Moore Style - Navigating Perimenopause and Menopause with Bria Gadd

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Navigating mid-life and aren’t sure where to turn? Unfortunately, the lack of education around this time of a woman’s life has left many feeling confused, frustrated, and unsupported. Luckily today we are joined by female hormone expert Bria Gadd for an episode all around supporting our hormonal health during perimenopause and menopause.  Join us as we dive into a conversation around educating ourselves on midlife issues, what happens in the body during perimenopause, the four phases of women's cycles and their effects on sex, and how we can support each other through this process. Although this episode is full of wisdom for women, men can learn a lot about this season of life for the women in their lives as well. Let this episode be a reminder that it is important to prioritize our health and that we can feel good despite these hormonal changes! In this week’s episode, we discuss: [02:05] About Bria Gadd [03:44] What drove Bria to work with perimenopause and postmenopausal women?  [10:38] How can we educate ourselves on midlife issues? [13:36] The difference between perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause [17:08] “Menopause is our second spring” [19:35] Two major things are happening in the body during perimenopause  [25:08] Two reasons why we get stuck with weight and symptoms in perimenopause [31:04] Four phases of the infradian rhythm and their effect on sex [37:24] Supporting each other through this transition [44:34] Bria’s process - addressing the four main pillars of our lives [49:42] The importance of prioritizing our health and feeling good [55:00] Bria’s favorite date   Connect with Bria: Website  Instagram Facebook Podcast YouTube Free Daily Hormone Checklist

Welcome to the down and dirty podcast, the ultimate guide to modern midlife dating. I'm your host Celeste Moore and I'm here to help you navigate the challenges of today's dating world. Think of me as your female version of hitch but better with over 16 years of experience as a certified image consultant and dating coach. I've got the inside scoop on what women want. In this podcast, we're diving deep into the world of healthy masculinity and modern dating. It's a fast changing industry. And here you'll find personal stories, expert insights

and candid conversations that will empower you to take control of your dating life. There's never been a better time to achieve your desired outcome, whether it's marriage, finding a significant other, securing a life partner or simply regaining your dating confidence. We're here with you twice a week to explore the viewpoints and challenges in today's dating arena that resonate with every man seeking dating success and love. So let's dive into today's episode. We've got an exciting discussion lined up for you. Get ready for the double D's of dating where dating dilemmas turn into dating triumph. i want to welcome everybody to another episode of the down and dirty podcast as always i'm your

host celeste moore and i just want to thank everybody who continues to listen for all of you new listeners out there i appreciate you jumping on and i hope that everybody takes a little bit of information i like to call nuggets back into your relationships because every amazing guests and every solo I do, I really try to educate. I really try to provide tools even so that you can have successful relationships. And if you feel so inclined to, please give the show a review. Five stars is always the best. And I think it helps the show be seen. And in turn, it really does help people. So thank you again. And let's get into it. But before I dive in, I want to introduce to you my amazing guest today. I'm so excited to talk to her about this

subject. Her name is Bria Gad, and she is a female hormone expert, an integrative nutritionist, holistic health coach, and a certified personal trainer who specializes in helping women with weight release and energy gain and pre and post menopause and finding clarity in the hormonal chaos. So after helping thousands of women lose weight in their 20s and 30s, Bria recognized a difficult shift in women's ability to get results in their body during their pre-perimenopause years. With more than 12 years of experience in the fitness and nutrition industry, Bria created a proven strategy to dramatically improve the challenges women are experiencing in weight release and energy. So Bria, welcome. I really appreciate you being here today.

Thank you, Celeste. I'm so excited to be here. And I don't think you've loved it at all. Like perimenopause, premenopause, the menopause transition, it all means the exact same thing. So whatever of those that you want. Good. Yeah. I'm glad I'm not totally messing it up. No. Wow. This is such a big subject. I even touched a teeny bit on it yesterday on an IG live. And I think I got such feedback from people that I had no idea that we're kind of going through this and said, you know what, we need to talk about this more. This needs to be a conversation that we have and normalize it. There's such a stigma, I think still. But before I guess we get into all of that, can we start off? I know you talk a little bit about kind of how you got

here, which is amazing. Is there something you would like to share of kind of what drove you to working with perimenopause and postmenopause women? Yeah, for sure. So I am 42 now, but from my late 20s through to my late 30s, I was an online personal trainer and nutrition coach, and I really focused around working with women always. So I spent a lot of years helping women lose weight find time in their life like really feel great in their bodies and then around 35 I started noticing a shift in my clients and a lot of my clients were in that age box we tend to kind of attract a lot of who we are and I started hearing them you know not unable to be as consistent feeling a bit frustrated with you know more extreme PMS or different symptoms not

really getting the results that we you know had been used to getting and it really perplexed me And then around 37, I got slammed with the same thing. It was just felt like out of nowhere where I'd always, you know, this was my career and my livelihood. And I'd really prided myself on having a really like strong health pillars, you know, things that habits that, you know, supported how I felt in my body. but it was almost like it almost kind of creeps up on you. And then it feels like it happens overnight, almost like a domino effect where, you know, it started with a bit of lethargy, a little low energy, not having the same kind of spark overall in my day. And and then it became this, you know, a weight gain, especially around the belly that I was not used to having. I was working out 45 minutes a day, pretty intense workouts. I was trying all these different things with my nutrition, intermittent fasting, you know, low carb, all these things we hear about.

