SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hi there, it's James and Julie here with another episode of Empower Your Menopause, the podcast where we talk about trying to give you as much power as we can for women 14 above during the menopause transition. Now, I was surprised this morning. I was chatting away to somebody and I didn't actually realise it's less than two weeks to Christmas Day as we record this. It's just 13 days away. So we thought what we'd do is delve into Christmas a little bit and what it means for people like you, our lovely listeners. So, you know, Christmas, mistletoe, mince pies, all that stress of keeping it together while also trying to navigate the menopause. Does that sound familiar? Well, today we're gonna dive into how you can have your Christmas pudding and you can eat it too. So we're gonna talk about some practical tips on managing cravings at this time of year. Things like family dynamics, because we know they're quite stressful, and also keeping your health on track. Plus, we're gonna tell you about uh how you can join our live 12 Days of Fitness challenge for free in the Absolute Beyond 40 Facebook group. And then stay tuned at the end for sneak peek for our final episode of the year, which is gonna be with Jennifer Moore. She's the powerhouse behind Pure Collagen. Now, as I said, we know just how challenging it is at this time of year. You know, you've got to balance family work and self-care amidst all the chaos that's going on at this time of year. I know Laura, my wife's been planning things like shopping and Christmas trees and decorations and things like that. I try to get involved, she likes to do it herself for quite a while now. So she's got all that on top of trying to run a business, helping manage the house with myself, with the kids, all that kind of stuff. So it's a really, really busy time of year. But I thought before we started talking about that, why don't we talk a little bit about what we're actually doing and how we're going to navigate this this period in time? So, Julie, what have you and your family got planned for Christmas 2024 then? What you what are you guys up to?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Well, the the cool thing about this year is that it's going to be a very relaxed kind of Christmas. We in the past we've had house guests or we've traveled someplace, and this year we're going to keep it very low-key, very quiet. I'm going to be decorating this weekend. Um, we don't we have very simple decorations. And then our best friends here, they live just up the street. They've invited us to have Christmas dinner with their family and um maybe some festivities afterwards, but it's just going to be the core family instead of this massive extension of what Italians usually do for the holidays. And I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to be peaceful. And I've actually booked some time off, which is unusual for me. And I plan to take that downtime to organize and refresh and restore and do some things that I enjoy doing reading, relaxing, you know, just getting out for walks with the dog and enjoying some together time with Ian, actually, because we we haven't really seen much of each other these last couple of weeks with long work days and whatnot. So it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Excellent, excellent. So similar at um our house, we're having a relatively D-Lo Christmas this year for the last 12 years. We moved back from London to Yorkshire, where we live now, 12 years ago. For the last 12 years, we've always hosted Christmas at our house. The kitchen in our house tends to be my domain, particularly at Christmas. I moan in the lead up to it, but I absolutely love doing Christmas dinner. But I've actually hung up my oven gloves and my apron that I've got that's got Rudolph's face on it this Christmas, and we're actually going out to eat.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Now we're going out to meet on Christmas Day is a very rare concept. I think I've probably done it twice in my whole life. And both times I was relatively disappointed. Um I enjoyed not having to cook and everything, obviously. But um I wasn't that impressed. But we're going to our local pub, which is just down the road. The food's usually very, very good in there. So it's um a much quieter Christmas for us. Ordinarily, I'd be cooking for like 30, 35 people. This year there's just the four of us as a key family, and Laura's mum, her mum's partner, and her auntie. So it's just seven of us going down to the pub for a few hours. And I too am looking forward to having some extra downtime this year. But that's enough about myself and Julie anyway. Uh, what you really want to know about is what we're going to be talking about today. So I'll just hand over to Julie who's going to give us a little interview, uh overview rather, not an interview, an overview of what's coming up in the rest of the episode then.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Sure. Yeah. And here's the thing. I mean, we know Christmas isn't just about apples on the tree. We have more stress because we're heading toward year end. There are a lot of demands to tie things up. We're thinking about what's coming in the next year. We have routines, we have more cravings because there's so many goodies around us and temptations. We have a lot of things going a bit haywire. So we're here to arm you with some tips so you can actually enjoy the season without losing sight of your health and happiness, because, you know, we have to live and enjoy our lives too, right? So our three areas of focus today are going to be talking about managing those holiday cravings, staying active and mindful during all of these festivities. It is possible. And then navigating family and social dynamics with grace, because, you know, sometimes those things can be a bit challenging. I mean, I know I've had my share. How about you, James? Do you re- have any memories of stressful Christmas times and how you dealt with them?

