Working With Your Perimenopausal Body

Kylie Larson:
Welcome back to Far From Perfect. I am your host, Kylie Larson, and today I am talking with fellow Lift To Get Lean Coach Lisa DeLuca. In this episode, we are describing for you the different stages of a woman's life, from premenopause to perimenopause, menopause, and then post menopause. So we explain what these different stages are and then spend a good amount of time talking specifically about perimenopause, because this is the time that could wreak the most havoc on a woman's quality of life.

We talk about what are the common symptoms and what can you do with your nutrition, with your fitness, and with your stress management to help mitigate all of these symptoms of perimenopause so that you are feeling your best and looking your best as you go through this period of time in your life, which could be five to 10 years. It's really important that you understand how to work with your body's physiology. Without further ado, here we have Coach Lisa and myself. Enjoy.

All right, well welcome back to Far From Perfect everyone, you are in for a treat because today Coach Lisa is here with me. Lisa and I have been working together, gosh, now is it only two years?

Lisa DeLuca:
Just over two years. But it feels like a lot longer. Feels like forever.

Kylie Larson:
Feels like so much longer. It's so funny, Lisa, before we were getting ready, I was thinking to myself, I was like, "I kind of feel like Lisa's a little bit like my guardian angel. You know what I mean? We came into each other's lives right when we needed each other. It's just amazing when things like that happen. What we're talking about today, everyone, is something that is really top of mind for a lot of women who have been following along. Maybe you know me from a group exercise class, whether it was yoga or spin, and we kind of grew up together for the last 15 or so years.

We started doing these group X classes together. Maybe you came to class to get ready for your wedding and then you got pregnant a couple years later and then we helped you get back into shape. You did some of our online programs and now you're hitting that time in your life where you're approaching your forties or maybe you come from Lisa's camp where you did the programming that she did before, like you were in the online coaching group that she did, and you were looking to strength train.

Then also we come upon this stage of life where things just aren't working like they used to. I think the first thing that we need to talk about is that we as women, we change. Our bodies change, our physiology changes, and that is not a bad thing. That's what we do, right Lisa?

Lisa DeLuca:
It's how our bodies are made.

Kylie Larson:
Yeah. Today we're going to dive into the different phases of a woman's life. We've got premenopause when we are fertile women, we're ovulating in all this. Then we've got perimenopause, which I mean could be five years before you hit menopause or perimenopause could be a 10-year timeframe. That timeframe, which I don't believe people are talking about enough. Then we've got menopause, which I think is also misconstrued in things that you read. Then we have post-menopause.

We're going to talk you through that today. Now also to be totally clear, I am not yet in perimenopause. But Lisa, we have the benefit of her experience working for us here because Lisa, you are post-menopausal, correct?

Lisa DeLuca:
Correct.

Kylie Larson:
Nice. Pre-menopause, that's easy. We're ovulating. We're fertile. You can get pregnant, fine. Life is good. I mean it may not seem like it, but life is good. Now perimenopause, this is where we're going to spend the majority of our time. I want to ask Lisa, what was your experience like in perimenopause? Your personal experience?

Lisa DeLuca:
It starts off, I mean, for me, it didn't hit me all at once. I know some people it does, but it was slow and gradual hell. There's no good way to describe it. I wasn't sleeping. For me, I had trouble falling asleep. The brain that would not shut off. Once I finally fell asleep, I was okay. I was not waking up in the middle of the night. I didn't have hot flashes, I didn't have night sweats. But because I wasn't sleeping and because my hormones are off, I was extremely irritable.

I had the unpredictable period. I would be getting it, it would be five days, it could be 15 days. My cycle could be 21 days, my cycle could be 40 days. That just became crazy. I kept going back to my doctor, because I knew I wasn't pregnant, and check everything out just to make sure. Yep, everything's all good. You're in perimenopause. I could give you birth control pills.

Kylie Larson:
Okay,

Lisa DeLuca:
I'm not getting pregnant. I don't need birth control pills. I'm not taking these.

