April 21, 2025 • 17 mins
Think your hormones are “fine” because your periods are still showing up? Think again. In today’s episode, I uncover the three subtle (or not so subtle) signs that your hormones may be out of balance… and you might not even know it!
From anxiety that seems to come out of nowhere, to restless nights you can’t explain, to mysterious weight gain—these are not just “life” or “getting older.” These are your body’s messages that something is off.
✨ You’ll Learn:
- The three lesser-known symptoms of hormonal imbalance
- Why “normal” test results don’t always mean your hormones are in check
- The connection between cortisol, oestrogen, and your mood
- Simple strategies to start rebalancing your hormones naturally
- What to do next if these signs feel familiar
If this episode resonated with you, I’d love it if you left a review or shared it with a friend who needs to hear it. Let’s change the conversation around perimenopause together.
Are you a woman feeling stressed, flat and experiencing the challenges of perimenopause?
It’s time to reclaim your youthful energy, radiance and self-assurance (and your ideal weight).
I’m here to help with my proven method.
Here's how I can support you -
1. Hit your health and wellbeing goals this year, balance your hormones and lose weight with your own personalised protocol, based on your body's biochemistry. Sounds awesome right!! Book a free 30 minute Peri Weight Loss Assessment with me so we can discuss your health and wellbeing goals and also see how I might be able to support you. Book your call here.
2. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook - @the.perimenopause.path
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Susie Garden and this is the Ageless and
Awesome podcast.
I'm an age-defying naturopathand clinical nutritionist and
I'm here to bust myths aroundwomen's health and aging so that
you can be ageless and awesomein your 40s, 50s and beyond.
The Ageless and Awesome podcastis dedicated to helping women
(00:24):
through perimenopause andmenopause with great health, a
positive mindset and outrageousconfidence.
Hit, subscribe or follow nowand let's get started.
Hello, gorgeous one, andwelcome to this week's episode
of the Ageless and Awesomepodcast.
I'm Susie Garden, clinicalnutritionist, naturopath and
(00:45):
proud perimenopause survivor.
Here on the podcast, I talkabout all things vibrant health,
balanced hormones and how tolive your most powerful ageless
life, Because feeling amazing iscompletely accessible to you,
no matter your age.
And today's episode is all aboutsomething that I see all the
(01:10):
time in clinic, and I'm guessingthat maybe you might be feeling
this too, because these are alot of the questions I get from
clients, particularly on thefree calls that I offer, which
is a peri weight loss discoverycall.
So today's episode is reallygoing to cover off three sneaky
(01:32):
signs that your hormones are outof whack.
So have you ever wondered ifit's your hormones or not?
Because maybe your periods arestill regular, but you might be
in your 40s, even your 50s, ormaybe you've just been feeling a
bit off, you know, not reallybeing able to pinpoint what it
is, but maybe you're just alittle more anxious than usual.
(01:54):
Maybe you're struggling to fallasleep, or waking at 3am or 2am
or 1am, or dealing withcravings or irritability that
seems to come from nowhere.
Well, these are little sneakysigns that perhaps your hormones
are out of whack, and maybewhat I'm going to talk about
(02:15):
today might surprise you alittle bit.
So let's jump into this topic.
So the first one I'm going totalk about and this is in no
particular order, but I'mchoosing this one because this
can be a little bit of asurprise to people but anxiety
that comes out of nowhere.
This can be a little sneakysign that your hormones are out
(02:36):
of whack, and I hear this a lot,and women in their late 30s and
40s, even 50s, who've never hadanxiety before, suddenly find
themselves feeling anxious,feeling on edge, overreacting to
little things, or feeling thisvague sense of doom or worry
(02:56):
that they just can't explain.
And here's what's going on.
So, as you know, duringperimenopause, levels of
estrogen and progesterone canstart to fluctuate.
Progesterone tends to diefairly quickly and stay low.
But estrogen really does flowup and down and it can be on an
(03:17):
hour-to-hour basis some days.
So progesterone is a calminghormone, works with your brain
to help you feel grounded, calm,safe, helps very much with
managing your stress responseand when it does drop we lose
that natural buffer againststress.
(03:40):
So what you might experience isthis like a heightened sense of
anxiety, even if nothing'schanged in your life.
