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Steel Roses Podcast
Steel Roses is a podcast created for women by women. Social pressures for women are constant. Professionals, stay at home moms, working moms, we are here to tell you that you are not alone! This podcasts primary focus is providing real honest content shedding light on the daily struggles of women while also elevating women's voices.
All women are experiencing similar pressures and hurdles, and yet, no one is talking out in the open. If these topics continue to only exist as whispered conversations then we further permeate a culture of judgement and shame.
Join Jenny weekly as she discusses topics that effect women in a relatable, honest way.
Steel Roses Podcast
Jana Barrett on Overcoming Pain, Embracing Self-Care, and Understanding Women's Rhythms for Empowered Living
This episode centers on finding health and empowerment for women over 40. It covers the necessity of self-care, the impact of hormonal cycles on well-being, addressing mom guilt, and the importance of prioritizing consistent movement in daily life.
• Jana Barrett shares her personal journey from pain to empowerment
• Tackling mom guilt by prioritizing self-care
• Understanding that exercise is a necessity, not a luxury
• Exploring the challenges of perimenopause and how to cope
• Importance of the infradian rhythm and its effect on health
• The impact of stress on hormones and overall well-being
• Emphasizing consistency over intensity in exercise habits
• Practical tips for integrating physical activity into a busy lifestyle
• Encouragement to advocate for oneself and seek knowledge in health
• Resources for women to explore fitness and movement aligned with their needs
Want to get in touch with Jana?
https://www.instagram.com/jana_movement_coach/
https://www.jana-barrett.com/
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Hi everybody, welcome to Still Rose's podcast. This podcast was created for women, by women, to elevate women's voices. I am very excited to introduce all of you today to our guest. We have Yana Barrett with us. She is a fitness and movement coach and a certified tech fit instructor. She helps women over 40 awaken their feminine power to move with strength, pain free, and to age with confidence so they can live their life to the fullest. Yana, welcome to Still Roses podcast. I'm very happy to have you here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, Jenny. I'm so looking forward to our conversation.
Speaker 1:So I want you to introduce yourself to the listeners and tell them how you ended up in this area of focus and I have to be honest with you, the pain-free line I'm very interested in because the aches and the cracks they're starting to happen it's, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:a lot of people experience that, but you don't have to, so that's what I do essentially.
Speaker 1:So beautiful. So how did you get here really is what I want the listeners to know, and how you ended up with this particular area for your focus.
Speaker 2:So I was a full-time mom for over 10 years and I had three children and by the end of it I realized that I was so broken, so achy, my body, really like. I felt like my body was hijacked for 10 years. And it was a moment where my then husband left on a five-day fishing trip and I, literally 15 minutes after he left the house, I put my back out to the point that I couldn't get off the floor and I had a tiny baby and two children at school and I thought this is it, I'm done with this. This was something that was happening to me all the time. Oh my gosh, there must be a better way.
Speaker 2:So I was kind of a little bit running at the time and doing some yoga. This is not really helping me live a pain-free life and be able to, you know, enjoy things with my, you know, activities with my children, or just kind of live, feel strong and powerful, and you know, and so there must be a better way. So I started looking around and hired my first personal trainer at that point and I was amazed, within three months, the incredible transformations in not just only my physical body but in my mind, in my emotional health. And I thought this is brilliant. And it was actually my then personal trainer who said I think you'll be really good at being a coach and I think you should seriously consider qualifying. And so I did. I did my first, you know, in the line of different certifications and qualifications, and qualified as a personal trainer, and that's started coaching women.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to ask you a question because I so I'm going to ask you this. And then I have a whole bunch of other things to ask, but I want to ask you this first one because you said you were a mom of three and you had a small baby and you prioritized, you did get a personal trainer and your kids were still young. It sounds like yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to ask.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask this question because I think that a lot of moms are probably out there being like well, there's no way, I just don't have time and I'm curious, like how did you get past the mom guilt of it of prioritizing yourself in other? You know, that's the best way I can actually think to ask that question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and you know I was there putting myself last and never justifying any self-care, because it was always and it was even the messages from you know, society and my husband, like you, know that I was being selfish when I wanted to take time out and go for a walk on my own, not with everybody else in tow and I just kind of realized it's literally like putting the oxygen mask on yourself.
Speaker 2:They tell you that on the plane you need to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you start helping others. And I realized, like I am looking after everybody else and I'm not looking after myself. But if I go down, I used to always tell people if the mothership goes down, everyone goes down, because women and mothers are essentially the barometer of the family strong, full of energy and sufficiently recharged by whatever that is is different for every woman. Then the whole family is experiencing the positive flow and effect from that right. So it took me a long time to realize that I don't have to be a martyr and then I don't have to serve everybody else at my own expense. But it took a long time. It took a really long time. There was a lot of guilt. There was guilt about spending the money Like I wasn't working.
Speaker 2:Now I look back at it Like you were working, you just weren't getting paid.
Speaker 2:You weren't working more than anybody else. And yeah, the guilt about money, the guilt about paying a nanny to then go and spend money on your fitness coach, you know, and. But there goes my husband, who was like going on fishing trips and you know, you know, getting a lot of for his own hobbies and everything. Just for me it was me exercising was not a hobby, it was an essential survival activity for my health and my, my aging and and and the way how I felt on on a daily basis my sister-in-law and I had a conversation about this the other day and, um, my husband gets on me about it.
