101. Menopause Information Overload | Do Less and Eat More, with Laura Lambe

Midlife Changes And Overwhelm

Cheryl Fischer 0:00

It's a lot. It's a lot to figure out when you are in midlife, and again, could be 40s, sometimes it's even late 30s, could be 50s, could be late 50s, into the early 60s. It's a lot to figure out when your body seems to be changing without your knowledge or permission. And everyone around you, in social media land, in TV land, in podcast land, we do it too, and in friendland, is telling their story and giving advice. It's a lot to figure out what I am actually supposed to do during this menopause period. That's what we're going to talk about. If midlife was only about hot flashes, 3 a.m. wakeups, silly injuries, and worrying about everyone from aging parents to adult kids, we'd all be unhappy and isolated. And that's just not true. Whether you're frustrated at work, stressed about retirement, or just looking for the phone that's already in your hand, you're in the right place. Let's change the story around midlife and start loving this chapter. This is the Mind Your Midlife Podcast. Instead of a traditional sponsor today, I wanted to open this space up to you. If you have a brand, a book, or a product that helps women navigate midlife, I'd love to spotlight you right here on the show. Find out more at CherylPFischer.com slash my sponsor info. And now back to the show. I recognize the little bit of irony in doing a podcast episode about information overwhelm because I'm providing you, and my guest is going to be providing you with information, right? We're part of the loop. I am careful, however, when I figure out what I am going to talk about on my podcast episodes, which guests am I going to have on the podcast? I am careful to make sure that someone is not simply steamrolling over us and saying this one solution is the thing to do no matter what. And you're going to hear me in today's episode even catch myself in asking questions that are kind of that black and white thinking: is this thing good or bad? Should we do this or that? Fortunately or unfortunately, it's not that simple to be healthy because your body has needs that only your body has. Now, what is important is that we be informed about how to stay healthy during this period of life and that we be informed about the healthy choices we might make, whether it's hormone therapy or it's exercise or it's eating, and not get overwhelmed by it.

The Menopause Marketing Noise

Cheryl Fischer 3:06

So I am excited to have this discussion today because my guest, Laura Lamb, is the founder and CEO of Laura Lamb Fitness, and she is a menopause practitioner, women's health advocate, and founder of Menopause Mastery. She is in Great Britain, and from there, she has created a worldwide free organization, the Menopause Lab. You'll hear us talk about it and you'll see the link in the show notes for women to help with information overload, to help us figure out what it is that will really help and get rid of all the extra stuff. And so I want our conversation to start you on the path of getting rid of all the extra stuff today as well. So welcome, Laura. Thanks for joining me.

Laura Lambe 3:57

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Cheryl Fischer 3:59

So this is an important conversation for us to have. And I'm excited to have you here because I think you're really going to help with that. There's so much out there related to perimenopause and menopause, and it's all trendy stuff, and you have to have this and you have to do that. And so, what what are some of the things you've seen that are just kind of overwhelming us?

Laura Lambe 4:24

Yeah, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword, isn't it? We were crying out for information for so long for this chapter of life, and we have had obviously a huge amount of advocacy, transparency, support, like normalizing it, and we still have a way to go on that. But unfortunately, like anything in life, when there is that grey area where there's so many misinformed individuals, uninformed individuals, and unfortunately desperate individuals, we then get people preying on that. And we get misinformation coming out, an array of products being sold, and people just thinking of it as a way to make money, essentially. So we're kind of in that awkward position where we want lots of noise to be created about menopause. But because we've been creating that amount of noise around menopause and like shouting that this is an underserved population and there's no education and the doctors don't really know too much, we've unfortunately then brought the attention of so many people that kind of want to make money out of like anything in life when there's that grey area. Probably the biggest thing that we have seen is the supplement industry just massively over-and-dating women around just putting the word menopause pretty much on front of everything. Even when it comes to like products like shampoos, like products like skincare, everything. There's now just what we call a pink tax, like menopause is being adapted to everything. And unfortunately, when a one, you know, yourself, like our algorithms know very well when you click, we call it the rabbit hole of menopause, you click one thing, and the next thing you're completely inundated with by this, by that, by that. And the stance of the menopause society right now on supplements is the only supplement that we actually need is a vitamin D. Everything else should be taken a little bit more than a pinch of salt when it comes to an individual basis.

