Episode #37: All things menopause with Wanjira Njenga
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Audible
In this episode, Rhonda and Dayna have the pleasure of chatting with their friend and colleague, Wanjira Njenga.
Wanjira Njenga is a menopause and pelvic floor coach. She helps women navigate menopause with strength training, mobility, nutrition and mindset!
She has completed a great number of trainings and upgrades in the fields of yoga, yoga therapy, movement and fitness. This also includes massage therapy, reflexology and more recently became a Holistic Core Restore Coach (Pelvic and Core Health), and Peri/Post Menopause Women’s health coach. She is also trained as a Functional Range Conditioning movement specialist.
Wanjira is passionate about helping women reclaim their best physical, mental and emotional selves and enjoy good, functional health for life. She has combined all her training in yoga, women’s health and peri/post menopause training to offer services that keep women 45 years and over strong, fit, and injury-free as they journey through all stages of their lives.
We’re so grateful to Wanjira for sharing her wisdom and passion with us. We touch on a lot of topics in this episode including:
🔹What got Wanjira into the world of women’s health and fitness with a focus on menopause
🔹What exactly is menopause, when does it start and what are the symptoms?
🔹What is perimenopause and what are the symptoms associated with it?
🔹What happens with our hormones during menopause
🔹Does menopause cause weight gain?
🔹The importance of strength training during menopause
🔹The importance of nutrition during menopause
🔹What is menopause hormonal therapy?
🔹Helpful resources for menopause
➡️ We would LOVE if you would share this episode with a friend, drop a star rating or leave us a review!
Mentioned in this episode:
🔹 Follow Wanjira on IG
🔹 Wanjira’s Website
🔹 North American Menopause Association
🔹 Feisty Menopause
🔹 Book recommendations:
-
Episode #37: All things menopause with Wanjira Njenga
We're excited to have you join us for this episode of Pelvic Health and Fitness. I'm Dayna Morellato, Mom, Orthopedic and Pelvic Health Physiotherapist. And I'm Rhonda Chamberlain, Mom, Orthopedic Physiotherapist and Pre Postnatal Fitness Coach. On this show, we have open and honest conversations about all phases of motherhood, including fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, menopause, and everything in between.
We also provide helpful education and information on fitness, the pelvic floor, and many aspects of women's health, including physical, mental, and emotional wellness. Please remember as you listen to this podcast that this is not meant to treat or diagnose any medical conditions. Please contact your medical provider if you have specific questions or concerns.
Thanks so much for joining us. Grab a cup of coffee. Or wine. And enjoy!
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Pelvic Health and Fitness Podcast. Today, we are honored to welcome our friend and colleague Wanjira Jenga. Wanjira is a menopause and pelvic floor coach. She helps women navigate menopause with strength training, mobility, nutrition, and mindset.
Wanjira has completed a number of trainings and upgrades in the fields of yoga. yoga therapy, movement, and fitness. This also includes massage, massage therapy, reflexology, and more recently became a holistic core restore coach, uh, pelvic and core health and peri post menopause women's health coach. She is also trained as a functional range conditioning movement specialist.
Wow. You are up to a lot. Wanjira. Wanjira is passionate about helping women reclaim their best. Physical, mental, and emotional selves, and enjoy good functional health for life. She has combined all of her training and yoga, women's health, and peri/post menopause to offer services that keep women 45 years and over strong, fit, and injury free as they journey through all stages of their life.
I love that. Welcome, Wanjira. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Yes. All right. Could you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and what got you into the world of women's health and fitness and then led to your focus on menopause? Yes. Um, I, I had already been working as a massage therapist and a fitness trainer, strength, strength coach, and I was thrown into menopause by surgery.
And I realized. Oh, I know nothing about this. And so I thought, well, I better find out very quickly what happens and why, because for me, it was very fast. There was no progression and nobody had told me about it. So I started kind of researching and came upon, um, uh, an Institute. In the U in the UK borough education and they train women for, you know, specifically for training, for helping menopausal women.