And my period started getting a bit wonky and I started having anxiety, which I never really struggled with in my life. And the kicker for me, Celeste, was I stopped sleeping well and have always been a really good sleeper. I know that's not everybody's story, but for me, I've always been able to like head hit the pillow, solid seven hours, wake up feeling, you know, good to go my whole life. But suddenly I started waking up anywhere between 2 and 4 a.m. every night without fail, sweating and sweats. So I did what most of us do is start Googling things, which is a terrible idea. Do not Google your symptoms. It doesn't help with any anxiety or insomnia you're already having. But it drove me to go see my health care practitioner and who was wonderful and amazing and did all the blood work, did everything, asked me all the questions. And she was like, you know, Bria, you're the picture of health. And, you know, it's wonderful that you don't have all the awful things that Google healthy have. But I left feeling really stuck, really frustrated. And I just remember this really clear thought of being like, if I'm 37 and I have good habits and this is the picture of health, like, what are the next 37 years going to be like? Like, I just, if this is the best, it's, you know, we know aging changes things.

So I'm like, if this is the best I'm going to feel, you know, like, I don't know. I don't know how I can do that and find joy and happiness. And so that was what really, that and hearing my clients was really what pivoted. And, you know, I'm in this industry. So it was, I would say it's easier for me who's in the wellness industry to kind of pivot my career deeper into different wellness. And I really started to look, knowing that my period was irregular, knowing my age, I was like, well, let's just have a better understanding.

And it threw me down this path of getting some very big certifications around women's hormones, around gut health, around this time in our life. And that's when I really started to understand what is happening and things that we just don't know that we're highly, as you said, it's a taboo topic, but we're just highly uneducated on it. And through that learning and through that process, I was able to, you know, head into my forties. Finally, you know, I sleep through most nights. I can't promise every night, but I sleep through most nights really well. I have better and better and more consistent energy. I get great results for my fitness. Now I'm like leaner and happier and healthier than I've ever been.

And that was when I knew, okay, we're really missing a massive piece here. And I think the most beautiful pieces that you can actually do less and feel better in these years so that's a big part of my gosh I'm excited because yeah you know I'm gonna go there because it's my podcast right so let's do it and I broke the ice last night that I'm 47 and just literally I've always been kind of ever since my daughter was born she's 16 I've been a terrible sleeper it's like that before that, I can just totally pass out, take good naps. You know, it was almost like that instinctual mama bear never like shut off. So then, you know, last couple of years that I've been here in Austin, I've noticed like more and more stressors in my life, more and more like,

oh, I'm literally up probably 10 times a night. And then now in the last couple of weeks, I want to say at least a month okay live at least a month solid month there's two days out of the month I have not woken up in like drenched and the only time that ever happened before there was like a moment here and there over the years like the last five years but it was like if my body was fighting a sickness right it would process that way yeah so now I'm like yeah and then after talking to you of course like okay I've lost hair I have been brain fog but I'm like I don't know what's brain fog anymore lethargy like I don't know how that like it didn't go from like 100 to 20 so it was for me it was more of a gradual of course I'm probably in a brain fog but I think

for me those were the biggest issues is like and man sleep is the best thing in the world because the moments that I had gotten those eight hours or seven, I would say seven, I would wake up. I was like, wow, I can tackle and do anything today. That's amazing. Yeah, you feel unstoppable when you actually get sleep. My mom always used to say that. I can handle anything if I can get a good night's sleep.

Like, wow, the things that we take for granted. So going in through that, I am not obviously alone. Every woman is going to experience this at some point in their life, hopefully not in their late thirties, but I'm sure it like, like you said, right. It was like out of nowhere and it hits us. And then imagine we're in a relationship. Okay. Let's first start off with, we don't even know what we're going through. We maybe do, but it's like, I don't know anybody other than you, like who,

like you said, you can go to your gynecologist, your GP, and they can do a bunch of tests and no, you're healthy. Everything's fine. This is just normal. Well, you got to feel lost just like you did. Yeah. What what can you do to educate yourself? I should say. And I think you're right. Like, I always like to you know, what I have learned and what I think most women really want to know, understand is that it's not really our fault that we don't have this information. I mean, there's a lot of reasons beyond the fact that, you know, we we really were especially women going through midlife right now. We're still really raised in like a man's world where, you know, now when most women do work, most women have careers, but we still very

well see that the emotional labor of life is really, you know, off kilter, still are unbalanced and in especially hetero relationships, I would say. And so we have women that are doing more than ever doing it in a man's world. And, you know, let's see, it wasn't until the mid 1990s where women were even required to be a part of like fitness, wellness and medical research studies. which means that every, it just blew my mind when I learned this, means all of the processes, all of the methods, all of everything we've been taught, including workout programs and nutrition plans, were tested only really on men because women's cycles were, quote unquote, unpredictable. They're not unpredictable. They're very, very predictable. They just happen to follow a very

different pattern. And so it's really confusing, but it's not our fault that we don't know this. So I always like to say, like, first, let's understand what's going on. And then I think that can give us the peace and beginning foundation for how to move forward. Because you're right, like midlife alone is is a challenge. And if you're going through this, like we want to tie it right to relationships. If you're going through this and you don't understand and you're struggling like that adds a real stress on a relationship, right? If you're all of a sudden your libido's out the window, you don't feel very good in your body, you're really frustrated all the time, partner doesn't understand you, you know, it creates a real recipe for disaster. And I would

there are statistics that show, if we're talking about relationships, that I think it's something like 64% of midlife divorces are brought to terms from a woman because she's just feeling really probably misunderstood a lot of the times or really unsupported. So I think that when we can understand this piece, it can really enrich our relationships in a lot of ways, really heal things and move forward, or at least give people what they need in order to heal beyond a relationship into the next relationship, whatever that might be. So anyway, that's a lot of information. yeah no that's a great that's great and i'm glad that i had no idea that in the 90s they were only you know up until the 90s that we weren't allowed to do you know yes or like what our surveys i mean

