Life Uncut - So, This Is Perimenopause With Michelle Bridges - PART 2

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Michelle Bridges is a fitness icon, TV personality, and bestselling author of 17 books! Recently, she developed a new program specifically for women navigating menopause, combining her personal experience with her expertise in fitness to help women stay strong and healthy during this life stage. We previously released an episode on perimenopause and menopause with Dr Louise Newson that you can listen to hereDr Newson gives us a really important medical insight into the changes that can happen during this time, and we wanted to extend this conversation and speak with Michelle about her lived experience and some of the lifestyle factors that can impact this time of women’s lives. In this episode we speak about: The lesser known symptoms that Michelle experienced during perimenopause The steps Michelle took to work out what was going on in her body The importance of finding a GP who specialises in women’s health Being offered antidepressants when Michelle didn’t identify with being depressed Feeling really empowered during this stage of life How exercise, nutrition and supplementation can impact menopause You can find more from Michelle’s Menopause Method  You can follow Michelle on Instagram You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Cammeraygal land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany, and today we have a very exciting episode. You probably all have heard of Michelle Bridges or seen her in some capacity. She is a TV queen, a fitness icon, a best-selling author of 17 books. Now, I don't even-

17? Who has the time? I don't know who has the time, but she's the creator of the 12-Week Body Transformation. She's helped literally thousands of women regain their health, confidence, and fitness. But you might have seen her recently on a TV show with me. I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, this is where we went. She really had like a highlight peak at that point, wasn't it, Britt? Yeah. But, yeah, recently Michelle and I got dumped together

and I say we got stuck together. There were two bunk beds in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here that were literally off to the side, away from everyone. Nobody wanted. Nobody wanted them in the bush and that's where Michelle and I were and I think that's where we bonded so much because no one else talked to us. So, Michelle, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited. It's a real pleasure to be here and to, you know, I see you again and to meet you for the first time. Michelle, this is such an interesting one because there's so much about your career, your history within media in general that I want to talk to you about, but that's not the purpose of why we have you here. We're doing a two part. This is if you guys missed the first part, we interviewed an expert around menopause

and we also wanted to interview someone who is living it and has personal experience, has, you know, skin in the game, one might say. And you've spoken a little bit yourself around your experience reaching that point in your life as a woman and also how hugely under-researched it feels, not just for yourself, but the medical professionals that you've experienced feeling as though they don't know enough about something that every single woman is going to go through at some point in time. Now, before we get into your experiences around this, I would love to know what is your accidentally unfiltered story, your most embarrassing story, the thing that keeps you up at night on those dark, grim days.

Well, how long do you show? I've got stacks. I could just keep them coming. But one that happened recently, I was at a launch for a product with Sonia Kruger and a couple of other lovely ladies in media. And I left and went back, walked across the road to my car with my little goodie bag, got in my car and drove down the street. And I thought, why is there so much noise in the car? was so loud. And I realised that the boot of my four-wheel drive was open and I'm driving down the street, right? I'm like, ah. So I pulled into a side street and there's traffic and I'm like, oh my God. And I've just had to pull off onto the side of the road and get out of the car and there's people waiting behind me. And I'm like, sorry, sorry. Just close my boot, just close my

boot. You know, get back in the car and off I drive. Now it was pretty embarrassing, but then as I was driving away, I realised the whole thing was being filmed by a paparazzi for Daily Mail and it ended up on their Daily Mail and I thought, you bastards. They don't miss a beat, do they? It was very funny. It has Michelle walking out. You see the whole thing?

It has her walking out looking like fierce and hot and then it just has her, the car, the boot is open. It just has her getting into the car fierce and hot, closing the door fierce and hot and then driving off with them, driving down the road. Seriously. When I saw it on Daily Mail, I was like, ah, and I thought, you know what, lean into this.

