What Every Woman Should Know About Perimenopause

In this episode, I dive deep into what perimenopause really is. I’ll be talking about the hormonal shifts that take place during this phase, as well as the physical, emotional, and psychological changes women often experience. 

You’ll hear about common perimenopausal symptoms, and I’ll offer practical lifestyle adjustments that can help you start feeling better right away. I also share some of my favorite resources that you can use to take control of your health during this challenging time. If you're in perimenopause or know someone who is, this episode is a must-listen!

Key Points:

1. What is Perimenopause?
   • Perimenopause typically occurs between the ages of 35 and 50.
   • It's characterized by fluctuating estrogen levels and a decline in progesterone.
   • I explain how estrogen and progesterone work together in the body and why balancing them is key for overall health during this stage.
2. Hormonal Shifts:
   • Estrogen levels often rise and fall erratically, leading to symptoms like weight gain, brain fog, mood swings, and digestive issues.
   • Low progesterone can contribute to irritability, anxiety, and poor sleep. I share why these hormone imbalances often go hand-in-hand in perimenopause.
3. Common Symptoms of Perimenopause:
   • Weight gain, anxiety, mood changes (especially irritability and anger), heavier or lighter periods, and changes in sleep are all common.
   • I discuss the "fight or flight" response that many women experience, leading to an overproduction of cortisol, which further exacerbates symptoms.
4. Physical Changes During Perimenopause:
   • Many women experience muscle loss and body fat gain. I explain why this happens and how it’s connected to hormonal changes and changes in metabolism.
   • Strength training, sufficient dietary protein, and proper nutrition are essential to managing these physical changes.
5. Emotional and Psychological Aspects:
   • Perimenopause is often marked by anxiety, irritability, and feelings of anger due to progesterone depletion.
   • I recommend strategies to nourish your body and balance hormones to improve your mood naturally.
   • I emphasize that a holistic approach, such as improving diet, sleep, and stress management, can help alleviate emotional symptoms.
6. Lifestyle Adjustments:
   • I offer actionable advice based on the FDN (Functional Diagnostic Nutrition) D.R.E.S.S. protocol—Diet, Rest, Exercise, Stress Management, and Supplementation.
   • Key advice includes increasing protein intake (at least 1 gram per pound of body weight), getting more sleep, reducing stress, and prioritizing strength training over cardio.
7. Resources to Help You:
   • I share my favorite resources for perimenopause support, such as my Perimenopause Survival Guide, Core Hormone Recipes, and Seed Cycling Guide.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening
• 0:36 Intro
• 1:21 What Exactly Perimenopause is
• 5:53 Hormonal Shifts that Occur During Perimenopause.
• 12:05 Emotional and Psychological Aspects of Perimenopause
• 13:06 Perimenopausal Women's Hormone Health
• 21:33 Closing
• 22:09 Outro

Transcript

Jennifer Woodward: 0:02

In today's episode, we are going to get really clear on what perimenopause is. We'll talk about the hormonal shifts that occur during perimenopause and some of the symptoms that pop up around this time for women. We're going to talk about the physical, emotional and psychological aspects of perimenopause and I'll give you advice and information on some lifestyle adjustments that you can make so you start feeling better right away. We'll finish up with some of my favorite resources. I can't wait to get started. Thanks for being here on the perimenopause show.

Jennifer Woodward: 0:36

Hey there, it's Jennifer Woodward, and welcome to the perimenopause show, the go-to spot for all things perimenopause. I'm on a mission to demystify this wild ride sharing stories, laughs and maybe a few eye rolling moments. Whether you're knee deep in hot flashes or just curious, we've got you covered. Expect real talk, expert guests and a sprinkle of humor, because, let's face it, we could all use a laugh during perimenopause. So grab your favorite drink, get comfy and let's navigate this rollercoaster together. This is the Perimenopause Show, where we're turning perimenopause into a conversation, not a crisis.