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Yeah, well, I've maybe not how I dealt with it, but I've talked about my mum before, Audrey, she's 90, coming up for her 91st birthday. You know, the archetypical sort of like woman over 40 at the time who did everything. When I was growing up, I was growing up in Greece, we had a pub and we would close on Christmas Day, and Mum would invite all the staff who worked there to come and have Christmas dinners with us because most of them were expats, as were we, living over in Greece. Now there's a guy who was um homeless, who was a patron of the pub. He was Norwegian, an eccentric millionaire who slept on the beach, um, didn't have the best personal hygiene and things like that. Anyway, my mum decided that she would invite every single person that she knew that year who had nowhere to go. So this guy, Finn, he ended up coming to um to our Christmas dinner. Somewhat last minute, we'd invited him, he didn't say whether he was going to come or not. So this guy turned up. Uh we halfway through trying to get tables laid and all this other kind of stuff. Um, he as I said, he was Norwegian. He brought this can of some kind of fish balls. It said fisky balls on the on the on the tin and gave them to my mum, and my mum accepted them graciously. She had no idea what they were, but she decided to open them and put them on the Christmas table anyway. So we all bravely tried one of these fisky balls, as everybody's everything's going a little bit crazy. So there's like 30 or 40 people around this table, and um, let's just say, flavour-wise, they weren't something you wouldn't ordinarily want to have on your on your Christmas dinner. But that's the one of the things that stands out for me was my mum's uh great ability to juggle things, to make people feel welcome, even though they might have felt themselves as being outcast. And I think that's a great message at this time of year to actually open our arms and homes to people who might be more needy and in need of some support. Because you know, we all complain about being busy at this time of year. I think it's worth remembering that there's some people who are actually on their own at this time of year, and it's probably not a great time to be on your own when everybody else is having a good time. How about you? You got any uh stories about your own juggling hosting duties with self-care and trying to make it all work out?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Well, I nothing quite as dramatic as 30 people in the house, but I do remember a few Christmases ago we had my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and a good friend here leading up to Christmas. And then the friend left, and um, my stepdaughter and her husband and my other stepdaughter decided to come. And we don't have that many extra beds. So we were juggling not only a house full of people that was really bursting at the seams, but we also had a number of different dietary needs. So we had some food intolerances, some downright food allergies, we had a vegetarian in the group, and it was really interesting trying to cater for everyone and then get young, not really young, I mean they're adults, but younger adults kind of into the fold of getting ready and doing things on time and meeting our plans that we had made and getting out of the house, you know, in less than two hours of come on, come on, let's go. And then managing the schedule of the food and everything on top of that. So I was exhausted at the end of it, but apparently everybody had a good time. So I guess I did okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Well done. Excellent. It's it's really strange, isn't it, and and difficult to deal with at that time, this time of year, when people drop on you unannounced or decide they're gonna come at the last minute, and then you've suddenly got to juggle everything around, and as you said, juggling dietary requirements on top of everything else as well, trying to find bed space for people and things like that. It's a real, real challenge. Now, let's talk a little bit about some something that I think is really, really important at this time of year, particularly for many of our clients, and that's managing cravings during this time. We've talked about cravings before, and we know that the menopause transition is a time because of issues with blood sugar, stress, etc., whereby our willpower to avoid the things that we think don't serve us is somewhat challenged, and especially challenged at uh over the Christmas period. Now we have a membership group that's called Club Fibers Beyond 40, and Julie, who is the the the queen of mastering cravings, gave a really good presentation to our group um last week about cravings during the holiday periods and how to best avoid them. So, Julie, I'm just gonna hand over to you for a little bit to maybe talk to people about that, speak to them about where this comes from and what kind of strategies might they actually put in place to help deal with cravings at this time of year when it is a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah, of course. This is this is a favorite topic of mine because I've lived it. Um I still live it from time to time. None of us is immune. And there's a there's a a little bit of an exercise I like to take people through. So when you're looking at cravings, cravings come typically, um, especially when you're craving a very specific food. Like if it needs to be um shortbread biscuits, if it needs to be chocolate, if it must be popcorn, like it was for me, um, that is an indication that it becomes, it's not really a hunger or a physiological necessity. Those kinds of cravings are tied to some kind of emotion. So when