The Livy Method Podcast - Introducing Fitness and Women's Health Expert Amanda Thebe - Fall 2025

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Introducing our newest guest expert! In this episode, Gina welcomes fitness and women’s health expert Amanda Thebe for a real-talk conversation on the messy truth about menopause, movement, and mental health. With over 30 years in the industry and a no-BS approach, Amanda shares her own experience navigating perimenopause—from unexplained symptoms to being misdiagnosed—highlighting the massive gap in support for women. Together, she and Gina cut through the confusion and share the kind of honest, informed advice women need but rarely get. Whether you’re in the thick of it or just starting to wonder what’s going on, this episode is packed with relatable insights and straight-up validation.Where to find Amanda:https://amandathebe.com/Instagram: @amanda.thebeBook:Menopocalypse: How I Learned to Thrive During Menopause and How You Can Too!You can find the full video hosted at: www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodfall2025To learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy, and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams for my 91-day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews, and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on ACAST, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music.

We're focusing on sustainable habits, not quick-fixing. Is it an opportunity to get curious? We're here, help people get to their health goals. One piece of a time. Be build and build and build and build. Absolutely thrilled and honored to introduce our new guest, Amanda Thief. She is a fitness and a women's health expert. I mean, she's been in the field for over 30 years.

She's all about straight talk. She is also the author of the book, Menopocalypse, how I thrive during menopause and how you can too. Hello. Hi, my friend. Hello. I'm so happy to be here. Oh, my goodness.

That was such a fancy intro. This is a bit laudy da. You guys don't even know. So I had an opportunity to meet with Amanda, like a few months back. And I worked her so hard. I'm like, you have got to come on. You have got to meet the community. We have such a great community because they really are trying really hard to make change in all the healthiest of ways.

And, you know, there's a lot of crap out there. And, you know, people have been through the ringer with the diet industry. And we just kind of, we want to know that we're doing the right thing, especially when it comes to fitness and especially when it comes to menopause. So I think you're the perfect person to have this conversation. Okay. so where should we start? Maybe a little bit about you. Why you're, at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start. Let's start there. So you were born. So yeah, why fitness? Why fitness? Then we'll get into menopause. You know, I was that annoying kid that had too much energy

and I come from a very small town in the northeast of England, like an industrial town. And I think my mom was like, if I don't get her doing something, she's going to be either drunk or pregnant, like by the time she's 15, so I actually started doing martial arts and I did that. I trained to get my black belt and never, I dropped out before I did it. I don't know why, but so, yeah, so I did that. And I think just doing sports as a kid really is one of those things. That's why I love sports for children because, you know, it just instills something in them that's habitual, right?

And that's what I know you're all about with your community. It's like it's not about making these massive changes. It's like, what do you do every day that makes it easy for you to show up? Well, for me, it was just a pattern that was ingrained in me as a kid. So I don't have like a story where I was unfit and got fit or was overweight and got. I just, I've just been one of those plodders. I've plodded along where my fitness has been brilliant. It's been low, but I've just always been able to sort of stick with it.

So, yeah, that's sort of my background to fitness. And I didn't want it to be a career, but I always did it as like a, a side thing. And so I actually had a really great career working with IBM as a systems analyst. Yeah. So, I mean, I had a huge team at IBM. And then my husband and I, who was my boyfriend at the time, picked up sticks and we went to Boston so he could go to school. Gina's met my husband as well. She hit him hard too. Get a vendor on the shore. Get Amanda on the shore. And so we lived in Boston. And when I was there, I was like, I can't work here. I need to do something. And so I just started making fitness and health and nutrition, just more of a permanent thing. And then

it sort of led into my career path and having children, it made it easier as well. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I do know. And kind of like, you know, I have a very similar story where this was my side gig, my, my, you know, extra thing. And then I realized it was like my true passion in life. and, you know, grateful for that. But let's talk about the menopause thing. I mean, we have a variety of members here and the conversation is not relevant to everyone, but it's relevant to a heck of a lot of us here. So where's the love from menopause? Because you were talking menopause well before the conversation was cool or mainstream or, you know, it's really blown up in the last couple of years. But how did you get into talking about menopause? Yeah. So it wasn't

on my bingo card. It wasn't like something I was like, when I get to my 50s, I'm really, I'm talking about menopause. And actually, what's really interesting is I have got so, when you're a fitness professional, you do the main sort of like fitness exam or whatever and you have to keep on top of it. But you're encouraged to do lots of diplomas and continuing education. And I've worked from everything from pro athletes to seniors, from postpartum to injury recovery. And I feel like I have a really good understanding of human physiology. Like I understand the human body.

