94: Dr Kelly Teagle on Creating Healthy Habits

Welcome to Dear Menopause podcast, where we discuss the menopause transition to help make everyday life a little easier for women. Hey, this is Sonya and I am the host Dear Menopause. Welcome to today's episode where I am chatting with Dr Kelly Teagle. Kelly has been a popular guest in the past when we've talked about Wellfemme, the telehealth service that she founded to peri and menopausal women in Australia. Today we are talking about all things lifestyle changes that are super important during this menopausal transition. Kelly is also here to talk about her new women's wellness program called Next Phase, and if you stay listening right to the very end, you will hear a very special offer that Kelly makes Dear Menopause listeners. Hi, Kelly, welcome back Dear Menopause.

Hi, Sonya, great to be back. Thanks for having me.

My absolute pleasure. I love having chats with you, and today we're going to talk about a pretty juicy topic, which is also a really important topic. So why don't you introduce who you are and tell us a little bit about Welfem as well at the same time?

Oh sure. Well, I was very privileged to speak to you in depth Wellfemme not too long ago, so I really appreciated that. So my name is Kelly Teagle, I'm a GP and I've been working in general practice for gosh 15 to 20 years now and noticed during my time in general practice that women weren't being well cared for in general for their menopause issues, and I've been working in sexual health and family planning. Women were having to travel a very, very long way to see us at family planning for their menopausal issues and I realised that I could have just as well, you know, really helped them out over the phone. So that led to this idea of starting WellfemmeTelehealth Menopause Clinic, which was founded sort of late 2018. And now we have we've got about 15, 16 doctors around the country, thousands of patients around the country, so it's all very exciting. Of course, covid supercharged the whole telemedicine thing quite, you know, quite largely as well. So now we have telehealth, you know, medicare rebates and things have been going gangbusters.

Just fantastic and we do have a big episode that I know you said recently, but would you believe it was actually back in 2022, when we last had it.

Oh, it was it. That was such a long time ago I know last chatted about Welfem, so I'll link in the show notes back to that episode for anybody that does want to learn more Wellfemme itself and you know how it came to be founded, and a little bit more about you. But today we want to talk about the lifestyle changes that become so important in this transitional period for our changing bodies. So do you want to hit us up with what you think is the most important thing in that topic?

Oh, my gosh, this is a huge, huge one, isn't it? So I guess, to start off with, let's set the scene with the whole menopausal transition like what actually is the menopausal transition? Because, you know, really menopause is just a moment in time when you pop out your last egg from your ovaries and they diagnose menopause retrospectively 12 months later because you haven't had a period. The actual menopausal transition, though, it kind of encompasses all of the hormonal, physiological, psychological, your situation or all of those kinds of things that go around that, and the hormonal changes can start up to 10 years prior to menopause. And then, of course, you know you've got symptoms and all sorts of things that can go on for quite some years afterwards.

But basically, from menopause onwards, you're classified as being postmenopausal and your body is very, very different to what it was like during its reproductive years in so many ways, not just because you can't have babies. So you know, the hormonal changes that are happening in sync with this big menopausal transition have really long lasting implications to your long term health, longevity, well being, and there are loads and loads of things that we can actually do if we recognise, you know how our body is changing and get in early enough. You know, if we use menopause, say, as a chance to really reassess, reevaluate what our body needs going forward, it's a really great time because you know everything that has changed in your life is cause for, you know, stopping and reassessing, isn't it?

Yeah, and I think that that's such an important reminder that two things First of all, our body kind of about post-40 does change and we do need to change the way that we care for our body and the way we live in our body. Also, that these perimenopause all year, our 40s, our 50s such a fantastic opportunity to really sit down, do a stock, take look at what worked for you earlier that maybe it doesn't work anymore, or new things. You want to change new things, you want to try new things. You want to change. It's such a beautiful moment in time and we need to make sure that we make the most of it.