Kylie Larson:
So that was their course of action?

Lisa DeLuca:
Yep.

Kylie Larson:
Putting a perimenopausal woman on birth control.

Lisa DeLuca:
Yep.

Kylie Larson:
This is a bandaid. All of these symptoms that Lisa mentioned ... I'm looking for phone here.

Lisa DeLuca:
I forgot that I was getting thicker in the middle.

Kylie Larson:
Yes. Everything that Lisa said is super common. The other day on Instagram, I posted a question, "Are you in perimenopause and what symptoms are you experiencing?" All of this stuff was said. What did you say? You didn't have the hot flashes. A lot of these are vasomotor symptoms like night sweats, hot flashes, et cetera. That does not sound fun. Unexplained weight gain out of nowhere, totally irritable, unpredictable sleep quality. And before that, you slept just fine, right?

Lisa DeLuca:
Yeah. I mean I didn't fall right to sleep, but my brain would eventually shut off. It wouldn't be like a half hour or 45 minutes still laying there waiting for sleep to come.

Kylie Larson:
Oh, how frustrating. I just found that I screenshot these symptoms, dry skin, moody, anxiety, sleep issues, brain fog.

Lisa DeLuca:
Oh yeah, I had the brain fog,

Kylie Larson:
Shortened cycles, severe bleeding, swollen and very uncomfortable breasts. So that's estrogen fluctuating up. Weight gain around the middle, hot flashes, belly fat, ugh, garbage sleep. This sounds awesome, right? Ugh. Weight gain.

Lisa DeLuca:
Yay.

Kylie Larson:
Decrease in muscle mass, shortened changing cycle, less focus, unexplained weight gain, massive anxiety, anger, that'll be me. Zero sex drive. I run on the angry side. I could go through these more and more and more, but you're getting the general idea. Before we move on to what menopause actually is, Lisa and I are here to tell you that we can work with this. We don't have to suffer through this.

There might be times where we are uncomfortable, but what we are learning is there are things that we can do with our training and with our nutrition, maybe some supplementation to help counter all of these symptoms. That is what our next program is going to be about. Today, as we're talking about these things, we also wanted to tell you that we are addressing this in a lift to get lean for the perimenopausal woman. Let's talk first, Lisa, about how strength training is so important for these women.

Lisa DeLuca:
Yeah, I mean as our bodies change, our training needs to change. Strength training will help, number one, prevent the loss of bone mass. We definitely don't want to be frail, hunched over old ladies with osteoporosis. The more we can build our muscle and build our bone mass, that will help us later on in life. The cardio that a lot of us grew up doing or overdoing does not help us at this stage of life. It just doesn't. I mean, you want to have some cardio, it's good for your heart health, but it's not how you're going to be fit.

Kylie Larson:
It's definitely also not how you are going to alleviate these symptoms. It's going to exacerbate these symptoms for sure.

Lisa DeLuca:
Our bodies do all this for a reason. It's not just rebelling and saying, "You're old, here we go." There's a biological reason why all these things are happening. The biological reason for the weight gain around the middle, it's protective for us. I mean as our estrogen levels drop, our bodies can make estrogen with fat. So it's going to hold on to fat, especially around the middle so it could still try to make some estrogen, but if you're doing tons of cardio, you're not going to burn that fat. Your body's like uh-huh, I'm not letting this go. This is going to save you because it's all about survival. It'll give up your bone and it'll give up your muscle before it'll give that fat up, which I'm sure a lot of people watching this know that feeling, like I'm doing so much and nothing's changing.

Kylie Larson:
Then you pile on top of that calorie restriction and you are adding fuel to the fire and not in a good way, in the worst way possible. Before we talk about nutrition though, I think it's important that when we talk about strength training, Lisa and I are not talking about you going to a circuit class at the rec center. We are not talking about you going to F45. We are not talking about you doing 80-day obsession with Autumn Calabrese, right? We are talking about strength training.