and how it works. And then I personally started to experience some issues in my 40s, about 42. And I started to feel really unwell, Gina, like to the point where I was like, why do I always feel so shit? I do everything for my body. And I just don't understand what's going on. For about two years, I was sort of in the Canadian medical system, which I really thought was great.

They really wanted to help me, but nobody knew what was wrong. to the point where I don't wear sickness very well. And one nurse came up to me and went, we don't know what's wrong with you, but you do look terrible. I was like, cheers. I know. And anyway, and then I went for like a wellness checkup at a gynecologist.

And this is two years into me not feeling great. And he just said, is everything okay? I'd gone for some other issue. And I was like crying. And he was like, look, I think I know what's going on. I think you're in perimenopause and I can help you. Because I was struggling with depression. Yeah.

He told me migraines with aura and vertigo, so I would fall over, be sick. I just didn't feel good. I also was struggling with incontinence. I'd thrown out two nine and a half pound babies and bounced right back and all of a sudden I'm peeing myself all the time. I'm just like, what is going on? Yeah. And that sort of sent me down to perimenopause rabbit hole because I'd never heard of the

words. Like, gosh, if I think about it, I'm 55 now, and that was when I was 44, so 11 years ago. And the word perimenopause wasn't in our vocabulary. I don't think so, Dina, was it? No. And in my mind, I'm like, menopause, I never learned about that in any of my education. And isn't that for, like, old people, don't have a period and just want to, like, sit around and, like, with her? I just didn't understand what it meant. Yes. It sort of sent me down a rabbit hole and I started speaking. have a community on Facebook too and I started speaking to them and then writing about it and nobody wanted to talk about it. It was still a menopause. It's just too icky and, you know, there's a stigma around it. Yes. And that's sort of how it started and it just evolved and evolved. And as it

evolved, I realized that I didn't think I knew anything. Oh my goodness. The women in my community knew even less. And it was like, okay, I don't consider myself a menopause expert. Of course I'm not because I'm not a doctor, but I have very well educated on it. And I know all the right people to ask and I know how to read scientific papers. And so I feel like I'm a good conduit from the medical world to like a general public, a little bit like you are with weight loss. You know how, you know, you have people that see medical specialists with the obesity or any other sort of metabolic issues. And then they then need to know, well, what do I do with that?

And then how do I deal with that? It's the same thing. Yeah, it actually is really similar. I'm more like, you know, I used to be like weight loss expert. I've learned a lot about talking to real people and working with real people about like the house and wise and all of that. And now I'm more like a facilitator of the conversation, I think. That's sort of where I'm going with that.

Which is so important, you know, it's not like you almost made it sound like a step back downgrade, but it's a step back really important position because knowledge translation really matters. So when I talk about menopause and I dig into the guidelines all the time, the guidelines are there from the menopause societies to really protect women and keep them safe, but they're not easy to read. They're not meant for the general public. They're written in a way that's meant for the medical profession. And so I am quite good at humanizing, like the conversation. I think so anyway. Yeah, you are. You break it down in a way that people can understand, right? I think that's really, really important.

Okay, I want to get into, like, lots of questions coming in about fitness and wellness and all of that. What is the right fitness for women to be doing? Is it different from men? That's a really great question. And, you know, I love that because we're told everything changes in menopause and therefore you need to do everything different. And I actually think I really bought into that from one standpoint. Oh, God. The science doesn't actually.

