Middling Along

My guest this time is Barbie Boules - a registered dietitian and certified health coach with over 22 years of experience.  Her goal is to help her clients achieve optimal wellness without the pseudoscience and unsustainable rules of faddy dieting.  

 

She tells us about her holistic approach to wellbeing and aging well, emphasizing nourishing foods, quality sleep, daily movement, managing stress and prioritizing self-care. We talk about what foods and nutrients we need to prioritize in order to age well - with a particular focus on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (something that both our mothers have in common)...did you know women are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as men are?

 

We also cover the impact of alcohol on our brain health, why women (especially in midlife) can find alcohol more challenging to metabolize and why we might want to reassess our relationship with the booze if we aim to age well. 

 

Barbie has recommended some great books to read if you’re interested in learning about the links between nutrition and brain health, namely: 

Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety by Dr Drew Ramsey (https://drewramseymd.com/books-publications/eat-to-beat-depression-and-anxiety)

Brain Food by Dr Lisa Mosconi (https://www.lisamosconi.com/brainfood - we also touch on Dr Mosconi’s excellent new book The XX Brain)

This is Your Brain on Food by Dr Uma Naidoo (https://book.umanaidoomd.com/) 

and The MIND Diet by Maggie Moon (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-MIND-Diet/Maggie-Moon/9781612436074) 

… all of which are going onto my teetering to-read pile!

 

You can find Barbie and her brilliant down to earth advice (and some yummy recipes) on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_cognition_dietitian/ and at www.barbieboules.com 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

 

Join me this time in the first of a (slightly serendipitous) series of three episodes on the topic of aging well. 

 

Dr Nichola Conlon is a scientist specialising in the study of healthy aging.  Nichola has a passion for sharing the latest breakthroughs, with a skill for translating science in a digestible and engaging way, encouraging people to age well.  

 

We talk about the science behind some pernicious peri symptoms - brain fog and fatigue - how and why our diminishing oestrogen levels play havoc with our many millions of mitochondria which then leads to a drop in our energy levels. Did you know our hormones are responsible for creating neural connections in the areas of our brain involved in memory and learning? Mind, blown...

 

We dig in to why our chronological age and our biological age might very well be different. Shockingly research has shown that in just six months of perimenopause our biological age can increase by up to nine years - and by the end of perimenopause our biological age may have jumped up by a total of 20 years!

 

The good news though is that only 20% of our rate of biological aging is predetermined by our genetics - the other 80% is modifiable through lifestyle changes. 

 

We also cover how oestrogen levels dropping impacts our immune system, creating chronic low-grade inflammation in our cells - and how we can tackle that to improve our overall cellular health.

 

We then move on to how critical NAD is for both energy levels and cellular repair, how wildly inconvenient it is that levels of NAD start to fall at the same time we experience falling levels of oestrogen and how we can boost our levels of NAD - tune in to find out more. 

 

As a science nerd I found this whole conversation absolutely fascinating - I hope you do too!

 

You can find out more about Nichola's company Nuchido here: https://nuchido.com/ 

 

You can also find her on Instagram here: www.instagram.com/drnicholaconlon where she discusses all things science and aging.

 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Join me this time for a joyous conversation with Karen Arthur: Karen is a fashion creative, host of the Menopause Whilst Black podcast, speaker, model, writer, and dropper of truth bombs! 

We talk about how her anxiety and depression during perimenopause prompted her departure from a long teaching career. We move on to unpack how three years of therapy, a lot of unlearning, and her dedication to living more truthfully and authentically led to her reinvention and curation of the next stage of her life - which includes leaving London to live by the sea, saying ‘Yes’ to things that bring her joy and ‘No’ to the things that don’t.

 

We touch on why therapy is the best money she’s ever invested in herself, why being honest is addictive, and how it’s easier to stay in our comfort zones than admit why those are no longer serving us and then do something about it. 

 

Karen talks about why she is so protective of her boundaries in both her personal and professional life, how we can all focus on deeply knowing ourselves and prioritising ourselves in the run up to midlife and perimenopause, and how post-menopause can be a liberating and positive stage of life. 

