August 20, 2025 • 23 mins
Sometimes we explain away our symptoms—chalk them up to perimenopause, aging, or just our own habits. But what if your body is trying to tell you something more?
In this episode, I share a personal story about discovering a large fibroid that had been quietly growing and causing symptoms I kept dismissing. From weight gain I blamed on myself to discomfort I thought was “normal,” I realized how easy it is to gaslight ourselves when it comes to our health.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lisa (00:00):
This is the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast.
I'm Lisa Salisbury and this isepisode 159.
Don't ignore your body.
Welcome to eat well.
Well, the podcast for busy womenwho want to lose weight without
constantly counting, tracking,or stressing over every bite.
(00:20):
I'm Lisa Salsbury, a certifiedhealth weight loss and life
coach, and most importantly, arecovered chronic dieter here.
You'll learn to listen to yourbody and uncover the reasons
you're reaching for food.
When you're not truly hungry,freeing you to focus on a
healthier, more fulfillingapproach to eating.
Hi everyone.
Welcome to the podcast thisweek.
(00:42):
I had something else planned fortoday.
Um, but last night I actuallywent to sleep thinking about
this topic and thinking aboutpossibly just recording
something off the cuff for you.
Today.
So that's what I decided to do.
I typically script my podcastpretty closely.
Not all the way, but you know, Ijust wanna make sure that I'm
(01:04):
not getting too off track or toowordy and all of that.
But I wanted to just kind oftell you guys this story about
what's going on with me and notreally scripted out ahead of
time.
So, um, just basically, I'm.
This is like a personal episodefor me, so I'm just gonna let
you know what's going on with,um, some of my personal health
(01:25):
and just the title of thispodcast.
This is just a reminder to notignore your body.
And when I was telling mytherapist about what was going
on, she was like, oh my gosh,like you've been gaslighting
yourself about like you have letyour.
Body, almost like gaslightyourself.
So anyway, it's kind ofinteresting.
So, um, about a year ago I hadmy IUD removed.
(01:48):
I had a Mirena IUD, the kindwith a small amount of
progesterone in it, and I got itinto my head that.
I wanted to be without anyhormones from, uh, you know,
birth control.
So I, it's been a long timesince I've been on the birth
control pill.
Um, I don't love that method,but I have been on Rena a
(02:09):
progesterone only IUD for manyyears in between pregnancies as
well as since my last pregnancy,which my daughter is 17 years
old, so it's been in there for along time, and I just decided
like.
What maybe I just wanna see, andI was pretty deep into
perimenopause symptoms and Ithought that maybe I would feel
(02:30):
better without it.
My gynecologist was.
Really opposed to this.
She was like, you are going tohate it.
This will make no difference.
And she was absolutely like,this is the wrong decision.
So I just wanna make that clear.
Like she was absolutely not infavor of this.
And I was like, that's fine.
If I hate it, I'll put it backin.
Like, I'm not that worried aboutit.
Um, this was on the advice of anaturopath that I was working
(02:53):
with at the time, who I nolonger work with, but she was
really adamant that I, that I dothis and had been so for about a
year.
So I finally decided to do it.
And lo and behold, mygynecologist was a hundred
percent correct.
I hated it.
I hated like how heavy myperiods were.
They were constant.
It was, they were all over theplace.
(03:14):
It did not help my menstrualmigraines in the least.
They were pretty much the same.
Um, so.
Lots.
Lots that happened with thatperiod.
But one of the weird things thatwas happening with my heavier
periods is that period productswere not working for me.
So for example, I was tryingseveral different discs and it
(03:38):
didn't matter how well I tuckedthem in.
As soon as I stood up, theywould pop right out and they
worked for a few months, butlike the farther.
Out from getting the IUD out,like the longer I went.
So several months, the worse andworse the discs work for me,
which was so weird.
in addition, like tampons wouldonly get saturated on one side.
(04:00):
Which was so weird, like why isit only getting saturated on one
side?
It would start leaking.
I would take it out.
It was very uncomfortablebecause this was dry on like 75%
of the, tampon but I just keptthinking it's me, it's me.
In addition, I was having prettyconstant weight gain and it was
specifically in my lower belly.
(04:22):
Last winter, I bought all newjeans and I was like, okay, this
is fine.
I've done so much work to acceptmy body, like all the work that
I work with my clients on.
I have done all of that work.
I have done so much work onloving my body.
I was just like, it's fine.
I'm just gonna buy new jeans.
Something is, is happening, butI'm just, and this is where some
(04:47):
of the gaslighting comes in, Ijust kept convincing myself that
I was overeating so.
I decided in April to get my IUDput back in.
At this point, I had changedinsurances, so I had a new
gynecologist and she was like,yeah, let's just put it back in.
It's, no, it's no big deal.
So I had to put back in in Apriland of this year, and eight
weeks later, they pulled me backin for a string check, which I
(05:10):
have never had.
I've never, in all of the IUDsthat I have had put in, I've
never had a doctor do a stringcheck.