Jennifer Woodward: 1:21

Hello and welcome to the Perimenopause Show. I'm Jennifer Woodward, and in today's episode, we are going to be talking about exactly what perimenopause is. We'll be discussing the hormonal shifts that occur during perimenopause. We're going to talk about some of the symptoms that most women experience, along with physical and emotional changes. Then we're going to talk about what you can do specifically with regards to your lifestyle today to start getting relief from a lot of your perimenopausal symptoms. I'm also going to provide for you some of my favorite resources books, websites, tools that you can get more access to great information so that, again, you can take control of your perimenopausal symptoms. Because, girls, it is a it's a rough ride, right, it's a hard time in life. So let's talk about exactly what perimenopause is..

Jennifer Woodward: 2:10

Perimenopause generally occurs for women between the ages of 35 and 50, and it's characterized by wildly fluctuating levels of estrogen and eventual declining levels of progesterone. Now, if you're not familiar with those two hormones, I will tell you that estradiol or estrogen E2 is estradiol, so this is the strongest and most abundant estrogen in our body. Estrogen can be a bear when you're between 35 and 50. We need plenty of estrogen in our early years in order to develop as a woman right. We grow breasts, we grow hips, we get taller. Um, we become more womanly, uh, during puberty, thanks to the effects of estrogen and during the follicular phase of our cycle so that stays one through 14 of a normal period Estrogen levels are going to start to swell and rise and that is a normal mechanism of the body to lead to ovulation. But it's during the luteal phase days 14 through 28 of a normal cycle that progesterone really starts to rise.

Jennifer Woodward: 3:13

And progesterone is necessary for all sorts of beautiful things in the body. I like to call her queen progesterone because she is necessary for a healthy mood. She kind of helps balance you out. So if you're struggling with irritability and anger a lot of the times, it can be because your progesterone levels are low. She helps you sleep because she works on GABA receptors in the brain that allow you to really sleep deeply and sleep well. She gives you a normal, healthy period, because excess estrogen levels in the body can lead to PMS symptoms and cramps and heavy flow and and just all of the yucky things that's a technical term, the yucky things that we deal with during um, especially our PMS week and perimenopause. Progesterone kind of evens all of that out.

Jennifer Woodward: 3:56

Progesterone is necessary biologically, um, because it really helps you have a healthy pregnancy, healthy baby. It's very essential for fertility. In fact, the word progesterone is shortened from pro gestation hormone, so again it's very associated with with optimal fertility in women. Progesterone and estrogen have this beautiful dance in the body. Again, estrogen levels are swelling during your follicular phase. Progesterone levels should swell during your luteal phase, but that's if, and only if, you have healthy ovulation. Swell during your luteal phase, but that's if, and only if, you have healthy ovulation.

Jennifer Woodward: 4:30

Now you should know, as a woman, probably with a period be it a good period or a bad period but ovulation is the culminating event for a period, it's not the bleed itself. We need to have healthy ovulation in order to have a healthy menstrual cycle and if we're not ovulating in a healthy way, then progesterone will not be released. This is why your corpus luteum is this little follicle that's actually going to release the egg. When you have healthy ovulation. After the egg is released, the corpus luteum kind of restructures itself and becomes this amazing progesterone factory, so it starts pumping out progesterone.

Jennifer Woodward: 5:02

In the luteal phase of your cycle you might know if you are ovulating and you were creating enough progesterone, because if you track your body temperature, your body temperature is going to rise very slightly, so about half a degree in the luteal phase of your cycle. Progesterone makes your body warmer, so progesterone can make your metabolism go a little bit faster. This is one of the reasons why so many women have cravings in their luteal phase. It's one small reason. There are other nutritional reasons, of course, that abound, but the fact that your body temperature is running a little bit hotter in your luteal phase can account for some of the cravings and increased hunger that women have around their cycle. So it's estrogen and progesterone that really are going to, you know, manage your healthy menstrual cycle, but it's estrogen and progesterone that can also be way off If you were experiencing symptoms of perimenopause, like really annoying symptoms of perimenopause.

