The Livy Method Podcast - Menopause and Weight Loss with Dr. Jennifer Zelovitzky - Spring 2025

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

In this episode, Gina and Dr. Jennifer Zelovitzky unpack the hormonal shifts that come with midlife, offering clarity instead of blame. Menopause isn’t the villain—it’s a transition, and understanding how your body changes is the first step toward real empowerment. Dr. Jennifer explains why chasing “hormone balance” misses the mark, and instead urges listeners to tune into their symptoms and support their bodies accordingly. From the impact of hot flashes and sleep loss on fat loss, to the role of stress and cortisol, even when the food is “perfect,” Gina and Dr. Jennifer keep it real. Dr. Jennifer also touches on how HRT can support the process, but makes it clear: it’s not a shortcut. The conversation wraps with a powerful reminder—you’re not behind. If you’re following the Livy Method, you’re already doing the right things. Keep showing up. You’re building momentum.Find Dr. Jennifer:Podcast: MedsplainingInstagram: @medsplainingwww.medcan.com/menopause-and-perimenopauseYou can find the full video hosted at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspring2025To learn more about The Livy Method, visit livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livi and welcome to the Livi Method Podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from 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 relisten 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. Are you dreaming of your next getaway? Whether it's sand, sun, or sightseeing, Sell-Off Vacations has you covered. They've been booking Canadians for over 30 years,

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To learn some things. How do we help you feel less overwhelmed so you can continue on your journey? Keep believing in yourself and keep trusting the process. Just be patient. What is the deal with menopause and weight loss? Is it causing you to gain weight? Is it making it harder for you to lose weight? My guest today, Dr. Jennifer Zalawitzki

is a board certified family physician. She's also a certified menopause provider. She's also the clinical director of Women's Health and Vitality at MedCan Toronto and host of the podcast, MedSplaining. Also fully aware of what you're trying to do here with the Libby Method, as she has joined us before. And she is also joining me on our Libby Method new learning

series, all about menopause and weight loss, set to start on June 2nd. So if you're interested in that, you can head over to our website and find more information. But let's get into this conversation today. Hello, welcome, Dr. Jennifer. Hi, Tina. Hi everybody. It's great to be here again. So this menopause conversation really took off in the last year. There's a lot of information out there. We wanna really break it down

and just have a conversation about awareness. At the end of the day, you really do wanna be reaching out to your own healthcare providers, but we also want to help empower you, inform you on what you can do when it comes specifically to weight loss and menopause. So is that where we start? What do you find is the conversation there when it comes to weight loss and menopause?

I think women are curious. They're seeing a lot on social media. They're understanding more now about the impact that the loss of estrogen is having on their body as a whole. And they're starting to connect the dots that a lot of the things they're experiencing in their mind and body are actually connected to the menopause transition. Whereas before, I think it was like the doctors didn't understand and the women didn't understand. Now, unfortunately, I think a lot of doctors still don't understand, but at least the women are starting to understand it.

So someone is able to lead the conversation, as awful as that sounds. There's a couple of things I learned from you. When I first started the menopause add-on, I was like, oh, I'm gonna like solve menopause and weight loss and it just recently came to me that it's really when it comes to weight loss. It's the symptoms of menopause whether you're perimenopause menopause post menopause it's the symptoms

that we're trying to treat menopause is going to happen you can't stop it from happening happening and it's the symptoms. But I had someone the other day say to me, I'm so sick and tired of people blaming menopause for weight gain or inability to lose weight, just calories in versus calories out. What do you say about that? Yeah, well, they're not incorrect because they're not totally correct correct but we'll talk about it, it's very, very complex. Partially it is coincidental because women as our estrogen trends down at midlife so do our other digestive hormones and that happens for both men and women. There's also the loss of muscle mass, which happens for both men and women. But estrogen seems to be a match that lights the fire that accelerates it in women and exacerbates it in women. So I

would love to say that, oh, let's just give estrogen and you'll lose weight magically. But unfortunately, that doesn't happen because there are too many moving parts and other factors including your genetics, like I said your digestive hormones, your ability to have calories out, you know what I mean, like your ability to move, your ability to expend energy, your sleep, which is impacted by menopause, that women have much more of an impact than men. So there are just too many moving parts. So yes, it is connected, but it's not the cause per se.