And if you go to your GP theymight just offer you an
antidepressant, they might testyour hormones.
But honestly, with the hormonetesting, because that estrogen
can change so dramatically, itmight be that you get it tested
(04:02):
and at that time that the needlehit your vein and took your
blood, maybe your hormonesactually look fine.
So that can be a little bit ofa waste of time in some cases to
test hormones when you'reexperiencing this sort of
symptom.
So I always say you know yourmood symptoms might not be just
(04:23):
stress, because a lot of womenwill write this off as just
they're stressed or they mightget told by the doctor you're
just stressed and that's whyyou're experiencing this
heightened worry or anxiousness.
But day definitely could be ahormonal sign and the good news
is there is something you can doabout it.
It by supporting your body'snatural hormone balance, those
(04:47):
anxious feelings can start tosettle, and also by using
mind-body techniques like deepbreathing, mindfulness, doing
things that bring you joy, thatcan really help as well to
stabilize what we call your HPAaxis, so your hypothalamus,
which is in your brain, yourpituitary gland, which is also
in your brain, your pituitarygland, which is also in your
(05:07):
brain, kind of just behind yournose actually, and the A stands
for adrenal.
So the HPA axis can becomedestabilized during
perimenopause, with that drop inprogesterone particularly, and
that can lead to your stressresponse, because your HPA axis
is very much responsible foryour stress response can be a
little bit what we calldestabilized.
So you're feeling anxious eventhough, or worried, even though,
(05:29):
nothing else has changed inyour life.
So please don't ignore thatsymptom of anxiousness.
Don't think you're being silly,because it definitely can be a
sign of hormonal change.
Sneaky sign number two istrouble sleeping.
Now I've talked a lot about myown journey with insomnia, and
(05:50):
insomnia can look like a fewthings.
It can look like not being ableto fall asleep quickly.
So if you're going to bed withthe intention of going to sleep.
You know lights are off,screens are away and you are
still lying there half an hourlater, 60 minutes later, two
hours later.
That's definitely not normaland it's not great.
(06:11):
Or if you're waking up mid notmidnight, but in the middle of
the night, so one o'clock, twoo'clock, three o'clock,
sometimes even four, with um.
Sometimes you are having a busymind, but sometimes it's just
you're lying there going.
Why can't I sleep?
I'm so tired but I can't sleepand it's really hard to drift
(06:35):
back off to sleep when you're inthat state.
And I've been there many, many,many times.
And that's one thing you can'treally force yourself to do is
you can't force yourself to fallasleep.
And it's so common in women intheir forties.
And it started for me when Iwas in my early forties.
I was at the peak of mycorporate career and I very much
(06:57):
thought it was stress related.
And it's definitely I know nowit was hormone related.
But when it is brushed off asstress or just getting older,
you don't tend to do a lot aboutit necessarily.
I think we're probably moreaware these days about the
importance of stress managementthan we were when I was in my
(07:17):
early forties.
But I still feel, like a lot ofpeople certainly with the
conversations I have with peopleon the peri-weight loss
assessment calls is that theydon't really manage their stress
.
A lot of people don't reallyhave a conscious stress
management plan because theyoften think I can't do
meditation, oh I don't have time.
But there's so many things youcan do that do not take extra
(07:39):
time.
You can do them while you'redoing something else and really
help bring your stress responsedown.
But even though it gets blamedon stress, what's really
happening is this your hormonelevels and yes, I'm talking
about estrogen and progesteroneprimarily impact your sleep
cycle and on top of that, whenyour cortisol level and cortisol
(08:02):
is a stress hormone, when thatis out of balance which happens
a lot in perimenopause andpostmenopause it can spike at
the wrong time.
So cortisol follows a like acircadian rhythm and it's
supposed to be fairly lowovernight and it spikes sort of
around five, six o'clock in themorning to help get you out of
bed, um, so when it's spiking atthe wrong time, like in the
(08:25):
middle of the night, um, thenyou can be wide awake.
Also, that progesterone is veryimportant for sleep.
So when your progesterone islow, which generally happens
earlier in perimenopause.
That can also really impactyour ability to sleep and this
quickly turns into a viciouscycle, right?
(08:47):
Poor sleep makes your stresshormones worse, makes you feel
awful, throws your sex hormonesfurther off balance, makes you
more irritable, makes you feellike you're overwhelmed.