like let's let's do this all on men because you know they're easier yeah yeah it was just more predictable they could get the result they wanted right and they could test go faster so then they weren't women weren't required to be a part of it so they just would keep them out because they would kind of skew the numbers. So many things. Two different rhythms, right, that we need to focus on. So it's really an entirely different ballgame. But I think what women first need to know is that there's confusion around like what the difference between perimenopause or premenopause and menopause actually is. Even messaging and the naming of it. Menopause is one day, 365 days after your last period. So when you go a full year without having a period, usually that's in your 50s unless you've

had to, you know, have surgery or other things like that. And then you're post-menopause. So it's menopause, post-menopause. Everything leading up to that, which starts around the age of 35 for women is what I like to call our reverse puberty is perimenopause. And it really is a reverse going from, yeah, from, you know, being like really fertile and reproductively capable to shifting out of that chapter of our lives. And it is as significant as puberty, as pregnancy, as postpartum, like that's the massive switch in the hormones. And yet, to kind of add to that taboo, we can see our teenagers changing when they're going through, right? We see it. So we have this compassion. We're like, oh, well, they're going through this. They need to eat better. They

need to sleep more. They're going to be irritable. It's okay. We understand. You know, we see this in pregnant women as their bellies grow. We're like, oh, well, you know, you're building a human, you know, push your tire, take the right vitamins. You need to do these things. There's nothing set up to support women in perimenopause. And yet it is the longest and most significant hormonal shift we'll experience in our lives as a woman. Wow. It's like you said, I mean, I mean, I'm not a. Obviously, I'm not so educated in this area, but I wouldn't say I'm a dumb woman, but I feel when I'm missing such a significant part of what I'm personally, physically, mentally going to go through yeah I think oh one day I'm just not going to get my period and then okay I might have some

hormone issues then nobody talks about the re-cursor to that and yeah I think it's so important because you know thank god I don't have a partner in my bed but like and I get to switch the other bedside I mean like right now it's like I get up and change my sheets I literally just like I can roll into this. Yeah. It's a little mini perk, I guess, isn't it? Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah. But you know, if I woke up every night and it's like, you know, I'm interrupting his sleep and I'm sure there's, there's gotta be not only like, this is part of my body. Now it's hard on me mentally. And now I'm adding extra stress to him or let's just, if it is a hetero relationship and him not really understanding a woman's body because honestly you can do a bunch of education

you know you can learn a lot but you still don't really know what happens to the body the woman's body is just like it's magical but it's what creates life you know it's not and yet nobody gets it nobody you know when nobody's taught it to us so that really is you know and I was like if I'm in this industry and I didn't this stuff. Like, like with hope in hell, just, you know, the average woman who's like working her full-time job and coming home and managing the house and dealing with the kids and making the doctor's appointments and organize the birthday parties, learn this, you know, that was a real, you know, piece where I'm like, I got to get this out. I need to make sure people understand

so they don't feel like it's just them or that they need to just lay down and wave the white aging flag. Right. Just to give a little hope here, you know, in Chinese medicine, they call this phase of our life, our second spring. It's really a very like chemically in our brain and our body. And I'll get into that a little bit. But it's an amazing opportunity where I think this fog of being subconsciously driven to reproduce sort of moves away. And we have the opportunity to be more creative, more confident, more driven, get better results, actually, then we have we don't have youth on our side. Sure. But we have this real clarity and chemical shift in our mind that gives us this opportunity to thrive.

And it's why we see women, like some of the most successful women in the world right now, didn't start their careers until they were in their 40s and 50s, because this is the opportunity we have. So it's really important to know what's available to you.

And all we got to do is understand it and heal it. And then we get to get off to the races. Well, I'm excited. I'm so excited. I'm like, I'm totally excited. And I think also when I talk to my clients about this period of their lives. I'm like, this is exciting.

Like just say you were in a relationship and now like this is your second one or you've been married to your career and this is your, you know, full time. I mean, this is a great time because you're not, you don't have parents trying to tell you who to marry. You don't have like, hopefully like religion.

At least you can talk. You can think for yourself, right? This is just a time in your life where you've experienced enough that like you can definitely go into the next one with like a clear vision of who you are and what you want. I think it's amazing.

Totally. And we know like no matter what relationship you're trying to get into, your health and knowing your body, loving your body, knowing your body and like the foundation of health is critical for all success, right? The better you feel, the better you can give out of yourself to the world and more deeply connect. So it's, it's really such an important piece, um, that I think is overlooked. And yet when you, when you figure it out, you're like, I hadn't waited so long. Well, I'm excited. I'm so excited. Seriously. I'm so happy that you did this and that you were able to step out of that for a minute, right.

Of your, your coaching and your training. And you just kind of like step back and you were like, oh, yeah, this is such a necessity. this is such a space where I can delve into it, you know, and really bring it to the public. So well, like you said, more and more, I mean, I hear I mean, I this is all I do. So I talked to loads of women about this. But, you know, I see it in my friends, I see it in my sister, like it's everywhere, right, this natural shift that is struggling. And, and maybe I'll just dive into it a little bit more to explain it so everyone can understand. But what around 35, when we start this reverse puberty or this perimenopause, what two major things are happening in the body.

In the body, what's happening is that the role of the hormones, like these reproductive hormones that we have is being passed from our ovaries to our adrenals and our adrenals are our stress managers. So the state of those adrenals based on everything else going on in our life are really going to determine one, how quickly we feel symptoms, how severe those symptoms are. You know, we know there's something like 34, well, there's 34 documented known symptoms of perimenopause. So weight gain and night sweats and hot flashes and insomnia and, you know, even skin issues and brain fog and fatigue. But I think there's something like 48 that have been really isolated. So there's a lot of things, anxiety, restlessness, so many, so many pieces that come into play.