Yeah, we'll get into HRT with the conversation because everyone thinks, so I'm gonna take HRT hormone therapy and then all of a sudden I'm just going to lose weight. And that's not necessarily the case. It can definitely help because it helps with your symptoms, like not being able to sleep at night and all the rest that comes with it. Before we go any further in the conversation,

if there are still any men joining us, what is the difference between andropause and menopause? Andropause being for men, menopause being for women. So andropause is the gradual decline of testosterone over time. And yes, men will experience a gradual decline in testosterone as they age. The difference is it's a gentle slope for most men

unless they've had chemotherapy or surgery or an injury to their testicles where there's something else that's exacerbating it. But for women, menopause is a steep decline in estrogen. So women have this basically falling off a cliff with their hormones at midlife where men have a gentle slope. I wish we had the gentle slope. And so women actually have a complete stop, a cessation of their ability to be fertile. Men, as we know, from looking at De Niro and Pacino, they remain fertile till death in most cases.

And that's the thing, right? So what's happening to us is we're not producing the eggs, the number of eggs that we did before. So I don't want to spend too much time on the why behind it, because it's going to happen anyway. But when does perimenopause, so we break it down into perimenopause, the one day of menopause and then post menopause. So how does someone know where they land and just maybe a why to begin with? Okay, so let's start by defining what menopause is. So menopause is the point where you've gone a full year without a period. And that's for women who go through natural menopause.

I'm not talking about surgery or chemotherapy or something that can make it happen instantly. But for women who go through the natural menopause, it's the day where you've got a full year. And so that's a point in time. So really when we're talking about symptoms and managing, we're talking about perimenopause, which literally means the time around the menopause.

So if menopause average age is 51, perimenopause can be 45 to 55 or maybe even earlier because symptoms can start 10 years before that final period happens. And that's where we get complete chaos with our hormones. Measuring them is sort of useless because they're different from day to day. Like I said, they don't follow a nice gradual slope. They're chaotic. So it can be sort of showing your post-menopausal one day and then whoop pre-menopausal the next day. So that's that chaos is what brings about all of

the symptoms that we are starting to hear more about and that women are starting to say, oh wait a minute, this is connected to my perimenopause. And usually periods start to change first, but I've met a lot of women now where that's just subtle changes in their periods that happen, but bring about the symptoms. Well, that was me. So some of the symptoms I had was frozen shoulder, vertigo, heartburn, heart palpitations, achy body, midsection, just like, body midsection just like I think I think I pretty much had it all. But my period was pretty regular. It was pretty regular. It started to get a little bit shorter. Yeah, not as long in length, but it didn't get necessarily lighter. I didn't really notice any changes at all. I just saw look, amigo. I'm like, and so this is why I blew off all of those symptoms as stress, as something else.

I wasn't doing enough because my period was still quite regular. I do wanna talk about hormones because I think people talk about hormones in terms of balancing hormones. So we think of hormones in a straight line of balance when reality is they're always in flux. And this is why there isn't really a test to determine

if you're in perimenopause. So if we had a test that would show us what our estrogen receptors are doing, if anyone invents one, call me, let's go, let's sell it. Because that is actually what we're missing. There's no test out there that can tell us what our estrogen receptors are doing, how they're reacting to this decline or chaos in our estrogen levels. We can infer it by the symptoms, but that's what's missing. So the levels themselves

aren't really necessary. And just as a little aside, if you see, if you're thinking of going to a provider and they're using the term, balance your hormones, run, don't walk away because that's a term that a knowledgeable, evidence-based menopause provider would never use. We cannot balance your hormones. That is not the point of therapy. Okay, so let's talk about, because you mentioned medically induced menopause and the range for perimenopause is 45 to 55, but it can absolutely start younger.

Yes, the age for final period is 45 to 55. So I guess what I'm saying is the average woman, if your average age is 51, you can expect the symptoms somewhere plus or minus five years around that. But for a lot of women, it's longer. It's eight, it's 10, or maybe even 20 years that you'll have symptoms. Okay. I want to talk about postmenopause because I had a conversation the other day with some or maybe even 20 years that you'll have symptoms. Okay. I want to talk about postmenopause

because I had a conversation the other day with some women who said, we feel so left out of the conversation and yet they are still experiencing symptoms. They're having a hard time losing weight. They've been through it. And I said, the way we speak about it is confusing because menopause is technically just one day, right?

After you don't get your period for a whole year, menopause is one day. And then there's perimenopause that comes before it and then pre-perimenopause now, and then there's post-menopause that comes after. I said, think of it like, we're trying to talk about high school and then there's junior and then there's senior.