Absolutely. That is so empowering that opportunity that if you harness that opportunity when you have it, right then and there that's hugely powerful, because we're talking about decades and decades more of your life still to come. So those very, very small little tweaks that we can make to our lifestyle and our attitude and the way we live our life and interact with the world, those are hugely powerful when you amplify those in the decades to come.

Yeah, so why don't you tell us, then, a little bit about what some of these changes are that we need to start thinking about when it does come to being inclusive of the hormonal kind of disruptions that women start experiencing?

It's kind of like there's a perfect storm situation going on here, sonia, because I don't know if you've noticed, but we're all crazy busy at midlife. There's so much going on with. We're at the peak of our careers, our peak of responsibilities, and we just keep on burdening ourselves with more than somehow. The kids are growing up and the parents are getting older and we need to look after them. There is just so much happening. So it's sort of, at this time when our bodies are changing quite a lot and we need to be able to adjust and accommodate, that is exactly the time when we're distracted by all of this other stuff and the focus really goes off the self cares. We're so busy juggling everything and looking after everyone else's needs and trying to keep up that we really drop the ball on looking after ourselves.

So, yeah, what are the things that are happening? Well, let's just talk about lowering estrogen levels for a start, because even if you're in perimenopause, you're going to start to pretty soon start to see some fluctuations in your estrogen levels and the trend, gradually over time, is less and less, and then post-menopausally, you get this sort of flat line of quite low estrogen. Now the impact of lowering estrogen levels is quite profound on things like your bones and your muscles, particularly so gradually as we age we will have this sort of slow decline in our muscle mass and bone mass going on, but it hits overdrive after menopause. So that big drop off in estrogen causes a loss of around 10, 15, even 20% of bone density in just that first five years after menopause.

Wow, that's a big number, isn't it? It's a big number and if you're coming from a baseline of already having lowish bone density or having other risk factors, so if you've got medical risk factors, if you're sort of an underweight person or you've had use of long-term steroid medications or autoimmune diseases or any number of things that could make you at risk for osteoporosis, maybe you already have a pretty lowish baseline of bone density to begin with. And what women don't know?

On that point yeah, no, that was where I was going to go is a lot of women don't know. So on that point, I think it's really would be really beneficial to talk about how you can actually understand what your bone density is.

So bone density is just, it's the foundation that holds everything up, and you know like you need that for stability, movement, function. You know everything. It's what your muscles are. Leave it on. Everything that you do requires strength from your, from your frame, from your muscles, from your bones.

So in terms of you know, knowing whether or not you have good bone density, a lot of people don't know, they sort of assume, and in fact I'm constantly surprised when patients of mine who live really healthy, active lives happen to have a bone density scan or break a bone or something and then it's subsequently found out that they have lowish bone density. And you may not know this unless you've actually had a bone density scan or a low impact fracture sometime in the past. I always recommend to my patients, particularly the ones who aren't intending to use any kind of hormonal therapy, that they should probably at least get a baseline bone density at some point during, you know, in that around the menopause time I think is a really good time to do that, yeah, and so that's something that if anybody's listening and they're going wow, actually I've never thought about that.

I'd really like to know what my bone density is. It's just a matter of going to your GP and asking for a referral to get a bone density scanner.

Yes. So the GP can refer you for a bone density scan. A lot of them might say to you oh, you don't really need that, you know there's no indication for you to have that and if you want to you can just say that's all right. I would just like to know, and I'm happy to pay for it. Now, if you have medical risk factors, like some of the things I mentioned earlier, particularly if you had a premature or early menopause, that's a big risk factor for premature osteoporosis and bone loss. So if you have a medical risk factor, you can actually get a Medicare rebate for the test. But you know it's not a terribly expensive test, it's just just a kind of an X-ray. So generally you would be paying about $100 to $150, even if you don't have a Medicare rebate for that.

Yeah, I think definitely something worth considering having done, rather than finding yourself having a fall, having a fracture, having a break and then having to deal with the side effects of being diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis.

