The Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast

BEE #140: Navigating Menopause: Empowering Strategies to Manage Emotional Eating and Reclaim Your Life

• Kristin Jones

Share episode

Message me with comments or questions

  • Tired of feeling lost in the fog of menopause?
  • Experiencing unexpected emotional eating?
  • Ready to reclaim your health and happiness?

Join Kristin Jones on the Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast as she explores the intricate connection between menopause and emotional eating.

  • Uncover the science: Learn about the hormonal shifts that impact your mood, energy levels, and overall well-being.
  • Challenge the myths: Discover how to navigate common symptoms with grace and confidence, dispelling the notion of silent suffering.
  • Hear inspiring stories: Gain insights from personal experiences, including Kristin's own journey with hormone replacement therapy.
  • Empower yourself: Find the resources and support you need to thrive during this life stage.

This episode is for any woman navigating menopause or supporting someone who is. Let's redefine aging on our terms – with knowledge, empowerment, and a vibrant, fulfilling life.

Connect with me online:

1. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakthroughemotionaleating/
2. You Tube channel, Kristin Jones Coaching: https://www.youtube.com/@KristinJonesCoaching44
3 . Website: https://www.kristinjonescoaching.com

If you want to learn more about a non-diet approach to weight loss, get my FREE Stop Dieting Guide. Go to https://go.kristinjonescoaching.com/stop-dieting-guide

Needing more specific and direct support for your emotional eating and overeating? Check out my online course, Stop Dieting Start Feeling, and my personalized coaching program, Breakthrough To You.

If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to leave a review on the platform you used to listen and share it with your friends on your Instagram stories. Also, be sure to follow me on Instagram @breakthroughemotionaleating, and don't hesitate to slide into my DMs to share your thoughts and feedback. Your support means the world!

Speaker 1:

Do you want to lose weight but struggle to stay committed to a meal plan because you constantly feel hungry? Does food provide you comfort when you are bored, angry, lonely or sad? If so, you are in the right place. My name is Kristen Jones and I'm a life coach specializing in emotional eating and weight loss, and I'm also a lifelong emotional eater. I want to provide you with information, motivation and support so you, too, can learn to manage your issues with food and develop a healthy relationship with yourself. Welcome to the Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast. Hi and welcome to the Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast. My name is Kristen Jones and thank you so much for joining me this week, so I will.

Speaker 1:

This is a totally TMI too much information, total transparency podcast episode, and it absolutely relates to if you actually it relates to men and women. This is not exclusively for women. This is for men as well, and especially if you're a man who has a significant woman in his life whether it's your sister, whether it's your mother, whether it's your wife, it's your neighbor you need to know these things too, and men also need to know this information about hormones and hormonal changes as we get older, because that was probably one of the most shocking things that I have learned in the last week is that hormonal changes and what we call menopause for women is something that happens to both sexes and it's not really talked about with men. I'm not going to go into great detail when it comes to men today that's a whole other podcast episode which we will get to but we're going to talk about menopause and we're going to talk about what it is and what it isn't, and why it happens and who it happens to, and the severity of what happens and kind of what I've learned over the course of the last five days of my life that have just been monumental, like game changers for me and also game changers for how I address and help my clients who are emotional eaters, because all of this, it all, it nothing, nothing is compartmentalized. Everything goes together, it all intertwines. So it's really really important that everyone, men and women, know this information because it's so pertinent and so relevant to the quality of your life. I think that's probably the thing that is the most.

Speaker 1:

That was the most hard hitting for me. Is I really and truly thought that because I had not sought any sort of help with these symptoms that I was having, like I was just going to tough it out and that was going to be a good thing and that was going to be like I was just going to be so proud of myself, like I was patting myself on the back for not ever having really asked or sought out any treatment for the changes that were happening, until I realized that there was no prize that I was going to get and the prize actually the prize or the result that I was going to get was possibly going to be very, very negative and very detrimental to my health. So there, there seemed to be, and that's on, the only reason I know anything, or don't know anything about, didn't know anything about menopause was because my mom never talked about it and my mom never sought treatment, and so it was just kind of like, well, that's what you do, you just suck it up and you just deal with these changes that happen as we move through life. And I've come to realize and come to know that that doesn't have to be. That way Doesn't mean that you're trying to fight aging, you're just trying to make it a little bit more. I don't want to say enjoyable, but just your life to continue to be pleasant. Because I will tell you.