So menopause is just kind of the catch-all term that we're using, which is confusing. So what is the conversation for post-menopause is just kind of the catch-all term that we're using, which is confusing. But what is the conversation for post-menopause? So that's a great question. We're really starting to rethink this. So we know there's this concept in treatment for menopause called the window of opportunity. So as long as a woman is within 10 years

from her final period, she is still going to benefit from the use of treatment from hormone therapy because her estrogen receptors are still active. Beyond 10 years, a lot of the estrogen receptors are not as reactive. It doesn't mean she won't necessarily benefit symptomatically from treatment, but she may not get a lot of the health benefits at that point, but it is still very, very worthwhile if you're still having hot flashes, if you're still struggling, if they've continued on from the last period and you were in that timeframe where nobody was allowing any women to have hormone therapy, it's still worth at least having the conversation or exploring whether you could benefit from treatment.

And another caveat is vaginal estrogen. It is never too late to start vaginal estrogen. This is for vaginal dryness, frequent urinary tract infections, irritation in the vagina, painful sex. That can impact sleep, that can impact your quality of life, it can be very distressing and the brand new American Urological Association guidelines just came out recommending vaginal estrogen for every postmenopausal woman who has any symptoms or to prevent recurrent urinary tract infections because it is actually being shown to save lives. So this is fantastic. Yeah, that was another thing I had added to the list.

I want to go through some of the symptoms, but I just want to take a beat for a minute because it's really about what are the symptoms that you're experiencing in perimenopause? What are the symptoms that you're experiencing in postmenopause that are specifically affecting your ability to focus on fat loss? Right? So that's a great question. Yeah. So whatever we put at the top of the pyramid. No, you go ahead.

You go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. You go. No, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted So, so what I would put at the top of the pyramid. No you go ahead you go ahead. No, no, you go ahead you go. No I wanted to I want to make sure I get the context of your question so I answer it in

the way that you. Yeah, no it's just that like it's it's stepping back and saying everyone's like what can I do I'm at weight loss in perimenopause weight loss in in postmenopause it comes down to what symptoms are you experiencing and what can you do to address them? And so what are those symptoms and what can we do to address them? So at the top of the pyramid, I'm going to put sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is one of the earliest and most significant signs of perimenopause. And often women aren't quite sure what it is that's preventing them from sleeping. And often what differentiates it is women will say, I fall asleep no problem.

This isn't insomnia where you can't fall asleep. Some women do have insomnia because their mind is going and they can't sleep or there are other factors going on. But let's just say the average person where it's purely due to perimenopause. What they will experience is they're exhausted. So they fall asleep instantly, but they wake up. They'll say, I'm up at two in the morning every night and I don't know what's going on, but I feel tired, wired and I can't get back to sleep. And then, my heart's racing and then I get up to pee and And maybe I'm getting maybe I'm it's because I have to pee that I woke up, they just aren't quite sure. Now, the lucky women have a hot flash. And then they're like, Oh, well, I know it was a hot flash that woke me up. And then they start to go up, period menopause. But

for a lot of them, they just don't understand why they're waking up. And it is because whether they're having a hot flash or not those estrogen receptors in their brain are going on high blood. They're sensing something in the environment is wrong. And so that can lead to palpitations. Now the problem is when you're not sleeping that in and of itself leads to weight gain. So studies show that women need about seven hours of sleep, of which 25% should be deep sleep or REM sleep. I've seen them kind of used either or to be able to combat the weight gain that can come with perimenopause,

which can be one and a half pounds per year on average, if it's not, you know, managed. So that in and of itself. But then the downstream effects of lack of sleep. So everybody can relate to men or women. You can relate to what it's like if you've gone without sleep for a night or two nights. Yeah. But we apply that by months or years. And what you have is you're tired during the day, you're craving carbohydrates and sugar for the quick hit to keep your brain awake, you're having more caffeine, which then interrupts your sleep the next night,

you're not moving as much, and even if you are maintaining your workouts, you're not expending the amount of energy that you would have had you slept well. You may be drinking more alcohol because you're trying to sleep or you're trying to manage the anxiety or you're feeling terrible.

And it just goes on from there. And then you start to have brain fog. And it's just, I always say like, if sleep's the top of the pyramid, everything else is kind of trending down from there. I want to go back and remind, we just finished a sleep series with our clinical psychologist, Dr. Beverly David, talked about what's happening in our brain affecting the choices when we're not getting sleep.