Do you want to hear something really scary? One of the menopause congresses that I went to in recent years, they said that women who have a catastrophic hip fracture over the age of 50, around a quarter of them will die in the subsequent 12 months. That's how serious and impacted that is on your health. It's a horrifying step that one isn't it. It is. And look, I think in a lot of cases it speaks about the you know what is it that was underlying that? You know what was the reason for the fragility and frailty that led to that catastrophic fracture? That's, you know, that's the underlying thing.

So this is the opportunity we have, isn't it? It's, you know, because having low bone density in itself doesn't make you at high risk for a fracture necessarily, because if you're strong, if you're young, if you've got good balance and good function, you may actually not be at very much risk of having a fall anyway. So you know, it's the whole big picture stuff. It's like what, what is it about this person as a whole that might potentially put them at risk of these things, and how do we counter those? Yeah, fantastic.

Okay, so we've covered off bone health, bone density what next?

Well, so that's just one of the things. So you know, menopause is a trigger for lots of types of things happening in your body. So we've got the bone loss, we've got a rise in heart disease risk, a rise in dementia and diabetes and chronic disease risk. So all of these things you know that we tend to think of as aging in general, but that can actually menopause itself is a bit of a trigger for these things to start to become more serious players, and that's why it should for every, every woman, it should be a point where they go. Hmm, I need to start working now with a regular GP who knows me well, doing regular kind of screening and maintenance activities and keeping an eye on all these risk factors that I may already have for osteoporosis, heart disease, dementia and really focusing in on those.

Yeah, fantastic. And mental health does that play into this as well?

Absolutely. We've talked a lot on your podcast, Sonia, about this sort of stuff, about the fact that perimenopause is such a dangerous time for women in terms of decline in their mental health, and it has a lot to do with the instability of their hormones impacting on the brain chemistry and causing unstable mood as well. So that can start or even for the first time it can be brought on in the perimenopause, and for women who were already at risk or have a previous history it can be much, much worse. So definitely that is a big player. But the interesting thing is there's not a whole lot of things probably that physically get better postmenopausal that improve by themselves. But mental health tends to. Mental health and psychological stability actually tend to get better postmenopausally. So we know that women postmenopausal when all the hormones have settled down, when they've finally got the kids out of home, when they don't have to worry about looking after mum and dad or having a stressful job anymore guess what Mental health improves, but it is.

I think the thing that I'm noticing more and more is that the menopausal transition is also about psychological transition, because it's not just about dealing with the physical and dealing with the environmental. It's about how you make that psychological adjustment to how these things are happening. Your self-image is changing, how you see yourself in the world, your role as a mother, parent, partner, all of these things, and even just how confronting it can be to look in the mirror and all of a sudden, the version of yourself you had locked in your head of when you were in your 30s isn't looking back at you in the mirror anymore. That's very confronting. So it's a largely psychological adjustment too, I think.

Yeah, yeah, I like that. It's good to remember. So we started talking about estrogen. We need to talk about progesterate as well. So, what impacts do the fluctuations with our progesterate have?

Yeah, I think it plays a very big role perimenopausally, although interestingly, there are no real TGA-approved supplements for progesterone, let's say. I mean, a lot of people are using these sorts of things off-label, but there actually is no TGA-approved indication for really any MHT in perimenopause. So that's an interesting one.

But your progesterone levels are subtly declining relative to the estrogen levels in perimenopause and I do think, probably, that there are a lot of the symptomology that we experience, a lot of the particularly the premenstrual mood downturns and migraines and things like that have to do with this shift in the balance between estrogen and progesterone that's constantly going up and down and up and down in perimenopause and again postmenopausally, much, much more stable. But you don't produce any progesterone at all after menopause because even during your reproductive years it's only happening in the second half of each month after you've popped an egg out. So once that's no longer happening, you don't naturally produce any progesterone at all anymore. Yeah, so, depending on the individual, which is just impossible to know who's going to be really impacted by that and who isn't but some women do find that they need some supplements with progesterone, either as part of their MHT or maybe even off-label use, for different reasons.

Okay, all right. So let's go back, then, to the lifestyle changes. So what are your recommendations for women when you see them in clinic? We've talked about only taking the opportunity to do a little stop, take, do a little audit. What are your recommendations that women should keep front of mind?