Jennifer Woodward: 5:53

So let's talk about the hormonal shifts that happen and how they affect those symptoms. When estrogen levels fluctuate, they really tend to rise before they lower. Oftentimes I will see estrogen dominance in my women. So I like to run the Dutch test it's the dried urine test for comprehensive hormones with my one-to-one clients. That's exclusively the test I run. I run it on almost 100% of my women because it tells us so much about the menstrual cycle, about your hormones and about why the symptoms that you're experiencing in perimenopause can be such a bear or a beast, right? So we can look to see whether estrogen levels are elevated they generally are if you're experiencing a lot of perimenopausal symptoms and we can see that progesterone levels tend to be pretty low. That's the general picture I see we would call that estrogen dominant.

Jennifer Woodward: 6:40

So that's again when estrogen levels are much higher than progesterone. We really want that estrogen to progesterone balance to be very, very linear. We want it to be very balanced. We want mood issues, weight issues, brain issues, digestive issues Even a lot of digestive discomfort is associated with elevated estrogen levels in the body. So we can test for those hormonal shifts. But that tends to be the classic picture of a woman going through perimenopause high estrogen levels, low progesterone levels. One of the things I've been seeing a lot more of in my clinic is very low estrogen levels, low progesterone levels. One of the things I've been seeing a lot more of in my clinic is very low estrogen levels, even for my 30, 35, 40 year olds, and that's because these women are just so depleted.

Jennifer Woodward: 7:32

We're going to talk a ton about diet over the course of this podcast, but essentially, when estrogen levels are really low and progesterone levels are really low, that's a picture of depletion. That's generally a woman who has been over dieting, over exercising and over stressing and also under sleeping you know most of her life for decades. And in perimenopause a lot of those things catch up with us. We can do those things when we're younger. Right, we can get by on five, six hours of sleep. We can go on a 900, 1200, 1500 calorie diet for an extended period of time, we can stress out about work and family and we can exercise, you know, seven days a week, getting up at four, 30 in the morning to do our high intensity interval class.

Jennifer Woodward: 8:11

But in perimenopause the body starts rebelling. It's like you mistreated me for decades. So I'm mad at you and I'm going to give you all these symptoms so that you slow down and listen to me. And those are the symptoms that tend to crop up again weight gain of five to 11 pounds without changing diet or exercise. Brain fog, moodiness that generally is going to center on anxiety or panic or anchor anchor. It's a big one.

Jennifer Woodward: 8:36

Period symptoms for sure Increasing heavy flow or scanty periods, right Like light flow, increasingly greater clot size, cramps that are increasing breast tenderness, you know longer periods, just all of like the worsening period symptoms tend to happen around perimenopause, when estrogen is high and progesterone is relatively low. So those hormonal shifts in the body or the shutting down of ovulation, you know, because your body is in this constant state of fight or flight mode, that can really lead to these perimenopausal symptoms. Let's talk about that fight or flight mode and that that shift there for a minute. When the body, you know it's under all of that stress, as we talked about, over-exercising, over-dieting and you know, therefore, under nourishing right, over-stressing and under sleeping, then the body has to use its raw materials for the steroid hormone cascade to make cortisol, your stress hormone, instead of making that calming, beautiful progesterone. So if you're constantly in fight or flight mode, there is a biological mechanism as to why you are experiencing worsening perimenopause symptoms, because your body has to preferentially create cortisol instead of creating that calming, relaxing hormone.

Jennifer Woodward: 9:46

And there's a reason why, like God knows, at that point, that when you're super stressed out, your body's not ready for a baby. You're not going to be able to give yourself the best care, You're not going to be able to give your baby the best care. If you're constantly in fight or flight mode, the body's constantly rubbing up these stress hormones, it's not the right environment to raise a child in. So your body, you know, is fearfully and wonderfully made and is designed to kind of start shutting down when fertility conditions are not optimal. And that's what tends to happen, you know, for women who have spent decades in that high stress state, that fight or flight state, and you know then the subsequent worsening perimenopausal symptoms right between, you know, 35 and 50.