We had Dr. Alinka talk about how it's affecting our hormones, our hunger hormones, our cortisol, our insulin, all of that. And we had Alanna McGinn share some tips. So Alanna is going to be back in the menopause learning series with us as well. And she has a whole tip for that three, two o'clock, three o'clock nighttime waking. And again, this is why people, when it comes to losing weight, they focus on what they're eating or when, or think that let me, you know, take HRT and that's going to help me, but it's going to help with your sleep. And that can be an absolute game changer when it comes to your weight, regardless of whether

you are in menopause or not. That's why, that's why we have that whole sleep week series. What's the next one? So the next one is the hot flashes, I would say. We have evidence now that hot flashes are an independent risk factor for some modest weight gain. Hot flashes were linked to an increase in waist circumference in the SWAN study, so the study of women across the nation, but also to a very slight increase in BMI, independent of other risk factors.

So that's really important that if you are having hot flashes, you should understand that that's a signal that your body is giving off that your estrogen receptors are not managing the transition well. And I should say 20% of women do not have symptoms of menopause and they are very, very lucky and they should thank their parents that they inherited very adaptive estrogen receptors. The other 80% of us are not as fortunate and we are experiencing the symptoms and so hot flashes can lead to downstream adverse health effects and so it's very important to manage those. And the third would be I would say aches and pains, muscle aches and pains,

that limit our ability to move. The frozen shoulder, the sore back and hips, the stiffness. Stiffness is the symptom that I would most link to perimenopause that seems to be the most helped by HRT. Like I myself am recovering from a shoulder issue. I wish the HRT I was on would have cured it. Unfortunately, it didn't. I needed, you know, physiotherapy and rest and the right exercises and to be adapting my workouts, which is something we need to do. But what I'm saying is HRT is I wish it was this cure all there are

symptoms of menopause that if influence weight gain that unfortunately, I have to be helped by other modalities other than HRT. What about supplements? Where do you land on supplements? Or is there any that you recommend? Yeah, so I'm very aligned with we've discussed this before, but I know there are new people in the audience. So I'm very aligned with you in terms of supplements. I think there are key supplements that Men and women at midlife do need

And there are others that you may need depending on your dietary habits or your own personal deficiencies If you've had a blood test that shows you you need it I would start with vitamin d which is almost universally needed by everyone in Canada. And anyone who's far away from the equator or who isn't outside very much. We test MedCan vitamin D as part of our annual health assessment. And almost everybody's low. If someone isn't low, they're on a supplement, I can guarantee it. So about a thousand units of vitamin D is just good practice because it is linked to, you know, bone, of course, bone health, but also mood, cancer prevention. There's a lot of exploratory avenues for vitamin D.

Specifically for women or for anyone having muscle or joint pain or constipation, magnesium is a wonder, a wonder supplement. That's taken at bedtime because of the sleep benefit. A probiotic, ideally with a prebiotic. There's so much emerging evidence about the microbiome and its importance for immune function, mood, digestion, weight maintenance, and for women, we take an extra hit to our microbiome at menopause. So both men and women at midlife will experience a decrease in the number of healthy bacteria in their microbiome, but women, because of the estrogen deprivation,

also seem to have a loss of the variety of healthy bacteria. So we have a very sparse garden in addition to a smaller garden. So replenishing that is important and the prebiotic is the food the probiotic needs to flourish. So there's really, in my mind, no point taking a probiotic without a prebiotic included. And then finally, calcium if, if you're not able to get enough from your diet. Finally, calcium if you're not able to get enough from your diet. It is better to get calcium from your diet because you want to get all of the subtypes of calcium, not just getting an excess of one type of calcium and also excess calcium from a supplement can lead to kidney stones. And then depending on your own needs, a B complex vitamin is very important because we do start to see a downtrend in the B vitamins of everyone at Midlife, men and women. My poor husband every morning I hand him his probiotic, I hand him his B complex. I'm like, there you go, just take it, trust me.