Speaker 1:

I had an aunt, aunt Kay, god rest her soul. I remember she went through menopause at 32 and she spoke about it like it was the thief that stole all the joy out of her life. I mean really and truly. I mean she would talk about menopause and, oh my gosh, it was the worst thing. And my cousin will tell stories about how she used to throw pots and pans across the kitchen at my uncle and at her and my and my cousin. And it's just. It was just this horrible thing that you were fearful of and it doesn't have to be that way because because it happens to everybody. So I first want to start off with talking about um. Actually, first off, I want to welcome everybody to the podcast and to remind you that I am always going.

Speaker 1:

I record my podcast live in my Facebook group, breakthrough Emotional Eating, and that group obviously is on Facebook, wwwfacebookcom forward slash groups forward slash food breakthrough. Join the group. We go live in the group each week. That's where I record my podcast. Join the group. We go live in the group each week. That's where I record my podcast. And then my podcast gets distributed onto Spotify and Apple, itunes and all of the places that you can listen to podcasts, but it's live in the group and then I kind of do a little Q&A afterwards. So you want to come into the group. I have lots of information about emotional eating, about how to lose weight as an emotional eater, the mindset, the things you need to know about your brain, and we're going to go much deeper into these hormonal changes and the hormonal changes and understanding how and why these hormonal changes happen. And then what are the things that you can do about it and that you can understand what you can do about it.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing is what is menopause? So menopause is merely the ending of your menstrual cycle. So, the ending of your menstrual cycle. You have to have not had a period for a year in order to be considered in menopause, and with the cessation of your menstrual cycle, that means you're no longer able to conceive a child and get pregnant. But why does that happen? Why does that happen? You're no longer able to conceive a child and get pregnant. So, but, we have to kind of but, but why does that happen? Like, why does that? Why does that happen? Um, and it happens because this is how my, uh, my doctor, that I, um, that I'm seeing um, who will be a guest on my podcast. Um, he explained it as your, your ovaries.

Speaker 1:

So your ovaries are obviously super important, but your ovaries kind of have like a shelf life. They don't have an endless shelf life. They have a certain amount of time that they are able to be productive and from the time that you get your first period to the time that you get your last period can be anywhere between 35, 40 years of time. That's kind of the lifespan of your ovaries and your ovaries not the eggs, but your ovaries are busy producing eggs and it's also busy producing estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Testosterone is also created. It's also manufactured in your adrenal glands. It's also manufactured in your skin, but it primarily is between your ovaries and your adrenal glands. And so your ovaries are really, really busy and they're active and they do their things and then, when they're done, they're done, they, they just it's like they just, they get tired. That's the way he described it to me. It's like your ovaries got tired, they get tired and they stop producing those three hormones and the, and it also obviously stops producing eggs.

Speaker 1:

And those three hormones are so very vital, not just to your reproductive health but to your overall health in general. So testosterone is what is impactful in both your heart and your brain and, obviously, your reproductive system. Testosterone is an essential hormone, an essential chemical for brain health as well as heart health. So when testosterone levels start to reduce, after you stop having a period, after your ovaries have decided they're not going to do, they're done, they're retiring, they're not doing their thing anymore, your testosterone levels start to go down and that can impact your cognitive delays, cognitive abilities. That's where you start to have brain fog. You walk from one room to the next and you can't remember what you were supposed to be doing. Or sometimes I get through a sentence and I'm like what was I just thinking about? I mean, all the time I do that all the time and so that's a result of lower testosterone.

Speaker 1:

And when it comes to your heart people who have low testosterone it is shown that low testosterone also impacts your heart, where it makes you more likely to develop cardiovascular disease as a result of having that low testosterone. So there are so many things that. So that's first with testosterone. So when we, after we've you know, after we stopped having a period, testosterone levels drop and those things start to happen. We start to have that brain fog we start to have we're not as protected. Our brain is not as protected. We start to have that brain fog we start to have we're not as protected. Our brain is not as protected because it doesn't have that hormone going through it. Our heart is not protected as much because it doesn't have that hormone going through it. So both of those things are super, super important.