Jennifer Woodward: 10:25

So physical changes that tend to happen in perimenopause as a result of these hormone shifts are again that that weight gain is huge but women also start to lose muscle. So I have a lot of women who come to me and say, jennifer, I'm working out, I'm, you know, eating a really good diet, a healthy diet. I haven't changed anything, but I feel like I'm just flabby, like my workouts aren't doing anything anymore. And I tell them that's absolutely right. In fact, your protein need, your dietary protein need and the amino acids that come with dietary protein, that need is greater in perimenopause than it's ever been your whole life as a woman, no matter how much you worked out when you were younger. Because in perimenopause the body starts catabolizing its own muscles, so it breaks down your skeletal muscle in order to get to the glycogen stores and the amino acid stores that are there. So you start to strip your own muscle away. So this leads to you feeling and probably looking a little bit more flabby and it leads to gaining fat, like body fat, because you were probably eating more, because your body is, you know, looking for nutrition to rebuild its own muscle. So in perimenopause, a lot of times, you know, women are eating more of a carb heavy wine, heavy coffee, heavy diet not realizing that they really need about a gram per pound of lean body weight, of dietary protein, every single day just to keep the muscle they have, not only to build new muscles. So that physical change during perimenopause of becoming more labby, is real, real and it really sucks. And we're going to talk about ways that you can kind of you know, combat that. Two of my favorite are getting sufficient dietary protein, along with enough potassium, calcium and iron, and then doing strength training, stopping all of your chronic cardio exercise and really prioritizing muscles. All right, you need it.

Jennifer Woodward: 12:05

As a perimenopausal woman, mood changes are also huge in perimenopause. Again, I see a ton of women presenting with anxiety because progesterone is a calming hormone and when progesterone levels are just tanked, as they often are in perimenopause, we start to feel a physical anxiety, a bodily anxiety, and it's not in your head and you don't necessarily need Prozac. Again, I'm not a doctor, so I don't diagnose, treat or prescribe. So I am not telling you don't take your Prozac. I'm just saying that there are other ways that might be a little bit more of a root cause condition, that you can take matters into your own hand and start working on your own anxiety by really re-nourishing and re-mineralizing yourself, and we've got to work on increasing progesterone levels. So I've got some great resources like my perimenopause survival guide, like my core hormone recipes that really help the body naturally rebuild progesterone stores, my seed cycling guide. These are great food-based ways that can help your body kind of balance out hormonally through perimenopause, but those are a great place to start.

Jennifer Woodward: 13:06

If you're experiencing anxiety or irritability like true anger is another one I see all the time you know you're probably going to need to work on your hormone health a little bit and that's getting that protein and getting getting your minerals, um, and making sure you're sufficiently nourished. Without sufficient nourishment you are going to feel angry and irritable all the time. It's your body's biological response to being malnourished and starving. You know you are on this, this heightened state of fight or flight, because biologically, your body's like I got to go get food right now, I got to go get glucose, or I got to go get amino acids to support all the stress needs that's happening for me at this point, like I'm under constant stress, so I need resources in order to deal with the stress.

Jennifer Woodward: 13:48

But what happens in perimenopause for a lot of women, while they're gaining weight and so they're like, well, I'm going to restrict my calories further, right, I am going to work out harder as we strip the body even further of its resources and your anxiety worsens and your irritability worsens and your anger worsens, and then you start feeling like you're going a little bit crazy, right? Um, we've all been there and I can tell you you're not crazy, you're just perimenopausal and there are things that we can do about it. So, while depression can be, you know, a correlative symptom, during perimenopause, I truly do see more often that women are struggling with anxiety, irritability and anger. So those emotional and psychological aspects of perimenopause are very real and it is a sign that your body wants more nourishment. It's a sign that your body not only wants more food nourishment, wants more nourishment from a rest and stress management standpoint. Of course, you would want to seek medical guidance, right, you'll want to consult with your doctor and your healthcare professional If you are experiencing any true, you know mood symptoms and you're you're worried, you know, for your mental health. Please go see your doctor. But you do know that there are also, you know, lifestyle adjustments that you can make. So let's talk about those.