This does not mean you have to go to the gym and be a bro, but this means you need to be lifting heavy enough to give your muscles a reason to grow. Now that we don't have that estrogen, we have to use our training as that stimulus and then also follow it up with our nutrition to make sure our muscles are getting the fuel that they need. I's heavy squats. What is heavy for Lisa and I, if you're watching this or you see us on Instagram, it's clear that we are fit. It's okay if you can't squat what we squat, but a heavy kettlebell squat for you, a heavy bench press for you, a heavy deadlift for you. That is what it's going to take. Not this high intensity stuff at all.

We've got to build the muscle because the way I've been looking at it too is that muscle is our insurance policy. Our sensitivity to carbohydrates goes down when we get older. That means we are not able to utilize them as readily. But if you have muscle on your frame, you have a storage unit for the carbohydrates. So it's also going to help with that weight gain. Can you tell us, Lisa, what does your weekly training schedule look like?

Lisa DeLuca:
Now I lift four days a week. It's usually about an hour. I like to take my sweet old time. I'm not rushing. So lifting four days. I walk every single day. I yoga once a week and I have those three rest days. My body needs the rest days in order to build the muscle.

Kylie Larson:
I think that's the other thing too we have to understand. We've briefly touched on nutrition, but before we move any further, we have to talk about stress management. I think that's the trifecta, the strength training, the nutrition piece that we'll talk about, and then managing the stress. You have to remember that at this stage of life there are other factors at play. You're not just going through premenopause.

Depending on what age your kids are, they might be going off to college or maybe they're still young and you're also dealing with aging parents. Or maybe you've got a relationship that you're now married 15, 25 years. That looks different than when you're newlyweds. That comes with other stressors. Work stress, world, like everything going on in the world. All of that is not helping us. Lisa, you and I talk about this a lot. We can handle anything if we have the recovery in place.

The recovery can cause stress. I think that's hard when I know these women are feeling so helpless and it's been ingrained in us must do more, must eat less, when that's just more stress and more stress.

Lisa DeLuca:
That's actually the opposite of what we need at this stage in life. It's the opposite of what we've been told and we've been ingrained into us when we were little.

Kylie Larson:
I think that's a really good key point. If any other Seinfeld fans are out there, if you're in that point where you're freaking out and hey, that's fair, I would freak out too, do the opposite of what you think you should do. If you think you should go work out, rest. If you think you should eat less, just eat a normal amount. I'm not saying eat more necessarily, but on that topic of nutrition, y'all hear us talk about protein all day long, every single day about why protein is important. It is even more important in perimenopause.

If you're having a hard time hitting 140 grams, get ready to hit 150 grams. Again, it's because we can't as easily make muscle. We have to give that muscle a reason to stick around and also grow. Can't do that if you're not eating enough protein. What does your diet look like, Lisa?

Lisa DeLuca:
I love protein. I'm always over on protein. That's the easy one for me to hit. I actually plan all of my meals around the protein, then add in whatever carbs and fat that I need to, to make everything work out. I'm currently in maintenance, so I'm eating well over 2200 calories. I mean I need to be properly fueled, otherwise the workouts will stink, I'll be tired, my mood will be worse, I'll be grouchy. It all just depends on properly fueling yourself. This way you can feel your best and do your best.

Kylie Larson:
I think it's important to note, okay, you know you want to build muscle. I know you might be freaking out. I don't want to look too bulky. You won't, don't worry, you're not going to. But let that be your goal. If your goal is to build muscle because you want that insurance policy as you get older to fight the side effects of perimenopause, or the effects of menopause or perimenopause, that means your training and your nutrition needs to be in alignment with that goal.

That means when you go train, you are not training in a fasted state. If you want to know what not to do, do not train fasted. That is absolutely one of the, if not the, worst thing that you could possibly do for your physique during this time. Your body needs fuel in the tank from a stress standpoint, from a performance standpoint, from a gut health standpoint, you need carbs to fuel your workout.

