The Naked Librarian
Listening Deeper: 8 Wellness Experts Share What Every Midlife Woman Needs to Know
Description
Your body has a 28-day cycle. The fitness industry has a 7-day plan. Guess which one wins? That's just one of the questions we explore in this very special episode of The Naked Librarian. And if you're like, "she always says that," listen, Linda, this time it's for real. Here's the deal: I recorded most of these interviews almost two years ago. Then life happened—a full-time job I love, a memoir demanding to be written—and these conversations sat on my hard drive, unheard. When I finally listened back, I discovered something: beneath all the talk about hormones and heart health and movement and stress, every conversation was really about the stories we tell ourselves. About aging. About what our bodies can and can't do. About who gets to be the authority on our own experience. So at the end of 2025, I was like, damnit, I'm bringing their wisdom to the world. And here it is: eight wellness experts reveal what midlife women actually need to know—how to train with your hormones instead of against them, why "caregiver stress syndrome" is real (and you probably have it), what your cholesterol numbers actually mean, and how to grieve the person you used to be while becoming who you're meant to be next. From a mediator who teaches families to fight better, to a cardiologist who explains your lab work in plain English, to an energy healer who says it's okay to mourn your old career—these aren't your typical wellness tips. Consider this your permission slip to stop following advice designed for someone else's body and someone else's life. This is the conversation your body's been waiting for you to have. A few more things: Thank you to my guests—who trusted me with their time and expertise. I am so grateful. Before the transcript, you'll find a list of contributors and ways to follow up with them. Also, big thanks to the musical duo Russo & Weinberg for their tune 'Take Me Out' featured in this episode. Podcast Interviews! *These timestamps are close to the actual time stamps. The podcast went through a second edit after I rerecorded due to some audio wobbles.* Hard Family Conversations with Elizabeth Franz: 6:56 Movement & Moon Cycles with Jana Barrett: 28:27 Movement & Menopause with Dr. Maria Luque: 43:22 Keeping Your Heart Healthy with Dr G the NP: 54:51 Talking Caregiver Stress Syndrome with Dr Soma Mandal: 1:07:29 Emotional Eating Conversation with Jeff Spitzer: 1:24:18 Grieving Yourself with Gina Marie Leingang: 1:37:29 Transcendence & Meaning with Justin McSweeney: 1:51:33. Elizabeth Franz: https://humanzmediate.com/ [https://humanzmediate.com/] Jana Barrett: https://www.instagram.com/jana_movement_coach/ [https://www.instagram.com/jana_movement_coach/] jana-barrett.com [https://www.jana-barrett.com/] Dr. Maria Luque: https://www.instagram.com/drmarialuque/ [https://www.instagram.com/drmarialuque/] https://www.drmarialuque.com/ [https://www.drmarialuque.com/] Dr. Tranise Goodlow: https://drgthenp.com/ [https://drgthenp.com/] https://www.instagram.com/drgthenp/ [https://www.instagram.com/drgthenp/] Dr. Soma Mandal: https://www.somamandalmd.com/ [https://www.somamandalmd.com/] https://www.instagram.com/drsomamandalmd/ [https://www.instagram.com/drsomamandalmd/] Jeff Spitzer: https://www.facebook.com/jeffspitzer1970 [https://www.facebook.com/jeffspitzer1970] https://courses.myh3h.com/ [https://courses.myh3h.com/] Gina Maria Leingang: https://www.magicbydesignhd.com/ [https://www.magicbydesignhd.com/] https://www.instagram.com/magicbydesign_hd/ [https://www.instagram.com/magicbydesign_hd/] Justin McSweeney: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoobO-TWsWR3YHmj7YgjBIQ [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoobO-TWsWR3YHmj7YgjBIQ] Russo & Weinberg: https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/artist/russo--weinberg/401 [https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/artist/russo--weinberg/401] Speaker 1 (00:00:07): We are going to start today with some deep thoughts. Ready? What if your need for meaning and transcendence isn't a luxury but as essential to your wellbeing, sleep, food or connection? What if the problem isn't that you're not trying hard enough but you're listening to advice designed for someone else's body, someone else's life? These are just two of the questions we'll explore in this very special episode of The Naked Librarian. And if you're like, she always says that, listen, Linda, this time it's for real, and if you don't believe me, give me two more minutes to explain because I've got a little announcement for you if you're new here. Oh, hi, I'm Victoria Payne, a writer, story coach and guided autobiography instructor and your host of the Naked Librarian. Also, while there's technically no nudity involved in the show, it's just a fun metaphor for honest, nerdy conversation. (00:01:01): I am about to get a little naked or a little naked, as they say in my home state of Georgia. I need to be honest with you. I recorded most of these interviews almost two years ago and then life happened. I took a full-time job that I love, doubled down on writing a memoir, and suddenly this podcast that had been so central to my creative life got pushed to the side and I felt just awful because I had talked to these really cool people who had given me their time and expertise. So at the end of 2025, I was like, damnit, I don't care if I have to work every weekend for the next two months, I will bring their wisdom to the world, and that's what I have done. But also as I've been preparing to relaunch the show, I went back through these conversations with these wellness experts from around the world, doctors, trainers, healers, deep thinkers, and I realized something I had the makings of a healthy feast, like the kind you share with your girlfriends, sampling lots of little salads and nourishing bites, and you leave feeling full, but in a good way, in a way that makes you feel glad you're alive and you think Next time I do this, I'm inviting everyone I know because they have got to try Sarah's homemade hummus and Allison's cheddar, jalapeno sourdough, and Brooks three ingredient peanut butter cookies. (00:02:22): Okay, maybe that's just how us extroverts think, but listen, it doesn't matter, extrovert, introvert, or something in between. You get to have it all because if you're still following my metaphor, we are having our own little dinner party on today's show and you can't beat the conversation. We're going to talk about all the stuff caring for aging parents and ourselves, the roots of emotional eating, grieving our past selves, our need for awe, having hard and productive conversations with our grown kids working out in midlife and more. Now whether these conversations focused on nutrition or stress or something else, as I listened back, I noticed how often the topics were really about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about aging, about what our bodies can and can't do about who gets to be the authority on our own experience about what gives life meaning. So here's the big announcement. (00:03:22): That's where this podcast is headed next. Not today, of course we have a party to get to, but give me a hot second to tell you about next season. We're going all in on stories because after three years of doing this, here's what I realized. Anyone can share health and wellness tips, but if I wanted to really share what I know most about in this world, what I live and breathe and alligator wrestle with, it would be telling stories and what we learned about ourselves when we do. So in the next season of The Naked Librarian, you're going to hear from moth storytellers, memoir, writers, and everyday people who have shared something true, whether that was on a stage in a writing class or across the kitchen table, they'll be sharing a true story that you've never heard, and I'll be asking them what they learned about themselves in the creative process of telling it, because there's something so powerful about sharing your story. (00:04:19): You can write forever in your journal about your life, and