And then in terms of other supplements, you might want to think about creatine if you're doing a lot of strength training. I don't know yet that we have evidence. It does a lot for someone who's not doing a lot of exercise and strength training. So maybe, maybe not. You mentioned calcium, and this is sort of where I'm going with bone. So you know, there's, there's, and, and also the, the symptoms, because there, there, there are studies that are showing that stronger symptoms can be a sign that there are going to be some health implications. Um, what, what would some of those be? So primarily it's the hot flashes and the sleep deprivation that we're talking about, right? Now, of course you lump aches and pains in there because we all know that the less mobile you are, the more you're going to suffer the adverse health

outcomes. But hot flashes have been linked to increased risk of heart disease. So heart attack, stroke, dementia, weight gain, as I mentioned, and mood dysfunction, which can then impact other aspects of your life. And so, hot flashes are a big one because what that seems to cause is a lot more inflammation and spasticity in the arteries. So there is a type of heart attack that women tend to get. That's called MINOCA, which is an acronym for basically a heart attack without anything blocking the artery. And it seems to be caused by just inflammation and spasticity in the artery. And this is something we don't hear a lot about, but it's unique to women.

And it's thought to be maybe linked to the estrogen deprivation that's happening, because estrogen's an anti-inflammatory and helps keep our arteries relaxed. And so it's a very important thing. And then sleep, of course, we know sleep deprivation's linked to cognitive decline, to cardiovascular disease, to strokes, and then to the downstream effects of just not having the energy output

that you need to maintain your day-to-day function. I actually have a podcast with Dr. Jane Morgan, who's a cardiologist coming out, talking about that on Thursday. Fantastic. Yeah. She's, she's. Yeah. Um, okay. So you mentioned, uh, I wanna, I wanna talk about stress. I also wanna talk about what's going on with bone density, the importance of protein exercise, but where does, where does stress

fit in? So that's a great question. So women and men at midlife basically are at increased stress, but we're talking predominantly about women today and menopause, which is my area of expertise. And what I'll say is we're looking at a very stressful time in our lives in addition to what's going on in our bodies. So even if we were not going through the changes of perimenopause, we're dealing with aging parents. Often we're at a stressful point in our career if we are in the workforce going through the changes of perimenopause. We're dealing with aging parents.

Often we're at a stressful point in our career if we are in the workforce because we're either having more responsibility, higher leadership position, we've worked our way up, or we're just trying to make it through the day at work. And work itself becomes more stressful because of what we're experiencing. But then we have children who are getting older and it's true what they say bigger kids bigger problems you know you may not be having the temper tantrums and the terrible twos

but you're definitely dealing with a lot of anxiety and stress about kids maybe leaving the nest or going through difficulties of their own challenging times. It's a difficult world for teenagers and young adults out there now as well. And then we add to that, you know, just the maybe relationship difficulties that are coming either because of our symptoms or independently. So it just seems to be a very, a confluence of different stressors in our life. And what that does is it can drive up our cortisol levels. And I want to be very clear here because I've seen so many people talking about this online. Our cortisol levels, there's a wide range of normal. Cortisol comes from our adrenal glands,

which sit on top of our kidneys, and cortisol plays a very important role in our life. It's our stress hormone in the sense that it allows our body to adjust to stress appropriately. So if we need to be running from a tiger, it allows everything in our body to function, our heart to speed up our blood pressure to increase to pump more blood. And so that's good in in in sort of emergency situations. But the problem is, if you're constantly under stress, your cortisol is going to be at the higher end of your normal range. And I wanna stress that

because you don't need a cortisol test unless we're suspicious that you have something called Cushing's disease, which is a very dangerous condition where you'd be having very, very obvious symptoms that something's wrong. But we're talking just chronic high normal cortisol levels. And that of course can be detrimental because it does lead to insulin resistance over the long term. It does lead to

higher blood pressure and it does lead to ultimately all the other things we've been talking about, poor sleep, weight gain, et cetera. Do you do a test for cortisol? Do you do a test for that? Well, you can do a test, but I mean, to test it just because you think you're under stress is pointless because like I said, it's going to fall somewhere in your normal range. We don't have any way of knowing what was your normal 10 years ago when you weren't under stress. So there's no point measuring it unless, like I said, a doctor is suspicious that you have features or symptoms that are indicative of Cushing's disease or Addison's disease, which is low cortisol. That's a pathological increase in cortisone.

