From Hot Flashes, Hormones To Ice Baths: The Real Story of Menopause| Women's Health Explained

0:00 Why do we as women do this rise, crash and burn and then realize that I need to take life seriously? >> Often we don't give ourselves permission to recover and then I came down with pneumonia. Eventually I was taken into hospital and even then the crazy thing is I remember them saying to me we're admitting you and I was like well I just need to pick up the kids first. PCOS and endometriosis. A second pass was a postnatal depression and the burnout.

0:25 What were typically the symptoms with the burnout that I'd had three C-sections in for just over four and a half years? Cuz with the with my first I tried a natural delivery, but I had pelvic disproportion. As women, we're kind of conditioned to just keep going. If you're not changing the way that you eat and train, commonly women will experience things like belly fat, and that will be driven even more if we're not managing our stress. How does this differ through races and ethnicities?

0:50 Have you seen difference in Asian countries differently from any other ethnicities? Is there a correlation between the kind of exercise women do in this phase of their lives? Because you mentioned about something like highintensity training that you were doing earlier suddenly may work against you in many forms. Hello and welcome to the Kids Stop Press podcast and today we have with us Angela Foster who is an award-winning nutritionist, a health performance coach, speaker and host of the top rated global podcast. Angela, I'm so glad that we connected on Instagram and here we are recording a podcast today.

1:21 >> I'm so happy to be here. It's lovely to be with you. Thank you. >> Tell me um why do we as women need to go through or as as humans, why do we need to go through this rise, crash, and burn and then realize that I need to take life seriously? It's a really interesting question and actually some of my work is working with large corporations and investment banks to actually look at how can we better support women because they're highly educated very very valuable but most or many women should I say not all many women hit their 30s and they don't feel that they have enough support to combine their working life with a family life and be the mother to their children that they truly want to be. And I think we've got to support women better. We know there's a bit of a gender pay gap, but more than that, actually just looking at how we can support them with things like working from home and co was amazing in many respects for women because they were able to do that. But now what we're seeing is this increasing return to the office with some organizations saying you've got to be there four days a week, some moving to five days, which makes it really impractical for women as they're moving up through the ranks because they don't always until they get to that level of seniority, they can't necessarily afford all of the support in terms of housekeeping and nannying and things that they need. Um, and so it's this sort of this chicken and egg scenario. And I think that's what drives them to think about leaving or causes burnout. Whereas when we look forward and look at them in midlife, they're so valuable, but we've lost them uh often along the way. And then there's another kind of gap again when we look at permenopause with women not being supported. And so I think I think we need better support.

2:58 >> Absolutely. And I'm so glad that you say that because I think more often than not, we don't realize that we need that support, but we don't want to ask for that support because we feel like we're going to be judged. You know, I'm so glad that you mentioned um that that you know, we as women, we want to we hesitate from taking that that jump or that plunge or asking for help because we often feel like I will be judged as being incompetent or if I ask for help or if I take that break, I will be, you know, uh victimizing myself or playing the victim card. And I'm so glad that you say that because I know so many women who actually drop out of the workforce because they don't actually ask for help. So I'm so glad that you actually mentioned that. Um I think often the support isn't there as well. I know like for example when I broached the topic of maybe dropping for a short period of time just when my kids were really young of working 3 days a week that was considered popping in. So that was not an option. So it was kind of four days. And I think so many women actually realize that when you move to 4 days, chances are you're going to be paid for 4 days but actually working five because you're going to end up finishing that stuff from home. And I think that's the battle right that they're having and then they're confronted with you know not seeing their children. They're kind of or seeing them very briefly in the morning uh and then coming home and they're going to bed or have already gone to bed. It's really really difficult when the kids are young and you want to have that time with them. you know you mentioned about a couple of you know key 10 points that you mentioned which was about the PCOS and endometriosis a second pass with the postnatal depression and the burnout what were typically the symptoms that you noticed at that point in time because I feel sometimes women are just passing through it without even knowing that here's a problem I mean they think it's all okay and it's just a day and this will go through and I'll be fine tomorrow.