So that has a lot to do with, OK, your adrenals can only handle so much. and think of if you if you've ever worked in a corporate landscape and maybe someone in your office or one of your peers is going on a leave and now you have to take on all their work but you're like well i still have all this work and now i have all the work and no one's i don't have any extra resources when we pull the body pulls the resources from the body this is why we start to lose hair this is why we start to gain weight this is why we start to get anxious stop sleeping because the stress levels in our body go up and up and up. And then at the same time in the body, the amount of hormones that we're getting are going to start to decrease. Now, if the amount

of those hormones, mainly estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, if those stay fairly balanced as we go through the transition, then it's a much easier transition. But if not, it feels like tsunami waves of not sleeping through the night, 28 out of 30 days. Right. Which is exhausting. and so that's sort of one big piece and the other piece that goes on in the brain actually is the hippocampus and the amygdala which are our memory encoders and retrievers in the brain become really sensitive to these shifting of these sex hormones specifically and what happens is that they become they we start to become a way much more aware of like unresolved trauma that we've had in our life and so you know emotional frustrations that we maybe didn't deal with

So this is where a lot of women can feel a lot of frustration, a lot of emotion, even ragey sometimes where they're frustrated, you know, where once it was not a big deal that your partner left their dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the dishwasher. Now you like feel like you're going to lose your mind. And I think culture really tells us like, oh, you're just PMSing. That's not it. You're actually just really aware of how annoyed you are. And you just have never really dealt with it because you did a really good job of shoving

it under the rug. And that's what I remember. for us yay I know I my daughter doesn't even know half of this right but she was like oh god I'm gonna be like you know she's 16 and she's like you know she's full menstruating obviously for a couple years now but she's like yeah and then you're gonna go through all this we're gonna not get along even more but look she's like I think I'm gonna go and leave just tell me when you're feeling moody I was like oh no you didn't little girl like I was like I love you so much right now. And I'm shifting the hormones does create something. Hey, one of the most interesting

things I learned Celeste is that, you know, our, like, we always think about PMS, like up until this stage, or, you know, menopause, we're like, Oh, well, this is just hormones, like I have gonna have cravings, and I'm gonna be more irritable. When in fact, your body in in the week before in the PMS week and your menstrual week, actually our metabolism increases and our cortisol increases. So we burn upwards of 250 to 350 more calories per day. So if you don't accommodate for that and eat more at breakfast or sleep more so that you have that energy, that's why we have cravings in the afternoon. Like no, no woman is waking up with her period and having cravings at 8am. It happens when we run out of energy. And when estrogen really dips

in that time frame we estrogens like rose-colored glasses they like when it dips we're kind of like that really actually pisses me off I really hate when you do that and it's really annoying so it's not it's it's actually they're really good indicators of what's really going on what's really bothering us it's just that when we're in the reproductive years estrogen kind of comes right back on and puts those glasses back on so that we reproduce with people until people we like people. What you're feeling in your luteal phase and that PMS time is really important to pay attention to. And when you learn how to nourish your female rhythm, then you're less, less annoyed. You get less, you have fewer cravings, right? That those things improve, those waves turn more

into kind of a rolling, you know, a nice rolling tide instead of insatiable cravings or massive the irritation where you feel like your head's going to explode. Yeah. I mean, that just sounds like to have the tools and the knowledge is everything. Because if, like you said, if you can start to understand your body and manage those, I don't know, feelings and symptoms and all the things, and how would, how would you start to manage that? How would you start to understand your body more? That's a great question. So there are two main reasons we get stuck, especially with weight and symptoms in perimenopause. One, like your hormones have already got to the point where they're way too imbalanced, right? If we didn't listen to the whispers of our body, if we didn't

know better, which most of us don't, if our adrenals were so taxed, then we end up kind of in this major imbalance. So any efforts into feeling like any traditional efforts that were typically designed for men, whether it's, you know, trying to lose weight or trying to, you know, eat less food or trying to, you know, what any of our efforts in those areas actually shifts us further into a lower metabolism, almost like a lower battery mode. And this is why we gain weight often more quickly in this time period, because of the like, we're already stressed out. And then we're making these decisions that are designed really more for men. And that further throws off, like really the integrity of our body. We're trying to do things that no longer work. And of

course, our body's like, I'm 40 something now. I've kind of headed up to here. I'm not doing it your way. We're going to do thyroid or I'm going to stroke. Right. And that's sort of what happened. So that's one of the reasons. And the other one is that you aren't sinking your efforts, your workouts, your nutrition, your love life, your work life with your hormones. So this is where a lot of the times we can feel OK for two weeks of the month and then really regress for two weeks of the month. So these two things are kind of happening. And depending on where you're at, if you're in complete hormonal chaos and imbalance, then we need to begin by actually going through a real healing phase of what I call inflammation elimination. So

if you think of this time, if you think of a hormone imbalance, almost like a broken ankle, right? These are easier for us to see. So we're like, okay, I can picture this broken ankle. in order to heal the broken ankle, we really have to cast it up and rest it, right? You can't be walking around on this broken foot, bashing it into things. It's only going to get worse. And so if we don't take the time to really eliminate the inflammation in our life, and that can be workouts, that can be things that we think are healthy that are just not working for us at this time because we just don't have the energy supply. So we need to start there. And then when that cast comes off, which is like a four to six week period, just like an

ankle, then we need to take the time to really opt to heal and repair our hormones and our metabolism, things like that. Because if the body's so busy and low battery mode doing all of these things, we never can do one thing very well. It can't actually heal the open wound that's happening there. So once that piece is healed, we can shift into a period where we get to really look at the rest of our life and think, because it's not just our food and our nutrition, right? as you know, like there's so much more going on in our lives that create more stress and more stress and cortisol, which is more workload on our adrenals. So we need to look at the rest of our life, at our relationships, at our career, at our social life, at our spirituality, at these