So I grabbed the footage and put it on my Instagram and I even put some background like stupid music and put it out and just leaned right into it. And the women loved it. They're like, yo, how many times has this happened? It's kind of the only way that you can win in those circumstances though. That's the problem now. Like every time there's something humiliating that happens and it's on Daily Mail or I've seen like a hideous headline about myself, the only thing that makes me feel like I've

regained a little bit of power in that situation is to like repost the awful headline that's written and be like, oh yeah, I can, I can make a joke too. I find it funny. If you bully yourself first, no one else can bully you as hard. Totally. Well, Michelle, you did create your own program recently surrounding menopause and perimenopause. So you can help so many women because you are going through it. Talk to us a little bit about where you're at now in your life, because I know you have an interesting story that actually surrounds I'm a Celebrity and menopause. Yes, I do have a story about that. I thought that I was about to be menopausal. For your listeners that may or may not know, menopause is classified as being between 45 and 55.

Perimenopause can start anywhere between seven to 10 years prior to that age category. So it's not unheard of for a woman, 35, if you do the math, could start feeling something's not right here. There's some symptoms. Having perimenopausal symptoms. Yeah, it can happen. That's also really scary because 35 is, this is coming from someone, me, that's 37, but 35 is so young. And now as women are pushing back their childbearing years for their careers, there are plenty of women that are still in their mid to late thirties that haven't had children yet that

might start perimenopause. Yeah. That's scary. Yeah, it's definitely possible. And it certainly has happened. And I've met many women who it has happened with. You can have menopause brought on early at a young age too, if there's cancer. so it's a very big group of demographic when you look at it if we're talking late 30s early 40s

and we're talking late 50s it's a pretty big chunk of your lifetime 25 30 years yeah absolutely and what are some of the symptoms when you say in terms of perimenopause like what does that look like for most people everyone always thinks jump straight to hot flashes and it's like that's it's so cliche and it can be not denying anyone that has them because apparently i haven't have them before. That's not one of my symptoms, but they can really throw you off kilter and you can be in a board meeting or you can be teaching children or you can be doing something like being on TV and have one. You've got estrogen receptors throughout your entire body, like they're everywhere. So when you get a loss of estrogen, your symptoms can be wide and varied. And in fact,

one of the number one symptoms that I'm reading is not the hot flashes. That's it's about five on the list. It's more sleep deprivation or sleep changes. That was me waking up in the middle of the night because I was, I don't think I was having hot flashes, but I was sweating, night sweats. And then that has a knock-on effect to the rest of your day because then you just feel like yuck for the rest of the day. So that was definitely one of my symptoms. So there can be symptoms of brain fog, which sits right up there as well. And people start thinking, am I having early dementia or what's going on? You know, what's wrong with me? Because they have been not given any kind of information around what menopausal symptoms can be.

I wake up in the middle of the night to, you remember the old internet dial-up sound? Yeah, I wake up to that. That's my tinnitus. It's so bad. Oh, in your ears. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The tinnitus is a symptom as well. Burning mouth is a symptom.

Skin crawling is a symptom. Anxiety sits up right at the top as well. And I definitely felt that. Which is probably why it's so hard for people to diagnose, because the symptoms are so broad that it could be so many things. And I feel like the number one thing is like stress and depression. When you go to a doctor, someone's like, oh, you're depressed. Here's some anxiety or antidepressants.

It's so interesting that you just mentioned burning mouth syndrome. I don't think anyone would know what that is unless they have experienced it or they know someone who experiences it. My sister has burning mouth syndrome and it's so debilitating. It's like a chronic pain disorder where you feel as though your mouth is constantly on fire or burning or, you know, that sensation that you have when you drink a cup of tea and it's too hot and the end of all your taste bud is highly activated because they're burnt. It is that sensation 24 hours a day. So does she have that all the time? Constantly.

When her anxiety is really bad and her stress is really bad, it's twice as bad. Or if she has any sort of spicy food or anything that might aggravate it, it is worse. But it's a hormonal condition that's far more prevalent in women than what it is in men. But I didn't realize it was also a symptom that can be of menopause. Yeah. Musculoskeletal issues. One of the big ones is frozen shoulder and that's really debilitating and can take upwards of a year to sort of get that sorted through physiotherapy and so on. So with your own experiences, so when you started to have this like sleep disturbances and changes, were you conscious that, okay, this might be a symptom of, did you think that maybe your body was at that stage or were you kind of just like,