4:46 >> Yeah. So they were I mean they were all a little bit different. So when I look at like the PCOS and endometriosis I think was really unfortunate and you know still now there's very little research done on women. We're getting better at it but it's there's still a long way to go. Um and a lot of medical doctors aren't really trained in women's health. And so for me I was very aware of the symptoms. I was aware of the fact that I was having you know I'd gone a whole year um at university without any periods. And the doctor's response was just simply put you back on the pill until you want to look at starting a family. It was never investigated. when I tried then to think about starting a family um and you know birth control has its own separate thing right that we now know a lot more about but when I started to think about having a family and I realized how disrupted my cycle was how much heavy bleeding how much pain I had initially when they ran some bloods they didn't actually tell me what was going on and I went through a series and this is very common with women a series of successive doctors to actually get diagnosed and it took the point where >> I was struggling to walk because I had such a big cyst on one of my ovaries that it was beginning to twist and that's when I was you know taken into hospital quickly and I had surgery and that's when they really discovered it and I think this is the kind of thing you know often we need to push quite hard to be listened to with the burnout um that I'd had three C-sections in four just over four and a half years um had three babies that had reflux um because with with my first I tried a natural delivery but I had pelvic disproportion so I was really really depleted and on the background of those long working hours as a lawyer I felt excessively tired and I think that I was struggling to keep up. But then there was also this part of me I don't know if this will resonate with you or your audience but as women we're kind of conditioned to just keep going. So I had this narrative going on but you know that and you kind of beat yourself up. So I was like how can this be? And I remember sitting with a therapist and she was saying to me you're putting too much pressure on yourself. And I was like like how I used to run multinational deals and here I am. The big thing is it takes me an hour and a half to get out. I'm so depressed to get out of bed in the morning. My son's dragging me out of bed to go to school. I feel like a complete failure.

6:51 How can you say I'm putting pressure on myself? And I think that often we don't give ourselves permission to recover. You know, we're always we're like once the baby gets to, you know, that weaning age instead of us taking a nap when they're napping, we're going and puring foods and doing all these things trying to be super mom. And so I think there's an element of inbuilt pressure but also it comes from societal conditioning that we have to do more to be more whereas actually that all comes from within.

7:17 >> That's so beautifully said. Um and then coming on to your journey of when did you decide that you want to be a nutritionist and a health um and performance coach? >> Yeah. So that transition happened. So after I kind of kept going I was being treated eventually my depression got so bad that I was on bipolar medications. Um, and then I came down with pneumonia. I was being treated at home and then eventually I was taken into hospital.

7:41 Um, and even then the crazy thing is I remember them saying to me, "We're admitting you." And I was like, "Well, I just need to pick up the kids first and then I'll come back with the bag." And they were like, "I don't think you understand. It's your lungs are so covered in it. We're going to put you in." And when I was in hospital, they told me that I was neutropenic. My white blood cell count was so low. And I realized that all these thoughts of kind of ending my life in my head, now my physical health was taking a toll and there was a real possibility here. I might not make it. And I remember looking at photos of my children after they've been to see me and just feeling this overwhelming sense of love and responsibility of like, what am I doing?

8:16 I've got to get well. And what's so interesting, and Dr. Dr. Joe Despenszer talks about this a lot about how we can heal the body with our mind is that the moment that I made a decision I'm going to get really well within 48 hours my blood work started to change and that was transformational for me. I had minimal damage compared to what they were expecting with the pneumonia. They thought they would have to incubate me.

8:37 They never did and I started to recover. And so when I came out of hospital I realized that I'd begun to heal and this was something quite magical. So I started to look into it and then I started to do um training myself and initially it was really to get myself well and then over time I started to realize this isn't just a me thing. So many women are experiencing similar situations and that's when I started my practice started my podcast um and started really really focusing on women.

9:04 Let's move to quickly one of quickly to your journey and one of the posts that actually connected um you know connected me and and helped me know more about you was your post on ice bath and all that you speak about perry menopause and u diving straight in on ice bath for women and you know you've done a beautiful post but I'd love for you to walk through does it work for women what are the kind of temperatures that work.

9:28 >> Sure. So I think I think with ice baths and there's some kind of conflicting I guess opinions going around on this with ice baths and I'd say that all things so like sauna ice baths high-intensity interval training all of these things are stresses um that are good stresses on the body um but what we don't want to do is overstress the body by adding too many of them particularly for women in stressful uh jobs or they're like you know running a busy household maybe they're doing multiple things maybe they're caring for aging parents but when we look at kind of the physiological things there was a small study that was done um that showed that women started to shiver at higher temperatures. So some of the benefits that come from that how may mean that women don't need it as cold. However, when we then look at you know other research and we look at also a more kind of holistic approach to ice baths which is about overcoming yourself um and trying to avoid shivering and using breath work techniques to really feel that sense of embodiment. Um, and a a podcast that I would and and we've got a page where we can link to further resources for your audience um afterwards, but you know, I did a really really good podcast on this with Laura Hoff. Um, see, and she's just published a book, Secrets of the Icewoman. Um, her father is obviously Wimhof and how breathing techniques and things can help. And so, I think it's like something that is sort of almost wait and see because I think looking at what is the intention behind the ice bath, what are you looking to achieve as a result of it? I do think that many people are spending too long, right?