you're having those cravings, it's great to stop yourself and say, okay, what is it that I'm craving? What can I connect that to? Is it a specific situation? Is it a specific time of day? Is it a specific person who triggers me to want these things? And what is the story that I have behind this food? Like for me, popcorn reminded me of all the times I really connected and sat and talked to my mom. And and she she always made us this giant bowl of popcorn. So whenever I started to feel emotional or stressed, I remember I would crave popcorn. So there was that story for me. And then maybe take a step back and say, what is that I'm actually feeling right now? What's leading up to this? As I have I had a stressful situation? Have I just had a difficult conversation? You know, am I in a position that that makes me feel uncomfortable in some way? And and what is it that you really need? Is it connection, company, some space and time to yourself, especially this time of year? We don't get very much of that. And then we think, oh my gosh, this food is just making me, making me take, um, making me eat this, eat it, basically. But food doesn't really have any power unless we give it over to the food. We are the ones in control, and sometimes it's helpful to remember that. Um, there's also a um a really good kind of flow chart that we have with with our people. It's called, should I eat it? And if you go down and and ask yourself these questions, right? Is this something nutritious for my body? Yes or no? If it's no, then the question is, why do I want to eat it right now? You know, we can go down these questions with ourselves, kind of like diving a little bit deeper into the craving, be curious. This is the thing, instead of feeling powerless around it, think about curiosity. What's driving this? I mean, yes, we all know that those Christmas treats look really divine, but what's driving the really strong urge to eat them? And it will help you make more guilt-free choices because the truth is sometimes you're just going to eat the thing, and why not? But I always like to tell people don't eat it just because it's there. Eat like save that space for just the things you really, really like, you know, the top of the line things that are your absolute favorites, and then enjoy them because that's part of what being around and celebrating is about. We bond over food. It means a lot more than just nutrition, although we like to focus there. The other thing that really helps to avoid cravings is focusing on what you're eating in other meals. Do not, please do not skip meals to save up because in the end you end up eating a whole lot more and feeling a whole lot worse. Make sure you're getting plenty of protein because protein can keep you feeling full for longer. And it's also a great way to manage those sugar cravings. We've had a couple of clients tell us what a difference it made when they added more protein into their into their day. So the other thing is you're going to get around food pushers, right? And it's totally okay to say no, thank you. You know, if you if you feel awkward or somebody says, Well, I made this just for you, you know, thank them and appreciate the intention behind it, appreciate the affection behind it. And then either say, I'm I'm making the choice not to eat those kinds of things right now, saying, Oh, eating these kinds of things makes me not feel very good anymore, or just say, you know what, can I just take it to to take home for later because I'm really full right now. That's a great, a great way to to tackle some of those food pushers without offending anybody. Um, because it's not about it's not about you, it's about them, right? So I I think I think those are some tips I would give. The other the other thing I would suggest is making sure you stay active. When we stay active, our body feels better, we feel more energized, and it keeps us more clear-headed. So we're not really tempted so tempted to give in. And I know, James, you're you're the best one in this duo to talk about activity.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Well, uh, thanks. Um, it's interesting. You'd you'd actually think that we put this together with some kind of flow, right? That where we move from one subject to another seamlessly. So, yes, activity. Um, one of the things I guess that's the challenge at this time of year is we become even more time compressed than what we already are, right? So that's for all of us. Um, and we know the time compression that is already on women over 40, anyway, with all the great stuff that they do in their lives and the way many of them pack their lives full of lots of and lots of things to do. And then at this time of year, you know, there's loads of other stuff going on. There's Christmas parties, there's shopping to do, let's get the house ready, there's prep the food, let's make the beds if you've got guests coming, let's deal with dietary and things like that. So as time becomes compressed, I always think it's a good idea to try and get the best bang we can for our book when it comes to whatever exercise we do. And we talk we've talked before, I believe on the podcast, but we are definitely talk about it on our socials a lot. This concept of doing stealth aside. So do just doing little bits here and there as and when you can. So, you know, just doing a 15-minute movement burst or trying to get some family activities together, like suggesting going out for winter walks, or you know, if it's I mean, I'm in the UK, it will likely be raining on Christmas Day, but you know, we could easily take a ball into the garden, kick it around. The girls love playing football. We've got a netball net at the back, we could go out and have a a netball game. So