There's just so many parts ofus that are impacted by poor
sleep and some of them we'reconsciously aware of, like
(09:08):
feeling tired and feelingirritable, feeling stressed, et
cetera.
Wanting to have a nap in themiddle of the day, wanting to
have a nap when you get homefrom work.
There's that.
But there's also so manyprocesses that go on in our
bodies when we are sleeping.
Things like our glymphaticsystem activates.
(09:29):
Now, you may not have evenheard of this, but it's like a
lymphatic system for the brainand if that's not activating
every night and detoxing yourbrain, brain fog can result and
obviously that makes you feellike you're really incompetent
and you can't think of words andyeah, not great.
Also, hormones get made, repairhappens.
(09:50):
Our blood sugar level changesovernight.
We know that people that don'thave good sleep are more likely
to have weight management issues, and it's not because you're at
the fridge in the middle of thenight.
It's because of these bloodglucose regulation that's
supposed to happen during thenight.
That doesn't happen if you areawake.
So you know, once we identifywhat's behind your poor sleep
(10:14):
whether it's low progesterone,whether it's poor blood sugar
control, whether it's adysregulated nervous system or
something else we can build astrategy to support better sleep
and you can sleep through thenight again.
Absolutely so.
Number three this is the lastsneaky sign I'm going to talk
(10:34):
about today.
There are many others, but Ifigured these three are ones
that are coming up a lot in thePrairie Weight Loss Assessment
calls at the moment.
So that's what I thought Iwould address.
And sneaky sign number three isyou feel puffy, bloated.
Suddenly nothing fits you, orparticularly around your waist.
You might be feeling kind ofsoft around that area of your
(10:54):
body, even though your diethasn't changed, your workout
routines haven't changed, yourmovement hasn't changed.
And it's this frustratingweight gain around the belly
that many women in perimenopauseexperience that actually drives
them to pick up the phone andcall me and book in for their
peri-weight loss assessment.
(11:15):
And the thing is is many womenhave been told it's a calories
in, calories out situation.
Just eat less and exercise more.
Honestly, I hear this all thetime and it's just such an
outdated concept andparticularly not the right
approach for women in peri andpostmenopause.
Hormones like insulin, cortisoland estrogen all influence how
(11:37):
your body stores fat and where.
When you have inflammation inyour body, that is going to
block weight loss and often thatyou've got this soft belly fat
around you.
That is really frustrating.
Also, the lower testosteronecan also impact where your body
is storing fat and duringperimenopause.
(12:03):
Another issue is that thedeclining estrogen can make your
body more insulin resistant,meaning your blood sugar is
harder to control, and in stressand high cortisol again you get
a dysregulated blood glucoseand, boom, fat starts
accumulating around the middle,when perhaps it's never been the
case for you before.
What's also sneaky here is thecravings, particularly for
(12:26):
sugars and carbs.
These hormonal shifts make youcrave sugar and carbs more
intensely, and it is not a lackof willpower, it's your biology.
I know a lot of women blamethemselves, but you really need
to be kinder to yourself when itcomes to this.
It is your biology.
(12:48):
When we can reset yourmetabolism with personalized
nutrition and lifestyle, thatmidsection fluff, if you want to
call it, that starts to meltaway.
So if you've been thinking whatthe hell is happening to my body
.
You're not alone.
It's not abnormal.
This is a particularly normalthing to happen at this time of
(13:10):
life.
It is hormonal the majority ofthe time and it can be turned
around.
So when I have mentioned thesethree sneaky signs, what have
you thought?
Anxiety out of nowhere, is thatyou?
Insomnia or early kind ofwaking Is that you, or do you
have the cravings?
(13:31):
Bloating, belly weight,puffiness, maybe all three of
these are you?
Maybe only one or two?
Or maybe this hasn't impactedyou at all.
It's all good, but what can youdo about it?
And here's where I really inviteyou to do some self-reflection.
So get curious.
Get curious.
(13:52):
Start tracking your symptoms,and it doesn't have to be a
complicated Excel spreadsheet,just literally a notepad.
Or use your phone, the notes inyour phone, and start tracking
your symptoms.
Notice, maybe just for a week,just for a week.