Cheryl Fischer 6:16

Okay. That's good to know. And in fact, this has to be like 30 years ago, maybe 20 years ago now. I had a doctor at one point who said to me, vitamin D, more than you think, all the time, it's more important than you think. You will need it forever, period. The end. And so I'm thankful for that advice because I think a lot of people don't know that.

Laura Lambe 6:38

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And um, unfortunately, we have been conditioned to think vitamin D being the exception, but we have been conditioned to think of when we mention the word vitamin or mineral, of thinking pills in a pillbox that are down the supplement aisle. And that's just the work of trillions of dollars of ad spend from the supplement industry that have now conditioned that word vitamin to now thinking and being attached to supplements. And we I get it all the time where I'm talking about calcium needs, our magnesium needs, our fiber needs, or any sort of vitamin B12. And the next question immediately is what's the best supplement? What should I be buying? And say, I'm talking about food. These things are found in food. We don't need to be spending money on supplements for these. Like just learn how to eat and learn how to put this into a balanced nutrition. And unfortunately, the health industry has gone so far to the left field where they are now just thinking health as pills and products rather than what's going on our plate.

Cheryl Fischer 7:36

Yeah, that's a great point. What do you say to someone who's listening and thinking, but people keep telling me that the food supply doesn't have as much health to it now?

Laura Lambe 7:48

I would always be very cautious of who's telling you that because more than likely they're trying to sell you a supplement on the back of it. Um and we see this with large influencers, even large people who do great advocacy platforms on social media, and they do massively say this, and they're trying to champion and put fear in people's food and so on. And then you click on the bio and they have a link to a discount code for a disc for a supplement. So always check your source on what is that. But there is some truth to that, of course. We obviously know with the farming industry and how we go about getting sourcing our food, etc., that yes, the quality of the food that we are consuming is less, especially for women in the United States, more so than anywhere else. But it's not as harsh as what we're being told on social media, because there is a backstory to that where they want and are pushing supplements on the back of trying to create that narrative. So there's a little bit of the truth on there, but not so much that we require supplementation all day, every day on the basis of our food. We're we're definitely not at that point.

Cheryl Fischer 8:48

Well, there's so much there. Gosh, I think we're gonna circle back later and talk about what we can be eating to help us. So I'm gonna let that sit for a moment. But the fact that you said and I nodded to 100% that the women in the US are worse off than everybody else is just, I'm sorry, US audience, I know you're listening, and it's true, and it's sad. I just like anyway. We're gonna move forward, I suppose, but it is sad.

Laura Lambe 9:14

Well, worse off, but again, to hold that narrative, because we work with women all over the world, they're definitely marginally worse off. Okay, so there's not a narrative there where we create, and we do see people creating this narrative that they're so much worse off, and all the problems are down to the finish. It's not like when you look at the US compared to anywhere else, like the volume of processed food that is being eaten is the issue. It's not really the issue on terms of what you guys are putting in the healthy foods, it's the the sheer volume of overportions of food and then obviously unhealthy processed food. It's consumed at much higher level than anywhere else in the world. So that's the narrative that we kind of need to focus on rather than trying to create this narrative of my health issues is because of the farming industry in the states. It's not really. It is the narrative with the unhealthy habits that so many people, unfortunately, have developed with the sheer access of that sort of food in the United States.

Cheryl Fischer 10:13

Yeah, thank you. That's a good clarification. And the processed food is cheaper. And so sometimes it's just a socioeconomic thing, too. That's what people can afford. Yeah, yeah. 100%. Yeah. Now,

Exercise Trends Versus Real Strength

Cheryl Fischer 10:25

what about there's lots of there's lots of exercise trends as well. And I'm thinking of the weighted vest, but there's plenty of things. Uh what about all of that? I feel like that sometimes confuses us. And does it make a difference if we start some of these things?