Speaker 1:My husband avidly works out. He probably that's it. That is a priority. He makes sure that he does that and he's been like that since we met and prior to me meeting him. And then there's me, who's like on again, off again, and the only time that I am able to prioritize it is basically at the mercy of everyone else's schedules. So if I know that I have a gap of time, then I'm going to the gym.
Speaker 1:Now there was about four, three, three years ago, three and a half years ago I think. For a full year I was going to the gym every single day, but it was only because I would drop my kids off at daycare at seven and I would go right to the gym from seven to eight. Off at daycare at seven and I would go right to the gym from seven to eight, and then I would get back home in time to get myself ready for work and get to work, and that was how I was able to manage it. Now my kids take a bus to school and it picks them up outside, but it picks them up at 855.
Speaker 1:I start work at nine, so I you know, and there's like times where I'm like I'm trying to figure out how to fit this in, and what my husband consists he consistently reminds me of is you do, make time for things when you want to, though, and I do, and I feel like I kind of am talking myself out of doing it all the time and I rationalize myself to not do it.
Speaker 1:And my sister-in-law said to me this is how the conversation was going, because we both do this, and my brother gets on her and my husband gets on me, and she said to me that she looks at working out as a luxury and she doesn't see it as like I need to. She looks at it as like I really like to, but it's a luxury, and I'm so busy trying to work, and she's an entrepreneur as well, and she's a mother and all this stuff, and she's like it just is a difficult thing for me to get my head around. Any tips on, like how we can get our heads out of this space of like? I just don't have time to do this.
Speaker 2:It's about priorities, isn't it? As your sister-in-law said, you know, I see it as a luxury. It's not a luxury, because what I often tell women is you know, and Ginny, you're young, you know, I'm a little bit further along, I'm 47 and I've got the 50.
Speaker 1:You're not that further along, by the way. You're not that much further along.
Speaker 2:I'm closer to 50 now than I was and the 50 is really breathing on my neck now. And I often tell women it's. Exercise is not a luxury, it's a necessity for many, many reasons. There is the physical health right. It will determine how you feel, how much pain you're experiencing and how are you going to be aging.
Speaker 2:As much as we don't think about aging when we are 30, maybe even early 40s, I speak to a lot of women in their late 40s and 50s and that is our number one thought now. It's how? What are we doing now to set ourselves up for when we are in our 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond? And there's obviously the, the mental health benefits. Like I know that if I don't exercise, my mental health nose dives very rapidly. I mean, there's a ton of research about it now that you know, um, exercises are more effective for depression, anxiety than medication, you know. And there's and is that ultimate form of self-care to you, isn't it? And there is the emotional health too, like I will admit freely and my children know this now they're're much older that I am a better parent if I exercise.
Speaker 2:I kind of often look at exercise as cleaning out the cobwebs. You get a reset. You do something for yourself and you're probably like me, all day long. You're serving other people, right, work and your family, your children, your community. And exercise really then becomes the the very rare time where it's just about me but my needs and it's about filling up my cup first before I go on staff.
Speaker 2:Everybody else's yeah. So it is a necessity, it's not a luxury, and you know it becomes about our health. You know it's very close tied to keeping your muscle mass, keeping your bones strong, keeping your heart and keeping your brain healthy. I mean women are getting mowed down by awful diseases and not in necessarily that old age, like we might be living longer, but apparently we're living up to 25% of our lives, especially that last part of our lives, in poor health. Yeah, because of all these things like loss of muscle mass, bone density, heart disease, alzheimer's, dementia and all of those things are preventable, substantially preventable, by exercise. So then it starts becoming more about our health and our longevity than about looking good or just getting fit for the sake of getting fit or, you know, just just getting fit for the sake of getting fit.
Speaker 1:I think what? What I'm hearing is almost like a like a mindset shift, if you will. It's not because you and you just you actually just hit the nail on the head with it. This isn't about like I'm going to look good in a bathing suit. This is like about. This is about survival and how you're going to get through the rest of your life. So I'm turning 41 this year, which I'm super pumped about. Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:I just, I just did a recording the other day and I said I'm like 40s are like amazing, like why is everybody so scared like this? Is it? This is the time where I'm not like finding myself anymore. I know where I'm going with things. It's amazing, um, but I, you know, I'm turning 41 and bone density is something that I've thought about quite a bit. Um, my joints, I think about quite a bit and then I do reflect too. I'm like, okay, well, how much did I abuse my body earlier on in years that I'm now, you know, having to deal with and luckily I am maintaining, minus the exercise. I haven't been great with that, but in terms of eating healthy, I'm very mindful. I've been doing lots of research lately around, especially because I'm in the perimenopause phase and I am I am really Yana.
Speaker 1:I have been doing quite a bit of research on this because my mental health has started to suffer because of it and it's interesting because I have what I call like dark cloud, like moments and days really in weeks at this point and I was thinking to myself I'm like wow, I'm like I think at this point like 60% of my month, I'm like sluggish and I don't feel well and I'm tired and I'm trying to be very like careful around how I'm dealing with this because I don't want to. I used to just take those moments, be like, no, you have to power through, you have to, you know, get up and do something. So I'm being mindful of like making sure I get rest when I need rest, because I've been running. I've had years where, when my kids were little, where I think there was like a three year period where I was sleeping only like two hours a day. So it's like things like that now where I'm like if I feel tired, mommy's going to go lay down for a cup for like an hour. Like you're going to have to give me space for that so that I have the energy to be able to do other things.