and how did you discover? I'm in the fitness and health industry. You would think I would know this stuff I now realize how clueless on this topic really important topic because for such a big chunk of women that I was and and unfortunately our medical society there's now there's lots of research coming in but there's many very busy doctors that have got so much going on that haven't maybe potentially got the time to start delving into all of this new modern medicine research that's coming out. You know, and I've spoken to several doctors that said that their clinical studies, you know, spent no time on it or very minimal time on it, which I think it's going to probably take about a generation before we start sort of seeing menopause and perimenopause

being more prevalent in our medical society, if you like. I mean, it's not something that comes as a surprise. We've highly spoken about in depth how misogynistic the healthcare system is. And it does seem like something that comes up in conversation this idea of like as we get older as women often women feel more invisible but that also is within the medical world it also is within like having visibility around the conditions and the symptoms because a lot of things is just passed off with like oh that's just being a woman deal with it but then it's the lack of understanding around why or where those symptoms come from but so when you went to the doctor michelle when you were like okay something's not right but no idea what yeah what was the experience like look i had

had some disturbances in my menstrual cycle. I've always been a light flow. Suddenly I was really heavy and I sort of thought, okay, this could be the start of something. And then I just brushed it aside. So for the sleep disturbances and ringing in my ear and my hip, and I put it down to all the training that I've done over the years, my hip would ache and keep me awake at night as well, which is a muscular skeletal issue that happened for me. A little bit of arthritis in there. And look, I'm not going to deny we are all aging, but we age slowly. It's not like sudden drop off the cliff. When these symptoms kick in, it's a drop off the cliff. So it's not just, yes, I'm getting older. There's something else going on. But for me, I felt flat and I felt I

had a level of anxiety that I'd never experienced before, which was really unusual for me. So I went to the doctor and I spoke about that and we did some blood tests. And as I was saying earlier before this interview, even if you get your hormones tested, it's not going to give you a pinpointed answer because when you're in perimenopausal, there's a chaos of hormonal changes that's going on in your body. So I could get my hormones tested in the morning and they could look completely different that afternoon. Unless you're sort of at the doctors every single day getting your hormones tested and

you can do like a full diagnosis. You can't even potentially pick it up in hormone treatment. And you know, again, there's just so much new information that's coming out that whether or not my GP was across all of that, but I basically was told, why don't you try antidepressants? And I was like, look, I am flat, you know, I'm a bit off, I suppose, maybe even a bit low, but geez am I depressed yeah um seems like drastic yeah and and it was a lot for me to take that on because I felt shit is that is that really where I'm at this and like to be fair in my perimenopausal obviously stages I went and did something that my GP now said jeez I would never have thought that would be a good idea what you did and that was I went to the country lived on a property isolated

myself from a lot of, you know, family and friends because it was what I wanted to do at the time. But she said, as a perimenopausal woman going off and living on a farm in an isolated country town, that would probably be the last thing I would suggest as a good idea. What made you want to go and do that? It was time for me to reassess my life. COVID came and I just thought, you know what, I just want to get away. And I had a property down south and I just said, right, we're going. it's interesting this concept and conversation around anxiety one of my really good friends she's been through perimenopause and i think now she's going through menopause but she was talking

about how she had been taken off medication that she'd been using for it and her anxiety was back and through the roof and it was very much interrelated to the menopause and she said that it got to a point where she's like this is a medical emergency the anxiety that i feel is so unreasonable. And I know that it is related to my hormones, but try telling your brain that this is not your brain, that it's your hormones. So when you decided that you didn't want to take the antidepressants and you did discover that maybe this was interrelated to menopause, what was the next steps and how did you process that? It took me a while to kind of put it all together. And strangely enough, I'd had so many of my clients through 12WBT who've kind of grown

up with me. You know, they came to me when they were in their thirties and they're now with me in their forties and fifties, they'd all been asking me to do a program on menopause. And I was like, I really should. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. It's funny because I was of a similar mind that I think society is still in and we're changing it, but it's still there, very much there that I don't know if I want to put my hand up and be that menopause girl. Cause that's admitting that I'm of that age. Yeah. That's a scary thing for society now because we, we are ageists. We put all this pressure on people, especially women to, to maintain their youth. And if you, you know, if you can't stop the aging process, at least look like you're