Laura Lambe 10:42

Well, we should be exercising. Um, and we know obviously bone density rapidly decreases in menopause. Um we lose the most amount of bone density that we ever do during the menopausal transition. So we unfortunately think ospirosis, bone health, bone decline is really reserved for people in their 70s or 80s. No, like your bone health in your 70s and 80s is as a result of what you were doing in your 40s, 50s, and 60s. So you you don't develop poor bone health in your 70s and 80s. It's it's a result of what you were doing. So we know we need to be exercising and we know that we need to be lifting weights. So we usually get this kind of thought process around lifting weights is hard or lifting weights is boring, and yeah, like two for a lot of people it is. But so is inability to move and needing to have a stroller. And one in two women do unfortunately break their hip over the age of 50. So you have to kind of sometimes pick your heart on that sense, but we do need to be lifting weights for sure, and a weighted le a weighted vest it is not going to cut it. Now, is it that I mean that we don't like it's bad? No, like on a scale of obviously having resistance training, it is there, but it's obviously much, much further down that list compared to if somebody was actually lifting weights. There's lots of different ways that we can do resistance training. So it's about figuring out what is you can fit into your time, what you like to do, and so on. But we don't need to over-complicate it, like we need to just be lifting weights. And I think so many people spend time overcomplicating things, like it's paralysis by analysis. Instead of just just go and lift the weights, like you don't need to have the perfect routine, you don't need to have the perfect workout schedule, like put a weight on a ground and lift it back up again. Like, just lift weights. And if you need to obviously go to classes that are in your area, perhaps if you can invest in a small PT session to help you with your form, etc. There's lots of YouTube videos to help you in terms of resistance training, but lifting weights needs to be featured on a weekly basis. There can't be any negotiation around that.

Cheryl Fischer 12:46

Yeah. I and I think I'm part of the luckier group because I kind of enjoy that. And I have seen that it makes a change in how I feel and how I look. So then there's there's incentive to keep going, right? But I know some people don't like it as much. So that's yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned something that I want to talk about. You

Escaping The Information Collection Cycle

Cheryl Fischer 13:07

mentioned that you are seeing so many women who get kind of paralyzed and end up doing nothing for themselves during this perimenopause-menopause period because of this information overwhelm. So tell me a little bit more about that.

Laura Lambe 13:23

Yeah, we call it the information collection cycle, where you're just constantly collecting information, like you're constantly saving posts, saving recipes, attending a masterclass, taking down notes, like just listening to another podcast, reading another book, like you're just absorbing more and more information. Like women don't have an information problem, they have an implementation issue, a clarity issue. And so what we usually call it is like an information purge. We're trying to, if you think of it like as a whiteboard, unfortunately, so many women throw so many things on the board and they don't really know what's working, what's not working, what have they got on the board, and it becomes exhausting because you're walking around every day. And I always use a brick analogy to think about this with like 50, 60, 70, 80 different bricks, and each brick represents a different piece of information that you're trying to hold on to. Like it becomes so hard to even do anything at that point. So when people usually are starting their journey, what actually is good to do is an information purge, like actually just sit down and think, where did I get this information from? Like, who told me to take these supplements? Like, was this actually useful? Like, what am I trying to treat with this? Like, why am I doing this? Why am I buying this product? Why am I eating like this? Like to sit down and write out everything that you're doing and logically think, have I seen any improvements from doing this? Who told me to do this? And does this actually work for what I'm working for? So, a big one, for example, is sleep issues. Like, obviously, the vast majority of menopausal women struggle with sleep. It's about 83% of menopausal women. And so many women are taking like magnesium supplements and focusing on things like sleep hacks, sleep routines, et cetera. That's good if you can't fall asleep. Like a magnesium supplement is really designed to help you fall asleep, albeit it's very easy to get enough magnesium from your actual food without needing a supplement at all. But if your issue is 1 a.m. wake-ups, 2 a.m. wake ups, night sweats, etc., you can take all the magnesium until you're blue in the face. It's not going to help your actual problem. So we need to figure out what is your issue that you're trying to treat or reduce. And is the things that you're doing actually targeted for that?