They call it that age in the UK, helping menopausal women. And I started off with a pelvic floor health coaching because that was the big area where my clients who are already my students in yoga, they were already my strength training clients were having problems. They were saying, you know, God, my pelvis is really acting up my pelvic floor.
I don't know what to do. I'm having issues and then getting into the menopause. So that's how I came upon that area while I was already working as a fitness coach and a strength training coach. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting that you can have these sort of these big surgeries and they probably said something to you along the lines of.
Oh, you know, you'll be menopausal, but then that's it. Like there's no education or what you can expect or when you should check in with a doctor, if it is different, you know, I think a lot with, I had a cesarean birth, uh, uh, follow up last week and they hadn't even told this woman that she. Really shouldn't be lifting her toddler and her six year old.
And it's just so crazy that these large surgeries can happen that have these bio psycho social physical effects. And yet you get, you know, a sentence, Hey, you might be in menopause now. You might need medical pause now. And I think there's a, there's a huge gap between, you know, what happens to us and what the doctors expect us to know.
And I don't know who they expect to be in between to be giving us that information. Or even though I, I even wondered, do they even think about this, that, you know, there might be some more information that this woman needs. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So, Wanjira, so Dana and I are, are younger women and, you know, obviously menopause is in our future.
And we chatted just before we started recording here, how, you know, you don't know what you don't know. So even with pelvic health, Dana and I didn't really get into this world until later on. Can you tell us, Dana and I, and our listeners. What is menopause? What happens at menopause? Like what are some symptoms we might start noticing?
And when do those symptoms come on for most people? Yeah. So menopause just means the end of menses, you know, meno, uh, coming from the Greek, uh, origin means the menses and then end. Pause, which is the end of menses and a woman is said to be in menopause after 12 consecutive months of not having her period so that the anniversary of you're not having periods for 12 months that you're officially in menopause and this You're, you're officially in menopause one day, the next day you're post menopause or menopause is just one day.
That's the surprising thing. Yeah. So the, the word menopause is the umbrella word for if you're in perimenopause while you're still having your periods, but kind of transitioning to menopause 12 months on the anniversary of 12 months after you have not had periods for 12 months, then you're officially now post menopause or the next day.
That's it. So, and every woman is different, but most. Perimenopause or symptoms, peri meaning close to menopause, start, can start as early as age 35. Some women will notice already changes, yes, beginning. And one of the big changes that many women notice is in their periods. Their periods become irregular, they get heavy, they get erratic.
And the periods I normally say is the very first sign to watch for. Has anything changed in your periods? Because I If you don't have any other issues like endometriosis, periods are normally very regular, uh, same amount, same time, but when they begin to change that, that's one clue for perimenopause. And then some women might get things like hot flashes, even as early as the age of 40, night sweats, there's the dreaded weight gain that menopause is said to bring, but it doesn't bring.
I will talk about that later. That's a force. That's a myth. Menopause doesn't cause weight gain. And mood changes, depression. So those, those symptoms can start as early as 35. And can go all the way to 65. Now, the average woman gets into menopause At around age 51, that's when most women get into menopause 51.
Okay. Yeah. And by into menopause again, just to clarify, so it's been 12 months since. their last menstrual period. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. 12 months. Once you've gone officially 12 months, no period, then they say, yeah, you're officially into menopause now. And, you know, some women will go to 11 months and they'll think, Woo hoo menopause.
And then, Oh, here I come. Yeah. I know women who've gone all the way to the 11th month and they're like thinking, I mean, officially almost in menopause and then, oops, surprise. Here it comes. Now the other way that you could get into menopause is through surgery, what they call surgical menopause. And there's two ways.
If they remove the ovaries, then you're in menopause. As soon as the doctor gets out of what he's removing, You're officially in menopause if the ovaries are removed most doctors if there's no problem with the ovaries will leave the ovaries But the what women will notice is that even if you have a hysterectomy and they left the ovaries within two to three years You get into menopause because the ovaries kind of they're not doing anything.
So I think the body just realizes, well, I might as well just move into the next stage. So most people who still have their ovaries within two to three years, they will get into full blown menopause.