other parts of ourselves to really think like, okay, well, what am I missing? What else do I want in life? And I think this is the gift of midlife is that we get to be more real and more intentional about the things that we want. And once we move through that kind of phase and we make sure I call them stress faucets. Once the stress faucets have sort of toned down and we're healed, that's like going to physiotherapy, that phase. You've got your calf dropped, you've gone to physio, you get full range of motion of that foot or that ankle again. Then we get to, you know, in the ankle example, start to retraining for that, this marathon of life that we run. But in our hormones, that means learning to optimize our hormones by

syncing with our cycle. So what that looks like is understanding the four phases of your hormone rhythm, whether you're bleeding still or not, and recognizing that there are amounts of sleep that we need during those times. There's amounts of food, more food that we need during those times. There's types of workouts that are better during those times. There's sex that's better during those times or types of sex that are going to be better during those times. Yeah. And even times for work, right? There are things to do at work that once we start to implement this, then life gets really easy and really fun. That's really exciting because, yeah, I never, you know, experienced having vaginal dryness or like vaginal. I mean, what do you call it? Is it

still vaginal dryness? I know. I've had a few people on the show because I'm like, well, the vagina is up here. Anyways, I think it's vaginal because that's that is the canal. is the canal that's where the lubrication comes so i'm gonna make sure i'm correct if someone's gonna be yelling at me like if it's not message us and let us know correct us yes please and you know just a little bit of tmi but you know what sit down and dirty bug i have never when i've masturbated i've never not been able to like a little bit be aroused or a little bit wet and let me just tell you the last couple times I'm like oh this is not good I know that I'm completely off I know that my body is whack-a-doodle right now like you said it is

like I mean I get migraines like I'm like it's just all the stress is here in here yeah but like exponentially I've had stress before and yeah things have been hard but just what you said when normally like you've got goes all to your adrenals or no yeah okay oh lordy did that like hit the the nail on the head because i was like oh that's exactly what's happening and you know if you can't sleep you can't like regulate your body and your cortisol levels and it's like okay so i'm just curious to you just said like good sex and types of sex what does that look like i want to talk about that. Let's talk about it. So there's four phases of our, we call it the infradian rhythm. So men, all creatures, human, animal, even some plants have a circadian rhythm.

This is our 24 hour clock. It really, it regulates a lot of like our hunger, our tiredness, you know, and a healthy circadian rhythm. You're going to wake up feeling rested. You're going to be hungry, you know, three times a day. You're going to fall asleep easily and sleep well. And that's a really solid circadian rhythm. And everything is based like that is an important foundation. So once we have that one solid, we can look at how the women have an infradian rhythm, which is, you know, our 28 day clock that has is where we menstruate and bleed in. And it has four phases and they look like this. So the first phase after your period is called your follicular phase. And then it's your ovulatory phase. This is when we're actually fertile, where we can actually conceive. And then

it heads into our luteal phase, which is historically known as our PMS time. And then it goes back into our menstrual phase where we actually bleed. So that's the easiest one to always tell. But our follicular phase, which is that kind of that first time after we finished bleeding, it's almost like the spring. So this is when lubrication kind of begins again for us. So it can be a time when we're really, you know, like, oh, maybe interested. Maybe we're really going to be intrigued by new ideas, new experiences. So that's where when you think about the arousal of a woman, you know, you're going to be more interested if you're trying something new or if you're out in the world and doing other things that are kind of new and exciting.

And it's a great time to experiment, I think, in sex because you're more open literally to that piece. As we head into your ovulatory phase, that is when we're kind of at our most, we should be at our most lubricated at that time, right? This is when we really are designed to have sex, to conceive to reproduce. And that's a time where you can really explore, I think, and have like multiple orgasms really like lean into that piece. But as we shipped into our luteal phase, this is more of like that fall or that autumn of our body. And this is when energy really plays a role. So a lot of the times when women come to me and they're like, I don't have a libido. I'm like, well, are you not getting wet at all? Or is it that you just are way too tired to deal with

things because often the lubrication can be there if you have the bandwidth to be aroused but it's not just like anything you know remember Celeste I'm sure you remember you know we're in a similar age box so when you are in that time of conceiving and we had friends that were really high stress people and couldn't conceive yeah so when the body is highly stressed it it won't create a baby it'll just not make it happen and so when we're highly stressed and we're handling so much in this stage of our life, and we are, it's like that time period again, then the body's just not, it's like, it's not the priority because it's not even a safe time to lubricate. It's not a safe time to have the baby in the way because, well, probably the point of reproduction is to have a

baby. It's not necessarily the point for having sex, but so, so that really can shut down. I think if you, if you do have the energy, if you are sleeping well through the night and, you know, you are syncing with your cycle and you still have dryness, then we want to look at supplementation because often it's not having enough micronutrients. If the body's grinding away, it's got to use this micronutrients that it has. And for lubrication, we need zinc. We need omega-3s. Like we need to be hydrated. But if you're not sleeping for 28 to 30 days, your body's kind of like, I'm sorry. Like it's just not happening. It doesn't matter. It's not a priority. watch or, you know, it's just, it's not there. So it's more of a bandwidth issue. And that being

said, I mean, there are real lubrication issues. So then that's when you get lube if you've done that underlying work, but that's a real, real piece of that puzzle. As we head into that luteal phase, that's when our metabolism cranks up and we really need more of like an intimacy feeling. Like if we're, if, especially if you're in a partnership and the partner's wanting to have sex and you're not like this is when massages are really good to kind of get yourself in the mood, spending a little bit more time in bed and really taking it slower. You need a bit more of a ramp up time to bring things on because, again, the body's doing more. It's preparing to to slough off an endometrium layer. It's, you know, preparing to host a baby, whatever it's doing in that time