So she had me come back in andshe's like, we just like to make
sure that the IUD is in thecorrect place by checking the
strings.
So while there were no strings.
So she's like, okay, not a bigdeal.
This happens all the time.
(05:31):
We're just gonna send you for anultrasound because like for some
reason your uterus has likesucked up the strings inside.
But we wanna just make sure theIUD is in the right place.
So she's like, seriously, thishappens all the time.
Don't even worry about it.
Fine.
I go, so I am still not worried.
I go into the ultrasound and,you know, it's, you should
(05:54):
pretty much like turn theultrasound machine on and see
the IUD.
Like it shouldn't be thatcomplicated.
Um.
If you are a woman who has hadbabies and ha, or you know, if
you've had any kind ofultrasound on your belly before
you know that you have to go inwith a full bladder.
So I am on the table with a veryfull bladder and she's like,
Ooh, good job.
(06:14):
So, yeah, really full.
And she pushes around on mybelly for 25 minutes and then
she's like, okay, I'm gonna haveyou empty your bladder and then
come back in.
We're gonna do it vaginally.
This ultrasound lasted for anhour.
And she just kept saying thingslike, I'm just trying to take
all of the pictures that theradiologist will want.
Me still not concerned.
(06:36):
Okay.
Like what was I thinking?
That that wouldn't be weird totake a full hour to find an IUD.
Clearly the IUD was missing,right?
I'm like, okay, something iskind of weird, but I'm still not
really that like concerned orthinking anything of it.
So a few days later, the nursepractitioner called me and she
was like, um, so you've probablyread the report.
(06:59):
And I was like, Nope.
Sure haven't.
And she's like, oh, okay, wellyou have a nine centimeter
fibroid in your uterus.
And that's why the IUD waspushed out of place.
Um, we think we can see it,which is now like really beside
the point, like the I Uud isreally not.
The issue here.
Now I have a nine centimeterfibroid filling up the uterus
(07:22):
and at first I was like, I mean,I'm not good with metric.
for those that use centimeters,I, you might know, but if you
don't, that's the size of agrapefruit.
If you look at referencepictures or reference things
online, that's also a ninecentimeter or a grapefruit size
is also the size of the uterusat a four month pregnancy.
(07:43):
But I learned later from mysurgical consult that the uterus
itself, my uterus is alsoenlarged around the fibroid.
So the uterus is actually like16 centimeters.
So basically I have like, youknow, somewhere in the four to
five month range pregnancysituation with the uterus size
going on.
So anyway, at that point she waslike, okay, yeah, you have this
(08:05):
fibroid, so we're gonna send youfor a surgical consult.
Here's a couple of weird things.
Number one months ago, I felt ahard mass on the outside of my
body.
Like when I was laying down inbed in the morning one a couple
of times, I thought, what am Ifeeling here?
Why?
Why is there like something harddown low?
(08:26):
I mean, you know where youruterus is down low in your
belly?
And I just kept thinking, Iwonder what structure that is
that feels so firm.
Did I think that maybe somethingwas wrong?
I did not.
Um, now I know where to feel,and so every morning I like kind
of obsessively check on it and,uh, yeah, it's, it's gotten
(08:50):
bigger.
Um, so here's why I am tellingyou this story.
Heavy bleeding can beperimenopause for sure.
I had some crime scene periodsduring the time that I didn't
have my IED in.
Um, but it can also be fibroidsor something else that.
(09:10):
I don't even know about 70 to80% of women by the time they're
50, which I'll be 50 in a fewweeks.
70 to 80% of women havefibroids.
Um, they're particularlyprevalent in African-American
women with, according to Google,an estimated 80 to 90%
developing fibroids by the ageof 50.
(09:31):
Not all fibroids require.
Surgery.
So let me make that clear.
Don't like panic.
Um, lots of fibroids happen thatare small, really small little
marbles, little peas, and youcan have several and have like
no symptoms other than sometimesthey will cause heavier
bleeding.
So it's not like all of them dowhat mine is doing, which is
(09:53):
growing with abandoned.
So I don't want you to be likescared and think like, oh, you
definitely have them.
But I also wanna say.
What I've really learned isdon't ignore things.
There really shouldn't besomething as firm as a fibroid
in your lower belly.
Fibroids are essentially hard asrocks.
(10:15):
They are very, very firm tumors,so that's not normal.
I definitely should have, like,that was, that was a red flag.
For whatever reason, I ignoredit.
I also learned to really justnot blame myself because of like
(10:36):
all of the work I've done onlike loving my body and
accepting and just constantlytelling myself.
And, and I don't think this iswrong by the way.
I actually love these thoughtslike that my body is good and
that it's working well andeverything is function
functioning as it should.
These are a lot of the thoughtsI use like when, when the scale
(10:58):
weight goes up and I used tolike freak out and panic.
A lot of these thoughts bring mepeace because I'm like, this is
my body working as it should.
Of course, it stored some extrawater weight.
Because I had an extra saltymeal yesterday, or of course my
body stored some extra waterweight.
