor, you’ve been told everything is normal and then left feeling even more confused and alone, you aren’t. Okay. So most women think that it’s normal, you know, to feel, you know, tired at this age, you know, most women, you know, is it okay to put on weight at this age?

You know, it’s really not. Okay. And it’s not that we need more willpower. It’s not that it’s just because we’re getting old. It’s not because you know, you need to drop your carbs. You know, all those crazy things. It’s, your hormones are driving this. All right. And the women that I work with are always relieved to hear it.

And it’s true. So if you no longer recognize the woman looking back at you in the mirror, or you’ve become cranky and quick to temper, please know this isn’t your fault. It’s also [00:05:00] not permanent and we can turn it around. So, you know, certainly as we approach menopause and come out the other side of menopause, our hormones shift in a big way, and the sooner we start supporting our hormones, as opposed to, you know, trying to find that magic supplement or go on another diet that’s not gonna work.

The sooner we can address this, the better you’re gonna feel. And the problem is, I think with a lot of us, we’re very capable, very busy, you know, women in our forties, fifties, and we tend to just motor on. We push through even when the wheels are falling off, but I want to ask you, where will you be a year from now, if you stay on the same path you’re on now? And are you okay with that? Or do you want a different path? So think about that for a second. Okay. So let’s jump in today. So today we’re gonna have a look at hormones. What hormones are we talking about? And you know what [00:06:00] it means when you know, you’ve got different symptoms, which hormones are driving those.

Okay. So what, what comes to mind when you hear the word hormones? So, you know, for some women, I hear periods, cramping, menopause, tears, divorce, anxiety, brain fog, acne and breakouts, your mood swings, you know, so as you can see, it’s a pretty big topic. And, you know, if you can relate to any of this, you know, if you look at food and put on weight, if you, you know, can burst into tears because of something you saw on the TV.

If you feel bloated all the time, you don’t feel like yourself anymore. And you know, if you can relate to that, you know, just let me know in the comments, because these are sort of things I hear from women all the time. I hear it from my clients. I hear it from my girlfriends, you know, and I’ve been there too.

And I think, you know, it demonstrates the really powerful effects that hormones can have and, you know, they can leave a [00:07:00] woman feeling totally out of control of her own body. Okay. So if you are nodding your head yes, in agreement to any of these points, I’m sending you a big hug and I promise that it, whatever it is that you’re doing and it’s not working, it’s really not your fault.

And there is so much conflicting information out there. It’s really hard to know, you know, who to trust. Who’s right. Who’s wrong. And if you feel anything like I’ve been, I’ve been through this too. Okay. I would’ve done just about anything to get my wacky hormones back under control. All right. But the thing was, nothing worked.

So what are our options? You know, really. So medically, you know, perimenopause, isn’t a diagnosable condition. Menopause isn’t an illness. Okay. So. We, we are kind of left in this limbo. And the real problem is for a lot of hormone related conditions, conventional medicine [00:08:00] doesn’t have a lot to offer us. So, you know, we quite commonly offered synthetic hormones.

So the pill, the mirena, you know, injections, implants HRT, antidepressants or anti anxieties are commonly used strategies. And the problem is like, these are often just bandaid approaches. Yes, they can absolutely help, but they’re not addressing those underlying causes of that hormone imbalance. And also, you know, they’re associated with risks of their own as well.

So then on the other hand, we’ve got medications on one side and then if we flip it around, we’ve got diet and exercise. Okay. So again, that’s a minefield, where do we go? Do we go, you know, paleo, we do CrossFit, we do high intensity, you know, is that the way to go or do we go vegan and sit in a field and meditate all day?

You know, that, look, that sounds pretty chilled and you know, and then there is [00:09:00] all manner of a million hormonal supplements available on Facebook, you know, that promise the world. So ladies just save your money and stop buying them. It’s rubbish. All right. And it’s totally frustrating. We’ve got all these different options and still nothing is working.

So I totally understand. All right. So what is the answer? So when our hormones are at play, it’s not always medications and it’s not just diet and exercise alone that make the biggest impact. And this is what I, what I wanna share with you today. So, you know, we really kind of have a few different options so we can continue doing what we’re doing.

It feels like, you know, literally pushing shit up a hill. Okay. We’re hoping that it works even though, you know, it never quite has worked before, or we can, you know, opt for a simpler path and what I’m gonna share with you across this hormone masterclass series is the [00:10:00] simplest way to balance your hormones so you can wake up every day, feeling refreshed and energized. So you don’t have to rely on caffeine, chocolate, wine. You know, that cycle, you can break up with that just to get you going. You’ll be able to shift that stubborn weight that sort of landed around your middle. You’ll be able to stop wondering what on earth in your wardrobe is actually gonna fit today and finally feel like your old self again.