think of things that you can do with the family that are both enjoyable, but that will also keep you moving as well. And then as a for those who are incredibly, incredibly time compressed, we uh in our Facebook group we're running a thing called 12 Days of Fitness. Um this starting today, I think the first day is so what is 12 days of fitness? It's uh one different move, one different action per day for the next 12 days. So starting today, ending a couple of days before Christmas, actually Christmas Eve, and by the time you get to Christmas Eve, because we're gonna do these cumulatively, you will have structured around a 25 minute uh routine. So it's one action today that is just a minute. Tomorrow there'll be another action, so you'll do that plus the one minute, so then you have two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, etc. up until um Christmas Eve. So we're running that in our Facebook group if you want to join us. It's Fabulous Beyond 40 um the Facebook group. Uh, we'll put that in the show link below for you to actually jump on there. And we will also put the should I eat it guide in there as a special bonus for our listeners as well. That is normally for our club members, but we'll pop that in there for you because it's Christmas and I feel like it's a time of giving. So why not give something to you, all our uh lovely listeners? And I suppose the final thing to talk about here is that particularly at this time of year, you know, exercise is a good stress reliever, but it's not a punishment, it's not something that you do, you know. I don't want you going onto the treadmill and spending half an hour there or an extra half an hour there just because that's going to buy you with that old-fashioned debit credit mentality, an extra mince pie or an extra slice of you know Christmas cake or whatever it may be. Make sure that you're exercising with intention to do the best you can for your body rather than just seeing it as a way of depositing something so you can then go and have more. Julie talked about the intention of eating. Let's make our exercise intentional as well. Now we talked about stress just there. One of the things that I always find really stressful this time of year is the idea of family and social dynamics. What's going on? How can we best navigate those kind of things? You know, many of us have somebody who's part of the family who might be coming to Christmas dinner or we might be seeing over the holiday period and may not have the best relationship with them. So, Julie, I just wondered what kind of tips you've got here to help people navigate this period with some grace and again some intention to make sure that you know those challenging dynamics aren't actually affecting the mood and particularly your mood, dear listener. You know, it's you that we we're trying to look after here.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, one of the things that I that I find really interesting is we in anticipation of these encounters, you know, or these conversations we dread having, or the judgments we know we're going to hear, we think we we live them in our mind. So we're already stressed before before the situation happens. And then when the situation happens, we're like tensed up and ready for it. But then that stress just blossoms again on both sides, and that energy carries over. If you can take some time, think about maybe one of these encounters that you don't want to repeat again this year because you can change it. Visualize how you would like it to go. Visualize like how could you do something different? You know, I mean, throw the other person off guard a little bit by responding with kindness. Um, maybe just setting those boundaries and saying something like, I appreciate your in your intention of helping me out here, but at the moment it's not a good time for me to discuss this and just leave it at that. Um, or maybe respond, really? Oh, that's very interesting. Um, what makes you say that? You know, and and don't don't put those defenses up right away. And you you might be able to actually engage in a different kind of conversation with them. But visualize how you'd like it to go because visualization is actually very powerful, and it can help us redirect our energy and redirect the way we respond to different situations rather than just reacting with that, those defenses. Mechanisms, those automatic reactions that we tend to have. And stay mindful, focus on the people who are there. It doesn't matter if everything is perfect or not. And if somebody doesn't like the way something is done, maybe suggest that they can come and help. Offer to let them take it over next year. If they would like to do that, you would be so grateful because it's hard to balance all of it. But in the end, really just staying present and engaged with the people you want to be around. You get to set your boundaries and protect your boundaries. And that's really, I think that's a really important piece of this. And then again, stay mindful. What are you focused on in the holiday? If you're focusing on the stress, you'll probably get more stress. You'll look and see places where the stress exists. But if you're looking for joy and connection and deepening relationships, you will find more of that because it helps to, again, the visualization and choosing what we're going to take away from the situation can really help us like uh mining that that diamond out of out of the rough, out of the rough. But you know, and I know one of the big issues for me are the food pushers I was talking about earlier. I actually had someone last year putting food on my plate when I had politely declined. And I just said, okay, thank you very much. And I left it. Like I just I chose not to eat it. Of course, there was a bit of discussion about that. Oh, don't you like it? No, I'm just so full. I don't have room for it, you know. Um, but I food pushers, there's usually some intention behind it that's positive. So look for the intention, acknowledge the intention, and then politely say no. And no is a, you know, no thank you is a complete sentence, and you don't have to justify yourself. So it's a hundred percent okay to just say no thank you. It may take some practice.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