You know, this has been a really big, really big thing for me since I started Welfare and this whole idea of how do we help, support women and give them the right information at the right time to make these critical lifestyle changes.

Because, as a menopause doctor, women are coming to see me because they have symptoms. You know there's something that's bothering them and they want it fixed, and often that might be hormonal treatment or, you know, combination of different types of therapies or something to manage those symptoms, and then they start to feel better and then that's all wonderful. But the thing that it's over and over again, I would see, is women will come back and they go oh yeah, I'm sleeping better, I've got more energy, all this stuff, the symptoms are settling down, and I'll say, okay, and how did you go with those lifestyle changes we discussed? And they go oh well, you know it's been a really busy time. My work's just ramped up, you know, and I'll be right once I get my son through his year 12 or this, you know, and so it was the lifestyle things that were always on the back burner, because there's no immediacy there.

You know, osteoporosis doesn't make you feel bad every day when you get up. It's not a symptom. So I think it's those, those kind of things that are happening in the background which are the worst things in terms of your long term health that we neglect the most. Kind of like being diabetic and big, but because you feel okay, even though your blood sugars are high, you kind of go oh yeah. Yeah, I'm not being very good at the moment, but you know I'll get there in the end. So it's this delay, this delay.

It's interesting. I heard a really great analogy the other day about it was a different topic that it was used, but I thought it was a really good thing to, or a good analogy to use in this sort of situation when we're talking about health and particularly women's health during this menopausal transition. And that is, we continue to wear a seatbelt in a car, regardless of whether we've had an accident or not. And if you translate that into exercise or you translate it into nutrition, just because, like you say, you haven't fallen over and had a fracture and broken an arm, it doesn't mean that we should stop taking steps to keep our bones healthy.

Absolutely. Having discovered this, having realised that, as a doctor, the things that I was able to make people feel better, that's great. That's what everyone wants. But what was concerning me more was that they weren't able to address these other things, these longer term needs, which it was really timely that we start to address now. And that got me thinking. You know, where can I refer these women to to give them the right information, to give them the support, the permission to prioritise themselves for a while and actually, you know, just get on and look after their own health for a while, because you know they've given, given, given to everybody else and they really deserve to be taking the opportunity now, before it's too late, to look after themselves. And do you know what? In the last few years, I've been looking around and I could not find any kind of program, particularly given that a lot of our patients are all around the country. Where can I consistently refer these people to to be able to get this sort of information? And so that's why I actually decided I needed to create that space for them and I designed this program called Next Phase, the Next Phase Women's Wellness Program, and this is where we bring in all of these lifestyle changes, this advice that's really timely, and just how they can find those small interventions that will really help over time. So when you ask me, what do you think that they should be doing? This is like everything is crowded into my head right now of you know sort of nine or 10 modules worth of all of this great information and advice.

But you know, it boils down to some really, really simple things. You have to know where to get bang for your buck, because we are all so busy, right, we just don't have time to finacle around, and a lot of people are spending a lot of money and effort buying stuff online through sketchy promises because, you know, it's kind of this feeling like you're doing something Okay, well, I'm doing something, I've bought that product that promises that I'm going to feel better and it's that I'm going to live a healthier life but how do you know you're getting bang for buck? It has to be evidence based, right? So the thing to look for is getting information that really has some evidence basis to it and something that you know you will actually be able to do. There is no point, you know, signing yourself up for something that's going to involve you taking three or four hours a week and putting on a special outfit and driving, you know, half an hour each way or something like that, if you know you haven't even got time to stop and go to the toilet during the day. So it has to be doable and realistic.

And so the sorts of interventions I like to talk to women about, okay, here are the, you know, say, maybe five different types of activity that we know are going to improve your muscle strength, your bones, your balance. All of these things. This is going to improve your dementia and cardiovascular risk. So these are the things that we need to manage to package up for you into a nice, easy to do routine that's opportunistic, that doesn't take a lot of time and effort out of your day, but small little things that you can do build new habits that will stay with you for life. Because we're not talking about doing some kind of little intervention here where you know this is the thing.