Speaker 1:And then, in addition to the, you know, making sure I get enough rest, the diet so I was very surprised around the health benefits in berries like such a simple fruit and the health benefits for women with berries like blueberries, raspberries, strawberries. Like eating that medley of berries is has like tremendous benefits. It's like the wildest thing and you don't realize it like how impactful that is. Um, so I know it's. It's all about like a balance and combination, but that's. I've been doing quite a bit of research there as well.
Speaker 2:It's fascinating, isn't it? Because I think that once you start delving deep into, you know exactly what you described. Why are we feeling poorly for half the month and then we're feeling okay for half the month? And you know, especially in perimenopause, that's brutal, right. I was hit with it real hard at the beginning of the year for a few months and it was yeah, it was the brain fog, the aches, the pains, the yeah, the impression that the anxiety and the rage yeah, it was a lot of rage. I'm not a ragey person, but it was something else, you know and it just comes out of nowhere. And then, once you start delving db, you realize that the whole world is set up for men and masculine energy, masculine hormonal I mean, I have nothing against men, like you know, you need them no, no, no and everything. But the whole world is set up on a 24-hour hormonal cycle for men. Yeah, you know, we have, as women, circadian rhythm as well, but we also have the infradian rhythm of 28 days right.
Speaker 2:And I've only discovered this very recently, jenny, and it's just so surprised me how we really need to look at our entire life, our work, our rest, our diet, our nutrition and our exercise through the lens of our hormonal cycle, which is you know 8, 34, whatever days.
Speaker 2:every woman varies. Every month varies as well, right? We're not robots, right? You know, once you learn what hormones are dominant in each phase and what those hormones need in terms of rest and nutrition, then suddenly you start looking at everything through this lens and it's it blows your mind this completely on a monthly cycle rather than a Monday to Friday. You know like I do a lot in my follicular phase, which is in the first part, and then I rest a lot more. I sleep more in my luteal phase and possibly you know when I get my period for the first day or two. So I think that there's a really untapped hard tool that women should have at their fingertips to help with identifying why am I feeling so wiped and I don't feel like exercising and I feel like I could be in bed all day long. It's probably because you are in your luteal phase and you should only be exercising gently and you should be sleeping 10 hours a day and you should be resting more what did you?
Speaker 1:what did you name this? I want to make sure that I have it jotted down for the listeners uh the infradian rhythm infradian rhythm I've never, heard of that before yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:That's the. That's the rhythm of our hormones. So we are on the 24-hour circadian rhythm where we respond to sunlight and that's how we kind of feel. In the morning we have a lot of cortisol to get us out of bed and at nighttime we start producing melatonin, cortisol goes down and we go to sleep. So that's our 24-hour cycle, basically with the moon, and then we have the infradian cycle, or rhythm, which is our 28 to 34 whatever you know days, but that is.
Speaker 2:we basically have two going at all times whereas men are 24 hour because they produce testosterone, pretty much kind of 24 hours constantly, yeah, whereas we're producing, you know, high levels of estrogen in the first part, and then we need a lot of progesterone in the second part and obviously we need a certain level of testosterone as well throughout the month.
Speaker 1:So what I know is my pattern and I'm going to share, because what you just described is very close to what I've been going through, and so I've been. Because of this podcast and the lovely guests that I've been encountering here, I am much more knowledgeable now on paying attention to what's happening because of all of you. And I will say this I'm incredibly grateful because had I not started this podcast and had I not met all of you, I would think that I was losing my mind. Started this podcast and had I not met all of you, I would think that I was losing my mind. And because I have these weeks of and I and I really mean it like it's like 6040 now I'm at 60% of my month. So I'm, you know, I'm on a 28 day cycle and I'm actually almost to the day, like I'm pretty regular and, um, it's like let me think here, the week after my period, best week ever. That's like that's your, is that normal? That's like the best week ever for me. Our face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's your springtime. Like often, women look at it as a spring. So a lot of energy, a lot of mojo, a lot of up and going, amazing, great communication skills. Look amazing as well. Awesome, yes, but yeah, because really we need to think everything back to evolution, right. Your, your main, everything that runs in your body is to become pregnant and produce a baby, right? So obviously, the first follicular phase is when we need to look very alluring to men. That's why you look good. Your hair is shiny, you are, or you know, great communication skills. You, you smell good, you've got a lot of energy, you're very outgoing yes, so then you're describing is your follicular phase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, all right, so that makes sense. All right, because I have that week and I'm I I look forward to that week last week, so that week, so that week, that's the first week after the following week. I'm still okay, but I'm getting a little bit strained at that point so that's when you're ovulating yes, that's when I'm ovulating conception.
Speaker 2:And so you know, for those five, seven days your body's kind of still on that high yeah, but it's also starting to think about the fact that you might potentially be pregnant. So it's starting to make you a little bit more tired, a bit more cautious, because you could possibly be, at that point, have a fertilized embryo in your body. Okay, the uterus is getting lined, it's getting nice and, like you know, the whole body's like yay guys, you know this could be it.
Speaker 1:This, is it Not on my watch? I'm here, I'm here, so all right, so that makes sense. And then the week is um the dark cloud week. That's how I refer to it. That's like the week where, um anything will make me cry.