I'm so glad that you, um, Clarified perimenopause because again, I work primarily with a postpartum population. I do see, um, a proportion of my caseload is perimenopause or menopausal, postmenopausal, and we're on that spectrum. But when I'm asking about their cycles, often people who are having children a little bit later, so whether it's a first or subsequent, are just attributing their changes in their cycle.
Purely to being postpartum, but it's interesting that it could be. Perimenopause as well. Yes. It could be perimenopause as well because you know what they call they used to call it. I hated that what they used to call it geriatric pregnancy. Horrible. I was on my chart. I had it. I had my second daughter at age 35 and on my chart.
It said geriatric pregnancy. I was like, are you kidding me? Language matters. Language matters. Yeah. Yeah. Well now they're calling it advanced. Uh, pregnancy. And so, yeah, some, some people who are in, who are advanced pregnancy women find themselves in that no man's land. Am I, is it postpartum or is it perimenopause?
And, and unfortunately there's no test to do. You can't do a test for menopause because the hormones are fluctuating so much that, you know, one month your men, your, your hormones are one direction. They're the other way, so they can't really do much testing at that time. There's no test for menopause. No, that's interesting.
I thought there would be. No, there is no test for menopause. The doctors could do tests to see if something else is acting up. You know, if a woman comes and says, look, I'm so tired, uh, this is happening. Am I in menopause? The doctor might say, could be your thyroid. So let's check the thyroid. They can do tests to check other things to eliminate, but there is no test that says, yes, you're officially menopause.
There's no test for that. Oh, no litmus test. Yeah. No litmus test. Like congratulations. No, no, no official. Oh, speaking of hormones, what is actually happening with our hormone levels when we're entering into perimenopause and then menopause? Yeah. So officially what's happening is. The three major players are estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone.
Now, estrogen and progesterone are the ones that go down, shooting down very quickly, especially estrogen. Uh, testosterone stays a little bit higher because it's not produced by the ovaries, it's produced by the adrenal glands. So it might Coast for a while before it comes down. The biggest one that comes down is estrogen and progesterone.
And when those ones come down, then I normally like to say that those two are the shield and armor. Because they protect us from everything. Estrogen protects your muscles. It protects your joints. It protects, um, you know, the brain. Progesterone is the one that gives us their mood, uh, mood swings. When it goes down, we have those mood swings.
It protects also our muscles and our joints. So those are the two key players. But the interesting part that we, most women don't know is that all the other hormones, insulin, cortisol, Uh, human growth hormone are also all changing. They're all changing, not at the same rate. And because we don't know so much about them, I mean, which the average woman doesn't know what growth hormone growth, human or or growth hormone is, so they don't notice anything.
And when it comes to cortisol, okay, you have a little bit more of cortisol, but we also don't know that many people don't even know what that does. Insulin is another one that really changes with menopause, and they all kind of play against each other. It's not the, it's an orchestra. They, the hormones are just an orchestra.
This one goes down, this one has to come up and they have to have this harmonious, uh, interaction between them. So those are the hormones that are going down, but. Unfortunately, what most doctors think of is estrogen and progesterone while the others are also having a part in it. Yeah. Wow. I like, I don't know about you Rhonda, but I've taken a few classes and certifications in my time and I didn't know those other hormones were involved.
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. They are involved. They are involved. And that's why one of the biggest thing that happens in menopause, especially when people get to postmenopause is blood sugar problems. And that's when you start seeing women being diagnosed with diabetes, prediabetes, metabolic syndrome.
And it's because of the insulin because insulin is changing too. And cortisol levels are also acting on that. Yeah. And does that bring us back to, you said it was a myth that weight gain is. Sort of it is part of menopause. Yeah, it's a myth. Weight gain doesn't happen because of menopause. Menopause doesn't bring weight gain.
What happens is when you get into menopause, then you are having hot flashes. You're having night sweats, so that means you're not sleeping. When you don't sleep, guess what happens? You are ghrelin, uh, you know, ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone goes up. Leptin, which is the hormone that tells you to stop eating, goes down.