Even those of you who get up really early to go workout, have a half a banana, have a handful of raisins, half an apple, piece of toast with some peanut butter on it, have something, and then you must follow up your training with a solid dose of protein. I'm talking 30, 40 grams, no exceptions. Otherwise, you're missing a huge opportunity to build that muscle.

You have to eat after you train. That is also going to help then with that insulin sensitivity, and I mentioned we become less sensitive to insulin as we get older, or we get more resistant to it. If you eat right after your training sessions, your body is wanting that fuel and it will utilize it. You will continue to be sensitive to that spike of blood sugar. To me it's like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. It's not that we're fighting age, we're working with it, we're working with our bodies.

Lisa DeLuca:
There's no fighting it. The body will always win.

Kylie Larson:
Did everyone hear that?

Lisa DeLuca:
Our bodies always win.

Kylie Larson:
Our bodies always win. You can't force it. You cannot fight your physiology. That's how we have to learn how to work with it. That is why, you guys, that is why we are offering this course because you've been doing everything. You're in great shape already, but all of a sudden you're noticing these shifts and these changes and you're like, "This is not right." Well that's what our program is going to teach you to do. Everything that we just mentioned, you might have questions about it. That's what we are going to continue to educate you on. That's the bulk of the perimenopause. Do you think there's anything else we need to add about perimenopause?

Lisa DeLuca:
I know we typically talk about it with stress management, but the sleep.

Kylie Larson:
Oh yeah.

Lisa DeLuca:
I know in perimenopause a lot of us are struggling with getting quality sleep. But you could be doing all these things right. If you're not getting a good seven hours sleep a night, it's not going to matter. You're not going to have those results. I mean even I hate that never miss a Monday or that kind of talking. You know what? Maybe you're tired, maybe you need to sleep and that will do your body way more good than a forced workout ever will.

Kylie Larson:
I want us to start looking at this like we have earned this time in our lives. I was thinking about this the other day, Lisa, I don't know when you had your first job. I've been working for a very long time.

Lisa DeLuca:
Oh yeah.

Kylie Larson:
This is our time, you guys. We can back off. We can listen to our body. We don't have to grind and push. In fact, we shouldn't. Know that you've been working hard for the last ... let's say you start going through this when you're 45, potentially 30 years. I think I got my first job at 15, not including babysitting, right? We've been working so hard for so long. Let's back off. Yeah, that's hard. It's really hard.

Also, we don't have any control, we talk a lot about this in regular lifting at Lean. We have zero control over what the actual outcome of our sleep quality is. However, we can implement things like a normal sleep-wake schedule, going to bed at the same time, exposure to natural sunlight during the day, making sure that we are getting off screens at a certain time, avoiding caffeine after a certain hour of the day, all kinds of things we actually do have control over so that we can hopefully one day get some decent sleep. How is your sleep, Lisa?

Lisa DeLuca:
My sleep is great now, but I do have a pretty solid sleep routine that starts, gosh, it starts about two and a half hours before I'm ready to go to bed, where I know I'm personally sensitive to blue light. The blue light blocking glasses go on at seven because I'm usually asleep around 9:30 because I need my sleep, and the screens go off nine o'clock, like I need that half hour with no blue light whatsoever. Even when the blue blocking glasses help, and Kylie knows the coaches could text, you won't hear from me until the morning because my phone is on airplane mode and do not disturb.

I do something that really helped me was implementing a breathing exercise. I do that about an hour before bed where I've struggled with actually meditating, but I've been able to do this three-minute breathing exercise, and I'm not good at holding my breath at all because I have asthma. Breathe in for three, hold for four, out for five, easy for three minutes, and it just signals to my body, it's time to get into the parasympathetic mode, the rest and digest, and then I'm chill and it makes falling asleep and staying asleep so much easier.