I did a really hard workout andthat's normal to have, you know,
(11:19):
extra water because of musclebreakdown or extra blood volume
because of a hard cardioworkout.
Like weight fluctuations are sonormal and your, it's your body
doing exactly what it should,and so.
I just kept on with thosethoughts, which I don't think
are wrong, and I won't stopteaching them to my clients and
(11:40):
I won't stop using them.
But at some point you have toalso make sure that you're not
ignoring things.
I had noticed lower belly weightthat.
Just wouldn't budge.
Clearly, I can't lose the weightof a tumor in a very enlarged
uterus.
So, you know, I was kept blamingmyself.
(12:03):
I kept thinking that I wasovereating, and that's why I had
this belly pain and crampingafter meals, but really there
just wasn't space.
I just felt really discouragedas a weight loss coach to not be
able to.
Do the things, achieve thethings that my clients were
(12:24):
succeeding at every day.
So I was really starting intoimposter syndrome in my
business.
Rather than saying, Hey, maybethis isn't quite normal, you
actually do know what to do.
You do know what your intake is.
You do know that this is anappropriate amount of food to,
to take in and that, you know.
(12:45):
The amount of dinner that youate was not enough to cause the
amount of discomfort that you'recurrently having, and I just
kept ignoring that.
Um, so that, those are some ofthe things that I have learned.
I also realized that, rememberhow I was saying that period
products were like not reallyworking for me.
(13:07):
I realized that it was becauseof the pressure and the weight
of this heavy mass fibroid wasputting downward on the, um, you
know, on like the disc sopushing the disc outta place,
pushing the, tampon likesideways.
So again, this, symptom or cuethat something wasn't quite
right, I just ignored andthought, oh, it must be user
(13:30):
error.
I must be doing it wrong.
My sergeant also, so I will saythat I did go ahead and have a
surgical consult in July.
And, he told me that these typesof tumors, although they are
benign, and I don't know if I'vesaid that yet, this is a benign
tumor.
Um, but it is a very vascularand active tumor, and so it
(13:51):
steals a lot of blood.
And he said, you'll, he's like,you'll probably have a 50%
increase in energy.
I, I mean that is probably justlike a made up statistic, but
point being like, I'm alsopretty tired a lot of the time
and I'm just like, it's okay.
People that are almost 50 aretired, like that's normal, but
(14:11):
you know, some days are betterthan others and I still sleep
pretty well, so.
It didn't really add up.
Why am I so tired?
In fact, my doctor even, had metested for anemia because she's
like, yeah, that what you'redescribing isn't quite normal.
So all of this is to say that.
I just want to encourage you somuch to listen to your body in
(14:34):
all things.
I teach you all the time tolisten to your body with regards
to your hunger and your fullnesscues, and to really pay
attention to, you know what it'ssaying in that regard, and
that's how we really can loseand maintain weight without
having to track and calculateevery calorie.
But when you're doing that.
And you're doing it really well.
(14:56):
Like I've been doing this for along time now.
I have been, you know, I haveditched my diet up, um, and I
got to the point where.
I started to not trust myselfeven on that because I'm like,
why can I not lose this weight?
And I started tracking caloriesagain, which was not great for
my mental health.
Um, I, I gave it up for a reasonand,, you know, so I, I was a, I
(15:21):
was careful.
I was, I tried not to get down,you know, that more anxious road
that I was on before.
But even so that should havealso been a red flag because I
was eating so little and stillcontinuing to maintain this
lower belly weight.
So don't ignore your body andall its cues and signs.
(15:42):
Like I said, most fibroids willnot require surgery even though
they are very prevalent becausethey will be smaller.
My fibroid does require surgerybecause I no longer require a
uterus for.
Fertility reasons.
I'm all done having children.
So if you, if you get fibroidswhen you are a younger woman and
you still have a desire forchildren, you can have what's
(16:03):
called a myectomy where theyjust remove the fibroid and they
try to preserve the uterus.
In my case, because the fibroidis so large, it's also
infiltrated into the muscle wallof the uterus, making the uterus
itself not healthy anymore.
So the whole thing.
Needs to go.
So I am scheduled for ahysterectomy.
(16:24):
Unfortunately, my surgeon isextremely busy, so I still have
an eight week wait, which isreally frustrating.
Um, because as you can tell,there's still quite a few
symptoms that I'm dealing withon a daily basis with this.
I am looking forward to that.
I'm looking forward to, um, thathealing process and hopefully
getting, you know, on the otherside of this.
(16:47):
But I just wanted to let youguys know as my listeners what's
going on for me.
And I will probably be taking alittle bit of a podcast break.
Hopefully I'll get some episodesscheduled ahead of time.
But, um, if there's a littlebreak in October, you'll know
why.
So I want to also remind youthat this has all helped me
(17:10):
learn even more aboutperimenopause because I was.
Attributing a lot of thesesymptoms to perimenopause.
I did more and more and moreresearch on this.
I find that, in fact, my husbandwas like, I know you're a weight
loss coach, but you really lightup when you talk about hormone
use and perimenopause andmenopause.