stopping it and go and get your Botox. You know, like that's what, that's what we're told that when you're an aging woman, you're not valuable anymore. I think that we're the least version of that that we've ever been though. I think that we are fighting full force against it and that didn't exist 20 years ago. But now I think that there is like, there is a ferocious community of women who are forging into their 40s, their 50s and beyond who are like, absolutely not. I will not subscribe to this idea that my expiration date has passed. I gave myself a good uppercut and said to myself, hang on a minute, you've built your career on empowering women and you're buying into society in the way that we think about women's and women's aging. Michelle,

what the hell? And I thought, well, it's authentic. It's real. Lean into it. Bloody get out there and start talking about it. And yes, you'll do that freaking menopause program. So I just dived into research. And what I found was like, oh my God, when I got my blood test with a doctor, yes, my good cholesterol was really high, which was great, but my bad cholesterol was high and I hadn't changed anything in my diet. And oh my God, I am vitamin D deficient, not low, not really low, freaking deficient. And they're two hallmarkers that I've now learned that are part of perimenopause. so I was like okay okay things started falling into place for me and so as I kept researching and kept researching for the program then got my specialists in for the program and the GP

Dr Kelly Teagle I said can you be my GP after I'd spoken with her and she helped me kind of figure it out and get through and well I'm not through it I'm still you know moving along I feel very blessed that I think I haven't really had massive symptoms, thankfully. I think some of that is due to my lifestyle has supported that quite successfully. And that's research, that's not opinion. We know for a fact that women who exercise between moderate to high exercise and do it consistently potentially can have lower symptoms than those that might do no or minimal exercise. Again, that's not an opinion, that's a fact. What were some of the differences and the changes that you noticed in your relationships before you realised what it was and you just were

like, okay, I'm flat, I'm depressed, I'm whatever? Because I know you have a son, Axel, who's quite young, he's still at school. Did you find that relationship at home changed in terms of your level of patience? I mean, it's hard to determine because having children, I think even when you're in absolute maximum 100% best of health, they can still get you. But certainly I found myself probably pulling away from people. And I think being in the country helped, but I found that I wasn't as social as I used to be and that was certainly amplifying my feeling flat but I just couldn't kind of get my head around it and hence that's why I moved back moved back to Sydney nearly two years ago and it was the best move I could have made because it's brought me back

into into society again and into my friends. We recently did an interview with a woman named Eleanor Mills and we touched on menopause in that conversation and it's interesting how on what it's like this fine dance that as women we need to do leaning into like the authentically the things that are happening to us but also then being like typecast like okay now you're in menopause and that's the label that you need to carry around and you should talk about it she was sort of saying that she felt as though being someone who was in she herself was in menopause and she was like I don't want to talk about it. And it's for the reason that I don't want people to label me as though I have to speak about it as though that's the only thing that now I have to offer. She's

like, it becomes such an identifying identity for women. Do you feel that it has been of value to you to lean into it? Or do you feel as though that there is this kind of like fine dance between becoming labeled as someone who is okay, well, you are menopausal. Do you know what I mean by that? Like, yeah, it's like, on one hand, it's doing God's work. But on the other hand, you then have to carry that label look I think it is what it is you know like I hate that saying but I just said it because that's where I'm at you know and I'm happy there'll be a lot of women that don't want to talk about it and I get that there'll also be women that might feel if I talk about it at work am I going to be oh you know that she's you know yeah like hormonal and then just hard to work with

hard to deal with invalidates well you get that label every time something goes wrong or if you want to make a complaint about something or everything's like, oh, she's perimenopausal. Like it just groups you into something that maybe you shouldn't normally fall into. Yeah. So I can see that. I can see that. But I still wholeheartedly believe that the more we get this information and knowledge and education out to as many people as we possibly can, including men, because many

of them are living with a woman that's in these stages of life. and if we don't know much about it, guess what? They know nothing because I think for future generations, I just feel like let's just shake it out of the tree, get it on the table, have medical society looking after us, empowered with all the new modern medicine knowledge that's out there and is still to come so that we can just support ourselves and support the women in this time of life.