Notice what time are you goingto bed, how long is it taking
(14:12):
you to get to sleep, what timeare you waking?
Are you waking during the night?
And maybe even look at what wasI eating the day before?
Did I drink alcohol?
Did I work out?
Was I stressed?
All of these sorts of thingsmatter.
You can really start to noticepatterns and pay attention to
(14:35):
how you're feeling.
Are things worse before yourperiod if you're still
menstruating?
Do you get more anxious whenyou're not sleeping, if you're
having hot flushes?
Is there anxiety happening justbefore those hot flushes?
When you're experiencingcravings?
Are you getting an afternoonslump after lunch?
What's your mood like?
(14:56):
Are you finding yourselfirritable?
Does that happen?
Are you more irritable ifyou've had a night of no sleep?
I know when I've listed all ofthat.
Perhaps that sounds complicated, but it's really not.
If you go back and listen tothis episode, particularly even
just that last sort of 30seconds, write it all down in a
notepad and just notice, okay,it's actually not that much to
(15:19):
track and it really makes iteasier.
If you're talking to ahealthcare professional, really
makes it easier to kind ofpinpoint what's going on and
what the cause might be.
And when we know what the causeis, it makes it so much easier
for us to really give you asolution fairly quickly.
(15:42):
And if you're thinking this isall happening to me, what do I
do, feel free to book in for aperi-weight loss assessment with
me.
That can give you some answers.
It can give you the beginningsof a plan.
So let's chat.
The link to book is in my shownotes.
(16:04):
It's also on my Instagram theperimenopause path.
It's also on my website,suzygardencom.
You know, you don't have tokeep guessing what's going on,
and you certainly don't have tokeep guessing what's going on
and you certainly don't have tokeep struggling alone.
So I hope this episode hashelped.
If this episode has resonatedwith you maybe you heard your
(16:25):
own story in these signs I wantyou to know there is so much
support available.
You can feel like yourselfagain.
You can wake up with energy,feel calm, in control and feel
good in your body.
So if you loved this episode,please share it with a friend
who needs to hear it.
Share it in your stories.
(16:46):
Tag me I love it when peopleshare my episodes and don't
forget to hit subscribe so younever miss a new episode of the
Ageless and Awesome podcast.
I hope you've enjoyed thisepisode.
I've loved bringing it to youand enjoy the rest of your week.
I will be back soon with a newepisode.
(17:09):
Thanks so much for joining meon the Ageless and Awesome
podcast.
If you would like this episode,please make sure you click the
little plus button if you're onApple podcasts, or the follow
button if you're on Spotify, sothat you get each new episode
delivered to you every singleweek.
If you feel like writing me afive-star review, you would
(17:30):
absolutely make my day.
If you found this episoderesonated with you, head over to
my Instagram and DM me attheperimenopausepath.
I would love to connect withyou.
Hi, I'm Susie Garden and this is the Ageless and
Awesome podcast.
I'm an age-defying naturopathand clinical nutritionist and
I'm here to bust myths aroundwomen's health and aging so that
you can be ageless and awesomein your 40s, 50s and beyond.
The Ageless and Awesome podcastis dedicated to helping women
(00:24):
through perimenopause andmenopause with great health, a
positive mindset and outrageousconfidence.
Hit, subscribe or follow nowand let's get started.
Hello, gorgeous one, andwelcome to this week's episode
of the Ageless and Awesomepodcast.
I'm Susie Garden, clinicalnutritionist, naturopath and
(00:45):
proud perimenopause survivor.
Here on the podcast, I talkabout all things vibrant health,
balanced hormones and how tolive your most powerful ageless
life, Because feeling amazing iscompletely accessible to you,
no matter your age.
And today's episode is all aboutsomething that I see all the
(01:10):
time in clinic, and I'm guessingthat maybe you might be feeling
this too, because these are alot of the questions I get from
clients, particularly on thefree calls that I offer, which
is a peri weight loss discoverycall.
So today's episode is reallygoing to cover off three sneaky
(01:32):
signs that your hormones are outof whack.
So have you ever wondered ifit's your hormones or not?
Because maybe your periods arestill regular, but you might be
in your 40s, even your 50s, ormaybe you've just been feeling a
bit off, you know, not reallybeing able to pinpoint what it
is, but maybe you're just alittle more anxious than usual.