back that up. The science doesn't back up the fact that we need to be doing specifically anything differently. But there's a caveat to that. What we do, what women do need to do is they need to understand that menopause, specifically perimenopause really, Gina, like the time leading up to it when women are more symptomatic, when they really feel like exhausted or they just can't show up. That's something in the fingers world, we called it auto regulation. And auto regulation is simply just check in with yourself, check in with yourself and say, is today the day I'm going to do my 10k run on my heavy gym session? Or do I feel like my energy is like a two out of ten and I just want to go for a nice walk today? And I remember writing about this

and women said to me, oh, I get to make that choice. I get to decide and I'm like, well, yeah. And I think that there are so many rules and so many sheds that women should do that we forget that were the individual human at the other side of it. And from an analogy from a weight loss goal, imagine you saying, oh, no, you have to have a 120 grams of protein with that meal and it has to be chicken. They would be like, well, I don't like chicken and I actually don't want to eat 120 grams of it. You would never say, well, then you're such a loser. Well, you might call him a loser, actually, because they're literally losers. But I mean, I mean, not a loser loser. Yeah. So, okay, let's talk about that for a second because I think what would you suggest to someone who's never exercised or haven't exercised in a really long time? Because I think that we do put that pressure. It's got to be all or nothing. We like come up with an exercise routine. I'm going to work out three times a week for an hour or the minimum suggested is X. And then if I don't have an hour or I can't get to the gym, I just end up doing nothing. So how do how do we start or get back at it again? Exactly. So like,

It's the all or nothing rather than the all or something mentality. And if women can make that shift, then they're on the right path. And even to go back to your previous question, what's the right way to exercise? Well, it's the right way for you. But we do have to also bear in mind that as we go through menopause, as we get older and as we become more sedentary, because we do, when we look at the data, we slow down a little bit, unless we purposefully look for movement, then there are things that the body sort of requires and it requires it for later in life and people talk about their health span rather

than their lifespan like how can you age like in a more healthy way exercise is probably the number one thing you can do to really support your body most women don't do enough strength training right it might be because they don't know how to start or they don't really know what it is and most people don't meet their basic guidelines for cardiovascular disease which is currently 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week and broken down, that's 20 minutes a day or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, that's 10 minutes a day. Most people don't reach that. I think it's something like 85% of the population aren't meeting that. So I'm like, okay, so when I hear all of the fitness influencers out there, and there's some particular ones that are like, zone 2 training doesn't

work for women and you only have to do hit training and you have to lift heavy shit and you have to do 11 push-ups. I'm just like, you've never worked with most women because most women aren't doing that and they don't know how. So why have you already made the bar too high for entry? Honest, you say 150 and I'm just like, fuck. It's right. And then you break it down 20 minutes a day. I'm like, oh, okay, like I can do that. And then you're like, or the 10 minutes a day of high intensity, then I'm like, oh. And it just makes people feel exhausted, right? So I'm like, like saying to women, we're going to meet you where you are and we're going to start you where you are. And we're all going to start at different levels. I always think that, you know,

like someone who's never exercised or someone that's coming back, you know, if you took a bit of a break, if perimen metapause is kicking your ass and you don't know where to start, I'm totally about those. You're the perfect person to start exercising again because you get all those new begins, right? Like when you haven't exercised and you start again, your progress is very quick, you know, when you stay with it consistently, rather than someone like me that's already sort of like plateaued out. It's really hard for me to make significant changes. And so I'm just like, say to people, where, where are you right now? Are you currently just going out for your walk with Jane every day, like or twice a week? Okay, so why don't we see if we can get your heart rate

changed a bit? Why don't you do some hill, like faster hill walks with her? You know, like just find ways to just push yourself a little bit with strength training and that can feel like a massive barrier i think getting women to do more cardiovascular or alternate the frequency of the heart you know either lower level or higher level yeah they can sometimes buy into that more than the strength training the strength training i'm saying fitness snacks is the way to start or body wear exercises is a way to start do something that you don't normally do and just start it doesn't have to have huge structure to start with. But when you're boiling the potatoes,

why don't you do some push-ups against the kitchen counter? Why don't you do some squats? Like, you know, when you get in from your shopping or something. I don't know. Like, just find something and try and stick with it consistently.

Is that what you meant by fitness snacks? Yeah, like, so, like, especially if we do this auto-regulation, like where am I on an energy scale? Do I really have the energy to do something? And you're feeling like a meh, like a four to five, like I'm feeling a bit blah.