How has it changed your sense of self when you were able to identify what it was and what it was that you were experiencing? How did it change or impact the way that you viewed yourself? Well, I think the biggest thing for many menopausal women or perimenopausal women is validation. I'm not going crazy. I don't have Alzheimer's. I don't have early dementia.

Like it's validation. It gives you almost a massive overwhelming sense of relief. I knew that there was something not right here. And now when you can put your finger on it and then figure out what you can do to support, and there is so much you can do to support, then it gives you a real sense of empowerment. I always say, you've got to become the CEO of your own life. No one's going to do it for you. But you know what? We're at an age group now that we don't give a shit what people think about us. We're tough, we're strong, we're resilient, and we've got a future ahead of

us. We're important to our family. We are in a place in our lives, for some women, they're kicking goals in their career. Like this is a really important time of their life where we're losing women from the workforce. We're losing women from education because of this. And that's costing our country. It's in a holistic approach. So it's not just one thing or two things or even three things. It's probably going to be maybe five or six things that you're going to have to work out being the CEO that's going to support you. So there's going to be lifestyle changes. There's going to have to be a moment where you find a GP that is specializing in perimenopause and menopause, and they are out there.

It might be that you've got to figure out your sleep health and how to clean that up. It might be having a really heartfelt, sincere conversation with your partner because, you know, there's a lot going on sexually or not, sorry, there's not anything going on sexually. You know, there's multiple things, holistic approach. That's what kept coming out when I spoke to all of my specialists. It's a holistic approach. It's a holistic approach. It was always the words they were using.

And that, what I have found personally, is absolutely true. So hormone replacement therapy or HRT is one of the first things that doctors will say, let's do that. Like after they've said, go on your antidepressants, and then they figure out that's not what it is, it's HRT. Did you go down that route? Yeah, I have. and I went and spoke with my doctor, Kelly Teagle,

who is one of the specialists on the menopause method. I did a Zoom conference with her because she's based in Canberra and we went through my history, we went through my blood work, we went through lots of questionnaires around my mental health, around all sorts of stuff. It was really quite good. And then I made the decision that, yeah, I'm going to do it. So I have an estrogen patch that I put on my butt.

Which is what I saw you putting on in the jungle. Yeah. I didn't even know this. It sounds like a little Nicorette patch that you're putting on. It's just a clear patch. It's about the size of a stamp. Yeah. And I take a progesterone tablet every night.

And so I've been doing that now. I started taking them just before the jungle. So what's that, five months, six months? And I have definitely noticed a difference. Again, I'm not going to say, oh, my symptoms was, you know, thank God, because I know ladies that get hit pretty hard. fortunately my symptoms have been mild the sleep thing was killing me the ear ringing thing was a bit of a pain in the ass I've definitely noticed a difference and I've also noticed a difference

in my attitude too in my disposition we only hear negatives though I mean I think when I in terms of menopause I don't think anyone talks about it in a favorable way that's the narrative I want to change that's a big big thing for me because no one was talking about it in the past But if they did, it was all, oh, it's a jail sentence, wave the white flag, your life is over, it's bad, it's terrible, it's the worst thing that's ever going to happen to you. And so any narrative around it was just so, so negative. And I absolutely want to change that narrative because I have found positives. And the women that I have worked with since March, we launched the menopause method in

March. So we've had quite a long time now. We've had many women go through the whole three months worth of work and come back for more. and they've found the positive. This is a really powerful time in your life because you know who you are, you've earned your stripes, you know what you want, you know what you don't want.

Maybe your children have grown up, possibly even left home, and you don't want to be kicking goals at this time. And guess what? You can. You absolutely can. It's going to take, it's going to be a little bit of work. That's okay because most women with these symptoms are ready to do whatever it takes.

And that's another reason why I think we've had so much success because they're not like, oh, you know, maybe I'll do the program, maybe I'll not. They're like, give it to me. I want it. I'm going to get this sorted out. And I'm not saying I've got the solution, but we've certainly made some incredible differences to women and given them education. Something that's been so severely lacking. How does exercise impact or help people who are in this stage of life? It helps people in any stage of life.