Kylie Larson:
That's so great. Lisa and I both have, if you're watching this on YouTube, we both have aura rings, and I would never tell anyone they need to buy anything, but I think it's a really valuable insight. It will tell you all of your biofeedback markers, including your heart rate variability, which is a good indicator of how well you're recovering from stress, and then also your sleep score.

Sleep is not just when you go to bed and when you wake up. You might be tossing and turning throughout the night and you may not know it. You may not be getting any REM sleep, you may not be getting any deep sleep. All of these stages of sleep are needed and serve a purpose. We are all about ... I think you and I are hypervigilant about taking ownership of our wellness and the way that we feel.

It's not about the way that we look. The way that we look is a side effect and a benefit to taking care of the insides. Now, as we're talking about insides, one thing we haven't really talked on, because it's such a big topic, is the gut health aspect of it. So many women talked about, and even you, Lisa, increased irritability, anxiety, anger. You guys know your gut and your brain are connected.

There's all the science now to prove it. Well, if your gut is a mess, of course that's not going to help things as you're having all of these hormonal changes. In addition to the protein, we need to eat foods that our gut loves, which includes a wide variety of vegetables. We are grown ass women. We can no longer say, "I don't like vegetables." That is for girls in their twenties and children.

By now, we need to have found ways to prepare vegetables that we enjoy because it's, again, it's not even just about the fiber, although that's another benefit of it. It's about creating that good environment in the gut so that you can help reduce your anxiety. And if you're listening to this and you're like, "Oh, I didn't realize that connection," if you suffer from anxiety, think about a night when you go have some wine. The next day is your anxiety through the roof?

You don't have to answer me now, but my guess is yes, because Lisa, when you first talked to us on the podcast, or maybe it was just to the VIP group, you said it so eloquently and such simple terms, the bad bacteria love sugar, and so we're going to crave sugar and alcohol is one of those sugars. When you drink wine and eat sugar, and I'm not a sugar hater, you guys, when I go through premenopause, I'm going to have to change my ways.You're just creating this hostile environment in your gut, which is making you feel those feelings of anxiety on top of everything else you're dealing with. We have to change these things.

Lisa DeLuca:
I mean I'm all about nutrition and the quality of food really matters. I mean, if you're going to be eating processed foods that have a lot of preservatives in them and chemicals and sugar, that's what you're using to build your body, and that's what you're using to fuel your gut and everything. The more times you could pick unprocessed foods, whole foods, it's just going to benefit your overall health in the long run.

Kylie Larson:
That is so true. I just think it's easy for us to get hyper focused on the workouts and eating more protein because those are easy. To me, those are two easy fixes. It's this kind of stuff and really focusing on the quality of the food that takes a little bit more effort but is going to pay huge dividends. That is so true. Lisa and I have both done so much continuing education this year, and that was one of the big things that I took away from my latest course.

It's less of a numbers game. I mean fat loss is always going to come down to a caloric deficit, but it's also a quality game once we are going through perimenopause. You can actually eat more, you guys. You can actually eat more so long as the quality is there. Again, it's not like we think exercise more and eat less. It's quite the opposite. We've got that. What else, Lisa, regarding perimenopause. I don't want to forget any talking points. Think of anything?

Lisa DeLuca:
The big ones, we talk about lifting weights, your nutrition, especially protein, stress management and sleep. They are your big rocks.

Kylie Larson:
You guys that seems, "Oh yeah, okay, I can do that." But seriously, we're not messing around here. If you can do it, you'll be, not that you're being punished, but you will be rewarded with feeling so much better. We don't have to suffer through this. Now, that's the big talk about perimenopause, and also another reason to dial this in, if that could last up to 10 years, I think that's an extreme, but I mean five years of feeling like crap, that is not okay to me. We deserve better than that, don't you think?

Lisa DeLuca:
Oh my gosh, absolutely. I mean, if there's something you could do, those lifestyle factors play such a big role. I mean if you could control the lifestyle factors and feel better, why wouldn't you?