Speaker 1:

When my doctor said that, when my doctor said that, I was like what? Like I had no idea, I said so. This is not like getting help, for having lower hormones is not about I just want to look younger, I just want to feel better. This is more like your long-term longevity of your heart and of your brain and how it's going to actually age with you, and it's huge. It's so incredibly important and again, had no idea when it comes to estrogen.

Speaker 1:

Your estrogen is related and really really is impactful with all your connective tissue. So that would be your skin, your collagen skin, your collagen, your vaginal dryness. I mean all of those things are all related to your levels of estrogen. So when your estrogen drops, your skin starts to get dry, you start to have issues with vaginal dryness, all of this joint pain, I mean, oh my gosh, let's talk about some joint pain. I've had incredible joint pain and I really think back and it's been probably since 2021, 2022, that I have had just incredible joint pain.

Speaker 1:

And when I go to see my doctor, he tells me I have arthritis. I'm like, okay, I have arthritis, what can I do about it? Well, not really anything so great. So it's it's that. I'm sure I have arthritis, but I also know that I have some other. I have, I have joint pain that's associated with low levels of estrogen because of being um, being post, you know, having been in menopause, being post, you know, having been being in menopause, um and again, the, the estrogen, impacts the joints. So it's the joints, it's the tendons, it's the ligaments, it's the skin Um, all of those things are all connected.

Speaker 1:

And when you don't have that lubrication in your joints, you're going to get, you're going to have stiffness, you're going to be sore, you're going to just have difficulty gripping things stiffness, you're going to be sore, you're going to just have difficulty gripping things. You know, I can't tell you how many times I think, oh my gosh, if I can't get the lid off of this, whatever it is, whatever jar it is, I'm never going to eat this stuff because sometimes I just can't get the, I can't grip things, and that is a result. That's a result of lower estrogen as well. So we have all of these different things that are happening to our bodies. Naturally, this is not a oh.

Speaker 1:

You might be impacted by menopause. No, everyone goes through this, men and women, men also. Men's shelf life of their testicles is much longer. Men can produce sperm to have babies much later than women can. But women, but we all have this kind of like finite window of time in our reproductive history and our reproductive lifespan, and we have to be aware that those hormone levels are going to drop in both men and women. And so, specifically today, we're going to be talking about women.

Speaker 1:

But as we experience these things, there are so many different challenges that come up and and we don't have to just, we don't have to just settle, we don't have to just think like, okay, this is just the way it is. That was my saying. This is just the way it is. I guess this is just aging and it doesn't have to be that way. But how is this impacting your eating habits? Well, I will tell you. It is dramatically impacting your eating habits and it's different for men and women.

Speaker 1:

So for a woman whose testosterone levels have decreased as a result of either being in perimenopause or in menopause, a woman with low testosterone shows an increase in appetite, an increase in cravings and a tendency to overeat. And so those things are, those are automatically happening as a result of lower testosterone. The lower levels increase your feelings of hunger and your desire to want to eat. Compound that with the fact that lower testosterone also creates mood fluctuations and shortness and irritability, which can then in turn feed into emotional eating and result in emotional eating. And also, low levels of testosterone also have shown an increase in the amount of body fat that a person accumulates specifically around the midsection, and so that can lead to disordered eating. It can lead to again to overeating and just an overall malaise and low energy, and low energy is another thing that it just can absolutely zap your energy and make you so tired. Sleeplessness that is also that testosterone is the contributor to lack of sleep and not being able to sleep.

Speaker 1:

And then fluctuations in progesterone as well, with estrogen. When you have a lower level of estrogen, you have a tendency to have weight gain in the belly. This is so interesting I did not know this that women who have lower levels of estrogen in their system. They did a study of binge eaters and a majority of the binge eaters that they studied had lower than average levels of estrogen. That there is some correlation between whether it's an increase in um, in um an appetite, or if it's an increase in again that, that mood stabilization and the creation of that desire to want to binge eat as well. So all of those things are all intertwined and related.