I'll just say that straight off the bat, I definitely feel that in perimenopause and menopause exercise is a game changer, an absolute game changer. It can help with the muscular and skeletal issues that we spoke about. It can help with your anxiety. It can help with your sleep disturbances. It can help with building muscle, so insulin resistance, because one of the big things, again, is weight gain. It's more of a weight distribution that changes.

so you change from a little bit of a pear shape to a little bit more of an apple so you're getting it around your midline now this is a dangerous visceral fat to have because this can then start to tap into cholesterol high blood pressure but even like and i know this is surface level but even aesthetically it also leans into why women get so down as well because their body's changing out of their control to something that they might not have ever experienced before and anything that out of your control obviously doesn't help if you have layers of anxiety, but all of a sudden your hormones are changing, your body's changing, you don't know what it is, you can't stop it. So it's like a snowball effect. It can be, but again, exercise, nutrition, getting a good GP,

working out your sleep, all of that sort of stuff can absolutely help. I promise you, I absolutely promise you it can. And the types of exercise when we talk about insulin resistance is strength training because you want to get that muscle on your body and lift your weights, push and pull heavy things because what that will do is it will build your muscle. You can build muscle in older life. I've seen it. It's scientifically a fact. You can build muscle in your older life and also by doing that, you're strengthening your

bones. Now, this is really important stuff because when you start to strengthen your bones and you can strengthen them, even if you have osteoarthritis, osteopenia, which is the onset of osteo issues, you can still strengthen, you can still make them stronger and actually support your bones so, so much. Now, I'm going to give you a couple of little stats here. 50% of females in this transition will have an osteoporotic bone fracture. 50%.

Yeah, that's huge. Those stats just blew my head off. And many of them can be avoided because if you're looking after yourself, your balance, your coordination through forms of exercise and training, keeping your core strong so that you've got good balance, doing exercises that recruit your self-awareness. So balancing on one leg and lifting a weight up overhead, you're having to really keep yourself stable. Those things potentially could stop you from taking a fall. Yeah. Yeah. What about nutrition? You said that's another thing that's so important in this

stage of life. What changes should people take in terms of their nutrition? Yeah. Okay. So it can assist. Again, it's not the only thing. It's a holistic approach, as we know. The research now is saying it's a Mediterranean low-carbohydrate diet. So that's what the menopause method nutrition plan is. Because you're wanting to hang onto your muscle, you want to get protein. You want to be making sure that you're getting good amounts of protein into your diet, calcium-rich foods for your bones, omega-3s. And looking also, there's a lot of research coming out about gut health. I mean, that's been around for a while, but now there's a link of perimenopause and menopause to gut health as well. Because I was vitamin D deficient,

I take a vitamin D supplement and I make sure that when I train, sometimes I train outdoors. I'll put my sunscreen on my face. I'll make sure that I'm out there for 10, 15 minutes, and then I'll apply my sunscreen because I know that's important. I don't want the sunscreen people coming after me, but we do need to get a vitamin D as well. Can you replenish, if you know, can you replenish vitamin D enough with vitamins? Is it the equivalent of actually getting it from the source? Now that's this whole supplementation question because I think I'm taking all of my supplements and are they working?

But I guess, again, it's just, you know, you're trying to approach it from all angles. So I take a gut health supplement. I take a women's health supplement. I take my vitamin D in a spray. I take magnesium. I take creatine because there's some really good research on creatine. It's not just for bodybuilders. You know, it can supplement you maintaining good muscle health.

So talk to us a little bit about the differentiation between perimenopause and menopause because I know it's a blurry line with where you draw the line to say, okay, you're out of perimenopause now and you're into menopause. Yeah, because I didn't know about it. I didn't even know. Like this is how unknowledgeable I was about this topic. I didn't know about perimenopause. And I think there's a lot of people that, it's a big topic of discussion now, but there'll still be people out there that don't. So perimenopause can start, you know, let's say seven to 10 years before the ages of 45

to 55. And that is when you will, in some cases, get even more severe symptoms than when you're menopausal. But it's classified, you are in menopause when you have no longer had a period for a full 12 months. So they could come and go, they could stop, they could start. you're still perimenopausal, go a full 12 months, okay, now you're classified as being menopausal.