(01:54):
Maybe you're struggling to fallasleep, or waking at 3am or 2am
or 1am, or dealing withcravings or irritability that
seems to come from nowhere.
Well, these are little sneakysigns that perhaps your hormones
are out of whack, and maybewhat I'm going to talk about
(02:15):
today might surprise you alittle bit.
So let's jump into this topic.
So the first one I'm going totalk about and this is in no
particular order, but I'mchoosing this one because this
can be a little bit of asurprise to people but anxiety
that comes out of nowhere.
This can be a little sneakysign that your hormones are out
(02:36):
of whack, and I hear this a lot,and women in their late 30s and
40s, even 50s, who've never hadanxiety before, suddenly find
themselves feeling anxious,feeling on edge, overreacting to
little things, or feeling thisvague sense of doom or worry
(02:56):
that they just can't explain.
And here's what's going on.
So, as you know, duringperimenopause, levels of
estrogen and progesterone canstart to fluctuate.
Progesterone tends to diefairly quickly and stay low.
But estrogen really does flowup and down and it can be on an
(03:17):
hour-to-hour basis some days.
So progesterone is a calminghormone, works with your brain
to help you feel grounded, calm,safe, helps very much with
managing your stress responseand when it does drop we lose
that natural buffer againststress.
(03:40):
So what you might experience isthis like a heightened sense of
anxiety, even if nothing'schanged in your life.
And if you go to your GP theymight just offer you an
antidepressant, they might testyour hormones.
But honestly, with the hormonetesting, because that estrogen
can change so dramatically, itmight be that you get it tested
(04:02):
and at that time that the needlehit your vein and took your
blood, maybe your hormonesactually look fine.
So that can be a little bit ofa waste of time in some cases to
test hormones when you'reexperiencing this sort of
symptom.
So I always say you know yourmood symptoms might not be just
(04:23):
stress, because a lot of womenwill write this off as just
they're stressed or they mightget told by the doctor you're
just stressed and that's whyyou're experiencing this
heightened worry or anxiousness.
But day definitely could be ahormonal sign and the good news
is there is something you can doabout it.
It by supporting your body'snatural hormone balance, those
(04:47):
anxious feelings can start tosettle, and also by using
mind-body techniques like deepbreathing, mindfulness, doing
things that bring you joy, thatcan really help as well to
stabilize what we call your HPAaxis, so your hypothalamus,
which is in your brain, yourpituitary gland, which is also
in your brain, your pituitarygland, which is also in your
(05:07):
brain, kind of just behind yournose actually, and the A stands
for adrenal.
So the HPA axis can becomedestabilized during
perimenopause, with that drop inprogesterone particularly, and
that can lead to your stressresponse, because your HPA axis
is very much responsible foryour stress response can be a
little bit what we calldestabilized.
So you're feeling anxious eventhough, or worried, even though,
(05:29):
nothing else has changed inyour life.
So please don't ignore thatsymptom of anxiousness.
Don't think you're being silly,because it definitely can be a
sign of hormonal change.
Sneaky sign number two istrouble sleeping.
Now I've talked a lot about myown journey with insomnia, and
(05:50):
insomnia can look like a fewthings.
It can look like not being ableto fall asleep quickly.
So if you're going to bed withthe intention of going to sleep.
You know lights are off,screens are away and you are
still lying there half an hourlater, 60 minutes later, two
hours later.
That's definitely not normaland it's not great.
(06:11):
Or if you're waking up mid notmidnight, but in the middle of
the night, so one o'clock, twoo'clock, three o'clock,
sometimes even four, with um.
Sometimes you are having a busymind, but sometimes it's just
you're lying there going.
Why can't I sleep?
I'm so tired but I can't sleepand it's really hard to drift
(06:35):
back off to sleep when you're inthat state.
And I've been there many, many,many times.
And that's one thing you can'treally force yourself to do is
you can't force yourself to fallasleep.
And it's so common in women intheir forties.
And it started for me when Iwas in my early forties.
I was at the peak of mycorporate career and I very much
(06:57):
thought it was stress related.
And it's definitely I know nowit was hormone related.
But when it is brushed off asstress or just getting older,
you don't tend to do a lot aboutit necessarily.