Speaker 2:Like that's it yeah, so that's your luteal phase where the body is thinking there could be a embryo in the uterus, but then progesterone is very high. So we have estrogen in the first part of our cycle and then the dominant hormone in the second part of the cycle is progesterone. And that's where women often encounter a lot of issues with moods PMS and with moods PMS. They're kind of like one minute you are laughing uncontrollably and the second minute you're bawling your eyes out, oh my God.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's so embarrassing, it's so embarrassing.
Speaker 2:Well, often that actually happens if you're really suffering in your luteal phase, because it's actually. Progesterone is a very calming hormone and it's an incredibly protective hormone for our mental health. So, anxiety, depression we need it and most women have issues with their hormonal cycle because they are not producing enough progesterone. Okay, because the estrogen becomes very dominant and you don't get the calming effect of progesterone. Okay, because the estrogen becomes very dominant and you don't get the calming effect of progesterone. Because progesterone is incredibly sensitive to lack of glucose, so you need glucose. That's why, probably, you feel so like getting a tub of ice cream and binging on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you will naturally be craving for more calorie-dense foods that have sugar like their sweet. That is your body telling you I need carbohydrates, I need glucose, because I cannot make progesterone without glucose.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting. You know what happened to me last month and I'm sorry to interrupt you. It was orange juice. I was getting this wild craving for it. I don't drink juice at all. I keep it in the house for my husband he's the only one who drinks juice. I was getting this wild craving for I never I don't drink juice at all. Like I keep it in the house for my husband he's the only one who drinks juice and every once in a while exactly what you're saying I will get these mad cravings and I'm like all right, just go with it. Jenny, your body says it needs it. Like, just go with it.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's probably. Your body wants a quick hit of glucose? Yeah, it probably needs glucose. Wants a quick hit of glucose? Yeah, it probably needs glucose. And so progesterone is very sensitive to lack of glucose. So, you know, when you know that, you immediately know that ketogenic diet is never going to work for women all of the time. Right, you know. Then we need the glucose, women need the, we need the potatoes, we need the, we need the fruit, we need maybe the chocolate.
Speaker 2:You know, at the time of the month, progesterone is also extremely sensitive to stress. It's mental stress, emotional stress, physical stress. So that's why, when I work with women who are still regularly menstruating because I work with some women who are already in menopause and don't have a very noticeable cycle, they still have a very mild cycle, but not that, you know, like a fully menstruating, regularly menstruating woman it's that you really need to turn your exercise down in your luteal phase. Yeah, exercise is a stress. So is family stress. So is emotional stress a stress, so is family stress. So it's emotional stress, work stress.
Speaker 2:Your body doesn't recognize different types of stress. For your body it's just one stress, whether it's a hardcore F45 class, whether it's a 10K run, whether it's a fight with your husband, whether it's a deadline at work or some teenager, which is usually my case. I've got three of those. Your body is just all stressed and when your stress levels are quite high, cortisol and progesterone work on like a seesaw. So cortisol is high, progesterone cannot come up and then the whole cycle becomes a lot of PMS, heavy painful periods, worsened perimenopausal symptoms, because you're just not making enough progesterone to balance everything out. So then the estrogen is high and it's a whole kind of can of worms that just gets worse and worse for a lot of women, month after month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, so and that's where I was like getting like you know it's, it's so interesting I was telling I've been telling people about this, cause I'm like I need everyone who knows me to know like this is what I'm going through. And if you call me and I can't pick up the phone, this is what's going on. Um, because I was also and it has gotten worse actually so up in it. It's crazy, cause as soon as I turned 40, all of a sudden I was having all these fun new like symptoms, and now that I'm getting a little bit closer to 41, I'm like all right, I feel like I'm managing, but I am noticing that it is getting much more intense. Intense enough that, like I said, I can pinpoint these weeks and I know, in those weeks, like enough that, like I said, I can pinpoint these weeks, and I know in those weeks, like in that luteal week where I'm in that luteal phase I think it was two weekends ago or something to that effect I like I had to lay in bed and lay down the whole weekend, which and I was. I don't never do that kind of thing Because I'm very active.
Speaker 1:I like to go out hiking with the kids. I clean. You know I do mom stuff. I like to cook, I like to clean. Like I'm in it, I couldn't do anything. I had to just lay there and take it. I was like I have to send the laundry out. I can't do any of this today. Everything has to get outsourced. Um, so this? I have a question for you, then, because for me, what I'm my next week's, the week before right, the week right before my period? This is where I'm at right now.
Speaker 1:I'm about 10 days out from D-Day this week. I usually am okay, I'm not super pumped, I'm not any, I'm just regular Jenny in that week. What is that part of it?
Speaker 2:yeah, so it's that there will be the ovulation. Yeah, you're still experiencing some of the high from the high estrogen from the follicular, but the body is already starting to probably produce a bit of progesterone and the body is getting ready for the possibility of a pregnancy. So you know it needs to chill you out right when you. You need to take everything back to primal humans. Yeah, when we just lived in nature and really the purpose of women was reproduction. So you know, once there is a possibility of a fertilized embryo, nature is going to do everything possible to make that embryo survive so then it can become a baby and a human. So it's going to already try to slow you down, right, so you rest a little bit more so there is a more chance of that embryo to, you know, stick and become a viable baby in a pregnancy. So you know there's certain cravings. People's nature is making sure that you're not eating anything poisonous. There is more requirement for rest.