(17:31):
And he's like, that's what youreally should be coaching on.
So anyway, I'm just gonna letyou know that if you are in.
The throes of that, and you needsome help with some of your
hormones, what's going on withthem?
And um, by hormones, I mean likeyour hormone replacement
therapy.
Like what kinds of things canyou take to help you during this
(17:53):
time?
Just remember that.
Estrogen is basically the onlyhormone that we lose because of
a malfunctioning andnon-functioning organ, which is
the ovaries.
The ovaries produce yourestrogen and they stop working
during perimenopause and thencompletely kaput at menopause.
Right?
And then we don't have a periodanymore.
(18:14):
Um, so the organ stops working,it stops producing estrogen at
the level that you areaccustomed to as your body and.
For some reason we've decided orhave vilified replacing this
hormone.
If your thyroid goes kaput.
You think nothing of takingthyroid hormone and for type one
diabetics whose pancreas doesn'twork, they obviously take the
(18:37):
hormone insulin.
There's lots of examples of thiswhere hormones or other other
things in our body don't workwell and we replace them with.
Something synthetic.
The good news is that thehormones that we use now from
regular pharmacies arebioidentical.
They exactly match what is inyour body.
(18:58):
It's not like a synthetic horse,urine hormone like they used to
use.
And so there's really nothingscary about them.
I highly recommend the bookEstrogen Matters if you wanna
learn what estrogen does for youin the body.
It's um, it's a little bittechnical for sure.
It reads a little bit easierthan pub me articles and study
(19:19):
reports, so they do kind ofbreak it down for you.
And so I, I do really enjoy thatbook.
I listen to it and it was veryeducational.
I firmly believe in estrogen.
I also love my progesterone pilland that.
So estrogen you wanna taketopically so it bypasses the
liver.
Any of your transdermal estrogenproducts are going to bypass the
(19:40):
liver, and so you wannadefinitely do that.
Progesterone is safe to takeorally, and that really helps
with sleep and calm.
So that's a great one.
You can titrate up on that Ifyou need more than what you can
get from a pharmacy, that's whenyou might need to get it
compounded.
But I Highly recommend that youstay away from menopause type
(20:02):
clinics that are only offeringcompounded hormones and charging
you an arm and a leg for them.
I will tell you that I have justbasic.
Basic insurance.
It's, I mean, it's through acompany.
It's through my husband's work,so it's, you know, company
provided insurance.
It's not something we purchaseon our own, but they cover my
hormones a hundred percent, so Ijust.
(20:26):
I just don't feel right abouttelling someone to go to a
menopause clinic that compoundstheir hormones and claims that
they are any better.
They're really the same.
They're bioidentical, they'revery safe to get from your
regular pharmacy.
And, they've made a hugedifference for me in my life.
(20:46):
The, so I use an estrogen patch,I use a progesterone pill, and
then lastly, I use a.
Estrogen tablet vaginally.
So that is, just a very, verymicrodose, it's measured in
micrograms actually, and it's,um, for vaginal dryness and,
discomfort.
(21:06):
It also helps with urinaryincontinence.
It helps with the whole areadown there.
It's probably my favorite partof my hormone regimen.
But.
You know, I've been on the patchfor a couple of years now, so I
don't know what I'd be likewithout it, so who knows.
But, uh, sometimes I forget'cause that's just a twice a
week, uh, thing that you do forthe vaginal estrogen.
(21:27):
And I just know when I forget touse it, I can tell.
So anyway, that's just a littlepiece on hormones because I have
done a lot more education onthat.
For, um, mostly for myself.
I do help some clients withthat.
But if that's something that youare kind of needing or you're
just trying to figure out likewhat is going on with your
(21:48):
health, first and foremost, myoriginal degree and
certification is in health.
My degree is in health and humanperformance, and my first
certification is actually as ahealth coach.
So beyond just.
Weight loss and emotional eatingand helping you figure that out.
I'm more than happy to help youfigure out some of these other
(22:10):
things as well and coach youwith the, you know, the
questions that you wanna askyour doctor and what you really
want to, you know, get testedand those kinds of things.
So, um, obviously I willrecommend you work with your
doctor on all of these medicalthings, but I would be there to
support you if you needed helpwith any other type of health
issues, especially going throughperimenopause and menopause, if
(22:33):
you are struggling with that,I'm more than happy to chat with
you about that.
So.
Be sure to schedule a consultcall with me.
Those are free, 30 minute freecall with me.
I do that by phone.
You don't even have to, youknow, put makeup on and get on
Zoom.
We just do that by phone for ourfirst meeting.
And, um, that's all I have foryou today.
(22:54):
So I know most of you still arehere for weight loss, so be sure
to download a couple of my freeguides.
I have the what to do when youovereat, when you're trying to
lose weight.
That really is helpful if youfind yourself unable to lose
weight because you tend to beovereating more times in a week
than you're not, uh, check thatone out.
Also, I have a free Successstarter kit for GLP one users.
