I am going through “The  Change”. That is what my mother called her hot flashes as she rolled her eyes and shook her head with a twinge of shame and wiped the sweat from her brow.

For years peri-menopause and menopause have been something we had to endure on our own with dread and shame. It was treated as some sort of disease rather than a stage of life–that when addressed head on can be a powerful transition into a new and fulfilling phase of our lives.

The key though, is to understand what is going on hormonally and then address some of these fluctuations that may be causing anxiety, changes in sleep and weight gain if needed. 

In episode 76 of the Thin Thinking Podcast, join me as we go all the way to Australia and I speak with Kylie Pinwill, a clinical nutritionist speaker and host of the Hormone Hub Podcast. Kylie will help us on how to deal with our hormones especially as we grow older.

Kylie also offers a gift to our listeners, an e-book entitled, “Is Stress Sabotaging Your Weight Loss?” Get to know more about it as you listen to our podcast.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

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Transcription

Rita Black: Have you been struggling with sleep, sugar cravings, unwanted belly fat, or just feeling a little more anxious than usual. It could be that your hormones may be playing a role and that by making a few changes, you could see big improvements. Join me and my guest nutritionist and hormone expert, Kylie Pinwill. And we are gonna dive into all things hormone on the Thin Thinking podcast.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn't start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That's right, the key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there, I'm Rita Black. I'm a clinical hypnotherapist, weight loss expert, best-selling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery, I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict, and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I'll give you the thin thinking tools, skills, and insights to help you develop the mindset you need. Not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long-term and live your best life.

Rita Black: Hello there. How are you doing this week? I just got back from a few days away. I was kind of working while I was away, but, uh, I really needed just to get out of town and have a bit of a break if you know what I mean. We took my daughter up to college and my husband and I just took an extra day and drove down the coast and it was just really wonderful. I'm gonna be heading into a very, very busy time in September through October, I'm just hitting the ground running. So right now I'm just trying to find out my plan B self-care. You know what I mean? The plan B self-care. The self-care which is good enough, you know, there's times when we can really focus and be on it and work out all, we can work out and eat super duper healthy. And then I have found the importance of a plan B, which is maybe not as much exercise and maybe is not of clean of eating, but good enough that keeps me healthy. So sometimes when I'm super busy, I just have my plan B, which has turned out to be awesome because it's a lot better than no plan or throwing everything out the window and just eating whatever. So I highly highly recommend for all of you out there that you cultivate plan B as well.

Rita Black: So if you've been feeling out of sorts lately, or, you know, for the last year or so more anxious, I've noticed more sugar cravings, even growing belly, belly fat. Well, you are gonna love, love, love my guest today, Kylie Pinwill. We are going to dive into this world of hormones and what happens when they get out of whack. And also she's gonna give us some powerful steps to start to get them back in whack. You're really gonna like Kylie. I can't wait for you to get into our interview. So let's just get going.

Rita Black: Kylie is a clinical nutritionist speaker and host of the hormone hub podcast. With over 20 years experience in the health and fitness industry, she works with women in their forties and beyond who are feeling lethargic, struggling with weight gain, bloating and hot flashes. Well, she calls them hot flushes because she's from Australia. And she helps them balance their hormones and reset their metabolism so that they can feel happier, healthier, and more confident in their own skin. So let's get going.

Rita Black: Hello and welcome Kylie Pinwill to the Thin Thinking podcast. I it's so great here you are halfway across the world and we can talk like this, your lunchtime, my post dinner time. I love it. Welcome.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. Thank you, Rita. I'm really excited to be here and it is very cool that we can connect across the world.