Speaker 2:So the eight hour a night, that's a myth that was designed and researched on men. Yeah, so eight hours is good enough for men. For women it's eight by nine to ten hours and you need to be hitting ten hours in your luteal phase or just the last few days before your period. So forget the eight hours, that's not for you. That was never researched on women. Now there's new research coming out that women need nine to ten hours, not eight, not seven, not six. We need kind of eight hours first, very minimum, maybe in your power phase. But you need, and you know, there you go, all the information we've had. Oh, eight hours, I'll be good. Well, how come you're not good? I don't feel good in my little face on eight hours. It's not enough now, not even close at lunchtime you know two things that I want to say.
Speaker 1:One I am highly irritated that I'm turning 41 and this is the first time that I'm hearing about infradian rhythm, like can't. I mean. I don't know if any of the listeners have heard of this before. Listeners, if you've heard of this in your podcast description, you can text me and tell me. Jenny, I knew about this. You need to get on it, girl, because this is the first time anyone's ever said anything like this to me, which is incredibly enraging, because how is this not common knowledge? Like, how could this information not be taught to young, young ladies? I know, right, I mean you're you're given like go ahead.
Speaker 2:Do you have daughters, jen? I have two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so do I I know you're getting a crazy education from me. I'm gonna make sure those ladies are prepared yeah, I know so it's it's.
Speaker 2:It's maddening that we are teaching girls about sex. I don't know even what they're teaching at sex education.
Speaker 1:Clearly not a very useful information that, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm gonna probably rant in a second, so I'm gonna let you go.
Speaker 2:You are rightfully enraged.
Speaker 1:I mean my god like well, because what I was gonna say to you was like so I went to. Now I know why my education wasn't right on this, because when this whole, like you know, came around, like in my school, I went to a Catholic school, so there is no way that they were going to talk about anything outside of. You get a period, here's a box of pads, that's it. That's all I was told. That's all I got was this comes out and that's it, and make sure that you wear something, and that's it.
Speaker 1:There was no information about endometriosis, which I do have. There was no information about any of these rhythms and how this affects you and, mentally, how it affects you. I have relatives that are young teenage girls and I hear my in-laws and everybody talking about how the girls, oh, how they're crazy and this and that, and they're crying all the time. I'm like well, that's normal, that's kind of normal. You guys have to be there for them and help support them through it. So it's wild to me that, like I grew up in an education system where this is not being told to anybody, like that's insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what really makes me probably even more mad, jenny, is the fact that women thousands of years ago knew this, yep, and they were firmly running on these rhythms, because it's no coincidence that our cycle lines up with the moon cycle, right? So new moon, full moon, mid-moon. Women knew this because, also, women were synced up, right, because when a whole bunch of women live in the same place, they usually sync up. Their periods are usually in the full moon or new moon, so they're all synced up, so they're all going through this all at the same time. And they knew it. So, thousands of years ago we knew more about the human body than we do now, and it's because we burned all those women at stake, you know in the 14th, 15th, 16th century so we lost the healers, we lost the midwives.
Speaker 2:16th century so we lost the healers, we lost the midwives. We lost the, the knowledgeable matriarchs that led women in the tribe and in communities and and parted this incredible knowledge. Now we don't have that. We have the medical system that is very patriarchal oriented, you know it was all the tricks was designed by men in like the 18th century.
Speaker 2:I have no clue. No, no clue. So we handed over the power to men and medical system that has no clue. I mean, there was. You didn't have to include women in any trials or research till the mid 90s yeah, actually that was going to be my next point.
Speaker 1:I jotted that down specifically to touch on that, so I don't think that that's common knowledge and I've said it on other episodes, but I will say it again here, cause I want the listeners to understand that. And even studies today, majority of them, do not include women, because what they don't, um, they don't want to have to deal with the hormones that we deal with and what that does to the drugs that are out there. How to? I mean even something as simple as um, what is it? Car crash dummies? I think it's based on the male body. I mean, are we kidding? Right now, like I, it's 2024 and women have zero to none representation in medical studies. And forget about it. If you're a minority group, you will. I mean there's, it's just not there. And it's crazy Cause I read, because I literally read it there were studies that just started out including women and they decided to remove them because the hormones were too volatile and they couldn't deal with really understanding that they don't get the predictable data that they do from men.
Speaker 2:They just completely disregard 50% roughly of the population. So that means that every time you go to the doctor or to the hospital, more likely you are presenting the same condition very differently to men, like heart attack, for example, in your nose. If you're having a heart attack you're having a shooting pain into the shoulder and down the left arm, right In women it presents it had been.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what I wanted, to make sure you said Yep.
Speaker 2:So you walk into your emergency department having a heart attack. Yeah, yeah, the doctor will hand you antacid tablets. Yeah, they think that you're having a heartburn attack because they don't know they haven't been taught in medical school that heart attacks in women, which is the number one killer heart disease presents as really differently than men often heartburn or even other very kind of weird symptoms. So you go home and you die at home, right, yeah, because you don't get the help. Also, you know any. Any drugs that you get prescribed most likely were not tested on female bodies. They were just on male bodies and they just slightly reduced the dosage. Yeah, that you are being maybe overdosed, the dosed, or dosed with something that just has never been tested on women.