period. And then as we head into the menstrual phase, some people are quite comfortable and happy having sex, but it's actually a much better it's a really great time for clitoral orgasms and clitoral stimulation. So there are seasons kind of within it. And of course, that body is different. But when you know this about yourself, and I think when you support when you've healed that underlying imbalance, and you're working in line with your rhythm, then you have the bandwidth to, I think, have the best orgasms and the best intimacy and the richer pieces there. But it's just not a necessity of life. And it is one of the for reproduction is one of the first things that shuts down when you're overstressed. So that's part of the issue. The body's busy doing

something right now. It's transitioning and it's overtaxed. And so the space and this is where we can start to run out of patience, I think, in a relationship and feel like this is never going to work. This is never good because we're just exhausted. Yeah. And you make such, I mean, so many points there. I love the fact that you broke down the seasons for us, right? Each week of the month and how to embrace sexuality because I think that's so interesting the first the first excuse me I'm gonna I'm gonna ruin all of them so I'm just gonna say the week after your you menstruate is the most adventurous like earlier okay and um doing something new and like I like to call it it'd be like the adventure phase right and then the next one is you know hot multiple

orgasm sex and try new things and it's like summertime okay so spring summer ball that does totally do all the four seasons yeah and when you hit the winter you're like you are more reclusive like your period you kind of want to you know spend a little bit more time being comfortable like being you know dormant being a hermit being you know not out in the winter all the time it's it really makes sense when you start to think about it yeah and you know what I love that. So this is education for all you men out there who are in relationships, who are maybe struggling with, you know, what is my wife? What is my partner going through? Well, this is what's going on. So now that you know, even this is for great for men and women to know,

I just think it's, it's great because now you know how to, okay, she's in a week before her period. Let me like, let me massage her. Like you said, let me, let me do some more like things for her to you know get her in the mood to relax her and maybe not necessarily rush take your time i love those help out a little more around the house during that it's the best way like just do a little more during that time i feel like every mom or every like i don't want to say just mom but every person i think their season of love language is always at the service so i mean i feel like you can even if it's like touch physical touch or something else right i feel like you can never lose all you guys out there the service the service packs and service

you're right I love her I totally agree with you I think that that would is absolutely what I find is my love language now in life it's like when you're so busy and you have so much going on I think that you're right you nailed it how to be every woman it's really physical I know right it's like get off no just kidding get me primed up and then I'll watch you on the it's like one yeah but yeah like I think it's a really powerful if as a man if you know a little bit about this rhythm and you can support it like what an amazing gift that will keep on giving to you yeah because I think a lot it's a lot of clients that I've had over the years maybe men that have got like what happened to the relationship or if they want to talk to me about

why they're in this new relationship and a lot of it is I don't know a huge percentage is based on like a sexless relationship I don't want to say loveless because that's that's really convoluted right you've got all different types of love but I think when it comes to why they're cheating why they go outside of the marriage and obviously it's more than that it's like they're not feeling needed and wanted and a desire, you know, but a lot of that is because from what I'm getting is like women are going through all this kind of by themselves. Yeah. And I imagine there's not that much communication with this subject. Absolutely. I mean, you think, I mean, because I'm in this, I get to watch it almost unfold where, you know, even amongst women, we will talk like with your

closest friends, we will bring up, I'm feeling this, I'm feeling that, but it's like the blind leading the blind out here. Like we don't, you know, we don't give you advice. We're like, well, I went on a hormone, you know, you could go and try these hormones or try these supplements. And you know, I always, what I love about women is that we're so good to be like, hey, this worked for me, try it. But we don't really know what's working because we're so uneducated. So it's, if you even get to the point where you're willing to share, we just don't know the path. Well, I do now and I'm hoping to share it, you know, this is my point here, but it's, it's, it's not our fault, but this is our opportunity. I love that. I, I mean, I think that like, I think you

nailed it on just also, you know, supporting each other, but how do we support each other through this transition? You know, like what is some of the things that we can do for each other or how can we, I mean, just better communication, I would assume, but that's so, that's, you know, very vague too. Do you have any specific tools that. I mean, I think what's really important, you know, for all women and I, and I would say this to your, a male partner, know, know your cycle, like track it, you know, make sure you go on an app. There's so many amazing free apps there. You know, one of them, like one of my favorites in it, like that is a free app, my flow. It's a really great app that really tracks the seasons of your cycle and your

symptoms. Knowing that is such an important piece. And if you, I do have a couple of resources. So if you don't have a regular bleed, or if you don't bleed at all, there's absolutely ways you can track it. So I will, I have a quiz that helps people take that I can send off to you to share with your listeners. It's a free quiz, it's are your hormones holding you back. And depending on you know, where you land in that is going to give you specific resources to help you. So understanding how to track your cycle, if you have an irregular period, where to start if you're in inflammation, you know, a daily hormone checklist. But I would say knowing that piece, it's such a simple thing to track for us. And if you haven't had a period in over a month, because maybe you're in more of

this transition, a lot of the times women really should still be having a regular period, but they have too much stress and it's suppressing their progesterone, which is required for menstruation and ovulation. So when they regulate, their period comes back, which some people don't like, but I mean, it's a really good thing. You can just go back to the last period you have and almost just count the phases by week. We can call it we call it a four by seven. So if if you had a period six weeks ago, then you can go, OK, well, that week was my menstrual week. This is my follicular. You can just kind of count. But apps will take care of that for you as well. That's so great. You mean like with women that are still on birth control that like