You know, you shell out some money and you think, right, I'm going to do a diet or I'm going to do this exercise program, and we get this mindset that it's just an intervention, we're doing it in the short term and with the kind of deep down assumption that I'll just get through, that I'll be better and then I'll just get on with my life, rather than thinking of it as actually it's in a.

You've got to incorporate this into your life. It's actually, this is your life. It's not actually a short term intervention. We're talking about your life. So if we can just make that mind shift to all right, I'm not going to go on a program or I'm not going to go on a diet or I'm not going to just start taking this supplement or, you know, have this surgery that I'm actually like going to live, like that person who's going to live a long, happy, functional, independent life for the next 50 years. So that's the sort of stuff I'm talking about. I have. It's a very roundabout way of answering your question. So if you want me to dial down into specifics, just we can do that Absolutely.

I mentioned your next phase wellness program, which sounds fantastic.

So, and what I love about this is that you know and you've touched on this already but I hear over and over again and I know it was my own personal experience as well and that was that you're left to become this detective, this you know, working it all out yourself, and so you go off and see a physio for this or an exercise physiologist for that, or a personal trainer for that, and then you've got to find a nutritionist, and then you need to find a psychologist or someone to help you with the mindset, the psychological kind of shifts that are happening as well, and it does become very expensive and very time consuming.

But you also have to be pretty literate to know that you are speaking to people that do come from an evidence base and that they do have your best interests in mind. So Tell us then, what makes next phase different, what other modules or the pillars that you cover off in the program, because it sounds like this is more of a one-stop shop for someone, as opposed to having to go out and join all those little pieces together themselves.

Yeah, and look, even as a doctor, I almost get despairing when I'm seeing a woman and I'm going she's got all this stuff going on. We've got to get this person and that person and that person. You know it becomes very fragmented. You know, we just wanted to boil this all down to you know the useful information what is going on in my menopausal body? What's going on during perimenopause and menopause in my body? What impact is that going to have? What do I need to do about it? You know, and, but it has to be, you know, something that'll accommodate all women with all of their different types of symptoms and things going on. So, not, you know, we cover stuff in there, everything from you know the obvious stuff like energy, sleep. You know diet, weight management, movement and all that sort of stuff. But we also go deeply into mental health and brain health and cardiovascular and even girly bits. You know we talk about the urinary and sexual issues and things like that, and not all of it is going to be relevant to every woman in terms of them necessarily needing to seek treatment or interventions. But it's great knowledge to have because if you know now at menopause that there is a strong likelihood that you're going to start to experience vaginal dryness and thinning and that you know these changes can happen and you know now that there are stuff that you can do about it, and you know what type of. You know allied health specialists to go and see if it does become a problem, because you have to act early before those long term changes that are irreversible really start to kick in. So what?

In order to make this quite holistic, you know we brought a team together because I couldn't have done all this myself. I just don't have all that expertise. So I'm presenting about the menopause slash, medical aspects of what's going on in women's bodies. Then we have a dietician, eleni Giorgio, from Tree of Life Nutrition in Brisbane. She's put together this beautiful package which takes you right through all the stuff that's, you know, really critical, for you know energy and how food is used in your body and you know how it's metabolised and what types of.

And we go deep, deep, deep into the Mediterranean diet, because, oh my God, don't let me, don't get me started on mediterranean diet and how amazing that is in terms of long term outcomes for things like you know, brain health and heart health, and you know all of that. So we've got Eleni, we've got a mindset coach, thea O'Connor, who also does a lot of education in workplaces around menopause, and she's got a background as a dietician and she goes right into. You know what's the psychology behind, say, you know emotional eating, or you know why we fail at setting our goals and why do we have this fight with ourselves to go and have a love-hate relationship with movement and exercise, like what's going on with that?

So we've got that. And then we also thought that there's going to be a bunch of people out there, of course, who are pretty much non-exercises and have no idea where to start and don't have a whole lot of time. So we do. Actually, in every module of the program, we have a very basic kind of 10 to 12 minute routine which covers off on all the key critical types of activity, and so if you did nothing else, you could just follow that and you would have a very complete movement routine as well, and it's great.