Kylie Larson:
You owe it to yourself. That's for sure. That's perimenopause. Perimenopause is to me the most important time that we've got to tackle because menopause is probably not what most of you think of it. Menopause is one point in time. Right, Lisa? How would you define menopause?

Lisa DeLuca:
Yeah, menopause is 12 months without a period. That day, that one point in time when you realize it's been 12 months, that is menopause. Whenever people talk about I'm in menopause and they talk about the hot flashes, it's really perimenopause that we're talking about. I mean there are some hormonal markers that also go along with menopause, but it's literally 12 months without a period, one day and then the rest of your life is post-menopause.

Kylie Larson:
Which goes to show how little this is talked about. If everyone thinks they're in menopause, no, you're in perimenopause. We haven't even been having this conversation. I didn't know the difference until six months ago and I'm a woman. I'm a woman in a woman's body. I should know the different stages of my life. I think also just getting yourself educated is huge.Then there's menopause, 12 months without a period, sounds glorious. Then post-menopause, the rest of your life. Is it the good life?

Lisa DeLuca:
Sure. You can't get pregnant. No more worries.

Kylie Larson:
You can't get pregnant, you don't have the hormonal fluctuations really anymore. Right?

Lisa DeLuca:
Yeah. You might still in the beginning as your body still gets used to the new normal, but it evens out. Life is good.

Kylie Larson:
If you do the work, let's say you're already strength training and you're not in menopause. You're like me, okay, I'm doing the work because I have now decided I am training for perimenopause. I'm going to kick its ass so hard, probably jinxing myself. Then you've got perimenopause. Okay. You have to be a little bit more vigilant about your sleep, the quality of your food, more rest, more stress management.

Then, okay, you make it through that. Let's call it five years of perimenopause. It's been a year. Today is menopause day, menopause party. Then the rest of your life to live based on the foundation that you have built. That's the way I look at it.

Lisa DeLuca:
Oh, absolutely. We've seen women go through our regular Lift To Get Lean program, just working on those lifestyle factors, starting to lift weights when maybe they were just orange theory people, eating more protein than they ever had before, and starting to notice their perimenopausal symptoms diminishing or even going away.

Kylie Larson:
Yes. I will never tell a woman that she needs to look a certain way, but I know a lot of people listening, they have goals for themselves. They want to look as good as they feel. I think that we need to acknowledge the fact that we can. We don't have to look like grandmas. We don't have to look matronly. You can have a physique that you are proud of no matter what that looks like as you age.

I mean, that's kind of the message I want to share with women. Again, not putting any sort of ... there's no ideal body. Let me just be clear there. You guys know what I mean though. You don't have to settle for anything you don't want. Those are the big things. You can see, it's easy to talk about post-menopause, easy to talk about menopause, premenopause, you guys, you're in premenopause. Perimenopause is where it's at, and that's where we take action.

This program that we're launching, I think we should talk about as we close, the differences between regular lifting at Lean and this particular subgroup. You're going to learn all the same lessons. If you've never tracked your macros, we'll teach you that. We're going to give you your custom macros, but your protein's probably going to be higher, not probably, your protein is going to be higher than a normal, or not normal, a premenopausal woman in the fat loss phase, if fat loss is your goal.

We're going to talk a lot about sleep. In Lifting at Lean, we talk a little bit about it, but we're going to be talking a lot about it. It's also just the conversation is geared towards you because there are certain things that need to be discussed. What would you think are other differentiating factors, Lisa?

Lisa DeLuca:
I mean, because there's so many nuances when you're in perimenopause, just mentioning sleep again. Yes, we talk about it in Lift To Get Lean, but when a Lift To Get Lean has people who are in their twenties all the way through their seventies in it, for the most part we're talking general, and then in the group we kind of talk a little bit more specifically. We have a group of women in the same demographic who are going through the same things and it's a much more targeted message. We can really flush out more of those nuances in this group.