And I have a story which I shared with you in the jungle, which I didn't even think was possible. I did this interview before I got in the jungle about menopause and I was saying, you know, so a full 12 months, you're menopausal. And one of the interviewers said, oh, yeah, but what if you get to 11 months and you get your period? And I sort of went, I don't think that could happen. Guess what happened?

Whilst you were in the jungle? You're like, anyone got a tampon? I was in the jungle for three days. I was 11 months and two weeks. Wow. So I was two weeks off, 12 months. And it was Skye. I was sitting with Skye down in the jungle and we were sitting

on the floor cross-legged and she looked across at me. She said, you've got your period. I went, no. What? Like I haven't had it in a year. And I said, oh, and I looked down and there was just a very slight mark on my shoulder. It's so embarrassing.

And I was like, no, let's just do it. Can't be. I'll go up to the toilet. Yep. Wow. And I was like, I'm sitting in the jungle toilet going, what the hell? What a time and a place after 12 months. Nearly 12 months.

When you don't think you have to think about it anymore because you're like, obviously I'm in menopause now. You don't bring a tampon into the jungle. No. You don't bring anything and it's like the worst place to get it. So I had to come out to the girls and I said, where do we get the tampons? and I was just like, I can't even believe I said that. Well, then what happens now?

Does that mean that it resets for another 12 months or does it mean that it's kind of? Well, I've had a period ever since. Wow. Why not? Do you think there was the stress, like the hormonal change in the jungle? Because we know what stress can do on your body. But, like, it seems strange to have gone 12 months,

then you get thrown into that environment, then it's back regular now. Like, that's wild to me. I don't know. I honestly do not know. And then because you girls were all talking about, oh, we've all got our periods at the same time. And I thought, oh, maybe I've got wrapped into that. Maybe that's how that's happened.

Maybe I sucked you in. Maybe it's all their fault, bastards. Blame me for yourself not going into metaphors. Is that? I mean, like I wonder about that because it's one of the things that people always say is like the positive, well, at least you never have to deal with a period again. Like is that how you felt about it?

Were you like, cool, well, I'm done with that part of my life. That was obviously it had a purpose, but for a lot of it, it was fucking annoying. Yeah. I mean, I've had all sorts of theories said to me. People said, oh, you know, it must mean that you're still, you're healthy or this or that. I don't buy into any of it other than the human body is an incredible thing.

Menopause and perimenopause is different for every single person. It's very individual. No two symptoms, you know, are the same particularly. What you get, what symptoms you might have will be completely different to the ones that I have. And, you know, it's just a very interesting and yet wonderful time. Well, I guess it's the same as women that have their period. Like no two periods are the same.

Some people get it light with no symptoms. Some are gushing the Red River and they're in constant pain and they get the hormonal headaches. Some people are in – I have never had really much period pain at all. Actually, in perimenopause I started getting more pain. That was interesting because I was always light flow, no pain. But then there'll be girls – I remember girls that couldn't even come to school. You know, it's so varied. They couldn't go to school, they were in so much pain and they

were so heavy. Which I also find so interesting. I honestly think from like a medical perspective, because often research and information and people specialize in areas where they can see it being a lucrative industry for themselves, you know, where more money can be made. Like this is a thing that is going to happen to every single woman who, every single woman who has a period is going to experience menopause at some point. So it's like, it makes sense. Doctors, if you're out there, This is a great area of speciality interest to get into. Women need it. You know what I mean?

It's something that we're all going to require. But one third of the world's population is either perimenopausal, menopausal or postmenopausal. One third of the female world population. And it's so fascinating that up until I think in the last sort of five, six years, it hasn't even been a conversation that's been had. And now there is more information. But for someone who works in healthcare, like you work in the fitness industry,

you work within talking about bodies, talking about nutrition, talking about how bodies work, and even yourself was like, I had no information on this. I mean, there's so much incredible information coming from all around the world. I was only just listening to it in the car on the way here. Interesting research coming out of the UK around perimenopausal and menopausal women and how they process nutrition slightly differently. Because they'll have women go into the GPs that work in these specialist areas and they'll say, oh, your cholesterol is high. This is different.