Speaker 1:

And so you know, if you feel like, well, gosh, I got to, I got to menopause and all these things started happening, yeah, they did, because your hormones are completely out of whack. Um, so what led me to want to? You know, to decide to do, to do this, um, I actually the the thing that kind of got, because I honestly didn't even have, I just didn't. It wasn't even on my radar to think about that. All of these problems that I was having was related to my hormones.

Speaker 1:

Never once did it connect with me until I met a woman in my uh in one of my yoga classes and she was interested in introducing me to her husband. Her husband is now my daughter and um, she was interested in in because she really liked the things that I talked about in regards to emotional eating and how I don't deal with food, that I deal with the emotional aspects and the whys behind your eating and all of that. And she wanted me to meet her husband because they have a thriving practice of where they help women with intimate health issues, but also they do have a weight loss program at their office, but they are not. They didn't have the staff to be able to deal with the emotional pieces and that sort of thing. So they were really interested in talking to me, learning more about what I do and and and possibly doing a partnership with me. So that was great. So I was like, okay, that's wonderful. Never did I even.

Speaker 1:

And then I thought, gosh, you know, I should probably find out what they do. If I'm going to be, if I'm going to be a part of this office, I need to find out what they do. So we started talking about what they do and I thought, well, gosh, I'm kind of curious about that. I would be willing to do that, and so I decided that I would. In the spirit of creating this collaboration with them. I thought, okay, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to kind of go through what their system is. And oh my gosh, y'all. I mean I thought it was, I thought it was pretty well, you know, I definitely have some issues, but I didn't know how bad my situation was.

Speaker 1:

So I had my blood drawn and we had my consultation and it turns out that I not only had so. A healthy level of testosterone should be somewhere around 300 to 600. That should be the number that you're looking for, somewhere between at least 300, maybe 600 at the top end. Mine was 13. So that's pretty, that's pretty rough. My estrogen didn't even register on my results, like it was in the negative number, so it didn't even register. It didn't even have wasn't making any estrogen at all, or the number is so low that the test wasn't even able to detect it. And I also found out that I was pre-diabetic and I was not that surprised about the pre-diabetic. But at the same time it probably is a long time coming. The jig probably has to be up at some point, because I do like my sweets.

Speaker 1:

I definitely promote the idea that we don't. You know, I don't want people to diet and I don't like to. I don't want to diet, but I do want to be my healthiest, and so I really had to kind of look at like, wow, I have a, I have some work to do, I have some things I need to. I have some things I need to work on, um, so I will tell you in complete and total transparency this was last Thursday. I decided to go with the pellets the pellets of testosterone and estrogen and got those inserted on Thursday, felt amazing on Friday, slept great on Thursday night, slept amazing on Friday, had a great day on Friday and Saturday. I woke up and I didn't sleep well and I was so off I was like, oh my gosh, like I just felt really like, oh, I'm just kind of kind of sad, and so Sunday, a little bit better, wasn't feeling too bad.

Speaker 1:

Yesterday, monday, y'all, I could have killed somebody. I was. I was absolutely like, just not myself. So I called the office and I said I was like, okay, I know my numbers are super, super low, so I know, getting this stuff and getting this, this hormone in me, my body's probably like, oh my God, thank goodness. And they were so incredibly understanding, they were so nice.

Speaker 1:

It turns out that I needed to also be taking progesterone to kind of balance out, to help with my sleep, to balance out some of the the estrogen and the progesterone that I was given, but I hadn't. They didn't have any at the office because of my, because of me not using insurance. They were going to order it for me and it was going to be mailed to me. Well, they didn't anticipate that I was going to have such a quick, dramatic impact. You know it was going to have such a dramatic impact on my, on how I was feeling. And so, immediately, um, the office manager's like okay, I'm calling in a prescription for you. So they called it. They got me what I needed the progesterone that I needed. I started taking that last night.

