#69: Balancing your Hormones - What it Means & How to Do It

Balancing your hormones is one of the latest buzzwords in fitness, but what does that mean? What hormones need "balancing", and how is it best to balance them? 🤔

In this episode, I take a look at some of the key hormones affecting 40+ women and share my thoughts and experiences on "balancing" them. 

So, if you're looking for a decidedly low-hype discussion of the topic, this is the episode for you. 😉

(Spoiler alert: I am not pushing any supplements or pills!)

Transcript

#69: Balancing your Hormones

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ fitness for women. I'm Lynn and I'm your host, a certified menopause fitness coach. And today I actually want to talk to you about my point of view on something that you hear a lot about on social media, which is balancing your hormones. And I feel like. It is made to sound like this very woo woo thing.

And I wanted to just talk about it for a little bit from my perspective and hopefully clarify that a little bit for you. And one of the reasons that this actually came to mind this week, and I don't normally do like my opinion on things, uh, podcasts, but I thought, actually, I'm going to do a few of these because.

I've been getting a lot of questions from clients and listeners, you know, how do I feel about this or that? So I [00:01:00] thought I would share, but I do this absolutely with the kind of warning label that I am not a doctor. Okay. I am a woman. So I'm talking from my perspective and I am a certified menopause fitness coach, so I probably know more than the average bear.

And then I have my own like experience in this thing. But for sure, when we're talking about anything health related, talk to a doctor who really specializes in this stuff before you, you know, make any decisions. And I say, talk to a doctor who specializes in this stuff because even, you know, gynecologists and gynecologists.

They're not necessarily all terribly interested in hormone replacement therapy and your normal doctor that you go to won't necessarily know about this stuff either. So you do kind of have to search, [00:02:00] unfortunately.

And the reason why this topic is really on my mind this week is that as many of you may know, I am on hormone replacement therapy and have been for many years, and I just found out that there is a countrywide shortage, in my particular hormone replacement. So the patch that I use. And I was hunting around yesterday.

Checking all the pharmacies. And actually it turns out that it is not available anywhere in this country. And I have got zero left and I need to change my, , patch today. So that's really, really bad news. And this has happened actually once before, a few years back, there was a shortage of, I use Evorel Conti

I don't know, there aren't very many on [00:03:00] the market here in Finland where I live, but I've been using that one and it has worked really well for me and it was not available a few years back. So I tried some other options. I tried two different options and it made it extremely clear to me how How powerful these hormones are in affecting things in our minds, right?

I had one of them that I tried. I was crying all the time. I was like, you know how you are when you're pregnant and anything like a little bit of a cute commercial and tears are streaming down your face. Well, I was feeling like that just all the time. And okay, I'm not. Plus side of that hormone was that my sex drive was, you know, through the roof.

And that was kind of fun for my then boyfriend [00:04:00] and for me, but it was not so nice to be crying the rest of the time. But in any case, so you know, your hormones being kind of balanced in balance is a very big effector on you. , and I also think about, you know, before I got on hormone replacement therapy, so when I was in perimenopause and didn't really know anything about menopause and I had all kinds of symptoms.

In fact, I was severely depressed and they were, you know, I was in therapy for three years and taking antidepressants and my state was getting worse. And nobody realized that, Hey, you know, nobody put two and two together and thought, Hey, wait a second. She's like in her late forties and she is in menopause that [00:05:00] has been diagnosed.

And. She's depressed that, hey, one plus one is two. But when I finally did start the hormone replacement therapy, then my mood finally improved plus my sleep and all kinds of other things. So You know, when I think about balancing one's hormones, I see it as a tool that we women have at our disposal. Well, not all of us do, because there are some people who, for example, if you've had breast cancer or some other conditions, you cannot go on hormone replacement therapy.

But for a lot of us, it is one of the tools in our toolbox to ensure our quality of life going forward. And that's my point of view on this. And I know there's a lot of fear around being on hormone replacement therapy and that's due to the [00:06:00] women's health initiative study back when my mom was in about my age, so about 25 years ago. Where they interpreted the study results wrong and basically scared a whole generation of women, you know, into not using hormone replacement therapy.

Even my mom, she stopped using hormone replacement therapy at that point when the study results came out and she has since started using hormone replacement therapy now in older age. So if we're talking about balancing hormones, really, if you think about it from the point of view as it is one of the tools that you have in your toolbox for improving your quality of life.

So that's, that's really where I am coming from with this. And so one of the things is the hormone replacement therapy, that it really can make a huge difference. I know it's made a huge difference in my life as far [00:07:00] as, you know, helping me get out of that depression that I was in, , giving me energy, allowing me to sleep.