(23:16):
If you are GLP one, curious, orif you are on the medications,
be sure to download that freeguide as well.
Remember, what you eat matters,but what you believe about
yourself matters more.
Thanks for listening and sharingthe Eat Well Think Well Live
Well podcast.
This is the Eat Well Think Well Live Well podcast.
I'm Lisa Salisbury and this isepisode 159.
Don't ignore your body.
Welcome to eat well.
Well, the podcast for busy womenwho want to lose weight without
constantly counting, tracking,or stressing over every bite.
(00:20):
I'm Lisa Salsbury, a certifiedhealth weight loss and life
coach, and most importantly, arecovered chronic dieter here.
You'll learn to listen to yourbody and uncover the reasons
you're reaching for food.
When you're not truly hungry,freeing you to focus on a
healthier, more fulfillingapproach to eating.
Hi everyone.
Welcome to the podcast thisweek.
(00:42):
I had something else planned fortoday.
Um, but last night I actuallywent to sleep thinking about
this topic and thinking aboutpossibly just recording
something off the cuff for you.
Today.
So that's what I decided to do.
I typically script my podcastpretty closely.
Not all the way, but you know, Ijust wanna make sure that I'm
(01:04):
not getting too off track or toowordy and all of that.
But I wanted to just kind oftell you guys this story about
what's going on with me and notreally scripted out ahead of
time.
So, um, just basically, I'm.
This is like a personal episodefor me, so I'm just gonna let
you know what's going on with,um, some of my personal health
(01:25):
and just the title of thispodcast.
This is just a reminder to notignore your body.
And when I was telling mytherapist about what was going
on, she was like, oh my gosh,like you've been gaslighting
yourself about like you have letyour.
Body, almost like gaslightyourself.
So anyway, it's kind ofinteresting.
So, um, about a year ago I hadmy IUD removed.
(01:48):
I had a Mirena IUD, the kindwith a small amount of
progesterone in it, and I got itinto my head that.
I wanted to be without anyhormones from, uh, you know,
birth control.
So I, it's been a long timesince I've been on the birth
control pill.
Um, I don't love that method,but I have been on Rena a
(02:09):
progesterone only IUD for manyyears in between pregnancies as
well as since my last pregnancy,which my daughter is 17 years
old, so it's been in there for along time, and I just decided
like.
What maybe I just wanna see, andI was pretty deep into
perimenopause symptoms and Ithought that maybe I would feel
(02:30):
better without it.
My gynecologist was.
Really opposed to this.
She was like, you are going tohate it.
This will make no difference.
And she was absolutely like,this is the wrong decision.
So I just wanna make that clear.
Like she was absolutely not infavor of this.
And I was like, that's fine.
If I hate it, I'll put it backin.
Like, I'm not that worried aboutit.
Um, this was on the advice of anaturopath that I was working
(02:53):
with at the time, who I nolonger work with, but she was
really adamant that I, that I dothis and had been so for about a
year.
So I finally decided to do it.
And lo and behold, mygynecologist was a hundred
percent correct.
I hated it.
I hated like how heavy myperiods were.
They were constant.
It was, they were all over theplace.
(03:14):
It did not help my menstrualmigraines in the least.
They were pretty much the same.
Um, so.
Lots.
Lots that happened with thatperiod.
But one of the weird things thatwas happening with my heavier
periods is that period productswere not working for me.
So for example, I was tryingseveral different discs and it
(03:38):
didn't matter how well I tuckedthem in.
As soon as I stood up, theywould pop right out and they
worked for a few months, butlike the farther.
Out from getting the IUD out,like the longer I went.
So several months, the worse andworse the discs work for me,
which was so weird.
in addition, like tampons wouldonly get saturated on one side.
(04:00):
Which was so weird, like why isit only getting saturated on one
side?
It would start leaking.
I would take it out.
It was very uncomfortablebecause this was dry on like 75%
of the, tampon but I just keptthinking it's me, it's me.
In addition, I was having prettyconstant weight gain and it was
specifically in my lower belly.
(04:22):
Last winter, I bought all newjeans and I was like, okay, this
is fine.
I've done so much work to acceptmy body, like all the work that
I work with my clients on.
I have done all of that work.
I have done so much work onloving my body.
I was just like, it's fine.
I'm just gonna buy new jeans.
Something is, is happening, butI'm just, and this is where some
(04:47):
of the gaslighting comes in, Ijust kept convincing myself that
I was overeating so.
I decided in April to get my IUDput back in.
At this point, I had changedinsurances, so I had a new
gynecologist and she was like,yeah, let's just put it back in.
It's, no, it's no big deal.
So I had to put back in in Apriland of this year, and eight
weeks later, they pulled me backin for a string check, which I
(05:10):
have never had.
I've never, in all of the IUDsthat I have had put in, I've
never had a doctor do a stringcheck.
So she had me come back in andshe's like, we just like to make
sure that the IUD is in thecorrect place by checking the
strings.
So while there were no strings.
So she's like, okay, not a bigdeal.
This happens all the time.