And when you're not sleeping, your joints are hurting. So you don't exercise as much as you need to exercise. You don't move as much because those hormones are going down. Moods are also shifting. So people don't feel like going out to work. It's all the things that accompany menopause that will lead to weight gain.
And we tend to think that that's what is causing menopause is causing weight gain. So it's not as direct as that, that once you're in menopause, weight gain is an inevitable. The only one thing that changes that estrogen changes is where you store your fat. That will change as soon as women get into menopause.
Now, if you get fat, it's told around the middle that changes while you're, when you're in perimenopause, it stores it around the hips. And the thighs, which is not very dangerous, but then this weight that we create around the, you know, the muffin top, that changes with menopause. It changes where you are storing weight.
Interesting. Yeah. Wow. Interesting. Yes. I'm learning so much one year already. Thank you. So there, there's so much people can do. Um, and I think for women getting that, that menopause doesn't mean I will gain weight, but other things can bring in the weight gain. So I should watch those other things. I think it's good for women to know that.
Yes. Mm hmm. Yeah. And they don't feel powerless. Right. There's, there are certain things out of our control, but there are certain things in our control. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So why is it so important for women to strength train and how does that impact menopause? Because all the things that have been affected, our muscles, our joints, our bones.
our moods, our insulin levels are getting affected. If you look at the common denominator, what can really help us control all those things? It's gaining more muscle. When you gain more muscle, you protect your joints. When you gain lean muscle, you protect your metabolism. When you gain lean muscle, uh, your mood is better.
When you gain lean muscle, you can mitigate blood sugar. You can help the insulin. So the common denominator in all that is strength training. And it's, I wish. People, doctors told people that it was, it's not simple, but I wish it was that clear that, you know what, this is the time to really build your strength, to really build your muscle.
The other thing that happens is that as we get into menopause and estrogen goes down estrogen, which is a muscle protector, we lose all sorts of muscle strength. We lose the power muscles. The strength muscles start to get weak and every other muscle fiber in the body gets weak, including the pelvic floor.
Yeah, including the pelvic floor. And that's why the women in menopause are the same one going to their doctors with urine incontinence. Yeah. Cause what people, what the doctors don't realize and don't tell people is that your pelvic floor is a muscle like any other muscle. Yeah. It's not built out of any other extra equipment from somewhere.
It's the same muscle. It's the same muscle. So I think telling women strength training is the key to help control the things that you can, because there's so many other things that are going. on that you can't control, but you can control that one thing. You can get up and lift your weights and progress with your weights and build lean muscle mass, because that's the best thing that will happen to you.
Love it. That's for sure. Yeah. I imagine too, you mentioned muscle. Does it impact our bone health too? Cause I know, you know, as we get older, our risk for osteopenia and osteoporosis goes up and strength training is so important for that. Does that pair up with menopause as well? Yes, it pairs up with menopause because we are losing bone, bone density as we are getting older.
And this is the thing is that. Menopause is doesn't come on its own. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't come. Okay. This is menopause. It comes with aging. So you're having two things to deal with. You're dealing with menopause, but you're also dealing with the regular stuff that aging brings like bone density loss, uh, and all the other things that happen with aging joint problems.
So. They are all playing against each other and menopause is not the only thing that is working against women at that age. So anything that you could be doing for mitigating age related problems will help with menopause. So bone density is one of the things, but the more we increase our lean muscle and the more we put, you know, we have to put pressure or is it load?
We have to load, that's the name I'm looking for. We have to load our muscles. We have to load our joints. to protect them and to build them. Yeah. Yeah. That's the key. I'm just curious when Nira, if you notice any sort of like generational resistance to doing strength training. And I only ask because anytime that my, I'm going to speak about my mom, sorry for listening mom, but or other women sort of that generation in my family or that I've known as clients.
When. They start to gain weight or be concerned about it. They're restricting their calories. They're going for all the walks. They're on the bike. And I know my mom, she never wants to do a squat. I'm like, can you just do some squats? You know, so I just am curious if you notice a generational resistance to building muscle.