I do get asked to do it a lot. I do it almost just to prove that it's normal, but it doesn't mean your body's not struggling with heightened, high normal levels of porous. Yeah, people are asking what you can do with stress. Again, that whole sleep and stress week, we talked about tips for navigating and managing stress. Something as simple as just doing some deep breathing. You don't have to do box breathing or a deep breathing, just like stop and take a few deep breaths. I was talking to a woman online last night who was like, I don't know what's going on. I went through, I lost weight. And then

I went through this very stressful time and she didn't say stressful, but she named all the things that she'd been through and it affects her body. And she gained weight back and she doesn't know what's going on. And I'm just like, she's like, I'm eating all the things. And I'm like, what you just explained to me is a lot of stress. I'm going to guess that that is where you need to focus on. And she just kept coming back to the food, keep coming back, but it's the food, but I'm doing the food. And I'm like, I was clear she wasn't really recognizing,

although she listed the stress, not actually recognizing the impact that that stress has had. She's probably also not sleeping well. She's probably also dealing with a, so people really underestimate, I think the amount of stress that they're under. I want to get into exercise. And I also just want to sort of big picture because we are dealing specifically with weight loss. So we're also assuming that quite a few have

been dieting for a while. And when you do a deprivation diet, eat less, exercise more, or just count and weigh and measure and not really be concerned about where those calories are coming from, it cannot just lead to weight loss, but muscle mass. So this is why we're after fat loss here, losing weight in a healthy way. So years of dieting can lead to muscle loss, quite extreme amounts. Being inactive can lead to that loss of muscle mass. So that when you are then encountering perimenopause, and you're not getting the sleep and the inflammation starting to rise, that can be an absolute recipe for not just weight gain, but for that inability to lose weight. What's the conversation on exercise and of course protein?

Cause not everyone, like not everyone's following the Libby method where they're trying to get protein in, but what's the conversation there, exercise and protein? So, you know, we definitely want to be thinking about our muscle mass. Women, I wish someone would sit us down in our thirties and say, okay, when you reach 35, you're going to be losing, you're going to start losing muscle mass.

Because we're, we're not even thinking we think we're immortal at 35, you know. So if someone would say that to us, maybe we would start to think more about the importance of strength and resistance training, or at least doing things that turn our everyday activities into things that build muscle. So there's a lot of controversy about the weighted vests. If people are advocating it and then other people want to poop on them and say, this is dumb. It's, it's never a bad idea to turn an average everyday walk or walking your dogs into

something weight bearing, right? Like it's never a bad idea to throw on some ankle or wrist weights or a weighted vest or a backpack that has some books in it or something that is going to increase your strength. So that's one thing because we're losing muscle mass. When we diet, and especially when we do abrupt diets or other things that cause us in adulthood to lose weight rapidly, that can actually be quite unhealthy because that's a risk factor for osteoporosis. So loss of bone density, which leads to frailty, which leads to, unfortunately, in about 25% of cases, you know, a hip fracture in an elderly person leads to death within a year. So these are very serious consequences of rapid and unhealthy

weight loss, where we're not doing everything we can to preserve our muscle mass. And that's where protein comes in, you know, same as the creatine idea, there's no sense in taking creatine or eating as much protein as you can if you're not gonna be actively trying to then put on that muscle with that protein. It can't do the work for you. You have to be doing the work. Otherwise you will continue to lose muscle

at an accelerated rate. I want to, someone, I was just, I got a little sidetracked here. Someone was talking about trying to focus on food while, while stress is akin to trying to dry off while you're still swimming. And I think this is where, this is the awareness piece, right? And if you know better, you do better. And yeah, like it's interesting because we started today as the anniversary,

two years since my kid's dad passed away. And it's where I started this conversation on grief. And we have a post about it in the group. Talk about stress. Talk about emotional heaviness. Plus, we've got to go through menopause. Plus, we've got to try to lose weight. We're doing all these things.

This is that awareness piece, right? And it's the things that you're doing in and around that. And the thing what's hard about weight loss is you need food to survive at the same time, right? So when you got a lot going on might not be the time when you can focus on all of these things. But at some point, we're hoping that there will be relief where you can be like, okay, like, what do I need to do to meet myself where I'm at, whether it's menopause or not menopause, always, where can I meet myself where I'm at? Whether it's menopause or not menopause, always, where can I meet myself where I'm at? And this is what it comes down to

with this conversation today, because it's about menopause and weight loss. How do we meet with ourselves where we're at when it comes to exercise, whether you're in perimenopause or postmenopause? Is there a difference for what you need depending on what stage you're in? No, it depends on your personal abilities and your personal health and what you and

what your goals are, right? It's different for everybody. You know, I would say, yeah, it doesn't really depend on the stage. It just depends on you, your experience. But I would say, you know, never let the perfect be the enemy of the good meaning, don't think to yourself if I can't put in that half hour or hour, I shouldn't bother. Yeah, when I was starting to embrace the idea of some strength training, I was doing about 10 minutes of light weights, a few times a week. And I was just getting my getting used to the idea, getting used to the concept and learning to trust that I could do it.