Speaker 1:I have like a really strict rule of thumb at my house that, um, I will not take it like any. You know, you, we see, like marketing. I mean I love marketing, I like to observe it, I like to look into it and but you'll see, like these pushes all of a sudden for certain drugs that come out or some something that's new. And, um, there was a drug that had I forget how many years ago it was, but it was. It was quite a long time ago where everybody was pushing um this product for HPV and they kept saying they were saying it like, is it, you know, same line as a flu shot? Protect your children, get this HPV shot. And I kept seeing all this marketing and I was like, wow, they're really saturating this. Like, this is wild, like and and my gut was like, oh, that you know, it just came out Like you might want to wait a little bit before you dive in head first, it's not something you really need to take right now. And I think a couple of years into it being released into the market, they found that it was causing cancer. And I said to my cousin I were talking about, I said I'm like people really need to be mindful here. Like you can't just blindly go with like, oh well, this looks nice or oh, my doctor said this. Like you really do have to advocate for yourself. You have to research things.
Speaker 1:And on that same vein, that's like you know, when I was pregnant with my kids, I was told the safest pain reliever you can take is Tylenol, and I took it throughout all my pregnancies. I gave it to my kids when they were young. Well, studies were released that said that there's a link for Tylenol and ADHD. And it just so happens that all three of my children have struggles in school. And I'm like, oh my God, I was taking Tylenol the whole time I was pregnant because I would get really severe migraines and they told me this was safe. And I never researched it, I didn't look into it myself.
Speaker 1:And that's where I'm like I get on a soapbox a little bit, because we as women really do have to educate ourselves. You have to show up to your doctor's appointment with a little notepad. Bring a little notepad, bring a piece of paper, do it on your phone I'm old school, that's why I said notepad but bring some kind of writing device. Jot your notes down before you get there so you remember everything you want to say and you should also be researching things before you get there, because it really I mean you have to be prepared to have those kinds of discussions with your, with your healthcare professionals.
Speaker 1:I know we went down like a rabbit hole here, because I get very passionate on that. So I want to circle us back to the health and fitness discussion that we were having earlier. So I am planning to re-embark on this because, as you said, like it's not just it's not about being in a bathing suit and it's not about like I want to look good in my skinny jeans, it's really about your health as you get older. And I can't remember if it was from our introductory call, but in one of my discussions someone had told me that light jogging was actually really good and beneficial because it and I don't know if this is true in your forties, but they had said in your twenties if you start jogging early enough, it actually helps to build bone density. So that way, when you do get older and you start losing it, it's not as significant. I mean, the loss is still there, but you have more to lose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely it wasn't me, because you know, whatever exercise you can do, it's brilliant. I personally used to run. I don't run anymore, but the best way to build up strong bones is to stress them repeatedly. Obviously, you do that with some form of resistance training, whatever that might be. For some people that's weights in the gym. For some people like me that's kettlebells, steel mace. For some people it's calisthenics doing some push-ups and some squats at home. What's really important for women as they age is to do some form of jumping, so that really stresses. You know the jumping. So for some people it's a run. For some people you can just do, because a lot of women can't run. Like I know, I've had babies and I can run sometimes, but not always. My pelvic floor, no matter how much work I do, is probably never going to be the same right? You know the medical trauma of, you know, birthing three babies in a hospital as well, and we don't have very good post-birth care here in New.
Speaker 1:Zealand.
Speaker 2:Pelvic physios, and I know that the US is probably quite similar right.
Speaker 2:I think the only country I know that's phenomenal is France. So I personally can't really or don't really want to run. So for women out there, definitely run if you can. If not, you can just include some form of light jumping into your training routine as well. Just like 10 minutes, two, three times a week will do it as well. So there's different forms of that.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, light jogging is brilliant also for your heart, for your cardiovascular health as well, which obviously everybody needs to incorporate, whether that's walking, zumba class or you know anything that. You just need to find something that's. You know. I often kind of think we kind of read this research and like, oh, this is really good and this is really good, but it really needs to be something that a you can comfortably incorporate into your busy life and it needs something that you truly enjoy, because no one enjoys and no one will stick to workouts long term if they're not enjoying it large portion of the time. Yeah, you know you can't enjoy your workout 100% of the time. Even I don't. I don't want to. Sometimes I was really not motivated a lot of the time, but for me it's that imagining that all I want to do is to basically surf when I'm 90 years old, so when I'm struggling with motivation.
Speaker 2:I just, I just like this is what you want to do right. And if you don't do this workout and the next workout and the next workout, then you might end up in, you know, assisted care living when you are 70, rather on a surfboard when you're 90 I had read somewhere that, um, something similar.
Speaker 1:I read a quote that was like, don't do it for the you that's today, because the you that's today doesn't want to be bothered. Do it for the you that you want to be, and that applies to like across the board. But exercise in particular. Like, if you really want to be able to live your best life into your 50s, 60s, 70s, able to live your best life into your 50s, 60s, 70s, the work has to start now, because if you do nothing, we're losing bone mass. I'm losing it as I speak. You know like when you lose muscle mass, you're gonna lose everything, and you know that's real. Like I have relatives that never exercised a day in their lives. Just wasn't. You know, it wasn't the thing here in the States in the 60s and 70s, like it was. That wasn't it. Like now everybody's working out, which is actually very amazing. I think it's awesome, but yeah, it wasn't the thing. And these relatives have health issues. We're like oh, I can't lift. I can't lift anything. You can't lift my arm, I can't carry anything. I get winded walking up the stairs. I have to sit down. I need to. I can't do anything. I can't run around with my kids. You know the grandchildren Like it's it's scary to think of that because I like to maintain an active lifestyle. I love being outside. We went on a two mile hike today with the kids. They we were exhausted, but they were totally energized afterwards. So it is, it's planning for tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I wanted to share with you, yana, because you said surfing in your nineties. So this podcast was actually named after my grandma, grandma Rose, and the reason it was named after her was because she she's such a strong, amazing woman, 96 years old, and she's still with me, still with us, still sharp. As a tack, she reads these heavy duty biographies to keep her mind sharp. She's very, she's amazing.