Kylie Larson:
Whereas in the Lift To Get Lean traditional program where we're saying, "Yeah, I mean if you want to go to your orange theory class two or three times a week, that's okay." No, that's not okay. I mean you do need high intensity work in perimenopause. We do need that because we need high workout, challenging workout days, and then we need super recovery days. It's this polarized training. You have a hard day and then you have a day of super rest. Your body needs to see the difference.

Also the high intensity oftentimes will include some jumping for the bone density reasons. We need multidirectional movement. Whereas in traditional Lift To Get Lean, we could just throw together any old hit. The hit that we have for the perimenopause program is going to be very specific to what exactly your body needs. We're going to teach you why you need it as well. Because I think when you know why, you're more likely to follow through, don't you think?

Lisa DeLuca:
Oh yeah. I mean especially I feel like this age group, we just don't want to be told what to do anymore. Tell me why I need to do it and then if I believe you, then I'll buy in.

Kylie Larson:
Well, and speaking of that too, Lisa, I mean I'm really excited for the conversation we have on why it's so hard for us to change our mindset around this, because we cannot ignore the elephant in the room of we were modeled something by our parents in terms of their exercise and most likely diet. We've been through a lot of diet and exercise trends ourselves. We've been marketed to our entire lives. So we have to be educated, because marketing is not education. I think that's where a lot of us are getting our information, is from marketing. Let's be clear, marketing is not education, and that's a really powerful statement I'm going to write down right now.

Lisa DeLuca:
Marketing is to get you to buy something.

Kylie Larson:
We don't want you to buy anything. I just want you to know how to feel your best as you navigate this new territory. That's what Lisa and I are going to talk about. Why do you think it's so hard, Lisa, for us to get women off the treadmills and out of orange theory?

Lisa DeLuca:
I mean, it's just been burned in our brains. I mean, I'm 49. I started working out, trying to change my body probably once I hit puberty at 12, started doing my Jane Fonda videos and Kathy Ireland videos and running. Then, I mean, I remember being in grade school, my lunch had a Diet Coke in it. I'm 12, I don't need to be drinking Diet Coke. I mean it's ingrained deep that move, move, move. Don't eat, don't eat. I mean, I went through years of filling myself with Diet Coke because I was so damn hungry. Just let me keep drinking soda to try to fill myself. That's not any way to live.

Kylie Larson:
It's not.

Lisa DeLuca:
There's a lot of conditioning we need to undo.

Kylie Larson:
Little kids don't come up with those ideas on their own. Someone showed us that. We saw it somewhere on some television commercial or in our homes. I know, it's so crazy. I even say I've never been a huge ... I'm not one of those people who has done every diet. My MOM was you just wait to eat as long as possible. I didn't call it intermittent fasting. I would just thought the later in the day I could wait to eat the better. Now that I know what I know, I mean, Lisa, I did this for so many years up until recently, up until I learned about nutrition to be a nutrition coach.

I would teach all these classes in the morning on an empty stomach and go home and eat God knows what, Hot Pockets, Lean Pockets. I'm not even kidding you, Lean Pockets and a big old Diet Dr. Pepper from seven 11, there's my body. I was just looking back, that's abuse, withholding food from someone. That's a form of torture. Don't do that.

Lisa DeLuca:
We did it to ourselves.

Kylie Larson:
We did it to ourselves. So crazy. That's what I'm most looking forward to is this conversation, because honestly, the plan of action is easy. It's the conversation of what's happening in my body and why am I so resistant to this change that I think is going to be really powerful. Sometimes I think for a lot of us, maybe this is what we need to go through to finally learn a new way. Like that quote, you won't change until the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change.

Maybe this is the catalyst that a lot of women need to finally change their ways, and you can learn it and then live the second half of your life feeling like a goddess, or you cannot learn it and continue. I mean, here's my biggest fear for someone. Can you imagine still trying to lose 10 pounds when you are 70 years old? Yeah. I've been trying to lose the same 10 pounds for 40, 50 years.

Lisa DeLuca:
Think of how much you could have used that brain energy on something else, something to make you happy.