And as I've gone through various injuries and various circumstances in my life, I've adapted and I think adaptation is is a way to say to yourself, I'm gonna move with how my body's feeling in this moment today. And today may be a day that I need more stretching, I need more gentle exercise. And then tomorrow I'll maybe feeling a lot more energetic and I might wanna push myself a little bit more.

We wanna find that edge between pushing ourselves enough and not getting injured because the name of the game is longevity. Yeah. No one is coming to save you either, right? Like no one is coming to save you. As mothers, for example, we would die for our children, but would you take care of yourself?

Would you prioritize yourself? Would you make good food choices? Would you help yourself be as strong as possible to care? It's sometimes just doing what you need to do. I was so broken down with menopause that I had to be like, what do I need here? And I shut down social stuff and commitments that I knew were gonna cause me stress.

I said no to people, pissed them off. I had to like stop drinking wine especially because that was as much as I love it, it was not helping. I had to stop eating at night, not helping. I started going for walks and then I got the weighted vest and any kind of resistance on your body is beneficial. Yes, you want to make sure you're not going too heavy and putting weight on your shoulders or whatever, but anything you can do. Like back in the day, we would have been carrying stuff. You talk about blue zones where people are healthy and living the longest lives or they're active, they're gardening, they're lifting, they're doing the things that they

need to do. And then I started same thing. I was a cardio queen back in the day, lifting the weights. You need to, I think when you're younger, yeah, like understand how important it is that you have that muscle mass. And then when you get older, you need to focus on building that muscle mass for the sake of bone density, as well. So it's it's like you you have to step out of your comfort zone, and start doing that resistance training. I read I was I watching something I'm trying to remember, it's been a bit of a blur this weekend where its core mobility morbidity is based on we used to

think it was fat. We used to think that the amount of fat that you carried was problematic, but it's now the lack of muscle mass actually that has, you know, surpassed that. So that's, that's a, it's a real issue to not have muscle mass in your body. Can you just kind of drive that home a little bit for us? Yeah, they're actually, I mean, I would say those two concepts are connected because it's muscles converting to visceral fat. The matter has to go somewhere.

Muscle can't just evaporate, right? We know it's converting over time to visceral fat, which is that fat in the midsection. And so it's really important to understand that really the only thing that can increase or influence our metabolic rate is muscle. Muscle determines our metabolic rate. So it only makes sense that the more muscle you have

on your body, the higher metabolism. And that is true. And to loop back to what you said about feeling kind of like this pull between, well, I need to be, I need to do things for my kids. How can I go and exercise or go and do something for myself? Right? There's a, there's a's a pull. And I don't know what happened. One day this light just went on in my head that said, because my kids would sometimes complain if I was on my bike or whatever, you know, that they needed me to do something right away.

And I'd feel that terrible mom guilt of like, why am I being so selfish? Why am I doing this when I shouldn't be doing that? And then I realized one day that if I did not keep myself strong, they're going to be taking care of me when I'm 75. And that's the most selfish thing I could ever think of. And so I want my kids to be able to focus when I'm older on their lives, on their family. And I want to spend quality time with them and my hopefully future grandchildren.

I don't want them to be thinking about what nursing home they need to put their mom in because she has no muscle mass, her bones are frail. And, you know, she did it all to sacrifice for us. Yeah. Well, my mom is 72 and she looking back now, she definitely went through it when it came to menopause for sure. And they just didn't, you know, they knew what they knew or they didn't know what they didn't know back then. But she's doing weight training a couple of times a week. She's taking herself and she could kick my ass. She can stay up later. She can party harder.

She can kick my ass on any hike, walk, just day to day activity for sure. Quickly about protein. And then I wanna touch on real quick cause we do have, we're not gonna get into, you should really be having the conversation with HRT with your family doctors. There's all sorts of resources.

I'm gonna give you Dr. Jennifer's contact. Where do you land on protein? Women need to have about 1.2 to 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight throughout the day. And it's really important from the registered dieticians that I've spoken to that women benefit more to have their protein spread throughout the day. Yes. So a big chunk at each meal and then incorporate it into snacks when you can and so my own approach I'm not big on counting to be honest

I don't have time and energy to count in the video to self up. But roughly, roughly, it's about 25 to 30 grams of protein at each meal. Should do it. I put protein powder, whey protein powder in my smoothies. You can throw it into various things. But if you're always thinking to yourself, how can I up the protein in this meal? Or does this meal have protein?