Cheryl Fischer 15:35

Huh. Yes. Wow, I didn't know that about magnesium because magnesium is the sleep thing, right? So I didn't realize. Exactly.

Laura Lambe 15:45

It's the same when we have people with joint issues. So joint health is obviously incredibly common when we come into menopause, but typically women are just targeted with like omega-3 supplements or inflammatories or whatever it may be in terms of the products for joint health. But again, it comes down to, well, what joint issues are you having? Like if you're having a frozen shoulder, no omega-3 is going to help that. Like you need physio. If you're having like lower back pain, you should be getting a uh screening on your pelvic floor because we know our pelvic floor starts to weaken, we go into menopause, it's attached to the lower back. A lot of women have a lower back pain because they need to do pelvic floor exercises. No omega-3 supplement's gonna help you do that. You need to get on the floor and do pelvic floor exercises. So, again, like the sleep, it's about figuring out underneath that umbrella of sleep or joint, what is the actual issue that you're trying to do and figure out the solution for that actual issue.

Cheryl Fischer 16:37

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. And all we have to do is open up Instagram or whatever. I'm not trying to knock Instagram particularly, and and we're bombarded with all these ideas. Yeah, 100% agree. Okay. So let's say that a woman comes to you and is overwhelmed. Where do you where do you tell her to start once we kind of put that?

Laura Lambe 17:03

It depends on on what avenue that she's come to me. So women will come to me obviously inside my private practice. So they'll come on a one-to-one basis, which is an easier place because we just do screen-ins and we go through their health and we take a consultation and we can just tell them exactly where to start. Or women will come to us in our like free community. So we've built the Menopause Lab. We've done that about 18 months ago to kind of bridge the gap, exactly what I was saying earlier, on that big grey area of all these women are struggling. The facts are way over here. They're usually behind paywalls, they're usually behind very few academia walls. And so then so many women struggle with the knowledge. So we bent built the menopause a lab to kind of bridge that gap. With the women that come in in here, the first thing that they do is exactly what I just mentioned. They're an information purge. So they will be going through audits. And honestly, that is the weight that most people need to lose, is not the weight on your body, it's the weight of misinformation, information that's just complete BS, information that's keeping you confused, information that is just keeping you exhausted of every single tab that you're saving and including more and more. So we usually start there and that strips everything back for people and creates that nice like whiteboard that's empty. And then when you are finally at a place where you can start to implement instead of collecting more and more information, then you're able to actually have more clarity around okay, what are my symptoms? What am I doing that needs corrected? Where are the gaps in my life? Not Susan on Instagram or not Karen that I heard there or not my friend Claire. What do I need to do? And it becomes a lot easier when you can start with a clean plate.

Cheryl Fischer 18:36

Yeah,

Self Advocacy With Doctors

Cheryl Fischer 18:37

it's such a good point. We do forget that we're all different.

Laura Lambe 18:43

That's what makes menopause so hard. Yeah. And also what makes it so hard when we go to our GPs, because the GP industry, like they obviously, the medical world in general, they love to have checklists because, well, for lots of different reasons. Firstly, they're obviously a general practitioner, so they're seeing lots of different people for lots of different things. They also are very time and poor. So they need checklists for lots of different things. Menopause doesn't have a checklist. It doesn't even have a checklist in terms of how we diagnose somebody. It's symptom-based. You don't need to have all the symptoms. The symptoms can come and go. It's hard. There's not even a checklist then when you, okay, this person is menopause. What do we do? Because, like I say, if that person's developing sleep, you don't just be like, okay, sleep, here's a magnesium supplement. You need to then go and figure out what part of their sleep is the issue, what's causing the issue. So it's very hard because menopause doesn't fall into that one size fits all bracket. And I think that's the education that we need to educate women so much more on is it is your journey. There can be lots of tools that you could put inside of your toolbox, but unfortunately, you need to understand that your journey is unique to you. And so learning what tools that you need in your toolbox rather than just listening to the endless one size fits all information.