Or even better, like, imagine, ladies we’re in our forties, our fifties, our sixties, we’ve got a whole lot of life left to go. We’ve got another, you know, 30, 40, 50 years of life, you know, let’s make it count, seriously. 

So one of the reasons why I created the well balanced woman was a few years ago, you know, I felt completely out of control of my own body. I had had half my thyroid removed and my, you know, I was on medication and all this sort of stuff. And my GP at the time had run all the tests and he told me that everything was normal.

Okay, but things couldn’t be further from normal. Like seriously, you know, I wanted to scream when I walked out of [00:12:00] his office. I felt like my metabolism had come to a grinding halt. I was constantly exhausted. I was probably not the nicest person to be living with at the time. And you know, I was completely burnt out and I was so frustrated because I kept doing what I thought were the right things. And I wished someone had just grabbed me and sat me down and told me to stop. Okay. So deep down I knew I was doing more damage because I was jumping from one thing to the next, I wanted the quick fix. I was, you know, doing all the fasting. I had cut the carbs. I was, you know, I couldn’t just go for a workout at the gym. I had to do the 10 K run. I had to do the, you know, the most intense class I had to do, you know, all this crazy stuff and, you know, nothing was working for me. I was exhausted, cranky, putting on weight, just, you know, it did not feel good.

So what I did was I kind of went back to basics and it was like, [00:13:00] okay, what is causing all this stuff? So all of the things that I was doing was, was not helping. So, you know, it wasn’t that I had no willpower. It wasn’t that I, you know, wasn’t strong enough to say no to a, a chocolate bar that floated past my face, or, you know, it was not normal to be tracking all of the food that went in my mouth.

None of those things, it was my hormones driving this. And once I started to address my hormones, as opposed to addressing my weight, everything changed. And what I wanna do across this masterclass series is share with you how I did this. And you know, this is what I, you know, do with my clients and we get results, you know, phenomenal results.

 So, yeah, so listen up because yeah, this week is all about sharing what we do inside the program to get results for our clients. All right. So let’s start with what hormones we’re [00:14:00] talking about, what hormone imbalances mean, all of that sort of stuff. So there are so many different types of hormones that affect our weight, our mood, our energy, how we sleep, how we feel. Now, estrogen and progesterone are two of the biggies.

So today I’m gonna sort of show you how these can profoundly affect us in pretty much every single way. And then they also are connected. All of, none of our hormones work on their own. So estrogen, progesterone, plus, you know, testosterone, DHEA like all of our other hormones, sex hormones, work together with our stress hormones.

We’ve got cortisol and adrenaline there. We’ve got our thyroid hormones. So they are super important because they drive our metabolism. And then we’ve got our blood sugar, we’ve got insulin, insulin’s are fat storing hormones, so we really need to pay attention to that one. And then we’ve got, you know, our circadian rhythm.

So we’ve got melatonin is one of the [00:15:00] hormones involved to help us sleep. So they all work together. If they’re out of sync, they are all 100% guaranteed out of sync. So when we put all of these hormones in a mixing pot, it’s no wonder we feel exhausted and we struggle to lose weight.

Now because we are all different. No two women I have ever worked with have presented with the same set of symptoms. So, you know, what we do inside the well balanced woman program is we have a look, we kind of deep dive into what’s going on with you and what’s going on with your hormones. And we personalize the program to support your needs.

So perimenopause is the 10 years or so before menopause. So yeah, you heard that right. So just like I said earlier, it can even start sort of in our mid to, to late thirties. For women, who’ve had hysterectomies for women who have, you know, been through [00:16:00] chemotherapy, been through radiation and you know, and no, you know, have been, you know, in an induced menopause, you know, the age is very varied. So to actually, you know, be having these symptoms for most women sort of notice the symptoms for four or five years or even two or three, but, you know, it can start 10 years before. So this is where our hormones begin to fluctuate and drop, and it’s like the biggest hormonal imbalances and the fluctuations that we’ve had since puberty.

Which, you know, if you’ve got teenagers in the house, it can be a really beautiful time with all of these hormones coming together. Yeah. Cruel trick of nature, a hundred percent. Now, did you know that our progesterone levels decline faster? So perimenopause we’ve got all of these fluctuating hormones, estrogens high, progesterones high.

Estrogens low progesterones, low, this is happening. Then we build up [00:17:00] to menopause and this is where, you know, our ovaries stop producing our hormones. And, you know, we, our menstrual cycles stop. So once we haven’t had a period or a menstrual cycle for a year, then we’re officially in menopause. So we don’t just wake up in menopause one day.