Well, then do you have 10 minutes? you can try something because there's actually data to show this, Gina, that doing something, if you were to not exercise all week and do one workout on a Sunday, you're going to get more benefit out of doing something smaller every day. And usually that's because there's a consistency you build up that you can, you don't tend to stop. You work with habits as well. To me, fitness is a great way to dig into those habits. How can you show up and then keep improving. And the reason it's important to show up is because when you start to feel a bit more capable, then curiosity kicks in. And curiosity is the way that your body goes, oh, so I'm doing my 10

push-ups against the kitchen counter when the spuds are boiling. So what else am I capable of? Maybe I can do some against the staircase. It's a bit harder and I might be able to do. And you just, women just start to push. And it's the push and the progression that actually improves our body's health, right? So you don't want to stay in one place. You want to start climbing up the mountain a little bit. And most women don't believe there, especially through midlife, there's a great exercise physiologist that I follow, Dr. Susan Kleiner, and she said perimenopause, you know, halts puts the brakes on women's fitness a little bit. And it's probably when you need it the most. And women stop believing in their athletic ability. They just don't think

they can anymore. I think they can, but in their self-belief. And that actually translates to losing lean body mass, losing muscle mass. And we don't want that. We actually want you to hold onto your muscle and maintain it and even build it for like older age. Yeah, well, we just, we feel like shit. We feel depressed and we just feel like everything is hard. You know, I wish we could wrap people in a blanket of like a warm hug of what it feels like when you do start. You're like okay i did that doesn't have to you i think the feeling is the same whether you did 10 pushups 10 minutes or an hour of 10 an hour and 10 minutes of exercise you just you did it you started it and then it's just a matter of building on top of that um i see you trying to have a sip of your coffee

have a sip of your coffee i'm going to read this comment and this question from lauren here i'm 46 and i think i'm right in the perimenopause shit storm i have struggled all program up and down two pounds and I exercise every day, include my rest days and easy walking days along with weights. I feel like nothing is budging. Even my measurements aren't moving. Just a bit frustrated as I'm trying to figure out how to best move my body during this time. Maybe I'm not doing it right based on this hormonal period. Oh, it's so difficult.

And the way it's like, I mean, you know, this is your business. It's the number one question I get asked all the time. Yeah. And it's very frustrating. And sometimes I really want to say to people, I know you want to lose weight, but is it what your body wants right now? I don't know. Is it something that you can maybe put to the side and say, it's struggling? I'm not feeling great.

Is there anything else I can do to support my body so that it feels a bit more optimized? And that is the stuff that you teach. So how is your sleep? How you actually get in seven to nine hours sleep? If you're not, you might be struggling to lose weight because of that. like that impacts our weight, right? How is your stress level? And then are you exercising, you know,

and looking at all those lifestyle skills. Is there any like little nibbles and snacks? Because we actually know that the hunger hormones, grellin and leptin, are sort of impacted by estrogen falling and declining. We don't know to how much extent, but if your grellin is the one that, I would say it's easy to remember that one

because it's like the growling, the grumbling sound in your belly, you know, and you're hungry, if that's always on, and then the signal that goes to your brain from your fat stores that says, you've eaten enough now, you're satisfied. If that's sort of like delayed or impacted and you realize that, you know, you may be overeating a little bit, then it might be worth having some, taken some time to be mindful around food. I'm not saying you're not. I'm just putting scenarios out there. Because I put, I put weight on my waist fairly stable all my life. And I think I put about 15 pound on during perimenopause and I was like, how did this happen? Nothing's

changed. Everything's the same. And then I was like, apart from for the last four weeks, I've really been sat on the sofa a lot. Like, I've been so tired. And I've been nibble in and eating really simple food because I didn't want to. And so I've been eating more crackers and all of this stuff there's like, you don't realize how much you're eating. But there's a couple of things to know. first of all, menopause does not impact your metabolism. It impacts your metabolic function. You know, we can become more insulin resistant, et cetera. But the metabolism doesn't change until we're heading towards our 60s.

Then it only drops down by about 0.7%. And that, when I first heard that, I was like, that doesn't feel fair. But then it does feel fair because then you're in the driver's seat, then you know nothing's broken. You have to work with where you are. And it tends to be the data showing that we're not exercising as much. We are eating more. And there's other variables and barriers that are stopping us, like, really digging into those. And it might just be that you're having a couple of off days and you're just not on top of things.