It's a great tip. It's such a simple thing to say, isn't it? But it's so hard for many of us to come out and say it at a time, particularly like this, and I understand where it comes from. You know, their intention usually, as you said, comes from a really, really good place. They're trying to look after you. But also I think it's important to look after ourselves as well. And I think sometimes our want to maybe not offend the other person takes over there, and we end up doing things that we aren't necessarily comfortable with when it comes to eating, drinking over the Christmas holidays. Great. So let's start to recap then as we head up to the half an hour mark. We've talked about three main things today. First of all, the idea that holiday decreasings are manageable with awareness and planning. Julia talked about some great tips there, thinking about why this happens, when it happened, etc. And then we've also got, of course, um that should I eat it guide. And as I said, we'll put that in the show notes for you as a special little Christmas bonus. So all you need to do is print that off, keep it with you, and it's got a really nice, quite clever flow chart, if I say so myself, as to working out whether to try and eat something. Secondly, time's compressed, but let's keep moving. If you want a really good, simple way of doing that over the Christmas holidays, we've got our 12 days of fitness uh routine challenge, I'm not sure quite what you'd call it, running in our Facebook group at the moment. It'll take you up to about half an hour. I think the key thing here is to just keep doing something so you're not just giving up altogether. The alternative is to make sure that you're doing lots of other uh non-intentional exercise, I suppose is the best way I can put it. And that means you know, if you need to forget the treadmill, you need to forget the gym, you need to forget lifting your weights for a couple of weeks, make sure you're doing something else, you know, make sure you're doing a slightly longer walk or playing out with the kids or doing something or the grandkids or whatever it may be. And then finally, you know, trying to keep our choices mindful, trying to keep self-care at the top of things. I mean that a stress-free Christmas is absolutely possible. And as ever, it's not about being perfect, it's about keeping the progress going. And I think as much as anything else, it's just keeping our health, our fitness, our self-care mindful, and a friend of mind at this time of year. Because the temptation from everybody, we know January 1st around the corner, and we've got something prepared for that, don't worry. For the start of the year, everybody's waiting for new year to start, aren't they? Really? And in my mind, that is always a mentality that can set you up to fail. Because if you start a new year, you're gonna throw yourself headlong into something that may be too big a challenge for you. And by the way, we know that New Year's resolutions come the end of January. I think it's something like 80% of people have given up on them. And so you know, use this time intentionally, do what you can, keep doing it, don't give up, and keep going on. So, Julie, do you want to just round off with a few things to remind people of that?

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Yeah, sure. Um, as James said, we have our 12 days of fitness going and the fabulous Beyond 40 Facebook group, and that's really fun. You don't have to do this alone. Um, it's a fun challenge. We're keeping each other accountable there. And I also like to say, if you're worried about, oh, I'm not gonna have 25 or 30 minutes, I like to say sprinkle it through your day like exercise confetti. Five minutes here, two minutes there. Um, it doesn't matter when you do it, it just matters that you do it. And you can find a minute or two or even five here and there. And if you can't, then please get in touch because we really need to have a conversation. So we um we also would love to invite you, if you're interested, to check out our club Fabulous Beyond 40. It's a fantastic membership. There isn't another one like it that we have found. Um, and we would love to welcome you in there. And next week we're super excited about our year-end finale, and we are going to invite uh great conversation from the fabulous woman Jennifer Moe, who is the founder of a company called PuraCollagen. She is going to share some really interesting insights about how collagen can be your secret weapon for 2025. And she's going to talk about her own really amazing journey of creating her own company as a single mom and all of the things that she's been able to do with her mission. So please come and join us next week. I would also love to invite you to like and subscribe and share this podcast with others. We would love to expand our reach and our message. Leave us a review. We'd love to know your thoughts. And if there's anything you'd like us to talk about, let us know that too. So I think that's all we've got for today. So I'm going to say this is Julian James telling you to stay strong and stay fabulous.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Take care, everybody.