I really hope you do that, but the moment you decide to say it out loud to share it with an audience or even a friend, you understand that in order for your story to make sense to others, it must first make sense to you. And that sense making journey can in big and small ways change your life. And because I'm in the midst of writing my own memoir about what we give up in order to be good and why we need it back stat, I'll be sharing some of my own stories and what I'm learning about myself in real time. But first, let's dig into these conversations. The first one is the longest because, well, I went to look for the best part and there were just too many good ones. So it is around 20 minutes after that we get into a groove with conversation highlights between 10 and 15 minutes. (00:05:15): Little truth nuggets, you can heat up whenever you need some nourishment. Check the show notes for the timestamps for each conversation if you'd rather sample the buffet rather than stay for the whole party know judgment. Here's a quick rundown of the menu up first is a mediator who helps families navigate hard conversations. Then a conversation about building a movement practice based on a monthly schedule or a moon cycle instead of a weekly one because surprise women's bodies are in fact different from men. After that, you're going to hear more about movement and midlife from a menopause expert who says It's better to do what you love than follow the latest workout trend. We will hopscotch from there to talk with an internist about caregiver stress syndrome and the importance of taking care of yourself during this exhausting season of life where you might be caring for aging parents and children at the same time. (00:06:09): Then we'll talk about heart health with a board certified cardiology nurse practitioner who breaks down what those cholesterol numbers really mean, using my own cholesterol numbers, a little case study I created for you, but also for me. Then it's time to talk to a health coach about emotional eating and willpower and why you're wanting that comfort food anyway. And right at the end, you're going to hear about the importance of grieving your past self as you grow into someone new with an intuitive of energy healer. And our last expert brings it home with a philosophical conversation about the importance of awe and meaning-making in our lives. Are you hungry? Good. Let's go meet our guests. (00:06:56): First up is Elizabeth Franz and she is the founder of Humans Mediate and a professional mediator who studied peace studies at Gouger College. In this segment, Elizabeth tackles one of the most common yet unspoken stressors and midlife navigating conflict with adult children who've moved back home. She explains how American culture teaches us to approach conflict through punishment and power dynamics rather than collaboration. And contrast this to the Dutch practice of asking even babies for consent before changing their diapers through a real world example of a parent struggling with adult daughter's messiness, rent and boundaries. Elizabeth shows how mediation breaks down overwhelming conflict into manageable parts and teaches both generations a new pattern for relationships. This isn't just about solving one problem, it's about learning to face problems side by side instead of head on. I wanted to share this conversation because so many parents are surprised by the challenge of having conflict with their adult children or unused to it because they are adults now and we can't really just tell them what to do anymore, but then they're also sometimes acting like kids. (00:08:09): So what do we do? I also think most families think about therapy when they're stuck, and I wanted to introduce this idea of mediation as another powerful approach. We are just going to jump right into the conversation with Elizabeth and then get to the good stuff. I know in our first conversation, Elizabeth, you were explaining to me something that's really cool about mediation is that it's not counseling, and I think that's how a lot of people are familiar with dealing with problems is, okay, I have this problem relationship. If only we could sit down with a counselor and each tell our stories. Why is mediation maybe an even better fit for something like a conflict? Speaker 2 (00:09:01): Yeah, that's a good question. So I'll answer that and then just go back a little bit and reframe conflict. So what I'll say first is if you want to go to family therapy, that can be an excellent option. What you're going to get is yes, a chance to tell your story, and you have to remember that that practitioner is, they're there to diagnose, they're there to give advice and suggestions. So you might find out there is a mental health issue because you have a professional who's trained to look for mental health issues and they might give you exercises, but they're going to kind of diagnose and assess what's going on, and they meet you for what, two, three hours of your life. Just like mediators, it's the first time we're meeting you, we're only seeing a window of what's going on, and so a practitioner, a therapist, a counselor, they're trained to look for where's the dysfunction, where's the mental health issues they diagnose? (00:09:57): A mediator on the other hand comes at it from a different perspective. So the mediator considers you and whoever you're bringing to mediation, you're the experts in your own life, your relationship better than anyone else can. And so the answers to what needs to happen is in you, not the mediator. Our job is to get you to those answers, is to get you to figure out what are the actions you want to take to meet your needs. So it's need focused, it's action based, and the mediator is not trained to diagnose. We're there to hold the process, guide you through it to get you to diagnose yourself and for you to figure out the action. So I think a really simple way to encapsulate this is a comic I saw where it was a family and they were lost in the jungle and the dad says the most important thing right now is to figure out whose fault it is. (00:10:56): And we do that. I think in therapy we're trying to find someone to blame or mental health or something to blame, but in mediation we're saying who is to blame is less important or not important at all? What is important is what we're going to do. How do we get not lost if we're lost in the woods and all we're doing is fighting about whose fault it is, we're still lost in the woods. We might establish exactly whose fault it is and be like, we are a hundred percent sure it's dad's fault. Great. We're still lost in a mediation or saying, okay, let's just get out of the woods. And then it just circle back to conflict. It is culturally, it's a cultural thing. We are taught that if we feel pain or attention, we got to fix it. We got to run away, that's bad and conflict hurts. (00:11:48): So it's actually the same parts of your brain that light up when there's conflict as when you're physically injured. So to your brain, conflict is the same as getting punched in the face. It's like, ah, I don't like this. I want to get away. Let's not deal with this conflict. However, to reframe it, and what we say at humans mediate is conflict is when your needs are not being met. So conflict is that signal. The same signal when you get that tickle in your throat, think I'm a little sick, or if there's pain in your muscles, I probably need to stretch. I'm sore, I'm dehydrated. If we lean into it and say, I want to listen to this as a signal telling me something needs to happen and then I go take care of my body or I go take care of my relationship or I go get my needs met, then the pain goes away because the need is met. (00:12:38): So we say conflict doesn't end until the needs are met and when there is conflict in a relationship, it means somebody or both people's needs are not being met and mediation is a process to harness that conflict to get your needs met. Just like if you go to the doctor and say, Hey, this thing hurts. They can say, okay, here's the process. These are the exercises you need to do so that you address the tension in your