Cheryl Fischer 19:57

Yeah. I think that probably leads into some struggles that women have when communicating with doctors too, because my experience was going initially to a doctor and saying, I'm having some hot flashes, like they're not terrible, but ugh, and my ears are itching, and this and that. And she was like, Well, it doesn't sound like you really need to do anything about that. It doesn't sound so bad. And I left there and went, but but like I why can't I fix it? You know? So there's this range of how bad is it that I think is a problem, too.

Laura Lambe 20:33

Yeah. And unfortunately, when you then layer that with the fact that women from a very young age have been conditioned to not make a fuss and like to be small and to be quiet and not to advocate for themselves and really to just keep quiet with how they're feeling and you know, keep things under the rug and show up with a face and show up with like, okay, just getting on with it attitude that yes, because that what you said there about is it bad enough is something that I hear on a daily basis of people saying, Well, you know, I've been having these symptoms for five years, but I suppose they're okay, they're not as bad as my friend, or they're not as bad as somebody else. So I've just been dealing with them. Well, no, like how bad do you need to get? And unfortunately, when you allow yourself to get so bad, you're nearly at the point where it's actually at a place where we can't really reverse a lot of those issues because then you're in an issue with like health concerns and so on, like bone density or cardiovascular disease, you've nearly gone too far. So I think that is something in general, and unfortunately, it it takes a lot to undo a lot of that silence and conditioning that women have done. But for women to understand that it's it's not normal to not feel normal. And like the only person that knows you're normal is you, and and there is no such thing as normal blood, so there's no such thing as being normal for each person. Like it's you the only person that knows you're normal is you, and when you don't feel normal, you're not normal. And you have every right to not feel normal, and you have every right to be heard and seen when you're not feeling normal.

Cheryl Fischer 21:58

Yeah, and part of that is just. About trusting ourselves, I think, and trusting our intuition.

Laura Lambe 22:03

And we struggle with that somehow all the time. Yeah, exactly. And especially if the doctor then says to you, Oh no, everything looks fine, then you start to is it in my head? Like, am I just making this up? Like, okay, maybe it is just and then you go on, and the next thing it's another year, another two years before then. And that's why it takes women about on average seven years to get a diagnosis of menopause because they've been battling that battle of not really being heard, and then they can condition themselves thinking it's not true in their own heads.

Cheryl Fischer 22:32

Ooh, seven years. Good grief. Wow.

Hormone Therapy Without The Hype

Cheryl Fischer 22:36

So I'm I we've talked about this before, but I'm reading between the lines of what you're saying, and it sounds like you are very pro hormone therapy for sure, because I know it's meant to help with some of these things.

Laura Lambe 22:50

Well, I'm pro I'm pro women having options and I'm pro women having access to the facts that they need for their body. Um am I pro that every woman should be on HRT? Absolutely not. Am I pro that everybody needs HRT? No. But it is a fantastic resource for people who can take it. So, firstly, HRT doesn't treat all symptoms, which is a huge thing that a lot of women don't understand. HRT only treats a subset of symptoms. So if you've got those symptoms, it's a great solution for you. HRT can obviously help with other health factors, like it does help with like bone density, et cetera. But again, if you're under eating, if you're not lift training, etc., HRT is going to be pretty pointless anyway. So again, it's it's like a tool inside of a toolbox. It's not the entire toolbox, but I do think it's a fantastic resource for women who want to take it. But because there is so much people trying to get everybody to have a black and white opinion on HRT, then we forget about the huge portion of women who can either medically can't take HRT, who cannot tolerate HRT, or simply don't want to take HRT. Like these women still deserve answers. These women still deserve to have other options. But we're kind of trying to fight this battle that doesn't need to be fought on social media of people being on one side of the fence rather than thinking, well, yeah, in menopause HRT can be a solution, but so can all these other things.

Cheryl Fischer 24:17

Yeah, thank you for that. Because even my question, I'm going back to the black and white as well. Is it good or is it bad? Gosh, we're really conditioned to do that, aren't we?

Laura Lambe 24:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. And unfortunately, it's sometimes I like my especially the women that are inside the menopause lab, they they laugh now. They know if I they ask me a question, it's always going to be, it depends. It depends on your symptoms. It depends on your things. Like I always get asked, like, should I if I exercise in the morning, should I eat? It depends. Do you have time to do that? Do you not? Well, then don't do it. Like it's a lot of answers in health depends on your situation. There's very few black and white yes or no answers to health.