10:52 They they're going in for longer than they need and really um Suzanne Soderberg has done some great research on this. You know, in terms of the total across the week, we're looking around 11 minutes and that can be split into sessions of like 2 to three minutes um or even 3 to four. I think if you're going to start do something like an ice bath, you definitely and Laura really focused on this. You want to build up slowly and build that resiliency. So starting with a cold shower, finish for about 15 seconds as the at the end and really get your system used to it. And sometimes oscillating between hot and cold, helping your blood vessels dilate and um you know expand just can be helpful as well in terms of blood flow.

11:32 Um and there's some benefits to doing that. But I think it's all about really working with your physiology and also looking at the other stresses that you have going on in your life. You know, we know that cold exposure improves dopamine. It can help with focus and concentration. It can help lower inflammation. It can help with brown fat. All these things are really amazing. But I think that when we look at the research uh in terms of cardiovascular health benefits and things like that, then sauna is probably stronger. And so what I would say, you know, go with what you enjoy. There's so many women I speak to, they just naturally prefer the heat. Uh and that feels more accessible to them. And if that's that's how you are, um then go with that.

12:07 >> Right. That's that's actually very interesting that you mentioned that. Um coming on to one of your posts where you talk about the importance of fiber in menopause. Um that was one of the posts that gripped me as well. So do you want to talk a little bit about that? Why is it so important? >> And really let's take a step back and understand what really happens in pmenopause and in menopause. What are the changes that are happening in in a woman's body and why is it such a crucial phase for us to kind of understand and learn more about?

12:37 >> Of course. Yeah. So um with menopause, so menopause is one day in your life. Um and everything before that is premenopausal. The buildup period is per menopause when things start to change. So your hormones are going up and down. >> And then we have menopause which marks one day in your life. It's one year from the date of your last period. Um and then after that everything is postmenopause and it takes kind of five years often for women's hormones to really adjust to that new baseline. Um which is much lower unless you're using hormone therapy. Um, but when we look at what's going on in those pmenopausal years, which some experts will say can start from 35. I think it varies women to woman, but certainly if you're in your 40s, you're probably experiencing some changes in your hormonal balance.

13:19 One of the first things that we see is that progesterone starts to drop. Um, and this can affect women's sleep. It can affect their anxiety levels um, uh, in particular because it's linked often with GABA production in the brain, which is very calming for us. So, as we start to move closer and closer towards that menopause, um what we find is that we, you know, we have a shorter menstrual cycle, then sometimes it goes longer. We might have a regular cycle and not ovulate at every single um ovulation event, right? So, we'll have a period, but we didn't ovulate that month. And if we're not ovulating, then we're not producing the same levels of progesterone because the progesterone is produced by the corpus lutium, which is like a temporary gland that's left behind on the ovary after ovulation takes place. And in um a a situation of pregnancy, for example, that corpus lutium would continue to produce progesterone right up until the placenta fully takes over around week 12 to 13.

14:14 So, in pmenopause, if we're not having an an ovulation every single month, that's naturally reducing our progesterone. And so, we're really relying on our adrenals to support this. And if we're constantly pumping out lots of cortisol, we're really really highly stressed, that can affect things further. And then, as we move closer towards menopause, we also see significant disruptions in estrogen. And estrogen can go really high and then it can drop. And it's when it's dropping from sort of a higher thing that we tend to experience symptoms like hot flashes which come for some women closer towards menopause. Um estrogen also helps with serotonin and mood. Um and if you've got a loss of progesterone you're going to be more estrogen dominant dominant in any event. And when you're more estrogen dominant you can experience heavy bleeding um and things like that. And so a lot of women will get very heavy bleeds, blood clotting um and things like that. So there's there's so many symptoms when we look at like what's happening from a physiological perspective and why are our health risks increase. We also see that baseline cortisol. So stress hormone is going up during that period. In any event, we're seeing higher levels of inflammation which we know are linked to many of the chronic diseases that we see. We see poorer insulin sensitivity. So now women are not managing their blood glucose quite so well. We see that estrogen is a very um strong stimulus for muscle protein synthesis. And so with that loss in estrogen, we need to work a bit harder on our resistance training to gain that tissue, which is really important because we're losing both muscle mass and strength um and power really with aging. Um and so all of these things are going on. And then we also see some increase in body fat for for some women. um that's not in all cases, but there certainly are more of a redistribution of body fat if you're not changing the way that you eat and train to really accommodate those changing hormones. And so commonly women will experience things like belly fat and that will be driven even more if we're not managing our stress. So it's a time of our lives where I like to embrace um kind of I guess it seeing it as more of an opportunity for change, an opportunity to step into ourselves.