Yeah, there's a generational resistance and I think it's because and it's, it's not. So much with the women now, this generation, it's just slightly a little bit older where I think they grew up with the image of this big dude in the gym picking up barbells. And, and they had kind of think that that's what you're telling them to do.
They're going to be bulky and walking around, you know, like this huge muscle build dudes and, and they, they resist and they, and they, and that's why even the women. Who pick up the weights, they want to pick up three pound dumbbells, you know, for the next 20 years. And it's like, no, you pick up more than that in your grocery bags.
And you have to progress, you know, and so you'll hear them say, well, you know, I have three, three pound dumbbells. Okay. How long have you had them five years? They don't want to get bulky. They don't wanna get bulky. I'm air quoing and you know, and I keep telling them, first of all, you don't have the testosterone to bulk you up.
it's going down. You don't have it to bulk you up in any, in any way. You should be building up so that you can get a little bit of testosterone, because the testone helps, does also help protect the muscles and the skin. You know, this. Can that kind of drapes out of women as they get older is lack of testosterone.
So if they could only understand that no, no need for Botox Lift some weights lift some weights Lift some weights build a little bit of testosterone So many benefits of sagging skin then you'll be fine. Yeah, so there's a lot of resistance. Yeah Yeah, Dana's question makes me think too of our next question.
Um, just when she, when you mentioned about, um, not eating as much in order to try to lose weight, um, I know Wanjira, I follow you on Instagram and I love your Instagram. It's so inspiring, but I know you've talked about that before that like women, you need to keep eating because that is important to you, right?
I think women, again, we just have, you know, generationally been taught to lose weight. We need to really restrict our calories. Yes. So how does that, like, how does our nutrition, um, and I know like stress will play a role in that too. Like how do all these other lifestyle factors impact our symptoms during menopause?
Yeah. One of the things that women need to understand is that you can not do what you did in your twenties. You can't get away with that. So, you know, in your twenties, you could eat badly for a week and then go do a few runs on the treadmill. And all the weight comes down. Now, the problem is cortisol levels go up.
As soon as your cortisol levels goes up, the body will hold on to everything. So you can't run. 10 hours on the treadmill. You can't do that anymore. You can't afford it. You can't afford your 20 year olds workout. What the 20 year old is doing. You cannot do it because cortisol levels will go up high. And our body is very bad at managing cortisol and managing stress.
As soon as cortisol comes up, insulin also comes up and insulin coming up means more fat, more weight gain. So in your, in trying to lose weight, You'll end up gaining more. Restrictive diet is the same thing. It does the same thing. As soon as you restrict your diet, your cortisol levels, because stress is stress is stress.
As they say, the body doesn't know whether it's stress from a lion running after you or it's stress coming from your kitchen. It's the same thing. So as soon as that stress goes up, cortisol goes up, insulin goes up, ghrelin, which is our hunger hormone, goes up, and leptin, which is the hormone that says I'm satisfied, I'm full, goes down, and you gain the weight instead.
So we need to Eat properly. And one of the things that I find too, it's like the myth about bulking up with weight. I don't know who told people that eating protein will make you bulk up. Or that eating protein is bad for your kidneys. So, you know, when you tell them eat protein, they're looking at you like, what?
Eggs, eggs got vilified for a long time. Yeah, I know. It was wrong to eat eggs. Don't they have a lot of cholesterol? Well, don't you know, cholesterol is what makes your hormones. Just kind of trying to make people understand, eat your protein, especially and eat good food and eat food that is nutrient dense.
Uh, this is, and I will die on that heel and I know many people hate me when I say this, you can't afford sugar in menopause. You just can't, you already have a body that is not being able to deal with insulin from just regular activities. And then you're telling it, Oh, here, donut sugar, you can't afford it.
And you know, people say, yeah, but you don't want to catch food groups. Sugar is not a food group. It's not a food group and you can afford it maybe before menopause, but you can't afford it in menopause. It's just too expensive for the body. It's too expensive. So eat nutrient dense food, eat properly, cut out the, the idea of restrictive diets because they don't work in menopause.