So, 10 modules, but it's not designed to be you know, let's sit down, let's work through this stuff and tick it all off and then get on with our lives. It's actually designed to be in line with your life, so we give you a long period of time to work your way through it like up to six months and we've got personal coaching and small group coaching and online community all built into the price. So you've got all your different avenues of actual accountability and support there as well. So we just wanted it to be you know how can we bring this all together in a package that gives everybody, no matter where they're coming from or what their priorities are, a chance to really learn about what's going on in their bodies right now and how to be healthier and happier for longer post-menopausally in a way that they can. It's actually accessible to them.

Yeah, it sounds wonderful and it sounds like it's very educational and informative, as well as Well, heavily educational yes, but having said all that, you know we tried to keep it that you've got no more like each module only really has about an hour of video content and you can take that week, three weeks, whatever it is, to look through that. Yeah, so it's not like death by video or anything like that when you consider it's actually over 10 modules, but the supporting materials, the workbooks and everything beautifully dovetail into the learning materials and just cause you to sort of reflect on the relevance of the learnings to you specifically and helping you to kind of identify opportunities to apply it in your own life.

Yeah, wonderful, kelly. It sounds like such a complete holistic opportunity for someone to really do all the things that we've been talking about, which is have a little sit down and look at what we're there at in their life and what they'd like to, you know, bring into that life so that they do have that longevity kind of covered off, that long life, that long healthy life. But making the changes now across you know all the pillars that I certainly know are Absolutely the most important pillars for women to be really focusing on at this time in life. So I think that sounds absolutely wonderful. Now you have taken a beta group through the wellness program, haven't you?

Yeah, last year we had a group of 30 women who did the program and they gave us some amazing feedback. The exciting thing was that they really appreciated all the educational content and we got a lot of great ideas about how we could restructure the workbooks and things like that. So that's all been ongoing. So we've got the new, improved next phase 2.0 up and running as we speak and I'm very excited about it. I think it's going to be amazing.

Yeah, I think that's so important as well to kind of present when we're talking about the program is that you know this is a tried and tested program, that you know it's not just something that you've pulled together and who everyone that goes through it now is going to be learning along with you. You've actually taken the time to create a program, run a qualified group of women through it and then make changes as you've needed, but you've also got the feedback from them of what worked, what didn't work and the opportunity to make sure that what you are now going to offer everybody is the best version that it could possibly be at this point in time.

Yeah, look, we're never going to be all things to all people and I think the important thing is that having that ability to interact with our participants through the online community all the time really means that we can be responsive to what everyone needs. You know we can every week we're doing live meetups in the community and we can schedule whatever people are wanting to hear about you know, respond to whatever problems or challenges are going on in the program for people. So, yeah, I'm really proud of it. I'm really excited by it.

Yeah, fantastic. You should be proud of it. I know how much work you've put into it.

I wanted to do is in the making.

I also want to touch on something that you've talked about, that we haven't talked about in terms of, you know some, a pillar, if you like, that is just as important and that is community.

And you know, if you you know you've talked about the Mediterranean diet and if we for anybody that's familiar with the Blue Zones program and awesome, awesome docu series on Netflix, I think it's on if anybody's interested in going off and having a look at it themselves, but it's something that's been in the works for a long time.

This Netflix docu series is really just kind of scratches the surface of what what they've been doing. But you know, one of the things that came out of that was how important community is for those that do live the long, healthy life. And you know, I have this conversation constantly with in my own social network as well as with women that I come across in my work, and we lack a lot of community now, I think, in our natural lives here. You know, like you say, we're busy, we're running around, we're immersed in our families, were immersed in work, but our social connection has kind of dropped off a bit and I think that you know you offer such a great opportunity for women to come together as a community, with this one thing in common, and that is that they're all at this stage of life and looking to make the most of it.