And I don't ever want to, I always find this hard to talk about because I don't want to diminish her experience. But do you get them to track and write things down? So she can really have like a non-emotional objective look at the data. Yeah. I mean, we're all about collecting our own data, right? Really being aware what we're doing. Data, data, tomato, tomato. Trust you.

I'm so jealous of your accent. I want one. We get people, it's all about sense of awareness. What are the choices that are they making? How are they feeling? Really, it's really about pulling inward and not what's wrong with me. What's going on with me? Where am I at?

what do I need in journaling is it great but do you have a specific suggestion of what people are tracking or no not really i mean one i'm one of those people that like to track what feels comfortable for you because i realize everybody has a different comfort zone um but i think that like for me what i did and what i would encourage people to do if it didn't sort of trigger any sort of emotional response is just objectively don't look at the scale and i think i'm okay with measurements like i think that or even just visually looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing some changes. But maybe just go, well, was my food on point these days? Did I actually meet the exercise goals I wanted? It could even just be a tick in the box, just an honest,

objective look at it. I did that myself and I realized I wasn't moving as much as I thought I did. Like, for example, my steps, I was down to like sometimes 3,000 steps a day. And I was like, oh, wow, you don't realize when you think you've exercised and then you sit down in front of the computer. And so objectively, you feel like you may be doing it, but are you? Like, have a, have a subjectively, sorry, but then when you look at the actual data data, like, what does it say? So I would start there. The other thing I would say is it's important to know that our body changes shape as well, which I'm sure you've talked about before, but fat deposits change as our estrogen declines. We adopt more of an androgen shape body, like from the pear to the

apple. So even someone who's weight hasn't changed, their measurements might change because they may are holding more fat around their belly, right? And that can feel really weird because your genes don't fit as much. And I'm all about like, let's lean into that. Let you know this might happen. So rather than hating yourself over this, why don't you just accept that the body's going through some changes? We can, you doesn't make you less of a person. You're still completely awesome and but you may not care for the way it looks so what are some things that you can do to change and if you're doing the same thing over and over again and it's not working then why don't we look at something else see if it's are you exercising too much is your body like not recovering

enough it's very individual right but i would say dig dig into the basics don't overcomplicate things at all and just look for consistency and and also it's capable to lose weight in menopause and it is capable to build muscle in menopause. All of those things are very doable. It doesn't mean it's easy at all. Yeah, I mean, good point. I want to get into, I want to get into that a little bit more. But I also want to, you know, when it comes to fitness, we're out there, do, and I mean,

obviously you do fitness, but it's so hard because, like, I'm thinking Stacey Sims, and I don't mean any disrespect, but she's super jacked. And it's kind of like that's our, like if we're not doing that, it's not enough. And don't bother, don't bother, right? That's the sort of message you feel when you see that, right? Oh, if I don't look like a fitness influencer, then what's the point? Or that's the gold standard of like when we have to like lift weights and do resistance training, that's what we have to aspire to.

And it's just like that is so impossible for like so many of us. We're never going to have the time nor the energy. And we're just trying to make it through the fucking day, Amanda. Right. So I, I mean, I actually know. and I really used to love her work and I don't enjoy it as much now. I do think she's a super smart woman, but there's a couple of caveats I think are worth knowing about Stacey.

And one is that she is an athlete. She was like a national level athlete. And she works primarily with the athletic community. So when you see her do the soundbites in, things like Zone 2 is absolutely a no starter for women. And Zone 2, for those that don't know, zone 1 is like going out for a walk, just moving, your heart rate's a particular zone, like a number of beats per minute.