 Plus we do know that it does help with maintaining bone strength a little bit better than not being on hormone replacement therapy. And there are some other health benefits too, but that is a medicine. So please do discuss that with a doctor, with a gynecologist who is specializing in menopause and who knows something about these and is keeping up with the latest research and information on these things. 

So one more thing I want to say about the hormone replacement therapy is that, and this may be, you may or may not be aware of this, so you can take hormone replacement therapy like patches, pills,, gels, lipids, whatever. And those work more systemically, but one of the issues that women [00:08:00] have a lot of times is that down there in their privates, the, you know, the skin just starts to dry up and it can be extremely painful.

Well, first it may start by being an itch. Itch, because itch is like a mild form of pain, but it can get really, really painful as the skin, the surfaces down there within your vagina and around the outside start to get dry. And for that, there are local therapies you can use. So for example, inserts, Like these little tiny pills that you put up there like a couple times a week.

There are also lotions that you can apply on the outside. And Oh my God, they are really a lifesaver because if you're like me and you want to have an active and pleasurable sex life, you need Those surfaces to be in [00:09:00] good shape because otherwise if they're already like dry and sore and then you try to rub something against them like your man, it is not going to feel good at all.

So you can get a lot more pleasure and take care of, you know, maintaining those areas of your body by using local, hormone. So there are estrogen creams and estrogen inserts, that really, really help. And at least here where I live, they're available over the counter. So you can go buy them, start using them, because they really work only there locally.

And if you're not comfortable using a type of treatment that has the hormones, you can also use different oils. And there I would go to your pharmacy, talk to a pharmacist about something that is completely neutral, that is appropriate to put in that area, not [00:10:00] inside, but like on the outside parts, just to offer some more moisture. 

So when we talk about hormone replacement therapy, it's really about estrogen and progesterone. And when you add those back in, they do help a lot of women with a lot of the menopause symptoms, including sex drive and being able to feel pleasure in sex, being able to orgasm, that kind of thing.

But kind of newer on the market or and use is testosterone. So testosterone is the dominant male hormone, but we do also have testosterone. We women, and as we age, our testosterone levels start to decline. And for a lot of women, that's not a problem at all. But then some women may notice that, Oh my God, no energy at all.

Uh, sex feels like cardboard, you know, [00:11:00] and using just the female hormone replacement therapy isn't helping, and there may be other things that you're noticing. 

I think the UK here in Europe is fairly advanced pushing this kind of therapy for women. And what I have read of women who have started taking the testosterone is that they have, had that energy again, that they had lost that sex starts to feel like something again when it had just disappeared.

So, so again, I'm talking about different tools in the toolkit for improving your quality of life, because man, we may be 40, 50, 60, but life's not over and we can certainly be enjoying, having energy and having intimacy with our partners, into our eighties and nineties.

[00:12:00] It's not like it stops when we turn 50. I mean, I know back when I was 20, I thought they're probably not doing it anymore. My parents, but now I realized they might've been doing it quite a lot actually. 

Okay. So that was about the sex hormones. So that was maybe the fun part of the discussion and the ones that were more medical, but then let's talk about some other hormones that you may want to think about balancing. So one of them is melatonin. So when we're talking about sleep, Melatonin is important for that.

And there are some ways that you can naturally help your melatonin levels, like for example, going out for a walk in the morning. So if you have a dog, take that as a great excuse to go walk around the block once and having the sun hit or the light hit your eyes at a particular time angle is supposed to help with [00:13:00] your natural melatonin and things like not being on your screens late at night is also another way that you can help with your natural melatonin.

And then you also can take melatonin pills. I know for me, I have a lot of trouble with sleep issues and it wasn't so much about staying asleep. It was falling asleep. I would lie there. Nothing in my head, no worries, nothing like that, but the lights just wouldn't go out, you know, in my head. And when I started taking melatonin, I was able to start falling asleep again.

So that was very useful for me. And that was a way of balancing my hormones, right? That's another hormone. 

Another hormone that we talk about a lot with midlife women is cortisol. And I actually did a podcast episode on things that change [00:14:00] fundamentally in your body, in menopause. And one of those things is that your ability to manage stress actually declines. So your base level of cortisol in your system is higher than it was before.

That may be why you're noticing that you're maybe a little bit grouchier than you used to be, or feeling more stressed out. or more tired at the end of the day. It's that your stress management levels, your natural like flexibility or ability to handle stress is just not what it used to be. So cortisol is a hormone and it is important to quote unquote manage it.

And the way you manage it is by trying to manage your stress loads. So having less stress on you, that may mean Organizing carpools so you don't need to drive your kids quite so much, [00:15:00] or making sure that you get to bed early so your body is not so tired, getting out of that perpetual diet because that is stressful for your body as well, or not doing so much of this, like, cardio, , this kind of mid level cardio.