Cheryl Fischer 24:57

So back to trusting ourselves and trusting what the body is saying. Yeah. Yeah. That's a tricky thing for us to learn and follow all the time for sure. Correct. Okay,

Eating Enough To Support Menopause

Cheryl Fischer 25:09

so a couple of times you've said that if we eat in a in a, I'm gonna say healthy way, we can get the vitamins that we need and we can we can do some of these things that we're trying to do otherwise. So tell me a little bit about what you mean because getting into this eat in a healthy way is a whole nother path we could go down.

Laura Lambe 25:33

Well, I think for women, it actually starts by eating enough. You know, so many women come to us and they're under eating. Like they may be eating healthy foods or clean foods or whatever way you want to call it, but it's nowhere near enough. Like they're either skipping meals or they're doing really long fasting or barely touching carbohydrates or living on salads, like they're actually just not eating enough. So we always use the analogy of you can put the cleanest, most well-sourced, most premium gas into your car. But if you only put a trickle into your car, what's gonna happen? You're gonna break down at the side of the road. And it's the same when it comes to our fuel and our nutrition. Like a lot of individuals don't understand the fact that our body internally requires on us giving it resources on a daily basis for it to function. And those resources only come from our plate. So if you're constantly under-eating, if you're constantly throwing your blood sugar up and down because you're skipping meals or you're snacking and grazing and other things instead of having a meal, then yeah, you're obviously going to feel fatigued, you're obviously going to develop brain fog, you're obviously going to have huge amounts of inflammation in your body, you're obviously going to be constipated and not being able to function on a bowel movement. So a lot of the situations when it comes to nutrition actually starts with eating more food, not about having any of these fancy diets or figuring out what's the magic secret. For a lot of women, a lot of their issues could be solved by actually eating enough food on a daily basis.

Cheryl Fischer 27:01

Wow. That's fascinating and kind of freeing, interestingly. I think we always feel, mate, you know what? Maybe this is coming from it's so common to kind of change, have a bit of extra weight around the middle, that sort of thing, when we're going to into this phase of life. So we're trying to get rid of that so we're eating less, right? Yes.

Laura Lambe 27:24

Yes. And I think women in general have been conditioned from, oh gosh, your teens to be smaller, to always lose five pounds, to fit into that little black dress at Christmas time, to constantly be on a diet, like constantly on a diet. And so many women, when they reach the age of menopause, have been dieting, chronically dieting for years. They've chronically been under-eating for years. We took on, we did a poll last year, the clients that we took on last month, we had 83% of women that were severely deficient in carbohydrates. Like we don't have anywhere near enough volume of food. And then when you combine that on hormonal changes, then the store, it's just like gasoline on a fire at that point. And it's we just becomes a complete mess. And unfortunately, the only real health advice that women have been conditioned to follow is diets. Do this diet, do that diet. So of course, when they feel like they're gaining weight or feel like they don't feel healthy, they turn to the only advice that has ever been taught to women around health and nutrition, and that's dieting.

Cheryl Fischer 28:24

Yeah. Yeah. You're right. You're right. And then we look at people on TV and online and in magazines, and they look skinny. And so that perpetuates it.

Laura Lambe 28:36

Exactly. It's even like with the whole skinny trending now and weight loss drugs and GLPs, etc., yes, skinny is everywhere. And like it's so easy now to get skinny because weight loss drugs are so easily accessible to most people in these days. And but again, that just completely over gasifasoline on the fire again in terms of this conditioned thought around eating less and less.

Cheryl Fischer 29:00

So if someone is listening to this and she's thinking, oh, they might be talking about me. Am I like maybe I'm doing that? How could she start to figure out, Am I eating too little? Should I change something?