16:21 often we've, you know, been raising our children and now this is a period of time we can focus more on ourselves. And really it's shining a light from a health perspective on where we might need to uh change things to really protect ourselves against things like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and dementia. >> You know, I absolutely love that that we've used this period up until now to raise our children and now it's the time to raise ourselves. Um would love to know Angela um how does this differ uh in uh through races and ethnicities?

16:51 Have you seen a difference like do you see that it per menopause menopause affects women in you know Asian countries differently from that in western or any other ethnicities. >> Yeah. So it's really interesting. So I did a a post on this as you probably saw um that went quite viral around you know Japanese women and there was very Yes. Yes. Yes. That was very >> and it's very controversial. >> I love that. I love that.

17:20 >> I mean you know there's some evidence that they invas more as a second spring. Then some Japanese women will come forward and say actually it's not talked about enough. We know that their diets are quite different. they have phytoistrogens, more soy and things like that that support better hormonal balance. Um, it's, you know, there's definitely research that I've looked at that if you can have a more positive mindset, you're probably going to have a better experience. And we know that, right, we were talking about the very beginning of this um, episode just about how my mindset was affecting my health.

17:51 So, the mind and body are intimately connected and so that can have a profound impact. I do like this idea of it being a second spring and w women really being valued. Um because we've acquired a lot of wisdom by this point in our lives and you know from a health perspective it probably isn't. Pregnancy is risky anyway. Child birth is risky. Probably reached an age where it's too risky now to have children. But we can take on this other role of first focusing on ourselves and really expanding areas of our life and our spirituality that we hadn't maybe had the opportunity to before and then hopefully later moving into that grandmothering role. Um so I think it's a really beautiful time but there it isn't without its disruption and so I think that understanding from a holistic health perspective how can we best support ourselves and then also looking at whether hormone therapy might be an appropriate adjunct. It's never going to lift the weights for us. It's not going to like give us the right feed, but it's helpful alongside.

18:51 >> Right. You mentioned about strength training and lifting the heavy weights. I want to know is there a correlation between the kind of exercise women do in this phase of their lives with with permenopause and menopause. Is there a correlation? because you mentioned about how something like highintensity training that you were doing earlier suddenly may work against you in many forms versus strength training or walking or any of that. So you want to talk through us talk to us about that?

19:17 >> I I think what we see is actually we need a stronger stimulus but we also need to balance the nervous system. So when I'm working with clients we do we monitor HRV really closely because that's a metric that tells us it's very non-invasive way of looking at and that's really the variation between someone heart someone's heartbeat. So we look at their sleep, we look at the resting heart rate, we look at their HRV, we look at their breathing rate and their body temperature to see how are they coping with the stress because again I think it's really individual.

19:42 When we lose estrogen, we know that we have to work a bit harder in terms of gaining that mass. So we can do kind of higher repetition ranges when we're younger um and maybe get better body composition results more easily. Uh we also need to do some highintensity work because we know that we lose the fast twitch muscle fibers f uh faster. However, that has to be balanced out a bit like we were talking about ice baths with the women's with the woman herself, her stress profile um and what's going on in her life as well. And I know it's really really interesting because I did a podcast recently um with the CEO of glycin age which is a test that looks at really inflammaging that we know is one of the main drivers right it's one of the hallmarks of aging and they had done a case study actually on a 35year-old woman who had done looked at glycans which as I say is a good way of looking at the immune system and inflammaging and she was a CEO of a company she had two young children uh and she was doing highintensity interval training and when they looked at her glycans she was aging 15 years ahead of her age. So she had a biological age of 50. They swapped that out and took out the highintensity work and replaced it with yoga and within 12 weeks she had a biological age back down to her chronological age.

20:53 >> That's not to say that every woman needs to stop HIT training and do yoga. I think what we need to do is look at it and go what's the other stress in your life and can we if we're going to do some HIT because I think HIT is really powerful for improving insulin sensitivity. It's short. It fits with many women's timelines, but I think it's we've got to keep it short and have lots of recovery in between. Um whereas I think what happens is as women's body shapes start to change, they start to layer in more and more exercise. So they might be going to like an F45 class three times a week. Um and these are classes that are kind of an hour long and it's causing a lot of extra stress.