Extreme workouts don't work in menopause. Just eat regular good meals, fill in with fiber, protein, good carbs. Good farts and exercise. 40, 30 to 45 minutes is enough three times a week. Is it not? Yeah. Long walks, long, long walks that will do you better than 10 hours on the treadmill. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's important.
I think it's important for people to hear. I mean, Rhonda and I talk all the time about sort of adjusting. Workouts, especially to the demands of being a mom and a new mom with her mom with young kids, but it's sort of across the lifespan. You have to adjust to what your body requires. And sometimes what we think it requires maybe isn't necessarily what it needs.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, when, when people are in menopause, they're in that sandwich generation, they're trying to help their daughters who may be having young kids, but they are also still looking after aging parents. So there is so much going on. Yeah. A lot of stress. Yeah. I know this isn't probably your, your scope, but I'm just curious what knowledge you have on medication and like hormone replacement therapy and that type of thing.
I personally don't know a lot about it. Yeah. So hormone, nowadays they call it menopause hormone therapy. they're trying to get away from hormone replacement therapy because hormone replacement therapy can be for anybody, can be even for a guy for thyroid issues. So now they're calling it menopause hormone therapy.
And a lot of studies have been done. There's a lot of fear about hormone therapy because there was the earlier studies, this, the, what they call this one study that was done where some, they picked some women and did. You know, studies for quite a while and those women ended up with breast cancer, but it was a very different study.
It wasn't done. in the right protocols. Now they've done a lot of studies and they've got more knowledge about it. And some people who are candidates for menopause hormone therapy, it works very well for them. But unfortunately, not every woman is a candidate because there could be so many issues, uh, like blood clots or family history of, uh, of, uh, hormone driven cancers, or even the woman herself may have had a hormone driven cancer.
So she's not a candidate at all for hormone replacement therapy. So for those women who can do it, it works very well, but they say that there is a period when it should be started. It should be started the first five years of menopause. After that, it's not too beneficial. So as early as they can start it, the better.
Interesting. I wonder how often that's communicated to people. Uh, not much, not much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The earlier they start, if you're a candidate for, for menopause hormone therapy, the earlier in your transition, they started the better. The other thing that people don't know is that people in perimenopause still having their periods can also get hormone replacement therapy because sometimes the symptoms get so bad.
That they need to be helped so they can get hormone replacement therapy even in perimenopause before menopause. But the idea is that after the age of 60, uh, in menopause, the hormones don't do too much. They don't help a lot because one of the big things that they're in, they're researching now is brain health and how.
Hormone replacement therapy or monoposal hormone therapy helps with brain health, but after the age of 60 doesn't seem to have any effect at all. So the earlier, the better. And I know, sorry, Rhonda, I know a lot of my clients who I see in this post menopausal, uh, area of life, which is a term. They, they can also have topical vaginal estrogen and I often referred clients back for that just to help with some of the pelvic floor strengthening.
So if they're having a lot of pain with intercourse from vaginal dryness or urinary incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse symptoms, it can also be applied locally. So it's important for people to know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That can be applied locally and there's no problem even for people who are taking, uh, who are using estrogen as menopause hormone therapy to also use, but you know, estrogen, some doctors do give the two of them.
Some doctors give two. Yeah. Yeah. Unless of course they have, you know, a hormone driven, uh, problem like a cancer that they, they, they cannot take any hormone therapy. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So complex. Yeah. It is quite complex. And unfortunately we don't have many trained doctors. Uh, we don't have doctors trained for menopause, but the, the, um, the American, uh, the menopausal association of, um, America has a whole list of doctors.
They even list Canadian doctors who are trained in menopause. So there is a whole list of them, uh, and, and some of them really are taking, are still taking new patients. So women can go there and look. For the original, especially then, uh, the U S or Canada, they don't have, I didn't, I don't think they have anything else for any of that part of the world, but they have Canadian and, uh, us doctors who are trained specifically for menopause.