Kylie Larson:
It's so true. Honestly, that's why I'll say it one more time as we wrap up. That's why this perimenopause time, it is our time, it is our time to take action so that we can enter that second half of our lives. I mean by then, a lot of you guys are going to be retiring. I don't see myself retiring unless I learn how to save a little bit better. But you guys are going to be retiring. You're not going to want to be focused on all this stuff. I'll still be here podcasting. You'll be with me, Lisa.

Lisa DeLuca:
I like to shop as well.

Kylie Larson:
Oh, you guys. This is just the tip of the iceberg. We're all going to go through it. Either you get educated by us or look for the resources now. I do feel it's now coming more to the forefront because of women like us who are talking about it. I don't know, real quickly, a lot of people refer to perimenopause as our second puberty. Well, I also was never taught about regular puberty. I got the books on my bed, "What's happening to my body?" We need to know what's going on in our bodies. What was your puberty situation like?

Lisa DeLuca:
I think I only learned how to deal with using a tampon or a pad. I don't even think that there was anything else to the whole conversation. Along those lines, when a girl goes through puberty and she starts getting hips and breasts, for the most part, people aren't like, "What the hell's happening to you?" We know and we accept bodies change. Well guess what? In perimenopause, menopause, bodies change. It's horrible that it's, "What the hell happened to her? Look at her. Look how much weight she's gained. What's wrong with her?"

No, it's normal. It's another hormonal change and you could accept it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Or if you want to look differently, we'll try to teach you ways to help you, more importantly, feel differently than look differently. The looking different, it's just the byproduct, feeling good.

Kylie Larson:
Yeah, I love that key point. We allow a 12, 13, whatever year old girl to go through puberty and we're not making comments. Well, I don't know. I don't remember any huge shifts in my body. I still don't have boobs. You know what I mean? I've got curves, but they're curves that I've built. Let's allow our bodies to change. Of course, I haven't gone through it, so I might be. Who knows? I don't think that's fair for me to say, but I know I'm going to do the work now so I'm set up so it's not-

Lisa DeLuca:
Yeah, I mean if the lifestyle factors are in check, then you're already in great shape.

Kylie Larson:
Yeah. Cool. Well, you guys, if you're interested in our program, it's going to be launching on October 25th, right alongside the traditional Lift To Get Lean program. If you're listening to this and you are in your twenties or your thirties and you don't need this yet, don't worry, we still have our tried and true Lift To Get Lean. We just want to make sure we're supporting the women who are in this phase the best that we can. You're going to be great in the traditional program and you can learn about this as we continue to share what's happening in our bodies.

Make sure you check out our new Lift To Get Lean team page. It is at Lift To Get Lean coaching on Instagram. Then you don't get to just hear from me, but get to hear from Lisa and Leanne and Alejandra and everybody else who is just absolutely brilliant. You need to hear from all of them. I've put them all in one spot for you. Lisa, thank you for your time and your expertise and your experience in life. You are such a wealth of knowledge. Thank you so much.

Lisa DeLuca:
Thank you for having me.

Kylie Larson:
Of course.

Lisa DeLuca:
And talking about it.

Kylie Larson:
I know, it is fun talking about it. All right, you guys. Well, I will leave you with that. Lisa, I'll talk to you soon.

Lisa DeLuca:
Thank you.

Kylie Larson:
Thank you again for tuning in to today's episode of Far From Perfect. If you enjoyed this show, please share it out to your friends so we can empower as many people as possible to take control of their lives so they feel their best and they look their best. You can always connect with me on Instagram. My handle is Kylie Fit Yoga. If you want to learn more about the eight week program that I have, Lift To Get Lean, check out Lift To Get Lean with kylie.com. That is the program where me and my team of coaches help people learn how to track their macros, understand the importance of macronutrient tracking. We give you strength training workouts, and the biggest piece of the program is the mindset coaching of it. As you know, nothing changes if you don't change your thoughts. So I look forward to connecting with you in any and all ways. Again, we appreciate your support.