(05:31):
We're just gonna send you for anultrasound because like for some
reason your uterus has likesucked up the strings inside.
But we wanna just make sure theIUD is in the right place.
So she's like, seriously, thishappens all the time.
Don't even worry about it.
Fine.
I go, so I am still not worried.
I go into the ultrasound and,you know, it's, you should
(05:54):
pretty much like turn theultrasound machine on and see
the IUD.
Like it shouldn't be thatcomplicated.
Um.
If you are a woman who has hadbabies and ha, or you know, if
you've had any kind ofultrasound on your belly before
you know that you have to go inwith a full bladder.
So I am on the table with a veryfull bladder and she's like,
Ooh, good job.
(06:14):
So, yeah, really full.
And she pushes around on mybelly for 25 minutes and then
she's like, okay, I'm gonna haveyou empty your bladder and then
come back in.
We're gonna do it vaginally.
This ultrasound lasted for anhour.
And she just kept saying thingslike, I'm just trying to take
all of the pictures that theradiologist will want.
Me still not concerned.
(06:36):
Okay.
Like what was I thinking?
That that wouldn't be weird totake a full hour to find an IUD.
Clearly the IUD was missing,right?
I'm like, okay, something iskind of weird, but I'm still not
really that like concerned orthinking anything of it.
So a few days later, the nursepractitioner called me and she
was like, um, so you've probablyread the report.
(06:59):
And I was like, Nope.
Sure haven't.
And she's like, oh, okay, wellyou have a nine centimeter
fibroid in your uterus.
And that's why the IUD waspushed out of place.
Um, we think we can see it,which is now like really beside
the point, like the I Uud isreally not.
The issue here.
Now I have a nine centimeterfibroid filling up the uterus
(07:22):
and at first I was like, I mean,I'm not good with metric.
for those that use centimeters,I, you might know, but if you
don't, that's the size of agrapefruit.
If you look at referencepictures or reference things
online, that's also a ninecentimeter or a grapefruit size
is also the size of the uterusat a four month pregnancy.
(07:43):
But I learned later from mysurgical consult that the uterus
itself, my uterus is alsoenlarged around the fibroid.
So the uterus is actually like16 centimeters.
So basically I have like, youknow, somewhere in the four to
five month range pregnancysituation with the uterus size
going on.
So anyway, at that point she waslike, okay, yeah, you have this
(08:05):
fibroid, so we're gonna send youfor a surgical consult.
Here's a couple of weird things.
Number one months ago, I felt ahard mass on the outside of my
body.
Like when I was laying down inbed in the morning one a couple
of times, I thought, what am Ifeeling here?
Why?
Why is there like something harddown low?
(08:26):
I mean, you know where youruterus is down low in your
belly?
And I just kept thinking, Iwonder what structure that is
that feels so firm.
Did I think that maybe somethingwas wrong?
I did not.
Um, now I know where to feel,and so every morning I like kind
of obsessively check on it and,uh, yeah, it's, it's gotten
(08:50):
bigger.
Um, so here's why I am tellingyou this story.
Heavy bleeding can beperimenopause for sure.
I had some crime scene periodsduring the time that I didn't
have my IED in.
Um, but it can also be fibroidsor something else that.
(09:10):
I don't even know about 70 to80% of women by the time they're
50, which I'll be 50 in a fewweeks.
70 to 80% of women havefibroids.
Um, they're particularlyprevalent in African-American
women with, according to Google,an estimated 80 to 90%
developing fibroids by the ageof 50.
(09:31):
Not all fibroids require.
Surgery.
So let me make that clear.
Don't like panic.
Um, lots of fibroids happen thatare small, really small little
marbles, little peas, and youcan have several and have like
no symptoms other than sometimesthey will cause heavier
bleeding.
So it's not like all of them dowhat mine is doing, which is
(09:53):
growing with abandoned.
So I don't want you to be likescared and think like, oh, you
definitely have them.
But I also wanna say.
What I've really learned isdon't ignore things.
There really shouldn't besomething as firm as a fibroid
in your lower belly.
Fibroids are essentially hard asrocks.
(10:15):
They are very, very firm tumors,so that's not normal.
I definitely should have, like,that was, that was a red flag.
For whatever reason, I ignoredit.
I also learned to really justnot blame myself because of like
(10:36):
all of the work I've done onlike loving my body and
accepting and just constantlytelling myself.
And, and I don't think this iswrong by the way.
I actually love these thoughtslike that my body is good and
that it's working well andeverything is function
functioning as it should.
These are a lot of the thoughtsI use like when, when the scale
(10:58):
weight goes up and I used tolike freak out and panic.
A lot of these thoughts bring mepeace because I'm like, this is
my body working as it should.
Of course, it stored some extrawater weight.
Because I had an extra saltymeal yesterday, or of course my
body stored some extra waterweight.
I did a really hard workout andthat's normal to have, you know,
(11:19):
extra water because of musclebreakdown or extra blood volume
because of a hard cardioworkout.
Like weight fluctuations are sonormal and your, it's your body
doing exactly what it should,and so.