muscles, but if you just don't do anything now, it's going to keep hurting. You're going to keep coming back to it, and if you don't go get help, you're not going to know what to do. Speaker 1 (00:13:15): I feel like so many people are going to stop and jaw drop on your definition of conflict as your needs not being met because oftentimes the conflict is the fight that you have. We think of the conflict as the fight that we had or the tension that we feel parentheses because our needs were not met. And I like how you kind of bring us back to the root, and I know from our other conversations that mediation is really helping both parties getting their needs met. A lot of times those needs, even though we think of them as we need a different situation, we need a different system or decision making process. A lot of times the unmet need sounds like is emotional and some of what mediation does is kind of harness those emotions to help get those out on the table in a safe way. (00:14:22): I think too, it's not just that people maybe are afraid and fearful of conflict by itself, but maybe even conflict with that person. That person, either they've had blowups in the past or maybe the person they want to work on their conflict with is so afraid of conflict, they just shut down. And so I really see having a mediator to be so in these cases because you can come in and yes, you can be the expert on your life, but you can work with somebody that's trained to navigate the times when people either get heated or shut down or it feels like we're stuck. We're getting back into this blame cycle. In your experience, because I'm thinking about adult children and parents who's more likely to come with you, come to you and say, Hey, I really want to have this meeting. Is it the parent or is it the child? Speaker 2 (00:15:31): It's both equally honestly, because both sides have unmet needs and both sides have to adapt to, well, we had 18 years where I was this and now we're going to have the rest of our lives where I'm something else to you. We're in a different paradigm. So we talk about maladaptive and adaptive. I got that from Goor mate who studies trauma and it is like conflict is traumatizing. Relationships when there's damage to the relationship, it's traumatizing. And so we get the fight, flight, freeze or fawn responses, and again, what mediation does is it says you're going to be in that. We know you're going to be either in fight, fawn, freeze or fight with your parent and your child because the relationship really matters to you. So stakes are super high, and two, you are stuck with each other forever. So again, we're not talking about a relationship. (00:16:28): I can just buy forget you, I can go no contact. You're still my parent, I'm still your child. We shared DNA, I can't get around that. So the stakes are high, and so what we're trying to do is have two brains at the table as mediators who are not traumatized, who have been there before. I can get you out of this situation, who can move you in that direction and get you not lost. So the maladaptive stuff is really like, okay, when I was in my family, I adapted to a toxic environment and was like, these are the things I need to do to survive. When I got out of that toxic environment, those adaptations became maladaptive because I no longer was in that situation. So the hypervigilance, the walking on eggshells, the people pleasing so that mom and dad don't start fighting the blaming myself, oh, it's my fault you guys aren't getting along. (00:17:19): That was how I navigated and survived as a child in a situation that I had, again, a child's perspective. And when I got to an adult, I was like, oh, those skills don't work anymore. I can't keep doing that in my adult relationships. I can't keep doing that even with my own parents. We have to have a different, different relationship. So there's that transition. Parents and children equally come to mediation because we're all in a culture that is very, we have this punitive where we think people are motivated by punishment and we need to shift that mediation towards people are motivated by their needs when they're met. It's not a reward. We're not giving you a prize. We're like, I'm a human being and I need water and food and shelter and relationships, and without those things I can't function. It's not a reward, it's a necessary part of my survival. (00:18:15): So that's the first shift. And the other is what you kind of mentioned. We go from competitive where we have these power dynamics of parents. It's either the parents way or your way and we're competing and a mediation. We're trying to say, okay, how about instead of it being about power and competition, it's about the problem in front of us that we need to solve the unmet need and why don't we face it together? So we go from trying to butt heads to sitting next to each other and facing it together so that all of our needs can be met, and those are just really hard shift to make when you're in a culture that is so competitive, so punitive, and I'll give an example, the parenting example where we as Americans learn to parent by having that authority, and that's modeled for us in all of our systems. (00:19:01): The Dutch, they are not in that kind of culture. They're in a different culture where they literally ask babies, can I change your diaper? They're literally asking their infants permission to change the diaper, which to us as Americans is like, seriously, that's ridiculous. If my kid poops in their diaper, I'm going to take it off and clean it. I don't need permission. But they're in a culture where it's more common to have that collaborative relationship. Hey, what do you want? Do I have your consent to do these things? And they're practicing it with infants, and I imagine that I'm not Dutch, so I'm just like, maybe I'm fantasizing about a better culture, but I'm like, oh, I wonder if as you continue, you're asking that permission, you're getting that buy-in, you're practicing that collaboration. Whereas in the US we don't see that on tv. We don't see examples of it. (00:19:53): We don't see our system saying, Hey, would you like to pay your taxes? It's like if you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail. And it's like, oh. Oh wow. Okay, so then what do we do with our kids? If you don't do this, you're going to go to your room, you're going to be grounded, you're going to be punished. We know we have enough data, we have hundreds of years of data that shows that punishment doesn't motivate people. If punishment motivated people, jails would be empty by now. What we do know is that we're social creatures, that our relationships really matter and if we don't have them, we can't function and the primary relationship is the parent-child relationship. So if that relationship can shift into that repair, into meeting needs, that setting up yourself as a parent to have a better partnership with your co-parents or your families, your friends, but also your kid is going to be more likely to approach relationships with that and have more successful relationship pattern in the future. And it's just something that again, we inherit culturally, it's no one's fault, but when we go to something like mediation, not only do we get our needs met for that situation, but we learn a new pattern for how to have relationships. And so both parents and children benefit from that. And because that's a primary relationship, if that can be solid and repaired and needs can be met there just opens up everything for the other relationships in your life. Speaker 1 (00:21:16): Wow, you said so many powerful things. In that answer, I am thinking a little bit about how that primary relationship is so powerful in our lives, and it sounds to me like when you can go there just like in a therapy setting and try to figure some things out, but in this case you have actual action steps, you start to benefit in your other relationships. Well, I wanted to share with you an example and just have you do your thing so people can kind of hear a little bit about how it works. So I'm going to read it to you. Is that a good way to do this? Speaker 