I think we're probably moreaware these days about the
importance of stress managementthan we were when I was in my
(07:17):
early forties.
But I still feel, like a lot ofpeople certainly with the
conversations I have with peopleon the peri-weight loss
assessment calls is that theydon't really manage their stress
.
A lot of people don't reallyhave a conscious stress
management plan because theyoften think I can't do
meditation, oh I don't have time.
But there's so many things youcan do that do not take extra
(07:39):
time.
You can do them while you'redoing something else and really
help bring your stress responsedown.
But even though it gets blamedon stress, what's really
happening is this your hormonelevels and yes, I'm talking
about estrogen and progesteroneprimarily impact your sleep
cycle and on top of that, whenyour cortisol level and cortisol
(08:02):
is a stress hormone, when thatis out of balance which happens
a lot in perimenopause andpostmenopause it can spike at
the wrong time.
So cortisol follows a like acircadian rhythm and it's
supposed to be fairly lowovernight and it spikes sort of
around five, six o'clock in themorning to help get you out of
bed, um, so when it's spiking atthe wrong time, like in the
(08:25):
middle of the night, um, thenyou can be wide awake.
Also, that progesterone is veryimportant for sleep.
So when your progesterone islow, which generally happens
earlier in perimenopause.
That can also really impactyour ability to sleep and this
quickly turns into a viciouscycle, right?
(08:47):
Poor sleep makes your stresshormones worse, makes you feel
awful, throws your sex hormonesfurther off balance, makes you
more irritable, makes you feellike you're overwhelmed.
There's just so many parts ofus that are impacted by poor
sleep and some of them we'reconsciously aware of, like
(09:08):
feeling tired and feelingirritable, feeling stressed, et
cetera.
Wanting to have a nap in themiddle of the day, wanting to
have a nap when you get homefrom work.
There's that.
But there's also so manyprocesses that go on in our
bodies when we are sleeping.
Things like our glymphaticsystem activates.
(09:29):
Now, you may not have evenheard of this, but it's like a
lymphatic system for the brainand if that's not activating
every night and detoxing yourbrain, brain fog can result and
obviously that makes you feellike you're really incompetent
and you can't think of words andyeah, not great.
Also, hormones get made, repairhappens.
(09:50):
Our blood sugar level changesovernight.
We know that people that don'thave good sleep are more likely
to have weight management issues, and it's not because you're at
the fridge in the middle of thenight.
It's because of these bloodglucose regulation that's
supposed to happen during thenight.
That doesn't happen if you areawake.
So you know, once we identifywhat's behind your poor sleep
(10:14):
whether it's low progesterone,whether it's poor blood sugar
control, whether it's adysregulated nervous system or
something else we can build astrategy to support better sleep
and you can sleep through thenight again.
Absolutely so.
Number three this is the lastsneaky sign I'm going to talk
(10:34):
about today.
There are many others, but Ifigured these three are ones
that are coming up a lot in thePrairie Weight Loss Assessment
calls at the moment.
So that's what I thought Iwould address.
And sneaky sign number three isyou feel puffy, bloated.
Suddenly nothing fits you, orparticularly around your waist.
You might be feeling kind ofsoft around that area of your
(10:54):
body, even though your diethasn't changed, your workout
routines haven't changed, yourmovement hasn't changed.
And it's this frustratingweight gain around the belly
that many women in perimenopauseexperience that actually drives
them to pick up the phone andcall me and book in for their
peri-weight loss assessment.
(11:15):
And the thing is is many womenhave been told it's a calories
in, calories out situation.
Just eat less and exercise more.
Honestly, I hear this all thetime and it's just such an
outdated concept andparticularly not the right
approach for women in peri andpostmenopause.
Hormones like insulin, cortisoland estrogen all influence how
(11:37):
your body stores fat and where.
When you have inflammation inyour body, that is going to
block weight loss and often thatyou've got this soft belly fat
around you.
That is really frustrating.
Also, the lower testosteronecan also impact where your body
is storing fat and duringperimenopause.
(12:03):
Another issue is that thedeclining estrogen can make your
body more insulin resistant,meaning your blood sugar is
harder to control, and in stressand high cortisol again you get
a dysregulated blood glucoseand, boom, fat starts
accumulating around the middle,when perhaps it's never been the
case for you before.