I just kept on with thosethoughts, which I don't think
are wrong, and I won't stopteaching them to my clients and
(11:40):
I won't stop using them.
But at some point you have toalso make sure that you're not
ignoring things.
I had noticed lower belly weightthat.
Just wouldn't budge.
Clearly, I can't lose the weightof a tumor in a very enlarged
uterus.
So, you know, I was kept blamingmyself.
(12:03):
I kept thinking that I wasovereating, and that's why I had
this belly pain and crampingafter meals, but really there
just wasn't space.
I just felt really discouragedas a weight loss coach to not be
able to.
Do the things, achieve thethings that my clients were
(12:24):
succeeding at every day.
So I was really starting intoimposter syndrome in my
business.
Rather than saying, Hey, maybethis isn't quite normal, you
actually do know what to do.
You do know what your intake is.
You do know that this is anappropriate amount of food to,
to take in and that, you know.
(12:45):
The amount of dinner that youate was not enough to cause the
amount of discomfort that you'recurrently having, and I just
kept ignoring that.
Um, so that, those are some ofthe things that I have learned.
I also realized that, rememberhow I was saying that period
products were like not reallyworking for me.
(13:07):
I realized that it was becauseof the pressure and the weight
of this heavy mass fibroid wasputting downward on the, um, you
know, on like the disc sopushing the disc outta place,
pushing the, tampon likesideways.
So again, this, symptom or cuethat something wasn't quite
right, I just ignored andthought, oh, it must be user
(13:30):
error.
I must be doing it wrong.
My sergeant also, so I will saythat I did go ahead and have a
surgical consult in July.
And, he told me that these typesof tumors, although they are
benign, and I don't know if I'vesaid that yet, this is a benign
tumor.
Um, but it is a very vascularand active tumor, and so it
(13:51):
steals a lot of blood.
And he said, you'll, he's like,you'll probably have a 50%
increase in energy.
I, I mean that is probably justlike a made up statistic, but
point being like, I'm alsopretty tired a lot of the time
and I'm just like, it's okay.
People that are almost 50 aretired, like that's normal, but
(14:11):
you know, some days are betterthan others and I still sleep
pretty well, so.
It didn't really add up.
Why am I so tired?
In fact, my doctor even, had metested for anemia because she's
like, yeah, that what you'redescribing isn't quite normal.
So all of this is to say that.
I just want to encourage you somuch to listen to your body in
(14:34):
all things.
I teach you all the time tolisten to your body with regards
to your hunger and your fullnesscues, and to really pay
attention to, you know what it'ssaying in that regard, and
that's how we really can loseand maintain weight without
having to track and calculateevery calorie.
But when you're doing that.
And you're doing it really well.
(14:56):
Like I've been doing this for along time now.
I have been, you know, I haveditched my diet up, um, and I
got to the point where.
I started to not trust myselfeven on that because I'm like,
why can I not lose this weight?
And I started tracking caloriesagain, which was not great for
my mental health.
Um, I, I gave it up for a reasonand,, you know, so I, I was a, I
(15:21):
was careful.
I was, I tried not to get down,you know, that more anxious road
that I was on before.
But even so that should havealso been a red flag because I
was eating so little and stillcontinuing to maintain this
lower belly weight.
So don't ignore your body andall its cues and signs.
(15:42):
Like I said, most fibroids willnot require surgery even though
they are very prevalent becausethey will be smaller.
My fibroid does require surgerybecause I no longer require a
uterus for.
Fertility reasons.
I'm all done having children.
So if you, if you get fibroidswhen you are a younger woman and
you still have a desire forchildren, you can have what's
(16:03):
called a myectomy where theyjust remove the fibroid and they
try to preserve the uterus.
In my case, because the fibroidis so large, it's also
infiltrated into the muscle wallof the uterus, making the uterus
itself not healthy anymore.
So the whole thing.
Needs to go.
So I am scheduled for ahysterectomy.
(16:24):
Unfortunately, my surgeon isextremely busy, so I still have
an eight week wait, which isreally frustrating.
Um, because as you can tell,there's still quite a few
symptoms that I'm dealing withon a daily basis with this.
I am looking forward to that.
I'm looking forward to, um, thathealing process and hopefully
getting, you know, on the otherside of this.
(16:47):
But I just wanted to let youguys know as my listeners what's
going on for me.
And I will probably be taking alittle bit of a podcast break.
Hopefully I'll get some episodesscheduled ahead of time.
But, um, if there's a littlebreak in October, you'll know
why.
So I want to also remind youthat this has all helped me
(17:10):
learn even more aboutperimenopause because I was.
Attributing a lot of thesesymptoms to perimenopause.
I did more and more and moreresearch on this.
I find that, in fact, my husbandwas like, I know you're a weight
loss coach, but you really lightup when you talk about hormone
use and perimenopause andmenopause.
(17:31):
And he's like, that's what youreally should be coaching on.
So anyway, I'm just gonna letyou know that if you are in.
The throes of that, and you needsome help with some of your
hormones, what's going on withthem?