Laura Lambe 29:16

The easiest way to think about are you eating too little is are you actually how do you have the baseline volume of what nutrition is, which is three meals a day and at least two snacks? And your three meals a day should be balanced. So they should have carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and veg or fruit on each plate. If you're not having that, then I would bet, yes, my bottom dollar, that you're under eating. So that's very easy baseline in terms of that side. But there's lots of nutrition audits out there. There's lots of ways that you can source and understand that. Like actually, inside of our free menopause lab, we have an entire nutrition audit that goes through the signs of under eating, the signs of chronic undereating, the signs of when we're not fueling our body correctly, what's actually happening to your bone density and your hormonal health, and then ways to actually increase that nutrition in easily instead of again relying on supplements or anything on that side.

Cheryl Fischer 30:06

Yeah, yeah. Such a good point. Such a good point. I think I'm probably guilty of some of this too.

Laura Lambe 30:13

I'm analyzing my life. Yeah, most people are, because it's not a conversation that we typically it's a boring conversation. And anything that is like boring or non-sexy or doesn't feel like a quick fix, it's not something that as women that we are sold to on social media, like everything on social media is quick fixes, something that's gimmicky, something that's sexy. So telling people to eat more food doesn't go viral. So very few women actually ever see it. And because it's not going viral, just people don't really think about it.

Cheryl Fischer 30:42

Yeah, so true. So true.

The Menopause Lab Free Community

Cheryl Fischer 30:44

Okay, well, then on that point, tell us more about the menopause lab because this is a pretty worldwide audience, and I know people are going to be interested.

Laura Lambe 30:53

Yeah, so there's 63,000 menopausal women in there now, and it's entirely free. So the the whole mission apart up above it was, like I say, getting people to have the access to facts about their own body without paywalls and without academia walls. So myself and my team are members of the Menopause Society. So we put all the information updated, guidelines, et cetera. The actual list, I have it on my desk. The latest seventh edition was released this week. So there'll probably be more updates coming into it in terms of guidelines and getting diagnosis and HRTs and other solutions. We list those um pretty much on a weekly basis inside of the menopause lab, but we also then run free masterclasses. We get experts from around the world. We did one last week on her loss and menopause. We're doing one next week on actually having relationships and libido and sexual intimacy with your partner and how that can change. So we're constantly having an array of free information that women can join and support. So I'm sure you'll send the link when this goes out, but it is entirely free. Um, you can bring your friends, you can do everything that you want to on that. And there's women from all over the world who connect and even are actually having some in-person meetups now, which is great to see.

Cheryl Fischer 32:00

Yeah, cool. Yeah. And yes, if you're listening, I will have that link in the show notes. Absolutely. Um, definitely check it out. It's amazing that it's free. Um, I think we're conditioned for things not to be free now.

Laura Lambe 32:12

So yeah, or there to be a catch. We always get that. It's like, what's the catch? It's like there is no catch. Like, oh, women don't need it. Menopause is normal, struggling through it is not. And unfortunately, so many women lose years of their life struggling through this simply because they haven't been given facts about their own body.

Cheryl Fischer 32:30

Yeah, so true. So true.

The Takeaway: Audit And Do Less

Cheryl Fischer 32:33

Okay, so let me ask you this. This is what I always ask uh in an episode because I do know that we all listen to podcasts sort of with half half paying attention. We're doing something else, we're driving the car, whatever. What is the one thing that you really want someone listening to remember and hold on to and take away from this?

Laura Lambe 32:55

You probably need to do less. Audit what you're doing, and you probably need to stop doing things rather than thinking that you need to can start anything new. So many women are actually doing too much, taking too many supplements, trying too many different things. That's why you can't do it all. You have this long list of a to-do list every single day that you feel like you need to achieve to achieve help. It's never gonna work. So you actually probably need to do less. So I would audit what you're doing and review the things that you should be stopping. Has it helped you? No, get rid of it. Do you know why you're doing it? No, question it or get rid of it. Is did it actually come from someone who is qualified to help you, or did it come from an influencer on social media? If yes, get rid of it. Did it come from something that is probably going to make somebody else money rather than actually help you? If yes, get rid of it. So I would advise women to actually focus on stopping so much BS that they're doing and focus on doing less rather than more.