And they're like, but I haven't even changed the way I eat. It's how you change metabolizing and processing the food and things like that. I haven't changed the way I eat. I haven't changed the way I exercise, but I'm putting on weight. What's going on? What's your advice for a woman right now that is entering, she thinks she's entering perimenopause or she's entering menopause,

she's struggling to prioritize her health and make the changes? Like what do you say to where do you start? That is such a good question, Brittany. First of all, start doing some research for yourself. Start educating yourself. There's some incredible specialists, one that I follow out of the States. Her name's Dr. Mary Clare. She's incredible.

She's just written a new book called The New Menopause. And it's a heavy read. It's pretty, it's... It's a heavy flow. Yeah, it's a heavy flow. That's fine, Britt. I see what you do there. But it's incredibly empowering when you can arm yourself with education.

The absolute number one thing you just got to do is find yourself a GP that specializes in this area and you can find them. They're out there and you can do like what I did, a teleconference, so they don't even have to be, you know, in your neighbourhood. Because chances are they're not in your neighbourhood. Yeah, I mean we're lucky where we live but so many people live in regional areas and it's harder to come by people

who specialise in this. Yeah, and you can go onto the Australasian Menopause Society website and you can find the playlist of doctors that do specialise in this. It's so nice to talk to someone that's literally going through it. Like it's easy for us to go and speak to a specialist, but we aren't going through it, you know. Yeah, it's not lived experience.

No, my period's still regular. But the thing is for you, Britt, and for both of you, is that knowledge is power. So most women, well, I think probably of my generation, definitely before, were just blindsided. Yeah. But it's also different now. What's going on?

Because if I knew this when my mum was going through menopause, I would have been different. I wouldn't have been such a brat. Probably would have been. But really, really, Brynn? Yeah. But do you know what I mean? Like once we're armed with the knowledge that we understand

why someone's going through something and it's out of their control. Like I used to think when my mum went through it, and she went through it for quite a long time, like it really sat with her for a long time and her hot flushes were next level. Yeah, right. And it would really throw her. Her fatigue was chronic and I'd be like, I'd give her a hard time,

like why are you always sleeping? And she's like, I physically can't keep my eyes open. And I don't think she knew she was in perimenopause at the time. Yes, that's another big symptom, always tired. Always tired. I think I said this to Callum on the show. Like if we said to the men of Australia, this is what's going to happen. See your testicles down there?

They keep your hormones level and so on. So when you get about, oh, let's say 52, 53, maybe 54, they're going to shrivel up and go. And look, you might have some erectile dysfunction problems. You might put on a bit of weight. You might not feel good about yourself. But you know what, you know, stick with it. You'll get through it and you'll get up on the other side and you'll be fine.

So, you know, chin up, carry on. Like they'd be taking all the funding for those submarines and they'd be pumping it into, you know, men's testicle research, you know. This is one of the things Eleanor Mills spoke about when we interviewed her and it was so interesting. She was like, no one would ever expect a man to get up and have to talk about that. They would like fix it, but there would be research. We'd get them a pill.

We would fix it for them. Whereas like women are expected to speak about the things that they're experiencing in order to get the research, in order to get exposure, because we have to advocate for ourselves in a way that men don't have to do. I love that word. You have to advocate for yourself. And when you go to your GP, you have to advocate for yourself. You have to ask the questions. You have to arm yourself with knowledge so that you can ask the questions that you need to, to delve into it. And that, again, is why it's really important to go to a doctor that actually specializes in it because they'll have that information already. And it's the same thing we say about any ailment or illness or change in your body is that you know your body better than the stranger of a doctor who, sure, they've studied for five years, but they don't know what your normal is because everybody's normal is slightly

different. So if you know something is not wrong in your body, go and fight for that. Exactly that. Go to one doctor. If they don't agree with you or they don't suggest maybe or listen to you, go to someone else. Like you can go to more than one person. Yeah.

It's becoming the CEO of your own life. You can do it and I'm 100% guaranteeing you can definitely support yourself in this time of life, but it's going to take just a little bit of work just to figure it out and, again, a holistic approach. Michelle, thank you so much for coming and being a part of the podcast. Thank you for sharing your experiences. For anybody who wants to listen to part one of this episode, we will link it all in the show notes as well.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me in to talk about this really important topic. Thank you. It was a pleasure.