
19/05/2021
After a long and hugely successful career in the health & fitness industry, Wendy Sweet realised that little was known about the role of exercise and diet during the menopause transition. All of the information and practise was aimed at women in their twenties and no regard was given to the changing nature of a woman’s body as she ages.
After extensive research, including doing her Masters degree and then a PhD, she discovered the best exercises to support our body during & after menopause, the ONLY diet that prevents weight gain in this time and how we can avoid the insomnia that afflicts so many women.
For over 30 years I have been involved in New Zealand’s health and exercise industry. Although my original career was as an ICU nurse and I’m not practicing any more, I re-trained and pioneered the Personal Training industry in New Zealand.
Once I left this industry, I returned to education and not only was I lecturing in sport, exercise, nutrition and health physiology, but I was so interested in how to help people change their lifestyle behavior, that I undertook my master’s studies in this area.
Then I went on to do my doctoral studies in the Faculty of Health, Sports and Human Performance at Waikato University. My desire was to better understand how women perceived their ageing and the role of exercise in this during the menopause transition. I am so pleased that I did!
Because what I discovered was that our menopause transition, when we go into the final hormonal changes that herald in the end of our biological reproductive years, is the time to change our lifestyle in readiness for the next 20-30 years of living we still have to enjoy.
In a different hormonal environment, what we have done in the past to manage our health, energy and our weight, simply may not work any more. Not many health coaches and other professionals understand this, because there has been very little research on the menopause transition and lifestyle changes that we need to make to help us get ready for our future years.
When, through my women’s health research, I looked at many of the symptoms that women experience during menopause, I realised that this is the time of our lives that our health can begin to change and our menopause symptoms may become worse. This happened to me too.
Desperate to turn around my own health, weight and symptoms, I set out to untangle the menopause-mayhem jigsaw, so we didn’t need to rely on traditional hormone therapies that have been used in the past. Everything I discovered is now in two fabulous programmes called My Menopause Transformation.
I had a brainwave: wouldn’t it be cool to ask my kids what they thought of my parenting style and how it’s affected them, what did and didn’t work, what they’d change, what they’ll keep for when they become parents.
I also did an episode with my second son, Ryan, who asked how I coped with them as teenagers (listen here), and one with my eldest son, Jamie, about which child did I love the most (listen here).
Still on the topic of parenting, one of my most popular podcasts is Why Boys Need Rules (listen here)
NOTE: these are my opinions. They’re not the only ones and they’re not the truth, they’re just what worked for me.
I don’t know about you, but by the time I reached my fifties, I was an absolute MASTER at feeling guilty and being sad about what I’d lost and would never have again (think: cuddles from a little child, the family all being together, pizza nights in front of the TV, school runs, that kind of thing)
(okay, maybe not the school runs).
It’s such a difficult trap to get out of, but it’s made MUCH easier when you recognise what’s happening. Like, for example, when you find yourself short tempered in the last few days of your child’s visit but that’s because you’re sad that their visit visit is nearly over and you’re going to miss them. Or the way you lie in bed every night with this vague and persistent feeling of regret, accompanied by thoughts about all the things you haven’t done or should have done throughout your entire life? What if that’s just your mind’s way of acknowledging that there’s such a grief about the fact that one major part of your life is over and until you acknowledge it, it’s going to hang around.
In this podcast, I go through the things that I’ve done (and hopefully you can do, if you’re inclined) to let go of the guilt and embrace the grief (yes, embracing it makes it disappear so much faster!).
Find out:
✨✨ How to start to recognise the different emotions that are reeling through your brain at any moment, and often at the same time
✨✨ How sharing our real selves – authentically and fully – can change the way we experience life
✨✨ How we undervalue ourselves
✨✨ Working out what is it we really want from life
✨✨ Being honest about the things we’re really good at
✨✨ Acknowledging our talents and experience (something we, as middle-aged women, tend to be VERY bad at!)
✨✨(This is a controversial one ) Allowing ourselves the freedom to do things we enjoy and not do things we think we OUGHT to do
This is a hugely important podcast for all women to listen to!
By the way, the podcasts about my parenting style that I talk about can be accessed here:
Menopause isn’t something that’s openly discussed… at least, not until it happens, and even then, only among close friends. Which means that it’s actually very difficult to find out anything about what to expect during peri-menopause & menopause until you’re right in the middle of it.
As far as the medical profession goes, the information available is either really vague or really generic: you may experience this, you might find that, this other thing could be a symptom of menopause, but we don’t know.
There’s very little concrete information about menopause because we all experience different things at different times: there’s no certainty about the age at which we’ll start menopause, we have no idea how long it will last and no clue as to which possible symptoms will present and which ones we’re going to avoid.
Come and join me and Maurya Reider in conversation talking about what we experienced during menopause and how we dealt with it. Maurya has some amazing tips for supporting our loved ones.
Maurya Rieder, oldest of 4 kids, parent of two, American by nature, Australian by choice.
She loves to pursue growth type activities, including participating in Landmark Education’s programs for a number of years.
Reading personal growth books is one of her favourite pastimes.
Maurya has been in menopause for 3 years and is, on the whole, quite happy about that.
Karen is a Post-Menopausal mother of four, who loves to meet and connect people, hear about their experiences and hopefully glean a little wisdom for herself!
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