allows them not to get their period is that what you're referring to or just in general that you might not have a period but you're still so if you've had a hysterectomy some women who've gone through like chemotherapy or radiation you know it's certain if you're just like it's not uncommon to start having period irregularities the average is typically closer to 50 so 47 48 49 if you start having an irregular you just skip periods because you don't have enough progesterone so if you don't really know when it was, then there's different ways, the really simple ways that you can track it. And certainly, you know, the trouble with birth control is that it's not really, we're not actually ovulating ever in there. So, but we can follow, we still have this rhythm and we can

follow the rhythm. The hormones don't move the same way if you're on birth control or the same amount, we'll call it, but it's still a worthy practice if you're on birth control. It will absolutely give you the information that you need to heal and to thrive going forward. Amazing. So anybody that has had a hysterectomy, you're still going through these cycles. Is that correct? Or you don't? I mean, so there's two things. And I'd say there's some people have differing opinions on this where, but often when people, women get hysterectomies, they still have their ovaries, which means they're still producing hormones. Okay. If they have their ovaries. Okay. Gotcha. But even if they don't, Celeste, here's what I we don't start menstruating and create this rhythm at 12, 13 years of age and then get to our 40s and have a hysterectomy and just not have a rhythm. Like I work with women all the time who are actually post-menopausal that still have these symptoms, which means they're still having

hormones. Just because we've gone a year without having a period doesn't mean we don't have those rhythms in there, maybe not the amount, but the process to healing and thriving. Same. Gotcha. So, okay. I know I don't want to give away too much, but what is your process? Yeah. So I know you talked about the, you know, you've got to heal, you got to, you know, cast it, you know, you get out in the physical therapy and then you start to strengthen, but I know you talked about a lot of as nutrition, physical exercise. to. Yeah, that's great. So I always say and this this idea of like casting the foot, this is something I do for myself. Like I look at the year ahead and I'm like, OK, when are three or four

months this year that I can just focus on my health and really just kind of solidify up the foundations of our piece, which is, you know, making sure that we don't have excess stress coming out or we can control whatever is coming because there's things we can't control. Right. I can't control what's going on in your career, your relationship or, you know, sicknesses and moves and tough things that happen, but we do get to control the four main, what I call them, the four main health pillars of our life. So what I think is one of the most amazing exercises to do is spend a month and you want to think about your health like a dining table. It has four legs and these are our four pillars of health, sleep, movement, and by movement, I mean functional

movement, fitness, like lifting weights and HIIT training. That's a luxury body item and you can't do it until your pillar of health is solid, right? So movement, like am I just getting functional movement in every day, nutrition and stress management and pleasure. And those, I put those together because it's really hard to have real pleasure if you're really stressed. So they kind of hand in hand. And so for the month, we want to look at each of these health pillars. And you want to think about with this table, if one of these legs is rickety, it's a bit of an annoying dining experience, right? Someone puts their elbow on the table and the food kind of shifts and it's annoying. You can manage. You're like, whatever, we can get through this. If two are rickety,

I mean, you're down on the ground, like folding up cardboard and shoving, right? But if three are rickety, your dinner's on the ground and it's a terrible dining experience. You're not going back to that restaurant. So this is the same with our health. So we look at sleep first. It's such a critical part for our hormonal health. And it really is, I'd say the first piece to always look at. We want to create space because we can't always roll sleep. We want to create space for us to be having, I mean, I always used to say seven to nine hours, but I would say for women going through perimenopause, like eight to 10 hours, make sure you're in your bed for eight to 10 hours a night. And then we learn how to deepen that, right? Like you want to make sure

we're not looking at screens before and after. There's things we can do at night to kind of create a deeper sleep, but we want to just make sure we're having that kind of rest in our life. For movement, we want to look at, am I getting like 7,000 to 10,000 steps in a day? Am I stretching enough in life. Just making sure you're, you know, maybe you're stretching, doing some yoga, something to kind of release the pent up stress and pressure in your body for, you know, 30 minutes, three times a week. But then that daily walking, I mean, that's a foundational pillar. It's like going to kindergarten. This is the kindergarten of your health. We need to make sure we're moving before you go doing an intense CrossFit or HIIT

workout. Are you even walking, you know, seven hours a day? Because that's functional movement that our body's going to need now until we die. Nutrition, what I like to do is pull out the high inflammatory foods. So that's really cutting back on caffeine. If you're going to have caffeine, we're like one a day, never on an empty stomach because that automatically spikes your cortisol and makes things worse. It's pulling out sugar, alcohol, gluten, conventionally raised dairy, and like genetically modified soy and corn. Obviously, there's other things that people of allergies too but those are our known irritants to our gut they create inflammation do i eat those yes i totally eat those now but in that month i clear it out because it's another job for the

body to deal with right it's just more work and then stress and pleasure like are you taking 30 minutes to just relax can you do some vagal nerve exercises each day to calm your system down are you calm when you eat one of the most amazing studies talks about how the state of our nervous system when we eat will determine whether the food good bad or ugly is used and burned as energy or whether it's stored as fat so you want to make sure you're calm when you actually eat your three meals a day without you know without inflammatory foods so that you can use that food otherwise we stay in this low battery mode and this is why you can know women or meet women who are I mean I talked to a woman just today who burns almost a thousand calories three times a week plus other

workouts and eats really well and cannot budge 40 pounds that she needs to lose like and that's why that's not right no it's not yes right so we want to heal those pieces so what you want to do is take a month, really heal those kind of four pieces, really prioritize them. And I really like to look at it as like you're bringing it back to the foundations of what health begins with. And then we can get creative. Then we can do more intense luxury body things or then, you know, but we do need to make sure a few times a year that we prioritize our health because it's the foundation of happiness. Well, it's the foundation of life itself. It's like if you don't, I I'll never forget a really good friend of mine. He's very, very successful, you know, young,