Jennifer Woodward: 14:55

And I always want to filter all of my advice through FDN's dress protocol, and FDN is functional diagnostic nutrition. That is my certification. I'm board certified as an FDN. I have my master's degree in integrative nutrition. So all of this stuff, it's like I love it. Right, it's in my wheelhouse, it's what I do, it's what I love. I'm so thankful that I'm an FDN trained in functional lab work and trained by Reed Davis in the dress protocol, because that is again how I filter all of my advice for women.

Jennifer Woodward: 15:23

We have to work on everything. We have to work on diet, rest, exercise, life. Uh, diet, rest, exercise, stress management and proper supplementation based on lab work, all right. So let's just start with diet. This is my general advice for most perimenopausal women. I worked with over 950 women over the course of my eight years in practice. So I can tell you these are generalized recommendations that work for most women. If you want more specific recommendations, this would be when we would, you know, run functional lab work and look at something like the Dutch test or your hair tissue mineral analysis, so we can see, you know, what's biologically appropriate for you.

Jennifer Woodward: 15:59

But if you're like most perimenopausal women, you need more protein. You need to get about one gram per pound of body weight of protein for your body because you are again starting to catabolize your own muscle. You have greater needs for hormone health, for neurotransmitter health and just for strength than a younger woman. So my recommendation is at least a palm size serving of protein three times a day. I prefer animal protein. Not everyone does. I find it you know with my women to be the most nourishing and satiating. But if you're plant-based and you want, you know, whole food, whole protein sources. You will hear me talk a lot about meat on the podcast. It's because I am a huge fan. All right, so I'm not trying to judge anyone. If you are plant-based, like awesome, I love it. Plants are great. But in my practice I do focus on animal proteins. I find it to be the most nourishing for hormone health. Okay, so that's what we want to do is really focus on in on that protein.

Jennifer Woodward: 16:52

For the love of Pete, stop intermittent fasting. That's fine for young dudes, but for you, as a perimenopausal woman, I think you've seen cause you've probably been doing it and haven't seen results lately that fasting is no longer working for you. It's no longer serving you. So we want to. You know, actually eat breakfast. Imagine that your digestive fire actually rages between the hours of 6.00 AM and 2.00 PM. That's a Ayurvedic principle of the agony or digestive fire. We want to take advantage of that, because that digestive fire is what rubs up your metabolism, helps your digestion to be on point and quick. So eat breakfast, because that's when your digestive fire wants you to eat breakfast. You know, eat a true lunch. Don't just skip lunch or snack through lunch. Or, you know, pick at your kid's lunch or drink coffee for lunch. Those are all terrible things for a perimenopausal woman to do. I know Cause I lived it, not judging you, I just loved it.

Jennifer Woodward: 17:44

And then don't skip dinner like, have dinner planned out. I've got my perimenopause survival guide. I've got a seven day free perimenopausal meal plan that I'm happy to share with you. That is just a suggested meal plan, cause I'm not a registered dietitian, but there are, you know, perimenopause hormone balancing meals that you can make for yourself and for your family. That's a free resource I have for you. But eat dinner, have a plan. You know all of my meals can be put together in like 20 minutes because I am a busy mom with four kids and I am constantly on the go and I can't cook for longer than that. I know you can't either, and so you know having a plan can be really helpful though, so you're not just drinking three quarters of a bottle of wine as you eat chips and salsa and then wonder why you feel like crap the next morning. So that's diet All right, with rest.