Zone 2 is when you're going out for a walk and you're sort of a little bit out of breath, you know, like you're trying to gossip about the neighbor, but you're like, hang on a minute. And it's like just a little bit out of breath. That has so many health benefits. It's crazy that you would say, don't do zone 2. It makes no sense. And if you're an endurance athlete and you are one to do like really long distances,

well, most of your work, like 80% of your work is going to be in there, own too because you have to be able to sustain it for a long time. So it's these like these like unique things that women should do that don't make a lot of sense when you apply that to just people like others, right? Like it doesn't make a ton of sense. And so I do find it particularly jarring and I would just say to women that you can be inspired by people like that going, oh, I'd love to be jacked. Well, there's a few things you can do to counteract that. Even leaning into that last question. Strength training is probably the best thing you can do that will actually stop you obsessing over how much you wear and really let you lean into changing

body composition. People like Stacey Sims have a lot of muscle compared to fat, right? And so when you do start exercising, especially with weight, you can change the shape of your body and it can for some women feel more aesthetically pleasing. It's not, it's okay to exercise because you want to look different. I mean, it's just a fact of life, right? Whether we want to admit that or not, it can be for other reasons too, but it's okay to want to, you know, look good naked.

We talked about this before, Gina. And so I just feel like these high-level personalities that really are just in every, like, weight loss, in menopause and exercise, I just look and go, I'm not even going to do that. And I'm someone who exercises regularly. I'm not like a high-level athlete. I'm not going to do hit training three times a week.

It makes me feel like shit. I actually hate the way it makes me feel the next day. I'm exhausted. So I've decided not to do that. And you know what? That's perfectly okay. And you get to do that too. And so should we change what we're doing just to make clear if you are in perimenopause

or menopause. Are we saying postmenopause anymore? We still... Well, all postmenopause means if we go along the spectrum, perimenopause is the date up to menopause. I think Jen's probably spoke about this in your community. Menopause being the one day that you are considered to be menopausal. And everything from that day, from menopause until the day you die, your body is in a postmenopausal or menopausal state. And so for me, I'm just like perimenopause and then your menopausal. I mean, it's interchangeable and I don't think it matters. And actually,

I think we get too hung upon the, what stage are you in? Because it's like, how do you feel is really more important, right? Okay. So then should women in post menopause, someone in post menopause versus someone premenopause, would the exercise change? Is that an age thing? Or is that a menopause stage thing? Is it the same same? No, there's no data to support. We do need to change anything up in menopause at all. And even men and women, there's no real

data. And the data that's quoted often by people like Stacey Sims are based on mouse models, rat models, which do have their place in the scientific literature, because it helps us, have more questions. Should we be testing this? Should we like be seen if this hypothesis works? But it hasn't been played out practically. But even though there's no specific shift in anything you need to do, it's high, well, you're highly encouraged in menopause to do at least two strength training classes a week. And you're talking about 30 minutes, two times that this is where you're trying to get to, not your starting point.

Remember this. And then to meet those 150 minutes. of cardiovascular week. And also you're encouraged to do balance and flexibility work because ultimately the reason we're promoting that is for a few things. When you get older, you're more likely to break a bone. And actually, menopause is specific to that. You can, it increases the risk in the first 10 years

after menopause of breaking a bone. So you need strength training to help you to combat loss of bone and try and build more if possible. Strength training will also help you build. muscle, which is a supportive system for your skeletal body. So if you do fall, hopefully you don't break something. And then the balance, obviously, is to stop you falling too. And you can incorporate these all into one thing. You don't have to go, oh, I've got to do my balance training today. And I've got to do my bone building activity today. A good strength training program will cover

all of that for you. And then keeping your heart healthy, heart attacks are still the number one killer. Heart disease, sorry, is the number one killer of women. Yes. And so we have to build up our aerobic capacity. And so just knowing as you get older, shit starts to get harder, you need to go, okay, so rather than being super structured, just in your dig or have I moved enough? Have I actually done enough today? How do I feel? Do I feel capable of doing a car pay DM workout or do I just want to do a fitness snack? Like have some strategies in place so that you can go, you know, I actually had a list of one to 10. I can print this out for your group, actually. I'll do it for you, Gina. I want to 10, like, how do you feel and how do you feel? And what might that look like for you?