Rita Black: Yeah. We were just talking about how amazing it is to connect in this way that we, as practitioners, we were seeing people just in our offices or in our clinics, one on one, and now the whole world is, is available to us to connect to. It's so cool. So, and I'm excited to introduce you to the thin thinking audience because Kylie, her jam is really hormones, perimenopause, menopause, all those things, those changes that we are going through with sleep and stress, weight, metabolism. And, and so I think you're all gonna find our conversation really interesting. And Kylie, maybe you can tell us, start up by just telling us, did you always, were you always working with women in menopause or were you working at, like, how did you start your practice? Your maybe just tell us a little bit about you and how you got started.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, of course. So I'm an accredited nutritionist and I sort of started off, I was in clinic in Sydney, which is, you know, sort of our, our big city in Australia. That's the big smoke. And yeah, I was just in a busy clinic. So I was basically seeing anyone and any who, who would walk in the door, which, you know, I loved. So big multimodality clinic. And then we moved to a regional area. So up for those of who have ever heard of Noosa in Queensland, that's where I am now, which is a beautiful, beautiful part of the world. But when you are living and working here, it's actually a big country town. So I sort of, you know, transferred in my head. I transferred my busy clinic in like in a city Sydney to regional Queensland and it didn't really transfer with the numbers. So all of a sudden I'm sitting in an empty clinic room and I was like, oh, okay. Where, where are the people? You know, and I had sort of always had a, an interest in kids' nutrition and, you know, very passionate about, you know, working with kids and, and the whole thing. And when, what I sort of realized was it was actually, the kids were actually okay. It was the moms, the mums were tired, the mums were exhausted, the mums.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: You know, and when you had the conversation with the mums, it was just sort of like, oh yeah, I'm really tired. Put on all this weight. I feel exhausted. I don't know what's wrong with me. You know, I've been to the doctor and he said, nothing's wrong. And so it sort of started, I guess, organically through these conversations. And then I kind of hit my own hormonal wall if you will. Where you know, all of a sudden, I just realized, you know, we'll never forget this particular conversation one day where this lady was telling me how she felt. And she was basically reflecting back to me how I felt and I was sort looking at her and she was telling me, you know, how tired she was and the weight around the middle that she'd never had before. And she was cranky with her kids and, and she wasn't sleeping. And I was sort of looking at her and I was like, oh my God, that's how I feel. But being a health practitioner, we never sort of want, I think...

Rita Black: to admit..

Kylie Pinwill: We don't wanna admit. Yeah. That we don't feel that great and something's going on. And, you know, particularly when you do go to the doctor and I hear this all the time is, you know, all of a sudden women start feeling off. And I think one of the early signs, and I know this now is feeling tired, closely followed by where is this weight around my middle coming from.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: So it's yeah. So that was sort of like how I sort of started. And I started to get really curious about what was going on. And you know, sort of digging a bit deeper. And at college, when I, you know, were starting to be a nutritionist, like we seriously covered perimenopause and menopause for, I think, five minutes, you know, it was just something.

Rita Black: Really!

Kylie Pinwill: I think. Yeah. Honestly I think it, it was, and I think in my head too, I was like, that's old lady stuff. So I, I just kind of like parked it in the back of my head and never really paid attention, until it was happening to me.

Rita Black: Then all of a sudden it's fascinating, right?

Kylie Pinwill: Oh yeah. Endlessly fascinating.

Rita Black: Interesting. I have a question about because I really wanna hear, dive into how you kind of brought that around, but with kids and their moms. So because I, I find it's interesting. I don't work with a lot of children, but, but when you're treating a child or giving, you know, working with nutritionally with a child, you really are working with the mom, aren't you? Because they're feeding the child and they're, you know, they're being role model in a way, right?

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. A hundred percent. So, you know, I used to see kids for a number of different reasons. Some of them, some of it was weight management for the kids or not weight management so much, but you know, like a family plan, how do we put a family plan together?

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: And then there are also kids with specific needs. So kids on the spectrum, kids with food sensitivities.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: Textural sensitivities, things like that. So, but, but yeah, so big in Sydney, but yeah, didn't see a huge amount of it in, you know, once I moved. And then what happened was some of my clients from Sydney started contacting me to sort of say, oh, you know, you and I had this conversation a while ago when I bought my son in. And, you know, now I, I, I think I need some help. And so, yeah. So I went from, you know, having no one in my clinic to all of a sudden, I'm sitting in the clinic and I'm doing all these online appointments, you know, in Sydney and yes. So that was sort of how my online kind of presence came about was, yeah, I couldn't get the people physically into my clinic.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: But, but I was attracting, it started with my old clients and then they would tell friends, so they were all booking in online.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: Or before COVID. And then, and then I sort of realized that, you know, working in that online space, we could actually create this container where rather than, you know, a lady come in and have a one off appointment with me, you know, and I may or may not see her in a mum's time. And I was sort of always wondering, did she like that? Did she get something out of that? Did that work for her? Did she, did it not work for her? Always wondering, so then I was able to sort of build into a 12 week container where we were able to sort of touch on, you know, so much more than just the food side we could touch on the mindset. We could touch on the stress management. We could touch on, go deeper into sleep. We could go further into, you know, all of these aspects. So very much are a lot more holistic, I think.

Rita Black: right.

Kylie Pinwill: than just that one on one appointment.

Rita Black: Well, tell me, so back up a little bit and tell me, like, if I didn't know anything about menopause, like I'm, I'm past menopause now, but like if, what happens in the body when like, you know, tell us a little bit about the dance.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah.

Rita Black: We enter into in the world of, you know, take us through that journey of.

Kylie Pinwill: yeah.

Rita Black: The, what the body does. And, and then, then I'd like to touch upon like stress and sleep and.

Kylie Pinwill: yeah.