2 (00:21:56): Yeah, that sounds great. Speaker 1 (00:21:58): Okay, so it's told from the parents' point of view, your daughter graduates from college and moves back home. You're really happy about this because you've missed them and it feels like you're getting some bonus time. You don't really talk about paying rent, but in your mind you think at some point you'll talk about it. After all, you want her to understand there are real costs associated with living at home, and there's also the worry that if you let her live there for free, she won't have the skills needed to budget or pay rent. Later a year goes by and you haven't had a real conversation about this, but your bills really are higher. Not to mention the cost of groceries have gone up and you're covering all of it. In the meantime, she's kind of messy. She'll clean up when you ask, but when you see a glimpse of her bedroom, it's a disaster and something about that makes you feel disrespected and taken advantage of. (00:22:49): You're laying out all this generosity. The least you can do is keep things clean and tidy. When you bring it up, there's tension because it throws you back into the rules of child and parent. And after all, she's grown up. Now to make matters worse, she just comes home whenever she wants and that affects your sleep because you worry about her safety, you like a text or two about her whereabouts, but you worry that you'll come off as controlling on the upside. She's a very loving sister and helps out with their siblings, taking them to and from practices and spending quality time with them. She works full time and has amassed a generous savings account in addition to starting to pay back her student loans. And you feel really proud about that. You love your daughter and you want a positive relationship, but lately all of your conversations revolve around your problems. How can you talk about the living situation in a loving way and find a resolution that works for both of you? Speaker 2 (00:23:50): I love this. They need to go to mediation. So what I would want to see is I would want to see them go to mediation, and part of that just baseline is because they need to talk about this. It took them more. It took them 18 plus years to get to where they are right now where there's tension around communicating things. And you also are transitioning from a child who you've never talked to about costs and rents and expenses to an adult who suddenly needs to actually understand that. And that's a pretty stark shift. And that shift happened while they were away at school and now they're back. And we haven't had that time to kind of smoothly transition into like, oh, now we have a different dynamic. So first thing I would say is they need to talk about this if it took them more than 18 years to get there, going to take more than little conversations here and there, and that's kind of how we talk to our parents and kids in life. (00:24:47): I ask people, when was the last time you sat down to talk together where you're just talking, there's not tv, there's not a meal, there's not an activity. There're talking about practical things. It rarely happens. The most common answer is that's never happened. We don't sit down and say, how was your budget? Are you going to pay rent? We say it as a side comment in the middle of whatever's happening and then it's like what the person receiving it is confused what we're talking about this right now. So what mediation does, it sets time and a container to have that conversation and that in itself is really powerful to say, okay, we're going to stay here and a mediation session is two hours after two hours, no one's getting any better than we can do as many sessions as you need. If it took 18 years to get there, it's going to take more than two hours to get out of it. (00:25:36): So our setting aside time, so either the parent or the child would say, Hey, I want to mediate with you. I recommend when you are asking someone to mediate with you, you really come at it like an invitation. I'm inviting you to talk with me. This isn't a fight. You're not in trouble. This isn't a punishment because people immediately associate that with like, are you suing me? What's going on? This is new, I'm scared. So just saying, I want to have a better relationship with you. I want these positive things and I think we can get it through mediation and then don't worry about explaining mediation. Have the person who's setting up the mediation, explain it to them, answer their questions. That's not your job, that's their job. Your job is to just make sure that that relationship stays intact. And then when you get to mediation, everyone's going to get to talk about things. (00:26:21): What this parent is saying, a mediator would translate into what I call parts. So I heard a couple parts, I heard time together. That might also be the living situation. I heard rent, budget, groceries, housekeeping, sleep and communication. We call it housekeeping instead of chores because chores would be taking someone's side, right? Chores is something you punish a kid with, and housekeeping is something that if we are sharing a space together, we all are involved in the housekeeping and it's not a punishment, it's just keeping up our house. So I would go through as a mediator and I would make sure both the child and the parent both get to speak equally. So that's the other thing is that power dynamic gets neutralized in a mediation. We're not doing this. Parent says it's so game or a child says, so game we're saying you both have to agree for this to happen and we're slowing everything down so that we can talk about everything. (00:27:18): We can find out what are all the parts. I listened for feelings. So I heard this parent feeling worried, feeling taken advantage of disrespected. I also heard a lot of love and happiness and support towards their kid, and then I heard them value lots of things. So their values were like the positive relationships, safety, cleanliness, responsibility, understanding, preparation for when she does leave the house. So we would highlight those feelings, parts and values because that's what makes sure people feel heard. So the first part of mediation, we're just trying to make sure everyone feels heard, they feel accepted, everyone gets an equal access to say something in the mediation, and then we move into problem solving. So that's the other mistake we make is we're so uncomfortable with conflict, we jump to the solution. We're like, no, let's just fix it. Fine, I'll just pay rent. Fine. You just pay for everything. Re it's like, okay, whoa, let's slow down. A mediator is going to be, again, not triggered by this, not upset by this. You're going to say, let's slow down, let's try to understand, ask a lot of questions, build the understanding, make sure people feel heard. Now we move into solutions. Speaker 1 (00:28:27): I know you might be a little mad at me right now because I paused our conversation. Elizabeth had so much wisdom to share with us and it just really gave me new insights about how mediation can be a tool when I've always really looked for or looked to therapy for some of the things that she was talking about. I love this idea of like, Hey, you know what? Let's just get out of the woods and decide what we want to do next. So we're going to keep going on our journey and we're going to move from conflict resolution to movement. Might think of it as a place to get your emotions out if you can't always sit across from a mediator. A little segue for you whether you need it or not. So I want to introduce you to Janna Barrett. She is a fitness and movement coach who lives in Wellington, New Zealand and she specializes in steel mace training and functional movement for women over 50. (00:29:24): We don't get into mace training and this segment, but I really recommend that you check her out. She does amazing work and I learned that mace training is really great for women in midlife. Now the other thing you should know is that because of the time difference in New Zealand, when I was interviewing her, the sun was coming up and she was in front of this beautiful