Speaker 1:

Feel so much better today, feel just feel good, feel like back to you know, back to myself. Um, but it's, it's definitely. You know I'm. I would never I'm not going to tell anybody like oh yeah, it was magic, it was just magic. I got this, these pellets, put in and everything was great. Um, there was definitely an adjustment. There probably continued to be an adjustment, um of things. But the one thing that I really, really, um appreciated was that my doctor was incredibly, incredibly communicative, very, very like, explained everything to me. I got the complete and total rundown on my, on my blood work, I know everything that's going on with my body, um, but the office was just so responsive to you know, don't worry about this, we'll get this taken care of. We have some things that we can do, and it was just, it was so incredibly, um, just gratifying to be able to, to be able to, to feel, to have these feelings, and then have someone say it's okay, don't worry, we'll take care of you. And it was, and it, like it just calmed me down immediately, um. So you know, I'm on this, on this journey, looking forward to.

Speaker 1:

The thing I'm probably looking forward to the most is my reduced joint pain. That probably is the thing that I cannot wait to see and feel a significant difference in, because that has been the thing that has held me back so much, because I'm an avid runner and I was just not ready to give up running and I'm not ready to to stop doing that because I just I I enjoy it so much, but it has been so curtailed because of the joint pain that I have in my knees and um. So I'm really, really look, really looking forward to that. Um, and also, I the other.

Speaker 1:

The other symptom that I had, or that I have, is I have a significant amount of muscle loss in my legs, and so much so that I am very, very self-conscious and I do not like to wear, I won't like this. Last summer, I barely wore shorts Because I just I just don't like the way my legs look. They just I'm just not happy with them, and I just thought for as much as I work out how is this, how, why is this happening? And it's it was, it was hormone related. So really looking forward to seeing that, um, seeing some changes in that, some positive changes in that.

Speaker 1:

I'm not expecting me to look like I did when I was 20, but, um, I definitely know that that there is, you know, there is hope. There is a way for me to move in a direction that allows me and would allow you to be able to age in a way that we have control over that. We are able to have a say in how we want to feel and the direction that we want our lives to go, and I just think it's so. I'm just so grateful that there are people out there that are doing this kind of work and that are really there to support women and men. Um, and men have men go through the same kind of, the same kind of things, and you see all those commercials for low T and that's it's absolutely a thing for men and, uh, it's something that absolutely can um can be addressed as well. So, um, there, so there's just so much information out there. There's so much more.

Speaker 1:

And again, hormone replacement is not for everybody. If you have any history of cancer, that kind of does rule you out, or if you're at a high risk for a certain type of cancer, they would discourage you from doing hormone replacement. So it's not necessarily for everybody. It absolutely is something that, um, you know, history has to be taken into consideration, and but there's just there, there are things that we can do that we don't have to. We don't have to live lives that we don't want to live, and I think that that, more than anything, that's always what I've been about is just living your best life and living the life that you want to live and creating that for yourself, not only from a physical standpoint, from a medical, from a mental standpoint as well.

Speaker 1:

So, whatever, um, you know, I will continue to to keep you up to date on on my journey, but I will be having my doctor, uh, dr Peter Castillo. I will be having him on as a guest on my podcast and I cannot wait for you all to meet him. He is just absolutely amazing and uh, and he'll be able to uh to answer questions, uh, that you provide for me and I will have him answer questions and it will be just an amazing, an amazing, amazing educational experience. So I look forward to that happening in the next couple of weeks. All right, y'all?

Speaker 1:

Well, I hope this, I hope this episode has been helpful and I hope, if you are somebody who is struggling with um, you know just the, the, the symptoms of of menopause, that and you're and you're not sure what you can do or how you know how you can go about about doing it. Please, you know, reach out to me, um in you know, if it's on Instagram, if it's through my podcast, if it's um, you know just sending me an email, anything like that. I absolutely will share with you everything that I have learned and the resources that I have and hopefully we'll be able to um make you know, help people um, just live the life they want to live and and age in a way that is something that we get to have a say in. So all right, y'all. Thank you so much for joining me this week and I will see you all next week, take care, thank you. Sign up for my free Stop Dieting 5-Step Guide. Go to wwwKristenJonesCoachingcom, that's K-R-I-S-T-I-N-JonesCoachingcom, and click the Stop Dieting Guide button. Thank you,