Yeah, no, 100%. In fact, I was just looking at some data today about because I've been reworking some of the content about the weight management module and you know there's so much you know research out there about what works and what doesn't work for weight management and it's all inconsistent. There's so much inconsistency but you know, the one thing I did find that was consistent was that you know the inclusions of any kind of intervention that's likely to be successful and there were three things there was, you know, a calorie reduced diet. There was an increased activity in level of activity and there was behavioural therapy of some kind there. So you know you gotta bring in that psychological aspect. That's just one example, because in everything that we're doing, you know it's the thing that the missing formula is what you know.

When you go and you just buy a program online, you know you might be I don't know anything, you care to name you you shell out some money because you want to be doing something and you're feeling really motivated because you're just eating a whole tub of ice cream or something, and then you go, right, I'm going to do this. And then you know you might sort of do really well for a couple of weeks feel really motivated and then you know you're just kind of, day in, day out, people are still nagging at you for your attention or demanding things of you, and you're fatigued and exhausted and it just gets easier and easier not to go and do those things on that program that you've bought. And so what's missing is that there's another person there next to you, just like you, who's having the same struggles as you and going you know what? Let's just we won't go to the gym today, it's just too much, but come with me and we'll go for a walk, like let's just do something. So it's having that just that sense that there's someone on your side, that there's some accountability there, that you're checking in regularly and that somebody's got some ideas and encouragement that it's okay to not be perfect all the time.

You just need to be. What can I do today? I don't need to be doing a marathon every day, but I need to be active every day.

Yeah, yeah, I love that and it's such an important message to get across that some empathy and some self-kindness sometimes is actually more important than slogging yourself out at the gym because it's Tuesday and that's what you do.

Oh look, I think that some of the stuff that thea brings to the program, the mindset stuff, is the most you know key element in the whole thing, because having a little bit of knowledge I mean we all have a lot of knowledge about what we should be doing but there are reasons why we're not doing them, and that's where the mindset coaching comes into it particularly yeah fantastic, kelly.

your program sounds absolutely wonderful and I'm so grateful that you've taken the time today to share a little bit about it. Talk about the importance of making these lifestyle changes at this, you know, really opportunistic time in our lives. Is there anything else that you wanted to share before we sign things off?

I think, though, given that you've given me this great opportunity, sonia, I might have to create a discount code just especially for your dear men and pause listeners so that they can have access to a special price. How about that?

That is absolutely fantastic. I would love that, and I know everybody listening would love that as well. So I will yeah, we'll share that in the show notes and also across my social media posts as well. So if you're listening and you don't know how to navigate show notes, because not everyone does hit me up on my social media at Sonia level on Instagram and I'm on Facebook as well and I'll share discount code on there. That's wonderful. Thank you, kelly.

That's all right and you know, just to finish up on, I would say I always like to like to just remind people what an amazing opportunity that this time of life represents. I mean, you know, psychologically there is so much growth that happens once you start really letting go of the superficial and shedding that skin and being able to really look deep inside yourself and grow in a spiritual sense and how you relate to the world and cash in on all of that confidence and experience that you have. So I would say that maybe things will look different, maybe they'll look a whole lot different, and they don't have to be worse. They can be better than ever, because it's coming from a place of true value. You get to really look at you know, what do I value in life and am I living to those values? And really start to focus on that and put yourself first for a change. You know it's time now. Now is the time because you may not have that time later.

I think that's such an important message. There is no better time than the present. Absolutely Awesome, kelly. Thank you so much for your time. I've loved chatting to you, as always, and I'm sure at some point down the track we'll have you back on again.

Undoubtedly, I'll look forward to it. Thanks, sonia.

Thank you for listening today. I am so grateful to have these conversations with incredible women and experts and I'm grateful that you chose to hit play on this episode of Dare Menopause. If you have a minute of time today, please leave a rating or a review. I would love to hear from you, because you are my biggest driver for doing this work. If this chat went way too fast for you and you want more, head over to StellaWomencomau slash podcast for the show notes and, while you're there, take my midlife quiz to see why it feels like midlife is messing with your head.