And um, by hormones, I mean likeyour hormone replacement
therapy.
Like what kinds of things canyou take to help you during this
(17:53):
time?
Just remember that.
Estrogen is basically the onlyhormone that we lose because of
a malfunctioning andnon-functioning organ, which is
the ovaries.
The ovaries produce yourestrogen and they stop working
during perimenopause and thencompletely kaput at menopause.
Right?
And then we don't have a periodanymore.
(18:14):
Um, so the organ stops working,it stops producing estrogen at
the level that you areaccustomed to as your body and.
For some reason we've decided orhave vilified replacing this
hormone.
If your thyroid goes kaput.
You think nothing of takingthyroid hormone and for type one
diabetics whose pancreas doesn'twork, they obviously take the
(18:37):
hormone insulin.
There's lots of examples of thiswhere hormones or other other
things in our body don't workwell and we replace them with.
Something synthetic.
The good news is that thehormones that we use now from
regular pharmacies arebioidentical.
They exactly match what is inyour body.
(18:58):
It's not like a synthetic horse,urine hormone like they used to
use.
And so there's really nothingscary about them.
I highly recommend the bookEstrogen Matters if you wanna
learn what estrogen does for youin the body.
It's um, it's a little bittechnical for sure.
It reads a little bit easierthan pub me articles and study
(19:19):
reports, so they do kind ofbreak it down for you.
And so I, I do really enjoy thatbook.
I listen to it and it was veryeducational.
I firmly believe in estrogen.
I also love my progesterone pilland that.
So estrogen you wanna taketopically so it bypasses the
liver.
Any of your transdermal estrogenproducts are going to bypass the
(19:40):
liver, and so you wannadefinitely do that.
Progesterone is safe to takeorally, and that really helps
with sleep and calm.
So that's a great one.
You can titrate up on that Ifyou need more than what you can
get from a pharmacy, that's whenyou might need to get it
compounded.
But I Highly recommend that youstay away from menopause type
(20:02):
clinics that are only offeringcompounded hormones and charging
you an arm and a leg for them.
I will tell you that I have justbasic.
Basic insurance.
It's, I mean, it's through acompany.
It's through my husband's work,so it's, you know, company
provided insurance.
It's not something we purchaseon our own, but they cover my
hormones a hundred percent, so Ijust.
(20:26):
I just don't feel right abouttelling someone to go to a
menopause clinic that compoundstheir hormones and claims that
they are any better.
They're really the same.
They're bioidentical, they'revery safe to get from your
regular pharmacy.
And, they've made a hugedifference for me in my life.
(20:46):
The, so I use an estrogen patch,I use a progesterone pill, and
then lastly, I use a.
Estrogen tablet vaginally.
So that is, just a very, verymicrodose, it's measured in
micrograms actually, and it's,um, for vaginal dryness and,
discomfort.
(21:06):
It also helps with urinaryincontinence.
It helps with the whole areadown there.
It's probably my favorite partof my hormone regimen.
But.
You know, I've been on the patchfor a couple of years now, so I
don't know what I'd be likewithout it, so who knows.
But, uh, sometimes I forget'cause that's just a twice a
week, uh, thing that you do forthe vaginal estrogen.
(21:27):
And I just know when I forget touse it, I can tell.
So anyway, that's just a littlepiece on hormones because I have
done a lot more education onthat.
For, um, mostly for myself.
I do help some clients withthat.
But if that's something that youare kind of needing or you're
just trying to figure out likewhat is going on with your
(21:48):
health, first and foremost, myoriginal degree and
certification is in health.
My degree is in health and humanperformance, and my first
certification is actually as ahealth coach.
So beyond just.
Weight loss and emotional eatingand helping you figure that out.
I'm more than happy to help youfigure out some of these other
(22:10):
things as well and coach youwith the, you know, the
questions that you wanna askyour doctor and what you really
want to, you know, get testedand those kinds of things.
So, um, obviously I willrecommend you work with your
doctor on all of these medicalthings, but I would be there to
support you if you needed helpwith any other type of health
issues, especially going throughperimenopause and menopause, if
(22:33):
you are struggling with that,I'm more than happy to chat with
you about that.
So.
Be sure to schedule a consultcall with me.
Those are free, 30 minute freecall with me.
I do that by phone.
You don't even have to, youknow, put makeup on and get on
Zoom.
We just do that by phone for ourfirst meeting.
And, um, that's all I have foryou today.
(22:54):
So I know most of you still arehere for weight loss, so be sure
to download a couple of my freeguides.
I have the what to do when youovereat, when you're trying to
lose weight.
That really is helpful if youfind yourself unable to lose
weight because you tend to beovereating more times in a week
than you're not, uh, check thatone out.
Also, I have a free Successstarter kit for GLP one users.
(23:16):
If you are GLP one, curious, orif you are on the medications,
be sure to download that freeguide as well.
Remember, what you eat matters,but what you believe about
yourself matters more.
Thanks for listening and sharingthe Eat Well Think Well Live
Well podcast.
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