It’s, you know, it’s this progression. And menopause obviously comes with its own set of symptoms too. So we’re gonna have a look today at the basics and, and kind of how it works. We’ll have a look at, you know, some of the symptoms that can, you know, present and also what we can do about it. So let’s start with estrogen.

So estrogen basically makes us women. So it gives us our, you know, boobs. It gives us our curves. It gives us our menstrual cycle. It can be quite protective. So it prevents bone loss. It protects our cardiovascular vascular health and also protects us from insulin sensitivity, which then protects us from developing insulin [00:18:00] resistance and type two diabetes. So it’s, it’s quite an important hormone.

Now the problem comes in perimenopause, you know, and this is where we tend to have higher levels of estrogen and higher levels of estrogen can be very inflammatory. So it can be that we have normal levels of progesterone and high levels of estrogen, or we could have normal levels of estrogen and low levels of progesterone.

So either way the ratio is out. And, but when we have that higher than normal estrogen, you know, this is where some inflammatory conditions start to pop up. So things like, you know, some of the signs and symptoms of high estrogen can be heavy bleeding, clotting, period pain, breast tenderness, weight gain, hot flushes, endometriosis, fibroids, cysts, you know, is hormonal driven cancers like breast cancer, [00:19:00] ovarian cancers, headaches can be a big thing, fluid retention, that puffiness, acne, and then also, you know, it can mess with our thyroid as well. Now what goes up must come down. So when we have high levels of estrogen, at some point, you know, when we go through menopause, our estrogen levels drop. This is where we tend to see hot flushes, night sweats, insomnia, our anxiety and overwhelm, loss of confidence, that’s a huge one for a lot of women. It’s like the rug gets pulled out from underneath you. So, you know, so that’s estrogen, you know, and we can go from that high to that low, you know, really quickly. So it’s no wonder that we are a little discombobulated. There you go. I was wondering how I was gonna slide that word in there.

All right. So if we flip it around and if estrogen is the hormone that sort of drives that inflammation, then think of progesterone as doing just the [00:20:00] opposite. So progesterone is all about fertility and pregnancy, it’s protective against hormonal driven cancers. It’s a natural antidepressant. It’s very calming.

So when we tend to get PMS, it’s that drop in progesterone. Okay. And yeah, it’s also very anti-inflammatory. So if we have low progesterone, you know, some of the signs and symptoms of that can be yeah, certainly PMS. So how it sort of works is, you know, in that build up to ovulation, build up, you know, we hit ovulation, our body, you know, is hoping, our head might not be hoping, but our body is hoping that we are gonna be pregnant. We’re not pregnant. So our progesterone levels drop. If it plummets really quickly, this is where the PMS happens cause we’ve lost that, that progesterone, we’ve lost that happy, calming hormone. So irritability, teariness, depression, anxiety in some women, menstrual pain, [00:21:00] irregular cycles, breast swelling and tenderness can be a big one for a lot of women. Back in our baby making days, you know, low progesterone can be a big sort of driver for infertility and also miscarriage. You know, it can drive cravings, you know, so many things.

So when we sort of have a look at the, the symptoms of low progesterone. And we put this together with the symptoms of high estrogen. No wonder we can feel, you know, absolutely crippled, you know, physically and mentally, emotionally, so this is why it’s so important for estrogen and progesterone to be in balance.

Okay. So, you know, they need to be in balance so all of our hormones can do their functions and do what they’re supposed to do efficiently. So it is normal to have hormone fluctuations throughout our cycle and also at different stages of our life as well. So, if we think of menopause, as you know, it’s a [00:22:00] natural transition, we are not meant to be fertile godesses for the end of our days. Some men, seriously, who wants to have a baby in their eighties? No. No, thank you. So we are supposed to go through this transition. It’s a natural transition. It’s a natural part of life. And I hear women, you know, wanting to go on HRT until the day they die. And it’s like, really?

You don’t need, we, we aren’t built to have those high levels of hormones until the end of time. Yes. There’s this transition. And we may or may not need some support through that either way is totally fine, but it’s not something that lasts forever. So I want you to remember, you know, all whatever experience, whatever symptoms you’re experiencing right now.

It does not last forever. Okay. So as you can see, hormones are a pretty broad, complex topic. Okay. And there are so many factors to consider. So today we kind of looked at our key [00:23:00] hormones, estrogen and progesterone, and over the next, you know, a few sessions we’re gonna be looking at, you know, what are our big drivers of this hormone imbalance.

And also more importantly, which is what I want. I know you really wanna know is what we can do about it, because that is the key. All right. So stay tuned for the next few episodes because yeah, it’s definitely gonna be worth hanging around. All right. Thanks so much for listening everyone. Bye for now.