Speaker 1:But what I wanted to tell you was that she shared with me, the last time I talked with her, that what she does to still keep herself active is that you know she can't do a lot, she's 96. But she said she sits in her chair and she reads her books and she sets a timer and every time the timer goes off she forces herself to stand up and to just kind of just move, because she's like if I sit and I don't move at all, then that I'm going to, I'm not going to be able to get up, like that's going to be the end. So she makes sure that she sets a timer and she gets up and she just does a little stretch and tries to move a little bit so that she can make sure, like, okay, I'm not getting too stiff sitting here and then she'll sit back down. But she, I mean and she was never, you know, she wasn't somebody who was hitting the gym and lifting weight, she did water aerobics and just various exercises to keep herself going. And now she's 96 and still with us and still, like, hanging around. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:It's amazing what it can do for you oh, she's a smart lady and I think that I often think that people over complicate exercise. You have to go to the gym and I have to go to classes and I have to run half marathons. Do you know what you can just like move, just like you're great at that. You can just do mobility. Just preserve your movement because you can find exercise in, you know, inside, your whole day. Like carrying your groceries Maybe you park your car on the other side of the car park and you carry taking the trolley across. You're going to pick those groceries up and you're going to walk to your car with two bags of groceries in your hands.
Speaker 2:You know, like people are busy and not everybody has a lot of time to do structured exercise. I would almost describe it to like when I was a child, we never did any structured activities. I was never in any gymnastics class or you know. I didn't do any, any sports, but I was given a bike and I was told not to come home until it's dark. Yeah, you know. So it was very unstructured.
Speaker 1:We were moving the entire time, but you were moving the whole time. Same thing here. I was on my bike all day when I was a kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I wasn't really, you know. So there was a very kind of unstructured exercise. So I think that you know you can do structured exercise, where you pay for classes or you, you know, do whatever, but you could also find these little exercises. Maybe you're not going to take a lift but you're going to walk upstairs to the third floor of your workplace, but you're going to do it every single time, yeah. So you know, I kind of sometimes think people are like I don't have time and I can't do it, and you know there's always some barriers.
Speaker 1:But you carrying your groceries to your car.
Speaker 2:There's not a barrier there. Maybe don't park somewhere far away from the front door and don't take the trolley to your car and carry it. There's your five minute workout right there.
Speaker 1:I like that. You said that, because that's the other area where I get like hung up is like the time, the length of time. And again, my husband prioritizes his me time and gets that in there and he makes, he gets his hour workout almost every single day, um, and people tell him he looks 35 all the time even though he's 49, very proud of that, um, but that's where I will I start to get stressed out and so I always try, I try, do I do try to shoot for 30 minutes on the treadmill. I try to, or at least like if I'm doing kettlebells, I actually do like kettlebells I brought like I brought those, um last year and I've been using those when I do weights. So the the kettlebells. Or for like 15 minutes I'll do like maybe two or three full body movements and then I'll like walk.
Speaker 1:But that's the whole ticket. There is like just get up and move and that's what even and my husband has said to me. He's like Jen, keep your kettlebell next to your desk and you know, if you're in between calls and you're not going to be able to get a full workout, just do a set, take, sit it there and get up and just do some squats in between, like do 10 squats in between and that's it. And then you sit back down because he knows like I'm constantly like, oh, I have to do this, I have to do that.
Speaker 1:Earlier today he had all the kids. The kids were like, yeah, no. When I tell you we we went on this two mile hike, he and I got back and we're like, oh my god, and we sat down on the couch, we like put a movie and we're like come on, kids like settle down. They were running all over the house. They're energized, so they were running and on the trampoline and playing hide and seek for like two and a half hours and their energy level was still so high that he was like, all right, everyone's gonna go work out.
Speaker 1:We have a, we have a home gym in our garage, so he goes over to the garage with them. He has one on the treadmill. One of them was with like lifting their little weights, their little tiny three pound weights, and the other one was doing push ups. He has them doing pull ups. I'm like, oh my god, the amount of energy.
Speaker 1:But I greatly appreciate that because I didn't have any of this education or any of this knowledge until I was much older and and that's something that before we had kids, we were both very adamant Like we really want to make sure that this generation of our family is going to be educated on this and be able to be healthy and live a healthy life. Because, as you said, it's not really like, oh, I want to look good. It's, I need to be healthy so that I can live this good life. But I really greatly appreciate that you mentioned that. That it's like 10 minutes. And also looking at other activities as exercise, yesterday I cleaned the whole upstairs level of our house for about two hours and I moved furniture. So I re-org'd my whole my daughter's whole room and flipped all their their bunk beds and I moved all the furniture by myself and I'm like I was beat after that.
Speaker 2:I'm like that counts, that was something yeah, absolutely, it's just a, it's it's physical activity, it's just simply moving, isn't it? I love housework. Housework is a great opportunity to work up some sweat and you know the really try, really try hard. Yeah, you know. Going back to just saying like I only have 10, 20 minutes, you know I'm I don't work out for more than 20 minutes most 80% of the time. Really Interesting, yeah, I just don't have time. I run two businesses, I've got a solo parent, three children and I have a serious surfing addiction. You know I can't just surf because they would break me eventually, so I need to be able to do that too. So, yeah, 20 minutes. Occasionally I get 30 or even more, but that's very rare. Yeah, I'm 20. If I can't get it done in 20 minutes, it's difficult that's where I am.