Rita Black: Hear more specifically, but give us an overview of like menopause and perimenopause and what it's all about.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, of course. And that's the thing we're never taught at no point in our life. Does anyone ever sit us down and tell us about perimenopause or menopause? You know, we joked about this before we, we went live.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: About, you know, all we, all I ever knew about menopause was, you know, this hushed voice, oh, she's going through the change. And that was it. Like, I remember my grandma and I remember thinking, what change is she going through? Like, and totally not understanding.

Rita Black: Right. And it's so shameful. Like, there's this shame, even I felt, I don't know if you felt like, is there a weird, this like, oh, I'm, it's almost like I'm human too. Like I succumbeded to this change in my body, like in my mind.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah.

Rita Black: You know? Cause I think you feel like the forties are so in the prior to menopause, you're feeling great. You're feeling if you are healthy, you're feeling vibrant and you you're wise because you're not in your twenties. Like who the hell am I, we am, I, you know, you, maybe you've, you've gotten some traction in your life. And then all of a sudden, like you said, you hit this wall and, and then it's like, wait, I'm not the on top of it. Amazing. Like now I can't remember stuff. And now my sleep and now yeah, like you said, like, all this stuff is going on with my body helped me, you know? And you feel vulnerable. All of it sudden very vulnerable.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. Very much so. So, you know, we don't just wake up one day and we're in menopause. So if we just to sort of give you a bit of context, so perimenopause is like the 10 or so years leading up to menopause.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: So this is where we have the biggest fluctuations in our hormones. And this is where we also have the biggest symptoms, but where there's this kind of, I, I think it's a big, you know, not problem, but where there's this big disconnect is perimenopause, isn't a diagnosable medical condition. So there's no, we can't go to our doctor. We can't just do a test and we are definitively in perimenopause. So perimenopause is, you know, I've, I've got a, a guide that I put together for, you know, the ladies in my community and it's, I got together over 50 different symptoms.

Rita Black: Wow.

Kylie Pinwill: Of, yeah. Perimenopause of menopause and it's, it's different for everyone. So I'm yet to meet two women who go through with the same experience. So what starts to happen is, you know, we're, you know, ideally we're having this beautiful 28 day menstrual cycle, you know, potentially this sets us up to have a baby or not.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: And then, and then what happens is, you know, that, that balance of estrogen and progesterone, which, you know, are two of the key hormones that, that give us our menstrual cycle, they start to behave differently. So our progesterone, if we think of progesterone as our happy, calming.

Rita Black: yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: Beautiful hormone.

Rita Black: Sweet spot.

Kylie Pinwill: So that. It's a sweet spot. So that drops. So if you've experienced PMS before it's due to that drop in progesterone. So, so that progesterone is like having the rug pulled out from under us.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: But then what happens at the same time is we get these high levels of circulating estrogen in our body. And estrogen is great. And I'll get into that in a sec, the benefits of estrogen, but the, when we have too much of this high circulating estrogen, it can be quite inflammatory. So this is where we start to get, you know, like, well, have really heavy periods or really, you know, that irritability, that your breast tenderness, you know, the mood swings, you know. So this is sort of the start of that roller coaster. And it's generally that low progesterone. So we've lost our happy calming hormone. We've got high estrogen. And because of that imbalance between those two, we become more susceptible to stress. We become more susceptible to insulin resistance. We become more susceptible to, you know, like mood changes and things like that. So we've got these fluctuating hormones going on in the background now over time, as we head towards menopause, our, you know, estrogen levels drop. And then that's where we might experience, you know, not sleeping night sweats, hot flashes, you know, things like that. So, so the other sort of symptoms start to kick in and, you know, it's mental, physical, emotional. So this is where some women for the first time in their lives start to experience anxiety. Because they've lost that stability of their hormones. So, you know, their anxiety kicks in that overwhelm. And I think it's it sort of coincides, you know, with a really busy time in our life.

Rita Black: Yes.

Kylie Pinwill: So, you know, we've got careers, we've got partners, we've got children, you know, and those kids might be teenagers or they might be young adults.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: But they still need us probably more than ever really.

Rita Black: Right. And aging parents as well, sometimes.

Kylie Pinwill: Aging parents. Yeah. And then you throw in pandemics and you throw in like all of the stuff on top.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: We carry this enormous load. And I think women in general, you know, like kudos to us, I think we've got this incredible capacity to just take on all of the things and we've got this extraordinary capacity just to push through. So we might be exhausted. We might feel like we have just got, you know, we feel completely depleted, but we push through because we've got these massive, big task list of things that we, we just, we just.

Rita Black: That's not an option not to do those things. I mean, really?