coastal bay and she was just a delight and the background didn't hurt at all. In this segment, Janna's going to share knowledge that's going to change maybe how you think about exercise entirely. She explains that women actually have a 28 31 day movement cycle that syncs up with surprise our hormones and men can work out in a 24 hour cycle, which means our entire fitness culture and our work culture for that matter is designed around the male pattern. (00:30:22): And I know you're not surprised by that, but maybe you've never thought about how that speaks into how you're working out. So she breaks down the estrogen and progesterone phases introduces the concept of training aligned with the moon cycle for postmenopausal women and validates this idea of the blahs where that premenstrual time when you feel fat and ugly and miserable and sleepy and you don't want to face the world and janna's compassionate explanation, she tells us this is not laziness. It is your biology asking you to rest and ladies and maybe some gentleman who may be on the call, this is your reminder to rest and listen to your body. I found this interview so helpful because thinking about how I work out and in sync with my body, it was not something I was used to considering. I had started to think about it related to food but not to working out. And I know some of us are very structured and we want to do things the same way every day, every week, but Janna is saying if you want to age gracefully and take care of your body, remember your biology and I think this is especially important for women in midlife who are navigating perimenopause, but even if you're beyond that, she introduces the moon cycle, which I think could help with your thinking with that as well. Alright, let's go hop into this conversation with Yana Take. (00:32:04): So let's talk about training with your hormonal cycle. This is something I only learned about recently. In fact, I learned about it more from a nutritional point of view with some overlap around hormone. For those who are listening this and this is new, what does that mean to train with your hormonal cycle? Speaker 3 (00:32:28): So first of all, women have to realize that we have roughly about 28 to 31 day hormonal cycle. The way we traditionally train our bodies, it's like men have a 24 hour hormonal cycle. So they can train Monday to Friday or Monday to Sunday. They can have six week, 12 week training cycles, and that's usually when women try to fit into as well. But as we all know, our menstrual cycles are, as I said, between 28 and 31 days within that month. I'm just going to call it month for it. So it's kind of easy to refer to. You have different hormones are dominant, so in the first part of your cycle it's estrogen is much more dominant and then halfway through you start producing progesterone, which is the hormone that will get us to settle the egg into the uterus because everything is kind of tied to reproduction. (00:33:27): That's how we were designed. And then eventually you have your period and both of these hormones are sensitive to different things. So in your estrogen phase of your cycle, you can train like a man. Women often notice they have lots of energy. They're very outgoing, very bubbly. They even say that our communication skills are better. We can pretty much go go and train hard. But once that halfway point happens by day 20, you need to start producing progesterone that is the hormone that they call it chill hormone. It's very good for our mental health. It reduces anxieties and it's basically mother nature telling us, Hey, there could be a fertilized egg in your body right now. So I want you to chill. I want you to rest more. I want you to sleep more. I want you to nourish your body more to give the embryo the most chances to kind of survive and make it through. (00:34:31): So for women who don't make enough progesterone, they usually will have very bad PMS, very heavy periods. Their perimenopausal, menopausal symptoms will be worse. Anxiety, mild bouts of depression, it's not good. We need progesterone. It's a very nourishing hormone. They're even now linking the lack of progesterone to more risk of breast cancer. So we really need that hormone. But progesterone is extremely sensitive to stress. So if you are stressed from work or from relationships or exercise because exercise is a stress as well, it's a physiological stress, then you can upset the production of progesterone, which will have bad consequences for you at the end of the cycle. So in this phase you can't train as a man anymore. You need to maybe skip some workouts. You need to reduce the intensity of your training sessions. It's quite lovely to swap maybe hardcore strength training for a bit more walking or swimming or yoga a bit more time in nature. (00:35:44): So women really need to pay attention to the different phases within their cycle. So essentially your training schedule should be 28 to 31 days long and it's not for most women, it's Monday to Friday or coaches will design a six week or 12 week training schedule. And I was guilty of that for my clients as well. I didn't understand this till very, very recently, but often your body will ask, I don't really want to go and ruin myself at the gym. But then women often override these messages with thinking, oh, don't be lazy, but you can't slack. It's like you need to work towards your goals and towards the things that you want to achieve. So I think that our bodies are constantly sending us messages, but we don't always listen to that and put some stories around it like you're just lazy. Don't slack get up. Whereas the body's going, Hey, I just want to go for a walk today. You just take me for a walk. That's what I want. Speaker 1 (00:36:53): I think that learning to truly listen to our bodies is something that a lot of women are paying more attention to In midlife. It would be awesome to have more women who became mothers who taught this to their daughters, and I do think this is starting to happen more, but it's challenging when we think back generationally to my mom whose mom wouldn't even talk about periods to her, to my mom who didn't really talk about it to me either. It wasn't something we weren't allowed to talk about. So now I have three sons and I talk to them about my period because I am really trying to break the cycle of when should they have a woman in their lives that they love? I want them to feel this is not new information. And it's funny when I have had conversations with them about, Hey, does your girlfriend ever talk about your period? (00:38:02): They just really casually respond. Yeah, it's something that she might tell me about and it's reassuring. It makes me hopeful for the future because I think one of the reasons women override their thoughts is that there's not space for them in culture. It's never been okay to need to stay home because of your period, right? It's a reason that some women have been judged as unfit for the workplace. All women who have menstruated know that there's been days where it's probably more the pmms week to not interface much with the public, to nurture yourself because we are really unique. Earlier I was talking about this idea of with exercise, sometimes I can go for periods of time where I'm on a break from it and I almost wonder if, because I've pushed myself really hard with exercise and with workouts, my body's just trying to do a reset because whether or not it's aligned with my cycle at all, but just like, girl, you need a break. I know some people are listening to this and they're thinking, alright, my cycle's really irregular right now. I'm in midlife or I'm done having my cycle. I know some women are on birth control where they don't even know when they are in the cycle. So how do we take this advice and translate it for them? Speaker 3 (00:39:38): That's a really good question because I get that a lot as well. Women never stop being cyclical beings because even in menopause you are still producing some hormones. So in menopause we produce estron in the adrenal glands, so there is still a form of estrogen. It's not as much and it's a different form of