Jennifer Woodward: 18:29

We just want to push into a really good, you know, sleep routine and Epsom salt bath before bed, turning off your electronics for an hour before you get to sleep, doing something to calm your brain. I'm a huge fan of like brain dumping before bed, taking a pretty pen and a pretty journal and just writing down everything that you had to have to do the next day, writing everything down that's going through your brain so that you can dump it off and sleep and you're not just constantly recycling these thoughts like all night long. Right, rest is is huge, and then you know when you want to push into rest as much as you push into your active things, right? If you're just constantly go, go, go, go, go, go going, then you're constantly in the fight or flight stress response and nothing's going to change with regards to your hormones or your weight or your energy or your mood. So push into some of that rest and we'll get into this with stress relief in a minute with exercise. My advice is simple I want you to walk 10,000 steps a day outside and I want you strength training, heavy strength training, three times a week for 20 to 30 minutes. That's it. You don't need to do more than that. More than that is likely to keep you in the stress response and that's going to prevent you from rebalancing your hormones. Stress management is huge. This is a corollary of rest.

Jennifer Woodward: 19:36

I love a couple of things on the daily for my clients and Jennifer Woodward nutrition. In our practice, this is what we do. We take Epsom salt baths at night. We get outside for at least 20 or 30 minutes a day. You can be productive outside. But get outside. Your brain needs it, your pineal gland needs it, your hormones need it. We do breath work, so just some box breathing. I love the app breath work, I love the app Calm. Do a little bit of breath work a couple of times a day to get you out of that fight or flight mode and activate the vagus nerve and get you more into parasympathetic mode. This is what we want.

Jennifer Woodward: 20:07

All right, the other things I like to do are a little bit more, a little harder, you know, for for novices, doing some leisure time, like activities that really make you sing, that make your soul sing, like for me it's just reading a regular book by the fire. It's laying out in my backyard reading an actual book in the sun. Um, some of my clients like to paint or literally sing. At a client who loved to blow bubbles how cute is that. She went to the dollar store and got like a bunch of bubbles and just sat outside and blew bubbles to her kids and that was her stress management Always one of my favorites.

Jennifer Woodward: 20:39

And then supplementation, and you know a lot of my guides have general recommendations for supplementation. I love just food-based supplements. So my herbal hormone tonic, the adrenal cocktail, the lemon gut shot, are three of my core hormone recipes at Jennifer Woodward Nutrition that we use for hormone balance and digestion and energy, and that's kind of the long and short of it. So I promised you a couple recommendations for reputable sources. I love the work of Dr Gerilyn Pryor. She's a doctor from the nineties out of England. Fantastic resources If you can find any of her books, her contemporaries, dr Laura Bryden, who I also love. She has some great, great books out there and I encourage you to look up her website and some of her books. And those are two resources that I have for you today. We'll talk more about what I have for you in subsequent episodes, but for today, today, start there, um, cause I don't want to overwhelm you.

Jennifer Woodward: 21:33

We'll I would encourage you as we close out today that you get ahold of us on social media. Um, you can find me on Instagram at Jennifer Woodward wellness and I would love it if you wanted to submit questions or ask me anything about perimenopause, any suggestions you have for future episodes, but I would love to get to chat with you over on Facebook or Instagram. All right, you can find me at jenniferwoodburnutritioncom as well, and I would love to have you back on our show next week listening to all things perimenopause. So thanks for being with me today on the perimenopause show. I'll see you next time.

Jennifer Woodward: 22:09

Well, that's a wrap for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed our candid chat about perimenopause the good, the challenging and everything in between. If you found this episode as enlightening and entertaining as I did, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a dose of perimenopausal realness. Before you go, remember that you're not alone in this journey. We're building a community of kick-ass women embracing the changes and supporting each other. Connect with us on social media, share your stories and let's keep this conversation going. And hey, if you have a burning question, a topic you'd love us to tackle, or just want to say hello, shoot us a message. Your feedback keeps this podcast fueled and fabulous. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Until next time, take care, stay fabulous and remember perimenopause is just another chapter in the adventure of being a woman. Catch you on the flip side.