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, totally. Yeah. It's not an option not to do them. So we just push through and we push through and then we are dead on the couch at the end of the day.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: And then we go to bed and we're awake for three or four hours in the middle of the night. And then we've gotta get up and do it all again. And it's just this cycle that we, we get into. And I think, and I had a really funny conversation the other day with a, a client. And I said to her, she was telling me about her dog and her dog had started limping. So she took her to the vet and then it had to have x-rays. So they did the x-rays and, and I, you know, this is a client who had taken a long time to sign up with me. And I said to her, I said, okay, so you've taken the dog to the vet, you know, same day. And I said, yeah, I probably would too. And I said, what about the kids? Like if one of your kids was limping around, you know, how long until you sought help for the kids? And she said, oh, she goes, oh, probably I'd give it a few days just to make sure they weren't faking it. And then, and then if it continued on, yeah, I would probably take them. So, you know, so she takes the dog the same day. She would wait a few days to see how it panned out with the kid before she sought help for the kid. I said, and how long was it that you hesitated before you actually took that next step for yourself? And she just looked at me and her face just dropped. She goes about two years and I went.

Rita Black: Yeah

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, I know. Right. So we don't, we don't pay attention to what's going on with us. And I think this is the great shame of it. And we really need to, because at, you know, in our late forties and in our fifties, like ladies, we've still got another 30, 40, 50 years to live. So, we are not old ladies. So if you are feeling like anything less than vibrant and energetic and, you know, confident in your own skin and happy in your own skin, it's, you know, it's a long time to, to put up with that.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. So

Rita Black: So, oh, go ahead.

Kylie Pinwill: Oh, I was gonna say so, so these are sort of some of the things that start to happen during perimenopause.

Rita Black: Well, that is, so that is so fascinating. And thank you for sharing that. I, I understood some of that to a certain degree, but you illustrated it very well. So thank you for walking us through that. Now I have questions about now. So why hormonally does sleep become an issue because that is such a huge thing. What do you see? What have you seen in your clients and what what's happening? Why are we waking up now in the middle of the night? Like what's what's going on?

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. So there's a, a few things going on. So one is that, that drop in progesterone. So that can, because again, if we think of progesterone as that calming soothing, you know, almost a sedative. So we've lost that progesterone, so that's gone. So that can keep us up. Also too, like we do become more as our estrogen drops. So estrogen is very protective of certain things. So it protects our bones against osteoporosis. You know, we all know that it also protects our cardiovascular system. So, you know, it helps our heart health, but what they don't sort of talk about is it also helps prevent insulin resistance. So that estrogen helps stabilize our blood sugar.

Rita Black: Yes.

Kylie Pinwill: So what happens in perimenopause is we can have this, if we've got instability in our blood sugar, it, you know, it can make, it becomes worse during perimenopause and then certainly worse during menopause. But, you know, it does a few different things. One of them is it signals our body to store fat. And the other one is it can wake us up during the night because our blood sugar has gone from a high, particularly if you are an after dinner smacker, you know, you've gone to bed with high blood sugar during the night that blood sugar drops and it, it can wake you up.

Rita Black: Okay. Interesting.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah.

Rita Black: Okay.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah.

Rita Black: And I know.

Kylie Pinwill: So there's two things.

Rita Black: Those two things. Go ahead. Sorry.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, I was gonna say, and then you lay a stress over the top, so we've, we're, we've carrying this great big load and we're doing all these things and our brains are ticking over a million miles an hour. So we've got this, this busy brain, you know, that I call, you know, you, you wired but tired. So, you know, you wanna go to sleep, but you know, you've got this head that's ticking over. So, so there's sort of three sort of the key reasons why sleep can be such a big, a big problem.

Rita Black: Wow. That is fascinating. And then what happens? I mean, I see with women getting into their, their mid forties that they're surprised, and I think this has to do with the blood sugar as they start craving sweets more. And I've noticed that becoming more, what, I would say, sugar sensitive like that if they eat sugar, they want it, they're craving it more, maybe drinking as well, alcohol, or, you know, like struggling with that, maybe a little more. And again, maybe that has to do with managing stress. Maybe it also has to do with this instability of insulin. And that kind of feeds upon itself. I don't know. What, what do you think?

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So if your blood sugar isn't stable, you know, if you are, so if you, you know, crave sweet things, if you crave, carby sort of things, even things like dairy. So if you are craving cheese or even meat for some women, you know, those cravings, you know, are indicative of a, a blood sugar imbalance. And likewise, if you can, if you can't go three hours without eating, and then the minute you eat, you actually feel fine. You know, that shows that there's a problem as well. So it's, it's sort of looking at, at all of those, but the flip side is if you haven't slept well, it messes with your appetite hormones.