Cheryl Fischer 33:54

I love that because it kind of brings us back to listen to your own body as well and kind of pay attention. Yeah.

Laura Lambe 34:02

Yeah. A thousand, but unfortunately, we can't expect women to listen to their own body when they've never been taught anything about their body. And like that, that brings us right back to that's why I think we always think of it inside the menopause lab is there's three phases. Like you have to move from being confused to clarity first. So you need to strip back, you need to understand what the facts are, you need to understand what what are the BS supplements that are you just don't need. Like, what is all the BS products and misinformation, like the weird vests, et cetera, that are just noise. So move yourself from being overwhelmed to having clarity, getting that to-do list right down to just a couple of things a day that's actually going to drive the needle. That's what moves you move the move from clarity to actually getting results. You can't really go from feeling overwhelmed and confused and having so much information to seeing results. You're in a state of complete overwhelm. That alone is causing your body weight to hold on to way too much stress. And we also know what high levels of cortisol do in women anyway, and menopause. Good point.

Cheryl Fischer 35:04

That's a good point. Yeah. And it's reminding me I was in a sales business in the past, and one of the things we learned was a confused mind says no. Which means if there's too much stuff, then we're not going to do anything.

Laura Lambe 35:18

Yes, yes. And it gets us into the phase which we all know as women that we do things when it's we have time to do it. Like we do things when we when life is easy, et cetera. But whenever life gets busy or something happens, or a social event, or whatever, as women, we just take ourselves off the priority list. You don't need to be at the top three on your priority list of things to do in life, but you should feature on your own priority list in life. Like always. But we don't. We are the first thing as women that gets thrown off that list whenever life gets busy or someone else needs help with us. You don't need to be at the top of your list, but please make sure that you stay on your own priority list in your own life.

Cheryl Fischer 35:55

Thank you for that. And and that's sort of the perfect way to wrap up this discussion because it's true that we often aren't.

Laura Lambe 36:04

One of my most favorite quotes about menopause in general is menopause has a way to make it impossible for you to function if you continue putting everybody else ahead of yourself.

Cheryl Fischer 36:15

Gosh, that's so true.

Laura Lambe 36:17

Perfect.

Cheryl Fischer 36:18

Well, Laura, thank you. I you're you're doing quite a service, I think, for women around the world, really. And so thank you for that. And thank you for this. It's gonna help a lot of people.

Laura Lambe 36:29

Good. I'm glad. Thank you so much for allowing me to come on and speak to your audience. And yeah, hopefully some woman out there listens and gives herself the permission to stop doing so much and actually start keeping herself on her own priority list.

Cheryl Fischer 36:40

When

Closing Thoughts And Self Care Menu

Cheryl Fischer 36:41

Laura said the one thing to remember is do less. I wonder if you felt like I did. I felt this kind of calming. Like I uh let let the breath out, relax. Do less. Well, that's a thing I can do. Now, of course, it's more complex than that. We need to understand what the things are that keep us healthy, and how comforting that maybe those things are simple, and maybe those things don't have to require our entire focus and brain power to figure them out. And maybe we can make a few different choices that are easy habits to maintain, and it makes all the difference. Incredible. Do less. And yes, you know I feel passionately about this. She said we need to be in our top three priorities. We ourselves need to be in our own top three priorities. If you go back to episode 97, when I was talking to Lori Montree about people pleasing, she said something similar. She said, Are you one of the people you're trying to please? Don't leave yourself off that list, whatever the subject is we're talking about. So go to the show notes, check out the menopause lab. And along the lines of maybe letting a breath out and putting our shoulders down and relaxing for a minute, if you don't yet have the self-care menu, it's free, comes by email. Make sure you grab that at Cherylpfischer.com slash self care menu. Easy to remember. If you have a minute, if you have five minutes, if you have 30 minutes, I'm going to give you some ideas on how you can take a little bit better care of yourself, have a little bit of calm, have a minute of rest, because it's really, really important to be able to do that. And it goes right along with what we've been talking about today. And keep remembering, midlife is your time to take just a little bit better care of yourself. On the outside, that's taking care of your body, and on the inside, mindset. Just a little bit more care makes a big difference.