 

You can find Karen at https://www.thekarenarthur.com/ the podcast at https://www.thekarenarthur.com/menopausewhilstblack and she is on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thekarenarthur/ and https://www.instagram.com/menopausewhilstblack/

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

 

Join me today as I chat to women’s health coach Kate Rowe-Ham about her journey to founding the Owning Your Menopause app. 

 

Kate started out offering free workouts on Instagram to time-pressed parents after struggling to find the time to work out following the birth of her third child. The build up of (what she now knows were perimenopause) symptoms - serious joint pain, night sweats, panic attacks and palpitations - left her feeling desperate. Unable to get a clear diagnosis from her own GP, she was forced to seek private medical advice to get her perimenopause diagnosis and on to HRT. 

 

This led her to pivot her business and to the development of the Owning Your Menopause app, which offers daily workouts, plus advice from experts in nutrition, sleep, breathwork, and access to specialist GP advice. We talk about how critical strength training is for this midlife transition (and beyond) for preventing osteoporosis, improving cardiovascular health, strengthening our joints, and reversing the decline in muscle mass that begins after we turn 30 (increasing muscle mass in turn elevates our resting metabolic rate).

We also discuss the importance of rest, and adopting a sustainable approach to exercise - plus how to start when you really don’t feel like you can do anything at all, if symptoms are all-consuming. As busy parents we both know how challenging it can be to fit in a daily workout - the Owning Your Menopause app helps make that less of a chore with encouragement from like-minded members who are all there cheering one another on - and offering empathy on bad days…

 

You can find Kate at https://www.instagram.com/katerh_fitness and Owning Your Menopause at https://owningyourmenopauseapp.com/gym/Owning-Your-Menopause/ 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

 

My guest on today’s episode is Sally Mueller, CEO and founder of the Womaness brand with her co-founder Michelle Jacobs. Sally talks about her own journey through menopause, and her dawning realisation that with her understanding of the retail industry she could create some much more appealing options than the lacklustre products recommended by her own doctor at the time.

We talk about why and how Womaness chose to develop specific products to tackle the issues we might face in menopause and why the products we’re used to using might not work for us at this time of life. 

We touch also on the community that Womaness is trying to build - both through their 'After Party' community on Facebook, and through live events this October in celebration of Menopause Awareness Month. 

Tune in to find out what one thing Sally wishes she had known before going through menopause...

You can find Womaness at www.womaness.com 

They're also on Instagram @mywomaness

 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

 

This time we welcome photographer Jenny Smith who followed her long-held dream of working as a photographer after the birth of her son following IVF treatment. Several year later, after muddling through with a range of perimenopause symptoms, it was a moment of sheer rage - over something as silly as chicken wings - combined with a lucky moment listening in to a podcast, that led her to realise she was in perimenopause and seek help.

Since then, she's started the Dear Hormones podcast - a confessional of all the bonkers things our hormones have made us say or do - because sometimes if you don't laugh, you cry! We also talk about her passion project - 40 Over 40 - a series of stunning photographic tributes to women over 40 who are making a difference to the lives of other women. Having started out firmly in the menopause sphere, it was since pivoted to have a broader focus - but that's the beauty of this kind of project, you just go where you feel like it!! 

You can find Jenny at https://www.jennysmithphotography.co.uk/ and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jennysmithphoto/ 

The Dear Hormones podcast is at https://www.instagram.com/dearhormones/ 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

In this episode I chat to writer, blogger, influencer and content creator Gabrielle Blair, aka Design Mom herself, from award-winning blog DesignMom.com, about her new book 'Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion.'

After writing a (deliberately provocative) stream of Tweets in 2018 on why men are responsible for 100% of unplanned pregnancies which (of course) went viral, Gabrielle has been parrying responses (both positive and negative) ever since.

After four years of additional research, she's turned her thoughts into a small, but perfectly-formed book (road tested on all 6 of her children!) which she hopes will radically shift the focus of the abortion debate (a hot topic since Roe v Wade was overturned) on to preventing unwanted pregnancies.