Rita Black: Oh, right.

Kylie Pinwill: So we've got these, we've got these hormones that tell us that we are full and tell us that we're hungry. So if we haven't slept well, it throws out those hormones. So the, the hormone that tells us that we are full, so leptin that is suppressed. So that's why we keep going. We keep going, we don't feel satisfied. So it's sort of this vicious cycle. So the, the bad sleep creates the, you know, can create the cravings.

Rita Black: Yes.

Kylie Pinwill: The cravings throw out the blood sugar, the blood sugar throws out the sleep. So you, you sort of...

Rita Black: It just, it's you go down that rabbit hole, what, what, you know, are there some things our listeners could start to do to help, you know, make some balance or find some balance, just, you know, over, you know, run of the mill, it's like first step sort of thing that they could do?

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So first step, and this one's always, you know, I don't know your stance on fasting, but this is for all my fasting lovers.

Rita Black: No, there's quite a few fasting people in our audience. I think, we're, we're all starting to see the value of fasting. And...

Kylie Pinwill: yeah.

Rita Black: I always say from a thin thinking standpoint, instead of trying not to eat. Fasting is actually active and doing something and focusing the brain on something powerful rather than this idea, like trying not to. So I...

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. Yeah.

Rita Black: So tell us about fasting.

Kylie Pinwill: Well, I always upset the fasters with this. Fasting. Can, there are some enormous benefits to fasting, you know, 100%.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: I think where it doesn't work for women and you know, that the, all the research on fasting and the benefits of fasting are done on 30 year old men.

Speaker 2: Well that,

Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. Right. So, and the reason that they don't do these testing on, and they don't do the trials on women is because of these fluctuating hormones.

Rita Black: Oh.

Kylie Pinwill: So we, we are not a stable candidate.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: In the researcher's eyes. So it's easier to do the, the research on men because of the stable hormones. So what they've found with women is, you know, and then we go back to sort of our stress hormones now, you know, cortisol, namely. It's our cortisol is it's naturally higher in the morning because it's designed to get us up out of bed and get us going for the day. It's naturally lower at night. So because it's winding us down, relaxing us, ready for sleep. So when, when I work with clients, the first thing I do is get you sorted with breakfast. So when you wake up in the morning and your cortisol levels are high, let's get some protein into your body. So, and I do it within 30 minutes to an hour of waking up to have breakfast.

Rita Black: Okay. Interesting. Okay.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. And then if we are fasting, we're actually better off skipping the evening meal. Because that's when our cortisol, our stress levels are at their lowest.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: So for women, like, there's always this, you know, Just skip breakfast and, and start eating at lunchtime. But for women who are feeling tired, if you've got low energy, if you not sleeping well, you know, I highly recommend eating breakfast with some protein in it.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: Early, and, and just flip it on its head and see how you feel. Cause I...

Rita Black: That's very interesting that I, I love that. That's, that's fascinating. So the, the protein, the immuno acids in the protein counter balance with the cortisol or they interact together or...

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. Yeah. Well, if we think of, like protein as the anchor for your blood sugar. So if you think, if you have a juice, piece of toast,

Rita Black: Right. Something carby.

Kylie Pinwill: A coffee and some cereal. Yeah. That's gonna shoot your blood sugar really high and two hours later, you're gonna be looking for more food.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: So, so if you, you think of that, whereas if you have, you know, a piece of sour toast, you have some avocado, you have some spinach and some eggs, you know, that's gonna get you through until lunchtime.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: So if you think of, yeah. So I always, yeah. Say protein and fat are the anchor for your blood sugar and that keeps you, keeps you fuller for longer and it gets you through until the next meal.

Rita Black: So, so that is interesting. So stabilize early with protein and some fat, what are some other little like tools that you could do later in the day with regards to sleep or stress?

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. So definitely, in regards to sleep again, if we wanna keep that blood sugar stable through the night is definitely stop the night snacking. Yeah. So the night snacking that really messes with your blood sugar. So.

Rita Black: So fast after dinner.

Kylie Pinwill: After dinner. Yeah. And you can get the benefits of a 12 hour fast. You like that will give you because fasting, you know, the whole idea of it is it gives your digestive system a break.

Rita Black: Yes.