it, but we are still cycling and we're you're still a woman. You don't turn into a man when you stop having periods. So I tell women, you still should follow that monthly flow with your exercise, but because you don't have that day one, which normally for women with still is the day one of your period, then I suggest to women that they themselves up with the moon cycle because the moon cycle is 29 days and I don't think that's a coincidence. I really don't because often women line themselves up with the full moon or the new moon when they are having their periods. (00:40:44): So line yourself up to choose your day one as line your day one with either the new moon or the full moon and then go for your 29, 30 days with your rest, with your exercise, with your food as well because there is the foods you should be eating for the different phases as well. You need more rest in the second phase as well. And when you were talking Victoria about the workplace and how sometimes in that last week before period you would just rather stay at home under the blankets. We all go through that. So that's again, our world has been designed for men. Monday to Friday it's a man's schedule because they have a 24 hour hormonal window. They can go Monday to Friday hard out and then they have a weekend to recover. For us again, we should have a monthly work schedule where we go hard out seven days a week for the first fortnight and then after day 20 we're going to take three days off. (00:41:53): When we post ovulation, when we're in that hole, I often call it the hole where you kind of feel ugly, fat, miserable, sleepy. You don't want to face the world. That should be the time where we should be allowed to just stay in home and look at ourselves and just nourish ourselves and walk and brew some herbs, whatever women want to do, and then reenter the world again and maybe rest on the day one or day two of your period and then enter the workplace again. But that's a bit of a fantasy. That's how we should be working as women. Speaker 1 (00:42:32): I wanted to jump in here really quick and tell you about something I've been working on and invite you to come along. If today's conversation is making you think about your own story, the parts you've lived but never fully examined, I want you to know that I teach guided autobiography workshops throughout the year. Each workshop is built around a theme like family Turning points, health money, and you'll write about your life just two pages at a time. There's no pressure to produce a memoir, no judgment about your writing skills, just you me, a small group of fellow travelers and the profound experience of putting your memories into words. New workshop dates open throughout the year and you can find all the details@victoriapayne.com. Your story matters and sometimes it just takes a little structure and a lot of encouragement to finally tell it. (00:43:22): Let's keep the conversation going about movement and midlife with Dr. Maria Luque. She's a health sciences professor, founder of fitness and menopause and a certified personal trainer. She's also currently in perimenopause herself, which I think makes me trust her more, giving us both her professional advice and her lived experience. In this segment, Dr. Luca Debunks, the Myth of the Menopause Diet explains why resistant training matters and doesn't make you bulky and delivers the most liberating message. Never stop doing something you enjoy because you read somewhere that another type of exercise is somehow better. Dr. Maria shares the story of an 80-year-old dancer who never did resistance training but danced his whole life and his body functioned beautifully. The key she says isn't perfection, it's consistency, frequency, and joy. This is such a great message for us because American women, we are prone to wanting to try the next best thing and here she reminds us to not just move, but to find joy in our movement. For people like me listening, her feeling frustrated, like I feel like I'm doing all the things. What do I need to know about movement and nutrition at this time of life? Is it just the same as it's always been or is there Something unique about this time Speaker 4 (00:44:48): Is regarding nutrition, and I disclaimer, I'm not a nutritionist, so I tend to stay away from specific advice, but there is no menopause diet. So all of these marketing, because we are being marketed to now, there's a money to be made in the menopause world, so you're going to see a lot more of these menopause diets and things that are specific to menopause. There is no such thing. There is no reason why women need to eat differently unless there's a reason, like a medical reason or you would know if there a reason for you to have to switch your diet such as insulin sensitivity, you're having to go keto because certain reasons that you have to do all of the normal healthy advice still applies. For instance, if we do know that during menopause there's a lot more inflammation in the body just because of the hormones changing. (00:45:45): So an anti-inflammatory diet like the Mediterranean diet is always a great idea. It just becomes maybe more of a increasing your fiber and increasing your protein, those normal things that we are told to do anyway. There's no reason for you to start eliminating all carbs or all sugar or all of those excess things that are always told that fear-based mongering of you have to cut out all of these things and don't eat after this time. You have to listen to your body. What I have noticed is that you might not process things the way you did before. So if you notice that eating at nine o'clock or eating for instance, for me, I have a hard time eating in the morning currently and it's never been a problem for me for the past year. I just feel really nauseous and so it was a real problem. (00:46:32): I really enjoyed breakfast, but now I know that two hours after I wake up, that's when I need to eat and sometimes it's sooner, but it's being more flexible in your approach because things are changing. So that's the nutrition part. Still do those things, make sure you ate enough fiber and make sure that you have enough calcium in your diet and you have enough protein. From a movement perspective though, this is a big one because I do feel that a lot of women just don't resistance train enough, and that becomes a crucial part of just aging. When we go through menopause as we age, we lose muscle at an accelerated rate as we get older, and that is for everyone, not specific to gender but for women. As we go through menopause, it gets accelerated so we lose muscle at an even more accelerated rate, which is a problem because the more muscle we lose, it affects our metabolism, it affects how we function, it affects our risk of falling, affects our ability to recover from injuries. (00:47:32): So building muscle becomes one of the most important aspects of any movement routine. So although I'm not an advocate to say all you need to do, leave everything you've ever done and just do resistance training, I do think that it is important if you want to make a real change, resistance training has to be at the core of it. Lifting weights or doing some sort of resistance training is really important. And then movement in, like you said, a lot of us are sitting a lot more, it becomes more critical to move more in smaller chunks of time, so breaking up the sitting time and just moving more, it helps with mood, it helps with sleep, it helps with all sorts of things, and then finding movement that you truly enjoy. If a dance class really lifts your spirit, that is movement that counts. We need to step away from thinking that the only thing that counts is going to a CrossFit gym and working until we're about to pass out because that is not the truth for an hour a day that counts. If you dance, if you garden, if you move your body household chores, that all counts. That is movement. We just need to do more of it. We need to ensure that during the day we are doing more movement than sitting. Try to move your body as much as you can and include resistance training. Those are the two things that I would highlight