It might be, say you're doing a circuit training class at home. And it's four rounds and it's using weights and you're like, that's my like perfect workout. But maybe you just only want to do one circuit and that's going to feel like a win for you. You need to do something that makes you feel like you've achieved something today. and you can adjust the bar based on how you're feeling. But the caveat to that is also know that you are very, very capable. And I think that, you know, when I see someone walking out at Walmart with 20 bags of shopping and then they go and pick up the five pound dumbbells to do a squat with,

I'm just like, hey, lady, I saw you. Right? And this is like longevity. This is how this is beyond just, I mean, obviously people, they're buy into the program is weight loss. They want to lose some extra fat or went up. Very quickly, it becomes way more than that. They realize moving their body is so much more important. I have two questions for you before we go. One is on motivation. Do you have any tips for motivation? Yeah, so motivation isn't innate. It isn't just something that you have. And motivation is something, it's like a muscle

you can grow. And I really like women to think of it that way because then it means that when you get out and you don't feel like doing something. It's not because you've failed. It's because it's something you haven't sort of grown or built. And so this is where your habit stacking comes in, Gina. Like this can be like, you know, I don't feel motivated to go to the gym. So let's bring it back a bit. What are you motivated to do?

Could you get a bit of equipment for the house? Like have you got like body weight exercises are fine too? So like let's, but it's you showing up. And you keep in doing it, and then it sort of, in building up that habit, that builds motivation too, as well as the curiosity, right? So I'm the same. Like, I've been told you, I've been doing this since I was a kid. I don't always jump out of bed and go, oh, today I get to exercise. Usually I'm like, where's my coffee? Like, know that it's not like, you're not failing because you don't feel motivated. But when you exercise, the goal is that you always feel better than when

you went in, right? That's the point. And so, When you come out of their feeling better, that helps grow motivation. And it can happen because you maybe go to a group class and you get to hang out with other people. Or, you know, you've got that accountability within the group. Find ways that help build motivation and then try and feed that into the rest of your peer group. You know, that just brought me to something I was thinking about you. So, you know, the stats of the people that aren't exercising? Is it just so I was big into fitness when I was younger, but it was very much,

if you didn't leave one of my classes feeling like you were going to throw a while, If I went to someone else's classes and didn't crawl out of their on my hands and knees feeling like I was going to die, it wasn't a good class. I didn't work out hard enough. Do you think people are exercising less? And is it harder for us? Is that why maybe our generation has that all or nothing attitude? Yes, I think so as well. And you know, we were fed this societally as well. Like you're not allowed to be fat. You have to be thin. And you have to be thin by overexercising. And, you know, and there was always unachievable goals. And I think that we're wising up to that now. a lot of women going through like midlife and menopause are like yeah fuck that like it's just not sustainable right so yeah but we we definitely don't move as much as as in our midlife as we do in our 20s and a great analogy of that is one of my friends said you know I was aware on holiday and I was talking to this woman and she said I'm sat reading my book and I'm feeling fat and gross and wondering why and I look over at another woman in the pool and she's thrown her kid in the air and she's never sat down and she's like oh my gosh

Yeah, like when I had kids, I was like like a squirreling around all the time. And it's the everyday movements that we do that sort of like, you know, add up that actually move the needle a lot of the time. And so it's not just, we focus in on the work, this, the specific workouts, like these planned exercises, but it's the unintentional movement that is actually probably more important for us. And that can translate into the number of steps you do if you want to count it that way. so we do move less and we don't need to do these puky classes and I was the same I think um but now like I to me it's like can I um can I feel myself working hard in the body there's certain we won't go into it now but there's certain ways that when you work out you know when you've worked hard enough and but nobody needs to work at a hundred all the time it actually just is too

much too so much harder to recover from especially in perimenopause yeah The recovery is a bitch, and that's the thing we start, and then we just feel worse, and we're like, I don't, I don't have time for this. So a thing that happens in menopause, and I'm probably repeating myself, but I don't think it matters, is our brain changes as much as our ovaries, right? Our ovaries are kicking out the last of our eggs, and in order to compensate from that, the brain changes shape, size, and structure. Like, it actually shrinks a little bit during perimenopause, and there's MRI images to show

this and the energy production in our brain, which is sort of estrogen is a part of, also starts to sort of decline as well. So women often, even if they're not exercise and have this like chronic fatigue that doesn't make a ton of sense, but it does when you understand that's what's happening to the brain. And what happens is in the years following menopause, like the two to five years afterwards, the brain starts to rebound, rebuild and has new neuro pathways and women start to sort of feel normal again. They're like, oh, I don't feel as tired as I did. And I think it's that lack of energy in perimenopause that women feel so guilty about.