Kylie Pinwill: So you don't have more food coming in. So your stomach gets a break, your intestines, get a break, your liver gets a break, you know, everything just gets 12 hours off. So if you finish dinner at, you know, eight o'clock at night, and then you have breakfast at eight o'clock in the morning, you've done a 12-hour fast.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: You've got the benefit of those 12 hours. So from a blood sugar point of view, if you have like include some, you know, protein include some healthy fats and include some like plant based carbs. And I think, you know, and again, carbs are quite controversial.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: But you know, we, we've got, we've got there's carbs and then there's carbs. So the carbs that I, you know, recommend to all of my clients is, you know, plant based.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: So if we are thinking, sweet potato or Kumara, we are thinking, pumpkin, brown rice, quinoa, you know, anything sort of plant based, it comes from a packet it's not a carb you wanna have.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: So if you think of, you know, packet carbs, they're the, the ones that are gonna, you know, so you cookies your chocolates, your,

Rita Black: Your pastas

Kylie Pinwill: Pastas. Yeah. All of that. So they're going to shoot your blood. Yeah. But if it, you think if it grew.

Rita Black: If it grows.

Kylie Pinwill: if it, if it, if it grows, then that's a good carb to eat.

Rita Black: Okay. If it grows, it's a go.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, definitely.

Rita Black: So, so, so that's great. That's a great. I love that cuz that's very doable, right? Protein in the morning, fast at night. I mean, not that oh, fast at night. Easier said than done. I know, but I mean that, that concept is something that can be really simple and, and something. People could now we haven't talked about this. I mean, if you had another thing, I wanna hear it, but, but there was one thing I wanna ask you too, about, about memory. I was like, why am I trying it? What did I wanna ask you?

Kylie Pinwill: What was that?

Rita Black: It was so funny because before I turned on record, I think I, I, I forgot three things in a row and I, why does our memory fade like or why, or do we have such a hard time with our memory? Is it the estrogen thing too?

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, definitely. So at the extreme end we've got so estrogen, you know, being protective of our bones, our heart, our blood sugar also protects us from dementia as well.

Rita Black: Okay.

Kylie Pinwill: So not to say that we've got dementia at this point, but, you know, it, it is very protective and there's more and more research coming out about, you know, the link between, so, you know, when you've got insulin, blood sugar irregularities lead to insulin resistance, which lead to type two diabetes and they're having a look at the, there's a really strong link. And they're actually, you know, in sort of sciencey world, they're actually talking, referring to dementia as type three diabetes.

Rita Black: I've heard that. That's so fascinating.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. Yeah. It is. And I think it's really important for women to understand the implications. Um, but with the memory loss, you know, I think it's, again, it's a multifactor of things. Because we've got so much on our plate that just one other thing that we need to put in our brain is too much.

Rita Black: Yes.

Kylie Pinwill: That overwhelm feeling that I was talking about before is this is really common and this is a hormonal thing. So it's just, we've lost that estrogen. We've got low progesterone and our body it's like a natural calibration. So, you know, transitioning through perimenopause and menopause is actually, we're supposed to do it. It's a natural transition. So we aren't meant to be having babies in our eighties.

Rita Black: Right.

Kylie Pinwill: So, so when we get these, these sort of, you know, symptoms either through perimenopause or once we've been through perimenopause. So when we haven't had a menstrual cycle for a year, that's when we're in menopause So, you know, and 30% of women will beautifully sail through with no, no symptoms. No, they'll barely ever notice the, you know, 30% will go through with debilitating the symptoms that interrupt there every day. And then the rest of us will just sort of cruise somewhere through the middle. So it's important to recognize that it doesn't last forever

Rita Black: Yeah

Kylie Pinwill: And it's, it is something that we will go through. We're meant to go through it and, you know, know we can come out the other side and that it's actually quite liberating to come out the other side.

Rita Black: Oh yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: Because you know where you are in life, you know, your kids are less dependent. You are, you know, ideally a bit more financially free. You are more time free because you're not driving those kids everywhere.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: You know, so it's sort of like a next stage of life and it's actually quite exciting. But going, you can tell I've got perimenopause brain as well. So going back to the whole memory loss thing, you know, I think it's the, the big load that we are carrying. It's definitely that drop in estrogen and that change in hormones for sure. But it's, it's just, you know, and it can definitely be yeah. Tired, exhausted from not sleeping. Well, it can be those blood sugar ups and downs. It can be, you know, there's so our hormones are never just one hormone. They're all connected.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: So if one thing is out it, it's got kind of got this cascade effect that knocks everything out. But the flip side of that is once we improve one thing, we also improve everything.

Rita Black: So we can, yeah. So you can start to build up and you'll feel the effects more quickly because one thing is going to build upon another thing.