We talk about why women have for years shouldered the vast majority of responsibility for contraception, why making this a 50/50 responsibility seems so radical but actually makes a whole lot of sense, given the facts around mens' fertility, and why this is a perfect time to reframe the debate, given how impossible it is to have nuanced discussion around abortion and bodily autonomy.

We also talk about how and why we need male allies to step up in support of the ideas in the book, and how critical it is that teens and young people engage with the topic. 

You can find Gabrielle at www.designmom.com on Twitter https://twitter.com/designmom and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/designmom/ 

Ejaculate Responsibly is published by Workman Publishing: https://www.workman.com/products/ejaculate-responsibly/paperback   

 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

 

In this episode of the podcast I speak with Coral Short (they/their) - a somatic therapy practitioner and performance artist. After some persuading on the part of their partner, Coral decided to celebrate their menopause transition with a menopause party earlier this year. We talk about why rituals and celebrations like this are such an important way of breaking through the stigma around menopause and aging, and modeling to future generations that this can be a time of great joy and possibility. In the face of society's fear of aging, taking up space and unapologetically claiming our wisdom, power, and experience is a rebellious act! We also talk about how the pandemic made many of us re-evaluate what we want out of our lives, and also promted us to reconnect to nature - so many of us feel disconnected from both nature and our own bodies, and this transitional time can be a key turning point for rediscovering those connections. Why not listen to this one in a forest near you! 

You can find Coral at www.coralshort.com and on Instagram @coralshort 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

 

Join me as I chat to Jo Moseley, who describes herself as a ‘joy encourager, midlife adventurer, and beach cleaner’. Jo came to stand-up paddleboarding at the age of  fifty-one and has built a reputation as a speaker, magazine contributor and as host of The Joy of SUP – The Paddleboarding Sunshine Podcast. 

In 2019, she became the first woman to paddleboard coast to coast, raising funds for 2MinuteBeachClean and The Wave Project along the way. A film about her journey, entitled 'Brave Enough – A Journey Home to Joy' has been shown at various festivals.

We talk about her own journey through menopause (though for years she attributed her symptoms to stress), a biscuit-aisle breakdown that finally prompted her to reach out to a friend for help, and how that lead to her many paddleboarding adventures - before SUP was everywhere!

We cover everything from basic tips for those of us taking up SUP to navigating loss and injury, to her rebellion against the 'empty nester lonely mum trope.'

Jo's book 'Stand Up Paddleboarding in Great Britain' can be ordered at

https://www.adventurebooks.com/products/stand-up_paddleboarding_in_great_britain?_pos=1&_sid=87fc9d8d7&_ss=r&utm_source=Jomoseley&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=jomoseleypromo

 

You can find her on Instagram @healthyhappy50 and on her website https://www.jomoseley.com/

 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

 

My guest this time is Angelika Buettner, a professional fashion and beauty photographer, who gradually became disillusioned with the lack of representation of older women in the shoots and campaigns she was working on, and decided to do something about it. The result, her seven-year labour of love, is the stunning book entitled 'I AM: Celebrating the Perfect Imperfect' which features the nude portraits and stories of 121 women over 40, redefining our ideas of age and beauty.

Having started off shooting her close friends, she gradually won over the trust of each of her subjects, finding the right locations and giving the women an opportunity to tell their own stories in their own words alongside these stunning images. Most of her subjects had never posed for nude photos before and many found the process transformational in accepting and appreciating their bodies.  Each of these stunning images is a love letter to the female form in all it's many shapes, colours and textures...

Her latest project will be interviewing mothers and daughters, exploring the impact of social media on body image, and we talk a little about that too. In a world that profits from making us feel bad about our bodies, our appearance and our age, loving ourselves exactly as we are is a radical act!

You can find Angelika's work, and buy her book, over at https://www.iam-themovement.com/the-book and on Instagram @iam_by_angelikabuettner

 

 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/