21:29 If you keep ramping up the stress without recovery, that's when it can be counterproductive to your goals. So it's really individual and I think I guess contrary to what we see many experts saying oh no there's no place for zone 2 for women personally having interviewed experts in this I believe there is a place and I think that it's amazing for recovery going out in nature um being even if you do it on a treadmill being at that lower to moderate intensity um which really the upper end of zone 2 you can find most easily as a general guide if you're using a heart rate monitor it would be 180 minus your age um and both zone one and two even when you're doing it slowly. Um I've interviewed experts on this has endocrine benefits for you. It has immune system benefits. It improves blood flow. Includes recovery from your workouts and it's really good way of active recovery. So I I the way I see it is there's a place for working at all rep ranges. There's a place for working at all ranges within cardio. I think within the aerobic system, I think if you're pushing in the sort of middle zone, and I've posted about that consistently or you're doing too much too much hit, then it can be counterproductive. Um, but you know, they all have benefits. We've just got to get that physiological load right to match your recovery.

22:44 >> Right? So, if you have to break down a week of seven days into different kinds of workout for women, what would that look like? So, if they were if they were looking at it and they were like, "Okay, I want to set aside 45 minutes a day where I'm going to go and do something for myself," then I would say that if you can do three full body strength uh resistance sessions, that would be great. If you're someone who loves to lift and you want to do more than that, then I would start to split between upper and lower to be able to do four.

23:10 Otherwise, you're going to see limited recovery. Um, I think within that, if your stress levels are okay and you're not burned out, then you could put in a HIT session. So for example, we know that the Norwegian 4x4 protocol, which is where you do four minutes at a higher intensity with 3 minutes on a very low intensity recovery, you repeat that four times through, that improves your V2 max and your that's your maximum aerobic capacity. That again is something we want to look at with age.

23:37 >> And you could do that once every two weeks or if you really were looking at a block where you wanted to improve it, once a week. Um, if you were doing an upper body workout and you had that resiliency, you could tag a few short sprints on the end of your workout, but then the rest of it I would make up with yoga, with walks, with lower intensity stuff to fuel that active recovery and really rebalance your system.

23:59 >> Amazing. Um, you also, um, talk about the importance of fiber and protein. Why is fiber so important in the permenopause and menopause stages and the protein as well? And do you feel that >> um vegetarians have a disadvantage to it? >> All great questions. So first of all, fiber. So vegetarians will be getting a lot of fiber. Uh and fiber we know is really really healthy for our gut microbes, right? So I know there's a lot of diets out there around carnivore and things like that. I think we're missing out on many >> uh micronutrients, polyphenols which feed our healthy gut bacteria, fiber which supports our gut bacteria. And as we are going through those permenopausal years, um we're actually seeing changes in the gut microbiome. We see changes in something called betaglucona days which regulates est kind of repackaged estrogen if you like through the body.

24:50 Um so fiber is really really healthy and it helps with gut motility. It helps with detoxification as well. It also helps with blood glucose control. So, I think there's a place for having a, you know, a a diet that has lots of plants within it and certainly focusing on variety over some kind of fiber threshold that you're trying to get to. Just lots and lots of colorful foods will give you those antioxidants and polyphenols with the fiber alongside.

25:16 Um, with protein, what we're looking at is we need to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Um, and as women get um older, they tend to develop more anabolic resistance. So it's not as easy to gain new tissue. And so where we might have been fine on say 25 g of protein, now we need more like 30 or 40 grams of protein within a serving to stimulate that muscle protein synthesis. Um so generally speaking, the guidelines which still fit within longevity goals would be somewhere between8 gram to 1 gram um of protein per pound of lean mass or some people say per pound of body weight to make it easier. If you're overweight, that's going to be target body weight because if you're vastly overweight, you're not going to like eat 250 grams of protein. That would be a lot and probably too much. We're looking at target body weight. So, that's kind of a good um idea with vegetarians.

26:08 Whenever you're having protein, whenever you Yeah. Whenever you're having carbohydrates, right, you're having protein and carbs together. So often there is a higher carb intake that's going alongside. But whether or not you gain or lose weight will be determined by whether you are taking in more calories than you're burning. Right? We can't although we can look at optimizing hormones so that we're keeping insulin stable because if we have high insulin, we're going to promote more fat storage.