Speaker 1:If I'm, if I start to creep towards that 30 minute mark, I actually start to get nervous. I'm like, oh my god, I've spent too much time on this. I have other things I got to get to like. So and and I want I actually do want the ladies to hear that they're listening, because it doesn't have to be an hour Like if you can do an hour, wonderful, good for you.
Speaker 1:But if you're a young mother and you prioritize getting up 20 or 30 minutes early and your kids are kind enough to stay in their beds and you can do it quietly and find a quiet like a little corner of your apartment or your house to just do a little bit of an exercise for yourself, that's one big thing that I will say that I had started prioritizing is getting up earlier than everybody else in my house is like a big deal for me, because as soon as everyone else is awake, it's like I'm on call and I'm on duty.
Speaker 1:Soon as everyone else is awake, it's like I'm on call and I'm on duty, and so it's. It's almost crude. It's crucial to me that I get that hour or 30 minutes before everybody wakes up, just to have that sense of like okay, and pull myself together. So I really want to encourage everybody to do that, and it doesn't have to be a high intense workout. You know, like, as yana said, like you know, you could do a couple of hops, really, like I mean, you can do anything that you can get to do something that you can realistically stick to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's why I love those steel mace so much, because they can just literally sit in the corner of somewhere, you can take it outside and it's such a versatile tool. You can do so much with it. You don't even need, like you know, I love the fact that you have a home gym at home.
Speaker 2:That is so awesome, it's just brilliant. And you know, I have a studio as well where I see people, so I'm kind of lucky too. But I will most of the time just take my mace outside into my garden and and work out there and um, when you were saying about the, you know, when it starts approaching 30 minutes, you kind of get like, oh my gosh, I don't know I do used to be like that too.
Speaker 2:If I didn't have 45 minutes to an hour, I would not work out. And then I realized well, that's stupid, and now even sometimes I'd only have 15 minutes between clients or something, and I'll just do something.
Speaker 2:Just do something like yeah do you know 50 kettlebell swings and something, just something. So then you know that you've done, you've exercised, and you can take it off the list. It didn't. Maybe it wasn't plan a, but maybe it was a plan b or plan c, but it was still doing something. Because, ultimately, I think that what people don't realize is that the only thing that matters when plan A but maybe it was a plan B or plan C, but it was still doing something Because ultimately, I think that what people don't realize is that the only thing that matters when it comes to exercise is consistency. It doesn't matter what you do, it absolutely does not matter how long you do it for, it doesn't matter how heavy objects that you are lifting are. None of that matters. The only thing, ultimately, that measures is consistency and doing all the time. Even if you just did 10 minutes every single day for for 10, 20 years, it's enough. It's absolutely enough. People, people, just people, make this, make exercise into this big thing, and it doesn't have to be a big thing.
Speaker 1:That makes it honestly, makes me feel better.
Speaker 1:Because I'm like yeah, and because I think it's an issue for a lot of women that we have a hard time prioritizing ourselves but you can find 10 minutes, that we have a hard time prioritizing ourselves but you can find 10 minutes. Yana, I know you see clients live, but if somebody wanted to reach out to you from the States I mean, cause you kind of got me with that, you got me with that in free and rhythm. So, if any, if somebody wanted to connect with you to you know, maybe virtually work with you in some way, how would they be able to get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:So hop on to my website, ash, how would they be able to get in touch with you? So hop on to my website and I work with women all over the world. So the lucky thing is linkedin can come and see me face to face, but I have an online business as well. I have a ton of programs and I work with women all over the world literally all over the world. So if you just want to have a little um, I've actually um, jenny, I've put um together a guide how to exercise, eat and fast in sync with your hormones, where you can find all of the information about your infradian rhythm, how it works over the course of the month, and it's a very basic one.
Speaker 2:So I've, you know, put together so many books and podcasts and everything that I've found into like a 15 page pdf guide which is free. You want to find out just a little bit more about this? Then you can just download the free guide ton of free resources. You can just have a look what I do, have a look on my website to what steel mace training looks like, whether that might be something that that you know women might like to try, because it's kind of unique and it's a little bit badass and it's about mobility, strength training, cardio, dance, martial arts all blended into one. That's cool and you know edgy warrior vibe as well, which women really like. And, um, yes, find me on socials. I'm on instagram and facebook. I have a private facebook group where I do training every week and it's a very lovely, safe container for women to to talk about anything.
Speaker 1:Anything goes in there I'm gonna um in the description I everything that you talked about I was. I was taking notes. I'm actually going to link everything in the podcast description for the listeners. So, guys, if you're listening and you're on mobile um, you'll be able to click through to Yana and be able to reach her site, especially the free resources there, and even connect with her on Facebook, um, so that you can really start doing this for yourself. This is this is so important, and we're at a time, as women in our lives, in society, where we really have to be showing up every single day. We really need to be showing up. We have to be showing up authentically, because we've handed too much of our power over and we have to really start taking this back, and the only way to do it is to really do better for ourselves. So, yana, I really appreciate you being on Steel Rose's podcast. I'm just so excited to be able to get your content to everybody and I thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, Jenny. It's been such a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Listeners, thank you for hanging out with us today and we will catch you on the next one. Take care.
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