That's good to know. Do you have any resources that you often will suggest that people read or podcasts to listen to? I know I often pass on the menopause manifesto by Dr. Jen Gunter. People like that one. Yes. Yeah, I, I, I normally tell people to read that one because it's easy for people to read. Yeah. Uh, there's also one that was written by Amanda, what's her, I don't forget, I don't remember the, the name of the book, but she's Amanda Thiebe and, uh, she's also a Canadian and she wrote the, I think, what was the name of that?
I know, I know what you're talking about. I'm going to try to Google it. Amanda Thiebe, you said? Yes. Yeah, she, cause she talks a lot about strength training with menopause as well, right? Yes. And she's also a personal trainer. She's a strength coach. And menopausal menopause. Yeah. And it has, it has, it's very simple.
It doesn't have all the scientific, you know, literature that, you know, can sometimes drive any. Person who isn't interested in science to go a little bit bonkers. So that's a really good resource and then the um, the american the menopause association of Is it? I forget the american menopause organization.
Anyway, one of them is quite good It has a lot of information and information that's created for the lay person Not for you know, not for experts. So that's always good. Um People have to be careful what they find on social media because sometimes it's like, you know, like they're, they're, you know, they're now selling what called menopause diets and there's nothing like that.
There's really absolutely nothing like a menopause diet. They're always, they're always trying to target women, right? Always trying to profit off of us. I think it's, it's unfortunate. It's because we're not taught this stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, they tell women, okay, this is a diet that balances your hormones, which hormones there's so many, which ones are you balancing?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's all very confusing for sure. But maybe we should link those resources in the show notes. Cause, um, Dr. Jen Gunter also for our listeners wrote the vagina Bible, which I highly recommend as well for this very reason that a lot of women don't know basic their basic anatomy. Yes. Yes.
Yeah. And there's also feisty, feisty, feisty menopause. They also really quite good. They have very good interviews and podcasts and a lot of really good articles, feisty menopause. So that's good too. Yeah. Awesome. This has been amazing when you're out, what is one last piece of advice advice that you would like to share with our listeners?
What I would, uh, one of the things that I really love people to understand that menopause is natural. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just a normal stage of life. I mean, we go through puberty and menopause is just the other side of puberty. You know, it's exactly menopause does to a woman's body exactly what puberty does to a girl's body.
So it's just, you're just on the other side. It's natural. We never consider puberty to be wrong. It's okay. It's natural. There will be a few bumps on the road. But it does come to an end at some point and just to normalize menopause, not to fear it because many, many women get there with so much fear about it.
It's normal. There's nothing to fear about it. And now there's places where people can go for help. They can reach out for help. So nothing to be feared about menopause. That's the key. Yeah. So optimistic. I love it. Thank you so much. So how can people find you and work with you? Can you tell us a bit about how you work with your clients?
Yes. So I have a membership site, uh, and my membership site has everything. It has the yoga, which is the mindset part of it. Strength training. Uh, we also do kettlebells and there's meditation too on it. And then I have a pelvic floor class that I run for 12 weeks. So that's a holistic or restore pelvic floor health and I'll be running one in November.
So that's Apart from the membership, but then when people get into the membership, they can get everything under one roof and the way to contact me is through my website. It's just one zero dot com or, you know, they can DM me from my Instagram page. What's your, what's your handle? What's your handle?
Studio Wanjira. Studio Wanjira. Yes. Studio Wanjira on Instagram and Studio Wanjira on Facebook. Yeah. Love it. You're so motivational and inspirational, Wanjira. Thanks so much for chatting with us today. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. And thank you for all your questions. And I don't know, do you have any other questions for me?
No, I think you answered them all. I think this is so important for us as practitioners, us as women and any, uh, female listeners to hear that it's not something to be feared. And, um, you gave us lots of tips and tricks. So thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks for listening to today's podcast. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you liked what you heard, we would love if you could share this with a friend, leave us a review, or subscribe to anywhere that you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for being here.