as really, really important. Speaker 1 (00:48:58): I love what you had to say about nutrition, that the things that have always been recommended are the way to go. As somebody who doesn't like anything extreme, I love this idea that I don't have to cut out carbs or sugar or stop eating at 6:00 PM but that it really is about knowing my body and noticing what's working and what's not working. And something that I've noticed specifically for me is I have a running partner and she and I run periodically and I do weight training and a few other things. We've both been pretty busy over the last couple of months and haven't been running as much, and I had started to because I was reading more about less cardio when you're in menopause, more weight training, and so I was starting to discount our runs as significant to my overall health and fitness as long as I was walking or gardening, but I actually think my body is missing the runs that we would do even sometimes it might just be three or five miles at a time, but that was movement that is now being replaced with sitting. (00:50:11): So I love the encouragement to just notice and pay attention, and I think that it's a time of life where as women, we can really struggle with body image and we can get really down on ourselves because it feels like my body's changing, it's out of control. And then we have our hormones that are going up and down. Me personally, I've tried to just continuously have a positive conversation with myself about where I'm at. It's not always easy to do, but I think when we focus on strengthening our body or the longevity hopefully of a healthy life, we can kind of shift into something that's beneficial. Speaker 4 (00:51:02): Yes, several excellent points here. First I want to say there's nothing more magic than feeling strong. If you feel strong, it makes you feel different in your body. So the resistance training besides all the other benefits, it just changes how you view yourself as well. Because you said body image, it's been a real focus of what I work on with women now because body image is such a big component of menopause because our bodies do change regardless of what we're doing. All we can do is say, okay, what can we do to feel better in our bodies? And strength training consistently is a winner. There's something that happens to you when you start feeling like you're stronger, that you see you're getting stronger because you see yourself differently. You see your body as something that is capable of doing something important, which I try to stress a lot, is never stop doing something that you really enjoy because you read somewhere or someone told you that another type of something is better and that's what you should do. (00:52:02): Because the reality is that if you don't like what you're doing, you're not going to continuously do it. Any type of exercise done consistently for a long period of time is more valuable than something that is higher intensity or more strenuous for a short period of time. It's the longevity part, it's the co consistency part. It's the frequency. It isn't the intensity that will drive the long-term factors. If you're able to do high intensity forever, then great if that is your thing and you really enjoy it, more power to you. But a lot of women are being pushed into this high intensity mindset, and again, I'm a huge fan of it, but if it's not your thing and you're trying to force yourself to do that and you're giving up things that you truly loved, like walking or hiking two hours a day that you really enjoyed outdoors, and now someone told you that sprint intervals is the only way that you will lose the belly fat, you will stop doing what you did because we only have so much time in the day and you're now doing this thing that you think you should be doing that you're not going to continue doing. (00:53:10): So not only are you failing at that, but now you're feeling worse because you're not doing the things that you need for your mental health. Any runner that I've ever talked to does the running mostly for the mental benefits. It's more of the I'm getting my head, I'm outdoors. That's the part, and maybe I'm assuming that's the same for you. My point is never give up any type of movement that you truly enjoy and that you are regularly doing regardless of what anybody says, because you're going to get more benefits out of that then than doing something that you didn't enjoy. I think we all have seen those videos of older couples dancing and the joy that they have. I see it here when I've gone to a two step class and there's this one older gentleman who goes apparently all the time and the joy he has, he to be in his eighties. He danced with all the ladies in the bar, and I bet you he has never done any kind of resistance training. He's still out there dancing and living his life to his fullest, and it's probably because he's been dancing his entire life. It's the what can you do forever that you really enjoy this movement specific, and if you enjoy resistance training and I can get you to enjoy it, then that's wonderful, but that shouldn't be to the detriment of something that you really enjoyed before Take Speaker 5 (00:54:37): See. Speaker 1 (00:54:51): All right, so far we've been really talking about preventative health and we're going to continue in that vein, but I want to introduce you to Dr. Tice Goodlow who really explains that it is hard to be sick and it is hard to be well, and really it's about choosing your hard. So Dr. Tice Goodlow or Dr. G, the NP is a board certified cardiology nurse practitioner who has a DMP from the University of Arizona. She is an award-winning hypertension researcher who now trains clinicians in EKG interpretation. She focuses on cardiovascular health in minority communities, but Dr. G is also a powerlifter who walks her talk. She's never going to ask patients to do something. She's not doing herself. In this segment, she delivers one of the most empowering reframes I've ever heard. She says, as a healthcare provider, I can only do two things, give you a pill or give you a procedure, but you can do seven things. Eating, exercise, sleep, dental care, watching alcohol, no smoking, no drugs. This segment asks the question, I think every woman needs to answer. How committed am I to my own health? Dr. G's passion for heart health is exactly what we need to hear in midlife. While we might be thinking about weight gain, aging and diet, her focus on cardiovascular preventative care reminds us to take care of our hearts now and this two seven framework, it is really empowering. It puts our health back in our own hands. Let's listen up for Dr. G. Speaker 6 (00:56:38): It's hard to be healthy and it's hard to be sick. Pick your hard. Speaker 1 (00:56:44): Yeah, I like to say if we're lucky, we will live a long time. And what do you want that life to be like? If we are lucky enough to live to 80 and 90 and what do we want our quality of life to be? We have these practices, this kind of health prevention or maintenance, then we have these ways in which we work with our healthcare providers to find out how we're doing what we need to watch or pay attention to. So what are some of the conversations that you feel like women in midlife, maybe starting around 35, 40, 50, what should we be talking to our doctors about? Speaker 6 (00:57:32): One of the most important things that your provider needs to be aware of is your family history. That's very important. I've had patients before that everyone in the family, every male, once they hit 50, they had a heart attack. So we're going to be doing preventative care before you're 50, right? We're going to be doing stress tests and evaluations and being very diligent on your cholesterol and your blood pressure and all those sort of things so that you're not the next statistic in your family. So that's one thing I would say is very important is to make sure that your provider is clear on your family history. The other thing that I would say, and this is a tough conversation, and this is a tough topic I'm bringing up, but I would challenge every patient before going to a provider to ask themselves