They're like, oh, I just can't today. I'm so tired. Your body's going through a pretty seismic change back off being a bitch to yourself. The other thing I would also say is we fear carbohydrates just as women. We've been told not to eat them. your brain's most preferred fuel source is glucose yeah it crosses the blood brain barrier so don't see the carbs like look for probably the healthier carbs if you can yeah and know that you're doing your body the right the right thing right so even though like me saying all that all that i think

should help women go why can't i do my workout and it's probably because something's happening there and you're tired. And then it probably also shows you why people aren't meeting the fitness goals. And so do your best. Don't be hard on yourself if you're not meeting it. And when you have the moments where you feel like you can, then do it. Right. Like work with where your body is right now. It's a transition. This isn't how it's always going to be. And I think that's really important to remember as well. That's so honestly, it's truly validating, right? Because in this group, especially with our community, you're also talking years of, you know, diet shit that they've been through and afraid people are afraid to eat fruit, afraid to eat

nuts, afraid to nourish their bodies with good nutrient rich foods. And that, you know, it is because you feel like you're just part of that incapable and you just suck and you're just, you know, you can't get it done. You're never going to be able to reach your goals. When that feels very validating, that's, we can understand that. We can work with that. We can be patient and kind and be like, this is just where I'm at right now. You give us hope. The patience and kindness as well, I think is really important when it comes to the weight loss because that weight didn't come on overnight. Yeah.

It took years to get there. It did. It's a slow creep. And a lot of women put, well, a high majority of women put weight on and in menopause. And so if you know that, don't be looking at six to 12 weeks. You're going to have to be in this program for a while longer. And that's okay. That's also okay.

Take your time, support your body. And, you know, for me, I'll sort of finish. on this like I one of the things I love about strength training is the shift from looking at the number on the scale to the shift to looking at the weights that you're lifting going oh my god I was only doing 15 pound dumbbells and now I'm doing like 20 I feel so that's like lean into those type of numbers if you can because it's just a healthier mindset going through this sort of transition yeah love that okay before you go uh create everyone's talking creatine do we need to have do we Do we need to take creatine? Do we need to take all the fancy things that people are taking right now

when it comes to exercise? Yeah. So creatine is well established as a very good tool for muscular performance and endurance, right? So that just means it allows you to work out longer and maybe a bit harder. So if you're somebody who exercises specifically like strength training, then it might be a good addition to you like between three and five grams a day any brand of mono um mono um oh god what's it called a creative monohydrate sorry i couldn't think of the word um the menopause brain is real um but the data on does it help with brain fog brain health and all of those things is very um weak at the moment so nobody's actually saying that that's a thing um like so for example, I do take it when I remember and I don't feel like it makes any difference for me,

but my son takes any things that helps him. So I would say if you're someone who's strength trains, consider it. But really in the big picture, it's this big. It's a tiny part of the puzzle. It's not going to be the difference between you moving from 15 to 20 pounds. It might help, but the difference is you showing up, you eating enough protein to create that stimulus for muscle growth. So if you want, right? And I think the data's emerging and it's looking good like for older adults like in that like seniors. There's some emerging data to say it might be helpful for cognitive health. Oh great. But we don't know yet. All right. We'll see. All right. Final words you want to leave us with. Amanda, so we have this incredible community. They're trying their best,

especially when it comes to moving their body, trying to make healthy choices, navigating all the different stages of menopause. If you can say one thing to them right now, what would you say? You're capable. You really are. Even on those days when you don't feel like you are, yes, you are. And I think finding self-belief again is one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself. And so once you start believing in yourself, then that's when progress happens.

Oh, I love that. You can reach out. Thanks to everyone who joined us live or listening after the fact. You can reach out to Amanda through her website. Amanda Thib, T-H-E-B-E-E-D-com. Also follow her over on Instagram. She gives all sorts of great tips at Amanda. At your own peril.

We're all about it. And you can also pick up her book from Amazon. I've added it to my Amazon page, but you can also just search it up. Menopocalypse, she's holding it on the screen right now. I don't have a copy. I'm ordering mine today. Be sure to check that out.

It's all about how she thrived during menopause and how you can too. Thanks, everyone for joining us live. Thank you, Amanda. I appreciate you. Bye. Bye, everyone. Thanks.