You're way ahead of the game because we do need it. We need it to build muscles and to have our metabolism function properly. Yeah. Is that ideal body weight or current body weight? Oh, it's current body weight. So it will change as you approach your targeted body weight. So you have to keep that in mind as well.

OK. Like I said in the conversation about HRT, HRT is a conversation for your doctor. Or join us in the menopause add-on, where we're going to talk about that. Dr. Jennifer Zalawitzki is going to lead up our four-week series. She's going to be joining us every Monday live to break it down.

But it's really about HRT is to manage your symptoms, your symptoms of your stress, to help you sleep better, to help you feel less achy so you can move your body and do all the things. I think the takeaway is here with the Libby Method, you are already doing all the things. You're having that protein spread out throughout the day. You're being mindful eating nutrient rich foods. You are maximizing, which is manage your stress, get better sleep, move your body, all of those things.

For those who cannot take HRT, there's also things that you can do, lifestyle things as well, supplements that you can take. There's also non-HRT options now, medications that you can take as well, correct? Correct. There is a brand new one that works directly in the brain, non-hormonal, that dramatically reduces hot flashes and it can improve sleep. That's called Fezolinotant or Bioza. So that's a very exciting development. There's also, you know, there we can use There's also, you know, we can use typical antidepressant, anti-anxiety medications, and some nerve pain medications

at low doses can be very effective for sleep and for hot flashes. There are also really great non-habit-forming sleep medications that are available now that can help women if you are having a brain that just won't shut off and you can't sleep there are newer classes of medications that are available that are not as harmful or as risky as the old-fashioned sleeping pills, so I encourage you to speak with your doctor and Specify what your needs are tell them what you're struggling with and

Impress upon them how it's impacting your quality of life. Yeah. Dr. Jennifer, like I said, is gonna be joining us in the menopause add-on. If you're interested, Jean, head over to our website, jeanelovey.com, and you can, excuse me, sign up for that. Whether you're in perimenopause, postmenopause, we're gonna cover it all.

Before we go today, our final takeaway on menopause and weight loss, for anyone in menopause, postmenopause, we're going to cover it all. Before we go today, our final takeaway on menopause and weight loss for anyone in menopause, whatever stage trying to lose weight, what would be your biggest takeaway? Oh, my biggest takeaway is always that it is, I would say 80% lifestyle factors that you can control. So this is a time when we feel so out of control as women. We really do.

But the great news is, even if you're not having symptoms that would warrant hormone therapy, don't worry about it because 80% of it's within your control to manage. And lifestyle always comes out ahead of every other form of treatment in terms of health benefits and weight loss when it comes to the menopause transition. So that's all in your own hands. And drop the mic because you're already doing it following the program. You absolutely have to go and listen to Dr. Jennifer's podcast

Medsplaining. She shares all sorts of incredible tips not just on menopause but all sorts of great health and wellness tips. That's Medsplaining. She shares all sorts of incredible tips, not just on menopause, but all sorts of great health and wellness tips. That's MedSplaining. You can also find her over on Instagram if they want to reach out because I know you offer some services in terms of menopause specific with where you're at at MedCan. So how would someone reach out there? MedCan is a private pay service. So I'll just close you there, a lot of the Menopause programs are because it's not covered under OHIP right now. But they can reach out directly to MedCan and MedCan Toronto at the phone number there is 416-350-5900. I do see patients for my

Menopause program even if they are not part of MedCan, even if they are not MedCan members. So you can call MedCan directly. They have all the information. If you do want to come see me and have me be your menopause practitioner, happy to see you there. But otherwise follow me at MedSplaining. I provide a lot of evidence-based advice

or follow me with Gina on the Menopause Add-on Program. I do want to also to there's the Menopause Society, right? Correct. Oh, yeah. That was formerly known as the North American Menopause Society. They rebranded. They're now just the Menopause Society. And they have a fantastic section on their website for patients. But they also have, apart from information, they have a database where you can search for menopause providers in your area, in your hometown or close by who can offer you evidence-based menopause care. That's my Dr. Jennifer. I know she's so cute. Hi, Dr. Jennifer Zielewiczki, always a pleasure. Again, thanks for everyone joining us. This is a conversation that's about awareness.

I know you found it helpful and there's some good tidbits. Go back, listen to it again. Have an amazing rest of your day and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Thank you. Bye everyone.

Bye.