how committed am I? (00:58:22): Am I willing to do the work or am I looking for someone else to do the work? Because at the end of the day, as a healthcare provider, I only can do two things. I can either one, give you a pill or two, you get a procedure, that's it. We have nothing else to offer. But you can do a lot of things. Eating, exercise, sleep, dental care, watching the alcohol, smoking, no drugs, understanding that if you're going on this health journey to say, I want to be healthy, I want to be whole. I want to live a good quality life and a long quantity life, understand that as a commitment. I think some patients misconstrue that thinking, oh, well, I have high blood pressure. They're just going to give you a pill and it'll be fine. Even if your blood pressure's fine, you still have high blood pressure, right? Because you're on the pill. And that's still a risk factor, regardless of if it's controlled or not, versus working on not having that. So I think it's an honest conversation to say, how committed are you for your own health? Speaker 1 (00:59:27): That's an awesome question. I love the breakdown of how you can do two things, and we can do at least seven, maybe even more, including if we're struggling to eat a healthy diet, but we can even go find someone who can support us in that, or we can watch YouTube videos on mindset and we have a lot of tools, and if we're going to our healthcare providers thinking that's going to fix the problem, yeah, that's a different story. I'm curious about some of the heart healthy tests that you think that a woman in midlife should be having. Speaker 6 (01:00:17): I would say that there are a bunch of tests that people should definitely get done annually. And when you say test, I'm even considering other things like having your blood pressure assessed because a lot of people think about blood work, but having that sort of measurement being done, cholesterol should definitely be tested, thyroid should be tested, blood panels should be tested, kidney function should be tested, electrolytes should be tested. Those are the basic things that we test. And I would even go so far as to say is to try to understand your numbers, right? Understand what a reasonable cholesterol number is. There's four of 'em listed on there. Do you know what all four mean? Or which one is the one we care most about? And the one we would target if there's a problem and why are we doing these things? So yeah, that would be minimally that would need to be done. Speaker 1 (01:01:12): I love that you brought up understanding your numbers because I am one of, I don't know what the percentage of people are healthy person with high cholesterol, and I also have a family history of heart disease and it's not easy to understand my numbers. And I'm wondering if you would be willing to explain to us what these mean. If I tell you what my numbers are, Speaker 6 (01:01:38): Sure, why not? Let's go for it. I Speaker 1 (01:01:41): Think something that I and maybe other people could benefit from understanding is, especially because I'm talking specifically about cholesterol and I feel like the conversation around cholesterol numbers, I don't know if it's changing or we're hearing more about it. And my alarming number is the big number, but then I have other numbers that are good and so how concerned should I be? So my total cholesterol is 2 41 and that's a little higher than the last time I had it checked. My triglycerides are 84, my HDL cholesterol is 73, and my cholesterol HDL ratio is 3.3 and my LDL number is 1 66. Speaker 6 (01:02:37): Okay, so I have one more question and then I'll answer your question. Are you on cholesterol medicine? Speaker 1 (01:02:46): No. Speaker 6 (01:02:46): Okay. So I think sometimes there's this misnomer that as clinicians, we just throw people on medicines. And so in order to determine if somebody belongs on cholesterol medicine, what you generally do is figure out something called their A-S-C-V-D score. So atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease score, it's your risk for having a stroke or a heart attack within the next decade. So part of trying to figure out that score is we use some of the numbers that you just stated. I'd have to pull up my calculator to give you your exact score, but I will say, yeah, 2 41 is high. We generally like that. Below 200, your triglycerides are fabulous. Speaker 1 (01:03:29): 84. Yeah, that's fabulous. Is triglycerides one of the bad or is it one of the good cholesterols? Speaker 6 (01:03:36): The triglycerides always tell patients that's the one you have the most control over. You personally, because try means three, but glycerin is sugar and eyes is fats, sugar, fats lower your sugar fats, your triglycerides will go down. Triglycerides are very commonly elevated in diabetics, which makes sense if you have high blood sugar for that to be elevated and whatnot. Your HDL is good. It seems like it's almost too good. You like HDL to be over 50 in women, yours is 73. That's pretty good. HDL is the good cholesterol. That's cardio protection for you. Out of all the numbers that you said to me, the one that's most alarming to me is the LDL, you said it was 1 66. Okay. And you have a family history of cardiovascular disease, but do you personally, have you had an event? Speaker 1 (01:04:27): I have not. And I also have had a calcium score test done and I had zero plaque, but that was about a year ago. Speaker 6 (01:04:36): Calcium scoring is great, but remember calcium is hard and it's rigid and it's old, so you don't have any old lesions, but there can be lesions that are newer where that could break off and cause a heart attack and whatnot. So it's good that you don't have old lesions. LDL is the bad cholesterol. Whenever we treat people for cholesterol, we attack the LDL first. That's what we're thinking of because if you fix the bad, the overall of your 2 41, that's going to go down. So we don't really say, oh, let's hit that one. The current clinical practice guidelines when it comes to cholesterol is this. That's why I was asking if you personally had a history, and I know you told me no. So for someone like you, we would want it no higher than 99. You want it 99 or less. In America, if you have had an event, we want it under 70, so 69 or less. (01:05:42): Now I'm saying America because I want to talk about Europe for a hot second and I'm going to bring it back to America. So in Europe, if you have not had an event, they actually want it under 55. And if you have had an event in Europe, they want it under 50. So vastly different guideline practices. Now let me speak a little bit about LDL here. So LDL again is a bad cholesterol. We don't like that. The clinical data shows that there's no such thing as having an LDL that's too low. It's literally the lower the better. When we're born, our LDL is roughly around the thirties. So considering that worst case scenario, we want you at 99. And again, if you got under, that's even better. Literally the lower you get the better. But you can see how 99 is a big difference from one sixties. And so without even really having my calculator to calculate your risk score, it sounds like that your risk score may be elevated. So in general, if the score is 7.5% or more, it's recommended to be on cholesterol medicines. Now having said that, that is not a substitute. We supplement with lifestyle modifications and it sounds like you're already doing lifestyle modifications. So unfortunately it just sounds like the genetic component is so huge on you. But let's be positive here. Imagine if you weren't doing what you needed to do, how high it would be, Speaker 1 (01:07:29): Speaking of feeling a little naked. Now you know all about my familial high cholesterol. And I will say that in the last two years since I had that conversation, I have been taking some important steps lowering a little bit. And if you have issues with cholesterol, I hope you learned something from Dr. G. Now I want to introduce you to another doctor. This is Dr. Soma Mondal and she's a board certified internist who studied at
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