26:36 If we have high cortisol, we promote more fat storage. So we definitely I'm not saying calories in, calories out is everything. We need to look at the hormonal balance. Um, however, you're going to be eating naturally more carbs, but they're also wrapped up in fiber if you're having whole food carbs. If you're eating processed foods, that's different. And the fiber actually excretes some of the calories from the body. But I would say that making sure that you are an active person so that you've got good insulin sensitivity, you're looking after your muscle mass, you're walking and doing things like that regularly is going to help you have uh improved blood glucose control as part of it. Um, for for women then like post-workout if it's harder to get the protein in. This is where sometimes having a plant-based protein shake can be helpful to get that recovery in post post-workout that can be a good tool.

27:24 Um, and you need to kind of just focus on a variety of foods to making sure you're getting all the essential amino acids because one of the most important ones with pro muscle protein synthesis is leucine. And we know the trigger for that is about 2.7 grams of leucine. That can be quite hard if you're not having animal-based foods to find. But if you have something like a pea protein isolate, generally you'll see that in that survey.

27:48 >> Right. That's so interesting that you mentioned that. Um and any other foods, any other foods that would actually have that leucine that one can get. >> It's difficult. I think you just what you need to do is just make sure that you're combining lots of different um protein sources together. So, you're adding like if you're having like a big salad, you're adding some nuts, some seeds, and different things. >> Interesting. Um, also you mentioned about the different compositions, and it actually makes me wonder, how does your supplement stash change from your 20s to your 30s to your 40s to your 50s? How does how does that go around? And and and let me give you a background to that. I feel like people are overdoing the supplements because they're so vulnerable. they're just assuming everything that's they see online to say okay this has got to work for me and we also see a lot of people overdoing it and then finding a problem to the assimilation of uh that supplement. So and that assimilation or the extra supplementation is what's causing the problem. Uh and what necessarily works for somebody may not work for uh the other. So how would how would that how would you break that down for someone?

28:59 100% and I think we see this as well. You know, I when I when I was interviewing doing this interview with Glyen Age, um you know, they looked at so many biological age tests and what they were finding is the people that were the kind of quote unquote biohackers who were doing all of the hormatic stresses that we've been talking about, the sauna, the red light therapy, you know, the high intensity, all the endurance, everything, the hit, and then they were having loads and loads of supplements. They were aging faster. people who are doing too much exercise were aging at a similar rate to somebody who is moderately overweight and sedentary. So I think that we have to have a food first approach. Uh nature has given it to us and we know that nature because of the food matrix when you're looking at one micronutrient is coming along with others in food that are supportive to it. So I would always start there regardless of which decade you're in. I think there are certain areas of support. So, for example, here in the UK, we don't get much sunlight during winter. And particularly if you are from an ancestral perspective, you're from somewhere warmer, your vitamin D receptor genes probably aren't going to work that well in the UK either because you're used to more sun exposure. So, you might even need a little bit more vitamin D supplementation. But looking at that with a, you know, getting a a blood test done, it's super cheap to do, and finding out where your vitamin D is, allows you to then calculate how much vitamin D you might need. um and getting sun exposure in the in the summer is the first priority, right? Within being sensible about it with UV light, but then um magnesium, we know many women and men are also deficient in because it's hard to get. I think you were mentioning when we spoke before about a post that I put out around how magnesium um slightly higher levels at 550 milligrams have been shown in the research to support brain health and reduce cognitive decline and brain shinkle shrinkage particularly in women.

30:49 So, I think that's something that it's, you know, sensible to potentially look at a supplement because the soil has been depleted. I think if you're not eating a lot of oily fish, then having omega-3, we know that helps to lower inflammation within the body. So, I think those three are really important for many women across the board, not decade specific. But then when we start to look at um when we as we move through, we know that NAD, for example, halves about every 20 years. So, we're going to be losing NAD. We have a salvage pathway that recycles it and this helps with energy in the body. But taking um some NAD precursors and a supplement that helps optimize your salvage pathway. I'm a big big believer in taking things that are precursors to get your body to do the work and optimize its efficiency as opposed to trying to take concentrated things that are trying to replace and are kind of out of alignment if you like with nature. Um similarly there are certain supplements if you need mitochondrial support. Uralithna can help with that.