Kylie Pinwill: Hundred percent. So if we improve your sleep, you're gonna have more energy. You're gonna have less of those sort of carby cravings. So you're gonna have better, better control. And you, you are gonna feel more in control because all of a sudden, you know, you've slept better. So you feel better. And you know, you are more likely to make better choices, whether that's with food or to, you know, get out and exercise and move your body. So when you are, when you're feeling tired, lethargic, you haven't slept well, you kind of go for foods that you, you know, you try and pick you up. We're less likely to exercise, cuz we're tired. We're less likely to socialize. You know, we are doing less, but then we can flip that around. And if we are feeling more energetic, we make better food choices. We choose to food, move our body. We choose that social connection as well. And I think that's sort of one thing I've really noticed since, you know, COVID and lockdowns is so many women have lost that desire, I guess, to socialize. Or it just seems too hard and you know, it's easier for us just to stay home. So, but I think.

Rita Black: Forgot all the habit.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, from a, a mental point of view and for our emotional wellbeing, we really need to make those social connections. And again, that sets off our endorphins, which are our happy hormones and it makes us feel better about ourselves. So, you know, so it's, it's all connected and I find it endlessly fascinating. And like I said, no two, no two women are the same. So it's, I always love kind of like pulling it all together for, for women and sort of, okay, well, this is where we need to start with you. And you know, we work on this bit and then

Rita Black: That must be very gratifying to take women kind of on this journey from one place to another. And I imagine when they come, not only feeling sort of disconnected from themselves as they knew, but like I said, it's almost a morning process letting go of that old idea of themselves and sort of rebirthing into, I mean, this sounds very California. Woo woo. But I mean like kind of going through, like I know I did, I mean, I've been in menopause for years and years and years. But when I went through it, it was, it was a, it was a shock to, you know, it's, it's always like, oh my gosh, this is actually happening to me. And then yeah. And sort of a sadness of like, oh, okay. That time of my life is sort of done. And now I'm kind of redefining who I am and what I am and how, and like you said, you come out the other side and you're like, wow, this is really awesome.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah.

Rita Black: Actually, if you are feeling good and you are feeling happy and vibrant and if taking care of your body and are taking care of yourself, it's a, it's an amazing time of your life. But, yeah. I, I see it's a, it's such a, like you said, there's just so multi-faceted that if one thing gets out of place, then the trickle down happens seemingly very quickly and it can be easier to beat yourself up about it, to feel like you've got it wrong. That, and you're all alone in it. And nobody understands, especially your husband or your kids, or, you know, like you probably feel it's. So you must, it must be gratifying to bring women together in this way too. Like in your groups too, like connect them as well.

Kylie Pinwill: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I think, you know, we're, we are so conditioned to like, if we are not feeling good about ourselves, you know, and we we're our own worst judges. So we, the first thing we sort of think of is weight. It's like, oh, I need to lose weight. I don't feel good about myself. I need to shift some weight. So we are conditioned and have been like for all of us who grew up in the seventies, seventies and eighties,

Rita Black: Yes.

Kylie Pinwill: We need to kind of go on some kind of diet. We need to go on some kind of restriction. We need to punish ourselves with exercise.

Rita Black: Yes.

Kylie Pinwill: And I think that's, that's sort of like the, the worst approach when it comes to our hormones. Whereas if we actually step back, we show ourselves some kindness and just go, you know what? I need to support my hormones. I need to, and we, and you know, we are never taught to do that either. But, but what I'm saying is when you start to support your blood sugar, when you start to, to manage your stress, when you start to, to, and stress is a, a weird one, because we, we can't always control the way we, or the amount of stress around us, but we can control the way we re we respond to it. Cause stress is, it's perceived. It's our perception of the situation. So it's, it's changing that perception, which then, you know, changes the, you know, our response,

Rita Black: The response in your body. Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, yeah. So then it's, it's, it's sort of just coming at it from a different perspective. So we are coming at it from a, we need to nourish ourselves. We need to rest. It's okay to rest. It's okay to replenish ourselves. And when we come at it from that angle, as opposed to a diet approach to lose weight, you know, we're supporting our hormones, we're nourishing ourselves, you know, and then that is part of resetting our metabolism and, you know, making us feel better about ourselves as a whole. So we are more confident. We're more energized. We're more, you know, we're sleeping better. You know, when we focus on those things, as opposed to just weight, you know, it's, you know, and I can see it, the, the lights go off with my clients, you know, when I work with them, I can see it when they go, ah, this is, this is what it was missing.

Rita Black: Yeah. Well, it's like, it's like a reframe. You start to look at it from a self care and self nourishing perspective, rather than I'm not good enough. And I need to measure up and I have to diet and punish myself. I love that that's...

Kylie Pinwill: Or I feel guilt. And I, I feel guilt. I feel shame because I didn't stick to it or I failed and yeah.

Speaker 2: Right. Yeah

Kylie Pinwill: Move out of that is, is amazing.

Rita Black: Yeah. Wow. This has been so, so fascinating. And I know that people having heard you will wanna hear more or know more about this, and I know you are offering everybody something to take away for free. Can you tell us a little bit about your offer here?