What's also sneaky here is thecravings, particularly for
(12:26):
sugars and carbs.
These hormonal shifts make youcrave sugar and carbs more
intensely, and it is not a lackof willpower, it's your biology.
I know a lot of women blamethemselves, but you really need
to be kinder to yourself when itcomes to this.
It is your biology.
(12:48):
When we can reset yourmetabolism with personalized
nutrition and lifestyle, thatmidsection fluff, if you want to
call it, that starts to meltaway.
So if you've been thinking whatthe hell is happening to my body
.
You're not alone.
It's not abnormal.
This is a particularly normalthing to happen at this time of
(13:10):
life.
It is hormonal the majority ofthe time and it can be turned
around.
So when I have mentioned thesethree sneaky signs, what have
you thought?
Anxiety out of nowhere, is thatyou?
Insomnia or early kind ofwaking Is that you, or do you
have the cravings?
(13:31):
Bloating, belly weight,puffiness, maybe all three of
these are you?
Maybe only one or two?
Or maybe this hasn't impactedyou at all.
It's all good, but what can youdo about it?
And here's where I really inviteyou to do some self-reflection.
So get curious.
Get curious.
(13:52):
Start tracking your symptoms,and it doesn't have to be a
complicated Excel spreadsheet,just literally a notepad.
Or use your phone, the notes inyour phone, and start tracking
your symptoms.
Notice, maybe just for a week,just for a week.
Notice what time are you goingto bed, how long is it taking
(14:12):
you to get to sleep, what timeare you waking?
Are you waking during the night?
And maybe even look at what wasI eating the day before?
Did I drink alcohol?
Did I work out?
Was I stressed?
All of these sorts of thingsmatter.
You can really start to noticepatterns and pay attention to
(14:35):
how you're feeling.
Are things worse before yourperiod if you're still
menstruating?
Do you get more anxious whenyou're not sleeping, if you're
having hot flushes?
Is there anxiety happening justbefore those hot flushes?
When you're experiencingcravings?
Are you getting an afternoonslump after lunch?
What's your mood like?
(14:56):
Are you finding yourselfirritable?
Does that happen?
Are you more irritable ifyou've had a night of no sleep?
I know when I've listed all ofthat.
Perhaps that sounds complicated, but it's really not.
If you go back and listen tothis episode, particularly even
just that last sort of 30seconds, write it all down in a
notepad and just notice, okay,it's actually not that much to
(15:19):
track and it really makes iteasier.
If you're talking to ahealthcare professional, really
makes it easier to kind ofpinpoint what's going on and
what the cause might be.
And when we know what the causeis, it makes it so much easier
for us to really give you asolution fairly quickly.
(15:42):
And if you're thinking this isall happening to me, what do I
do, feel free to book in for aperi-weight loss assessment with
me.
That can give you some answers.
It can give you the beginningsof a plan.
So let's chat.
The link to book is in my shownotes.
(16:04):
It's also on my Instagram theperimenopause path.
It's also on my website,suzygardencom.
You know, you don't have tokeep guessing what's going on,
and you certainly don't have tokeep guessing what's going on
and you certainly don't have tokeep struggling alone.
So I hope this episode hashelped.
If this episode has resonatedwith you maybe you heard your
(16:25):
own story in these signs I wantyou to know there is so much
support available.
You can feel like yourselfagain.
You can wake up with energy,feel calm, in control and feel
good in your body.
So if you loved this episode,please share it with a friend
who needs to hear it.
Share it in your stories.
(16:46):
Tag me I love it when peopleshare my episodes and don't
forget to hit subscribe so younever miss a new episode of the
Ageless and Awesome podcast.
I hope you've enjoyed thisepisode.
I've loved bringing it to youand enjoy the rest of your week.
I will be back soon with a newepisode.
(17:09):
Thanks so much for joining meon the Ageless and Awesome
podcast.
If you would like this episode,please make sure you click the
little plus button if you're onApple podcasts, or the follow
button if you're on Spotify, sothat you get each new episode
delivered to you every singleweek.
If you feel like writing me afive-star review, you would
(17:30):
absolutely make my day.
If you found this episoderesonated with you, head over to
my Instagram and DM me attheperimenopausepath.
I would love to connect withyou.
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