31:48 There are some peptides that can really help with healing. Um I did a really good podcast on peptides but that's not intended to take peptides consistently and it's very expensive to do that. You would generally cycle, right? You would do a month and then cycle off. So I think understanding um how to build a supplement routine and working with someone based on your uh your needs at the time is much better than just taking loads and loads of supplements that you don't really know why you're taking. So the other thing I was going to mention just supplement wise I think that can be really helpful for many women is creatine. Um and I think that that can be particularly helpful in pmenopause I've noticed when women are experiencing brain fog. So it can help support your athletic goals. um your resistance training. Um but also it's just really important for helping with energy in the brain. Um and there's ongoing research now in relation to how much creatine and whether it might be better. I have a um an interview actually coming up with Darren Cando who's kind of the world leading expert on creatine to talk about you know should we be kind of not drip feeding it but doing it in micro doses across the day to help it cross the bloodb brain barrier or what's the best best way. So that's a really interesting space. But most women that I work with and I know myself, just having 5 g of creatine monohydrate a day has made a really really material difference. And we know as well for women who are struggling with poor sleep. So this might be um women uh who've had who've got young children and keep being disturbed for example or women in pmenopause or just a part of your life where you're not sleeping as well. Creatine can help to make up for some of those sleep deficits. So that's something and it's a really super wellstudied supplement.

33:24 It's not expensive to take. Um I do think if you look for Crea Pure, which is a couple of sort of a few pounds extra, that's better tolerated. Um but um yeah, creatine monohydrate is really the one to look for there. >> Sure. And and you know, there are a lot of um nutritionists who mention about the side effects of creatinine on the kidneys. So do you want to do you have a counter argument to that?

33:48 >> Yeah, I think that's really like largely debunked. There isn't really any evidence. If somebody had kidney problems then we might not give them creatine but yeah there's not normally an issue otherwise >> right. Um the last bit on intermittent fasting for women especially post 40s. So is there does it one should women be doing intermittent fasting? Second is does it change pre-40s and post 40s? >> Great question. So um intermittent fasting which is really um basically designing an eating window right so you're eating for a certain number of hours during your day uh and then you're being without food. I think that from children onwards we can look at a 12 10 to 12 hour overnight fast that works for most people. It helps with our metabolism. It helps us go into that deep repair at night. Um, if we're having food too close to when we're going to bed, um, we start to produce melatonin around 9:10 p.m. We naturally become less insulin sensitive when melatonin is being produced. So, we want to limit blue light at night, encourage that melatonin release, but ideally try and eat 2 to three hours away from bedtime. And then having an overnight fast can be really, really helpful. When we look at the fasting research, it seems to show that if we really want to stimulate full cellular autophagy, that doesn't happen in most people until about 3 or 4 days into the fast. That depends on one's own metabolism. Dr.

35:10 Vult Longo has the fasting mimicking diet, which I think can be great for women because it has less calories and you do that for a few days. Um, and that has been shown in the research to help mimic the effects of a longer fast, but you're still having some food. Um, >> so what is fasting mimic? What what do you mean by fasting? >> Mimicking diet is something that he's designed um with the with um extensive research to basically mean that your body's still in that state of ketosis.

35:38 So it's fasting, but you have got some micronutrients coming in. Um so that's something people can have a look at. He has a whole kit that he uses. I'm not advertising it, but that can help people to do this. when we look at longer term fasts and women doing it I think the key thing is it just comes back to that stress right our body's constantly trying to maintain homeostasis um and if we just put too much in and increase that allic load uh fasting is another form of stress I think that it's very very individual from one woman to the next women who are carrying a bit more weight probably are better able to fast whereas if you look at a lean woman it's going to put much more stress on her system particularly if she's exercising Exercise is an amazing tool for autophagy. Um, and so I think if you're a regular exerciser, then making sure you're refueling post-workout can be a good thing. So, ideally, I think if you're looking at for most women around 10 to 12 hours overnight, that's really good. If you want to look at doing a shorter kind of longerterm fast, but a couple of times a year, then looking at something like the fasting mimicking diet might be the way to go. But I think there's ongoing research in relation to fasting. A lot of people were skipping breakfast. Definitely the research if we look at Dr. Sachin Panda his work and things actually if you're going to fast it's better to eat earlier in the day but that doesn't fit with many people's lifestyles right because they want to have >> yeah that 10 to 12 hours works very well for most people. But if you're looking at that sort of autophagy or you're trying to reset your metabolism because you've got some health problems, then working with a medical doctor, a functional medicine doctor to design a fast appropriately could be helpful.