So many women are, at least in my gym, they'll like go to one cardio class and they'll be like, Oh yeah, I'm going to do another. And that kind of mid level cardio is raising your cortisol levels and then, hey, you need to bring them down. And the cortisol level staying high is not good because cortisol is a destructive hormone and destructive on your muscles, which I'm always talking about, Hey, we need to hold onto those muscles.

So managing your cortisol levels, your stress hormone levels is important. You can practice yoga. You can do breathing exercises. I had a whole bunch of ideas actually in that [00:16:00] episode. So take a listen to that one. If you haven't already.

And then we have two that I cannot speak on very much because I honestly have not been following them very much, though I should maybe start following one of them a little bit more. One is your thyroid. So I had a blood workup done a few weeks ago and then noticed that There was a little bit of a hitch in my thyroid levels, but they said, Hey, this might just be normal.

Let's take it again in three months and then decide. So if your thyroid starts acting up, then that can affect things. You know, you might gain a little bit of weight. You might start losing too much weight and then it can have other repercussions. And I don't know all of them, so I'm not going to pretend I do, but that is one of those hormones that you probably want to make sure is doing okay for you, and if you notice that you have [00:17:00] hyperthyroidism , that you take your medicine and manage that. 

And then the final one is insulin. And this is one that they talk about all the time. Oh my God. Avoid insulin spikes. Avoid it. Avoid it. Avoid it. And yeah, I think there's maybe a little bit too much of this, hype or fear mongering around insulin.

If you are overweight or pre diabetic, then there are definitely things that you can and should do. Your doctor will know to tell you what those are. Probably one of them is to exercise more and try to lose a little bit of weight to manage your insulin. But the rest of the population, like, honestly, I don't think we need to be so worried about insulin spikes after a meal.

Insulin is supposed to spike after a meal because it's there to [00:18:00] draw the blood glucose into your cells. I see people wearing these glucose monitors all over the place. I mean, now you notice it now that it's summer and people are outside with no sleeves on and it's like, Hey. There's another person and another person and I used to think, Oh, that person must be diabetic, you know, because that's actually what those monitors were made for was for diabetics to be able to monitor their blood glucose because for them, it is actually really important that they don't get let their blood glucose go up too high.

But now it's just a fad thing., well, the blood glucose monitoring companies are making a ton of money with this, but I, uh, I don't think that we normally healthy people need to be, worrying about that too much. 

All right. So I hope that this helped you a little bit understand what is being [00:19:00] talked about when we talk about balancing your hormones, that it's actually not like this big, scary thing that you might, or that people might want you to think it is. So for us women in midlife, a lot of it is about our estrogen and progesterone and how those are affecting us.

And for sure, you should understand the symptoms of menopause so that you can manage those symptoms because they can really wreak havoc on your life.

My life was pretty much hell for a couple of years before I got my "Hormones Balanced" by getting on hormone replacement therapy. Then all of a sudden I finally came out of my depression. I was finally able to sleep. My brain started functioning and I could remember stuff again. , so that is important. Balancing your hormones. You can't do that one on your own. You need a doctor for that.

And then this newer one of the [00:20:00] testosterone, which for some people may cause issues when it's too low. Like you're just dragging all the time or that your sex drive all of a sudden disappears or your ability to enjoy sex disappears. And, you know, it's not because you're having some emotional thing or too much stress in your life or whatever, you know, there's some other reason and they can test that, right? They'll test whether testosterone levels are lower than they should be. 

Then there are things like melatonin, which you can affect by some of the things that you do, taking those walks, not using the Blue screens or not having screen time right before bedtime. You can take the pills if those two behavioral changes are not enough,

then cortisol. So managing your stress so that your cortisol levels are not too high. And that is absolutely something you need to [00:21:00] do with lifestyle changes, right? I don't think there's a medicine you can take to chillax. Okay. . I take that back. Maybe there are some of those, you know, mother's little helpers and this kind of thing, but let's please not go there.

And then finally, there are your thyroid hormones and your insulin. And those are two things that you need to talk to a doctor about if those are out of whack and get some real medical treatment for.

Okay. So I hope this helped. I had one listener write to me and she was thanking me. She said, Oh, it's so great to listen to your podcast because even though I hear this stuff all the time, nobody really explains it.

So I hope that this explanation helped somebody and I'd love to hear if it did help you and if there's any other things that you want to hear my take on or me to explain it , [00:22:00] so that it can help you. So you understand what's going on.

And with that, I will wish you a very, very happy rest of the week. And of course, happy training.