My personal strategies for overcoming the Perimenopause “slump”
Somewhere in my early forties, I just started feeling different. I began leaning more and more on my discipline as my motivation started seeming like a long-lost friend. My anxiety lasted longer and became more intense. I woke up exhausted most days and I was running on fumes.
Since I already have an autoimmune disease (Hashimoto Thyroiditis), I was wondering if it was getting worse, or perhaps, I had developed another one. A lot of the symptoms felt the same, prior to being diagnosed years ago, only worse.
My hormones were still “within range”, although I know enough from prior experience testing them, that these results can be quickly antiquated and symptoms can be early predictors of predicated diagnoses. I knew something had to change…
After a discussion with my healthcare provider, we concluded that it’s probably perimenopause that I’m dealing with, as I’m right within the age range it can raise it’s ugly head. The downside of aging as a woman…
After further discussions with my doctor, I learned that the hormonal shifts the body goes through during perimenopause can cause the body to be not just in an inflammatory state, but also one that mimics the “fight or flight” one, as our cortisol levels rise. I began to realize that anything that contributed to these hormonal swings and cortisol peaks, would further the inflammatory responses I was having.
When it came to my fitness, I noticed I was having to deal with things much differently than before. I knew I had to take a completely different approach if I was going to reach my goals at this stage of life.
First, the “all or nothing” approach wasn’t going to work anymore. Gone were the days of doing everything, and in a vigorous way, to push myself past any form of metabolic adaptations my body had made towards certain movements. In the past, when my body stopped responding to low impact movements, I would quickly attack it with high impact ones to ignite changes.
What I now know happens when I do this, is that I further the inflammatory response my body is already making towards exercise. For example, when I try to push my weights higher to drive muscle growth, I may grow, but my body weight also increases more than it had before. Also, when I change my low impact cardio to higher impact, I have similar results as well.
I started testing my body composition more than usual, to try and give myself some form of assurance that I was making some type of progress. What’s interesting, is that the more I pushed myself, the lesser amounts of progress I’d see. However, even though my progress was much slower, it was still happening, just at a slower rate. When measuring it however, the house scale became even more invaluable, as it didn’t help me understand the reasons why my body weight was fluctuating.
I worked through periods where I dropped my calorie intake very aggressively, taking about a 30% reduction from my baseline, which was lower than I had ever done before. I also increased my movements by at least 30 minutes daily and added more planned exercise sessions. I even cut out all sugars and sweets out of my diet. Still, I was making very little progress. My scale weight was not budging most days, and I eventually started realizing it was because of the inflammatory response I was conjuring up with my unsuccessful fitness strategies.
My first instinct was to try and attack this lack of progress with even more movement and an aggressive calorie deficit, but I knew if I did, I would just exhaust myself. Not to mention, I had to deal with the reasons why I wasn’t making progress in the first place…the symptoms of perimenopause.
Then, I started thinking about what my healthcare provider said about Perimenopause and how closely it mimics autoimmune symptoms and can even make them worse. Because I already suffered from one, I know the symptoms all-to-well, and know how much they can impact your fitness is inflammation isn’t kept at bay.
As I began my Perimenopause journey, I knew there were several things I needed to change:
- Sleep Habits and Recovery Techniques
- Nutrition
- Fitness Routine
- Stress Management
SLEEP
When it came to sleep, I was slowly becoming acclimated to five or six hours being my daily norm. I didn’t have a nighttime routine in place and I would have a hard time going to sleep and waking up constantly exhausted (sometimes waking up multiple times in the evening).
I began to implement the following strategies to reach my goal of getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep a night:
I made it a point to stop drinking coffee after the 11am hour. Knowing that the half life of coffee is four to six hours, I was doing myself a disservice not clearing it out of my body for several hours after bedtime.
As a Mom, in order to get sleep, I really had to prioritize it. I made sure that I took care of what I needed to for my family earlier in the day, so I could go to bed on time. I shut down electronics earlier and at least a half hour before bedtime, I committed to a short bedtime routine that helped me prepare for sleep, (this included a hot bath, calming music and dimming the lights).
NUTRITION
When it came to my nutrition, I knew I needed to start eliminating foods that caused me inflammation. With my prior history managing my autoimmune disease, I knew I became lazy over the years eliminating these types of foods and I needed to practice more due diligence now that they were really affecting me.
The foods I started cutting back or eliminating entirely were:
- Refined Carbohydrates
- Added Sugars
- Processed Meats
- Gluten-containing foods
- Foods high in salt
- Some Dairy products (yogurt, milk)
**Eliminating the gluten-containing foods seemed to make the greatest difference!
FITNESS
As far as fitness, I knew my old routine wouldn’t work, as I would push myself really hard, especially when I wasn’t seeing immediate results. I had to be patient with myself, as I cut my planned workouts down to about 30-50% most weeks, (this meant 3-4 planned gym sessions versus 5-6 per week). I set a step goal on the days I didn’t have a planned gym session, so I could still reach my movement goals. Have a step count in place most days of the week, was one of the things that contributed mostly to my fitness success, when it came to altering my fitness program during Perimenopause.
Having a daily step goal, allowed me to achieve my daily movement goals for my cardiovascular health and wellness as well as my calorie expenditure. My body was able to get the necessary rest from my planned workouts it needed, and successfully recover from the inflammation my resistance training sessions caused that I was experiencing. The best part, is that I was still able to lift heavy weights in order to maintain and grow my muscle tissue, but also allowing my muscles and body to get the adequate rest it needed in order to do this.
STRESS MANAGEMENT
The additional rest I was allowing myself to have between workouts, helped tremendously with my stress management strategies as well, as I noticed prior to this, that pushing myself in the gym was producing counter-productive results when it came to my fitness. Trying to do more to drive results at this stage of my life, started becoming detrimental to my fitness instead of contributing to it. With more rest and doing steps in lieu of a few planned workouts, I was able to reduce my inflammatory response and allow my mind time to process things when I took my daily walks on my treadmill or around my neighborhood.
When it came to stress management, I learned how important it was to carve out extra time each week to practice activities such as meditation, yoga, stretching and deep breathing. I did my best to try and handle my stress with greater patience, as I knew it was a large instigator of the inflammation I was experiencing. My body was already under hormonal stress from Perimenopause…it didn’t need me to contribute more.
With the strategies I had in place for the four areas I mentioned above, I was starting to see and feel progress. The progress I began to make wasn’t necessarily body fat loss at first, but rather a large reduction in inflammation, with body fat loss that soon followed. My results that happened weren’t immediate, but they were happening! They continued to happen as I practiced patience and allowed my body the time it needed, to reduce the inflammation so it could make improvements in other areas.
I realized during my journey, that my body fat loss would take longer, and how important it was for me to practice consistency and mindfulness when it came to my fitness. I had to pay even closer attention to my diet, remain disciplined and “stay the course”.
After all of my learnings, I was able to compete in another Bodybuilding competition successfully and place first in one of my classes! (This was an achievement I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do again once I hit Perimenopause). I was able to achieve this accomplishment during Perimenopause, because I consistently executed the successful strategies I’ve learned through my personal fitness experience as well as managing my own autoimmune disease.
Through my experience in being successful in fitness during Perimenopause, I’ve learned that results can certainly happen by practicing patience and giving yourself the necessary time it needs to produce results. Additionally, having the knowledge to know how to reduce inflammation successfully is key, as well as knowing how to measure your progress accurately.
Perimenopause doesn’t preclude any woman or mother from getting fitness results! We just need to remember to “stay the course” and have a solid fitness plan in place that we consistently practice over time, that will bring us the results we desire.