37:20 >> Right. And uh one of the last few questions which is working out during your lutal phases. Do you feel like it's important to consider that or not? >> Yes, this is quite a controversial question. I think that um I think that is so individual of women to women. I really think if you and I've always worked out during my litial phase. I think if you feel good, I would look at your heart rate variability and I don't mean necessarily looking on your wearable to see what the algorithm is showing you as to recovery because I don't think they're designed for female bodies and we don't know how these algorithms are really built and whether they're giving us the best information at this point. But we do know that if we see your um if we see your heart rate variability dropping, then it's time to factor in some more recovery. But if you're managing to maintain that and you feel good and you want to work out, then work out. Um so it's very individual. I think it I I'm not I don't really believe that you can say, "Oh, I'm going to do this type of workout for days 1 through 7 and then I'm changing this 7 to 14." Most women's cycles are not that regular in any event. Um how they feel is very different. And we've again we've got to look at that whole stress index overall. One thing that is going to happen is your body temperature is going to rise slightly in that lutial phase because you've ovulated. Um and so you may find it harder to tolerate things like high intensity exercise or soreness and things like that. So I think being mindful of that as well is really important. But really I come at it from the nervous system and stress approach because that is interacting in our hormones. And you know Dr. Sarah Saul has some she was formerly known as Dr.

38:53 Sarah Gotfrieded has great books on this. Hormone Cure, one of my favorite books. >> Right. Um, last last bit on your favorite books that women should read on women's u health and wellness. >> So definitely that one that I just mentioned, the hormone cure, I think it's a really really good book. I think Dr. Libby Weaver, who I've interviewed, um, has some great books around rushing women syndrome. Um, exhausted to energize, they're really helpful. Dr. Lara Briden. She has uh the period repair manual and the hormone repair manual. Those are really really good as well.

39:29 >> Right. Your favorite podcast on women health. Women's health. >> My favorite podcast specifically on women's health. Um so I mean I guess one of the ones that I've been on recently who I think is doing a really amazing job is Dr. Stephanie Esteema. Um my podcast we also focus uh on women's health but there's some really really great ones out there >> right um and one of the last few questions is collagen right and and you know I recently read um in a post which said that taking external collagen is actually not going to help because um it cannot be taken through external sources and it has to come in through food. So would love to get your perspective on scolad taking external collagen health and in that also taking marine collagen versus versus any others. I mean the the research around marine collagen versus animalbased collagen. Um I'm not sure that it's 100% clear. I tend to take a marine based collagen. Um I like collagen. I think I'm a big fan of it. We know that collagen is reducing with age and unfortunately this is like not a very nice stat is that women post menopause lose 30% of their collagen within the first 5 years of menopause. So taking collagen alongside a little bit of vitamin C I think can be really good. Um there's different types of collagen.

40:55 Type one is more focused on the skin. Um you can take multicolagens. I think that collagen um peptides the way that I understand it within the body when you're taking it actually is stimulating your body to produce more collagen um as well. So I think they are good um and actually it's probably one I should have mentioned with aging alongside like creatine that I think can be really positive. >> Interesting. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being with us today. for everybody who's listening to this podcast. Dr. Angela has some incredible stuff that she shares on her Instagram.

41:27 Would totally urge you and I'm going to leave the links in the show notes below. So, please go ahead and follow her because I absolutely love some of the stuff that she shares. Um, and it really really resonates. I don't know how, but I just feel like, oh my god, I was thinking about it. How did she know she just posted about this? You know, it's literally like that moment when I read your post sometimes. >> Thank you.

41:47 And and just just a last parting thought on you know through your entire journey you've kind of been through so much and then now we were here to everybody who think things that um you know they need to to burn out to to achieve so much to do so many things we all having our to-do list is flowing over why is it time to just take charge of your health >> so I would say that when you focus on you that's when the magic happens Right?

42:16 And I think that for every woman listening to this, >> give yourself permission. I'm giving you permission to just spend that time focusing on you. Everyone benefits. Right? Even when we look at things like when I we were talking about heart rate variability, we know that the electromagnetic field of the heart is long is is much um much more energetic, right, in terms of how it can be sensed outside of the body than the brain, right? The magnet of it. And so just by being more in resonance Yeah. Becoming more embodied with yourself, focusing on these practices, even if it's just one minute of breath work three times a day, but making a little bit of time for you is going to have a huge effect on your relationships, on your success. Things happen faster just connecting with you and giving yourself that little bit of time. Um, I don't think you'll ever regret that. It's an investment. Uh, and it's so worth it for a multitude of ways.

43:10 >> Thank you. Thank you so much for being with us today. For parenting tips, celebrity interviews, recipes, conversations with experts, DIYs, and lots more, subscribe to Kidstop Press