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, sure. So I have a free e-book, which I would love to gift to all as a thank you for listening. And I thank you to Rita for having me on the show is stress sabotaging your weight loss. So what I've done in there is I've sort of talked about little bit about how, you know, it's not, you, it's not that that you've got the wrong diet. It's not that you're doing the right exercise. It's, you know, perhaps it's stress that's causing, you know, all of these, You know,

Rita Black: challenges

Kylie Pinwill: Block yeah. And blocking you from, you know, losing the weight that you would like to lose. So, yeah. So in there, I just give you, you know, a whole list of ideas that you can do, and I encourage you to choose one or two that resonate with you. You don't have to do, there's like a hundred ideas in the book. but just choose a couple every single day. And it's a gift that you can give to yourself every single day, just to calm those stress hormones and, you know, so you can then, you know, you're giving that to yourself.

Rita Black: Yeah. That's great. Well, thank you. I, I can't wait to have a look at it myself. And, so that will be in the show notes. And if you get my emails, it, I will also put that link in the email so that you can download Kylie's, Kylie's e-book.

Rita Black: Kylie. I am gonna, we'll have to have you back on to talk more about this, cuz this is such a fascinating topic. You, I mean, cuz the hormones, you could just like go on for days and days about it and I'm sure you,

Kylie Pinwill: I can talk for days, months and years.

Rita Black: Touch the tip of the iceberg.

Kylie Pinwill: Oh totally. I feel like I've just scratched the surface and we haven't jumped around a lot. So if you're listening, thinking, where's she going now? And yet?

Rita Black: And then yes, it seemed very cohesive. You ha you obviously know your stuff and it's very, and you present it in a very, fascinating way and, and interesting way. So thank you for coming on and opening up our eyes to this part of our lives. That is so predominant really for most of us, I don't know, if, if you're heading into it, I hope that if you're heading into perimenopause in the next decade or so, I hope this has made you feel like, okay, it's gonna be okay. And if you're in it, I hope this isn't aligned to you. And if you're passing, you're like, oh God, I don't have to go through that anymore. I have one last question for you because I am perimenopause. I'm 57 going on 58. And I, wonder like then after, when you're in menopause, then you are left with less estrogen, less, less progesterone you're those levels are very, very low now. Right? Like I'm at a very low level that's yeah, yeah. Unless you do you do. I mean, like we don't have to get into that. I was gonna ask like, do you, because I don't like take extra hormones or anything like that. But

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. And look, it's the hormone replacement therapy options available now are very, very different to what was available 20 years ago. And I think there were, there's a big scare about 20 years ago because the results of this study came out that hormone replacement therapy was linked with breast cancer.

Rita Black: Yeah.

Kylie Pinwill: Now I just will quickly, I could talk about this for days and days as well. So just quickly those, the hormones that they used in that study were very, very high dose estrogen. And it was actually equine estrogen. So it was horse estrogen. So, you know, and it was way in a much higher dose than we actually need. Now what's available now is, not all doctors are across this because it is like relatively new, but we've got bio identical hormones available to us. So we can have really low dose estrogen, really low dose progesterone that are bio identical and the risk is really minimal. So it's a GP or a doctor prescription, and it's available to, to all of us, but you know, doctors don't understand somewhere across it. You know, there's a great doctors out there, but not all of them are across it. So I really, and that's a big part of what I do too, is educating women. So you can making form choices.

Rita Black: Make those choices. Cool.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah.

Rita Black: Wow.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah.

Rita Black: Okay. Well, that's great. So if you have questions, it can, I'll put your website in your information. If people have questions for you, can they contact you?

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. And yeah, I also have a Facebook group called the hormone hub. It's perimenopause-menopause support. So if you're in that zone and you would like to find out more about your hormones, then definitely come and join us in the Facebook group.

Rita Black: Absolutely fantastic. Well, I'll have to get that link from you as well. So thank you so much for coming on today, Kylie. It was so great to get to know you.

Kylie Pinwill: My pleasure, and yeah, definitely.

Rita Black: Get to know your wisdom. Thank you so much.

Kylie Pinwill: Yeah. Oh my pleasure. Thanks Rita for having me. Thanks around for listening.

Rita Black: All right. Don't you just love Kylie. She's got such a powerful and cool energy. And please grab a copy of her free guide hormone, healthy foods in the show notes of this episode. And just check out that Facebook group she mentioned as well. So have an amazing week. I remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door, the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it.

Rita Black: Do you want to dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release? Head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com where you'll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release, tips, strategies, and more, and be sure to check the show notes to learn more about my book From Fat to Thin Thinking: Unlock Your Mind For Permanent Weight Loss.