had the beautiful family, like you name it, everything checks the box in his life and then found out he had brain cancer. And so that's an extreme, right? But when we're talking about health or talking about, and when I talk to my, my clients about how important it is to be, you know, forget about this high value man, right? It's, it's, it's loving and nurturing yourself because we get one body, we get one chance. I mean, we do get multiple chances to, of course, Kura, but we do have one life and like, why not make it the best? Why not allow us to, to enjoy? Because like you said, it's, it's happiness. And it is, it's because I can enjoy my daughter more. If I get more sleep, I can, all of these things, right? One,

just it's like the domino effect. I mean, you everything lining up makes the end result so much better. Yeah. No matter what relationship you're talking about, like you said, with your children, with your partner, with whoever you might be dating, with your parents, if you're consumed by how you feel in your body, then, you know, you're not able to have the richness of that relationship because you're uncomfortable or, you know, you can't even have as deep of an intimacy. If you don't feel good in your body, I mean, your sex can only be so good if you don't feel completely like yourself, right? That is like the key to amazing sex, I think, is really feeling good in just how you are and feeling comfortable. So it's layers, isn't it? It's

layers. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I'm glad you made that last note because I think when I spoke about, you know, other clients and the men's that, you know, and it's not just the sex part, but it is women, us going through this phase, we're not comfortable, you know, and I think it's such something that I like, I really, really talk about and educate and how important it is to really tap into, you know, turning a woman on and allowing her to be in that space. And it's so much more, it's that, you know, a lot of layers there too, but it's like, yeah, that is a very important, the more secure and comfortable we are with our body and the more healthy we are, the more comfortable and we are going to be in bed or outside of bed or whatever

you do for your sex life. And that makes so much sense. So like, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, you're welcome. And probably the last thing I would say on its list is, you know, I think for women, it can be really hard to ask for what we need and to prioritize ourselves. You know, I definitely remember, you know, spending decades of my life just wanting like doing and doing and martyring myself like wanting someone else to recognize what you know but that doesn't really serve anyone at the end of the day I think this is a time in our life where we're like it's time for me to focus on my health it will give back to all y'all but this is the time and you can't wait around for someone to be like go invest in yourself take care of you like

it's just not gonna happen so we need to really step into that piece of like I deserve to feel better and I'm the one who's going to do it. So it's now is that time before we get further into menopause because it does get more challenging. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing all that information. I hope everybody listened and learned. And seriously, any female is going to go through this, your mother, your sister, your girlfriend, your wife, like so understanding that And to all the women out there, like myself, who have learned so much from you, I really want to say thank you. And learning those phases of life is really, I see, like, invaluable. And then you can start implementing all those amazing things. And like myself, I may just be talking to Bria outside of here, because I think I am definitely, I'm wanting to feel good in my body. It's been years and years. I mean, this is not quite everything, but for 20 plus years, I've been in chronic pain from endometriosis and I finally decided and, you know, they said,

well, wait till after you're, you know, if you want another child and wait till after you're 40 and then we'll talk about it. And, you know, 47, it took me a little while, but I'm tired of not feeling good. I'm tired of being in pain. I'm tired of all of these things that are holding back because I've been able to deal with it I've been able to like it's not my identity it's not my focus you know and now it's just as soon as I decided that that was going on the calendar and I found my position and you know all of these things can I just tell you my body is just like like it is releasing it is going wackier it is like it is like it's overtime right now so yeah so prioritizing your health is so important so important i couldn't agree more

well okay so one question well one personal question and um i would love to know what was one of your favorite dates and what was it one of my favorite dates oh god there's so many good ones. That's hard. I love that. I would say my wife and I were in Montreal and we rented those bikes that, you know, like they're called Bixies in Montreal, but like, you know, just for the city bikes that you can run. Yeah. Okay. It was in the summer and we biked down to the river and there was farmer's markets there. So we were able to just like pick up like a little picnic lunch and lay it out along the river on a blanket under a tree and just like sip wine and eat fancy cheeses felt like we were in Europe and it was just such a beautiful relaxing but fun and active

date all at once so that was definitely one of my favorite dates I love that thank you for sharing that I love dates that involve activity because I think that there's so much more that happens and just connecting but it's like this bonding experience you've got endorphins you've got all these good things and like you said in nature that also is really good and like like we were in europe but i love that no like we were somewhere else we were doing something new and i think that's such a key to do it's trying something experiencing something new with your partner is really stimulates the part of your body that reinvigorates that feeling of falling in love. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing. So where can everybody find you listening

here wants more information and wants to hire you? Oh, yeah. So definitely come. I have a podcast as well called the Period Whisperer podcast where we talk all about this stuff, you know, and obviously in greater detail and and we pick apart all the small pieces. So there's a lot of value there. You can get it anywhere you're getting your podcast. You can come follow me and check out me on Instagram, which is Bria underscore period underscore whisperer, but definitely take the quiz. I'll send it to Celeste, hopefully throw in the show notes. It's a free quiz. It's going to at least give you that understanding of where you are at and where to go. Perfect. Thank you so much. Yeah. Everything will be in the show notes. So don't worry, everybody. You can find all this

information there. Thanks again for jumping on. Thank you for being our guest today. And don't forget to visit me at celestamore.com. Sign up for my email list and I'll send you a bunch of goodies too on relationship and date ideas and fun little juicy things. But again, I will see you guys next time. Thank you. If you enjoyed today's episode and want to support podcasts like ours, then please hit that subscribe button, leave a five star rating and or invite others to listen. Your Your support is what helps us grow and continue to bring you valuable content. Thanks for hanging out with us on today's episode. Let's stay connected.

You can find me on Instagram at Celeste Moore Image, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's discussion. For all the links, resources, and additional information mentioned in this episode, check out the show notes on my website, CelesteMoore.com. That's all for now, but stay tuned for our next episode where we'll dive into more exciting topics. Until then, see you next time, friends.