You can thrive through menopause! Get your energy back, manage your weight, and balance your hormones with my free guide.

Download it here: https://www.disruptivenutrition.com/menopause 

What if I told you that so many of the struggles we face in our 40s and 50s, such as weight battles, sleepless nights, and mood swings, could actually be prevented years earlier? Today, I’m sharing the truths I wish I had known in my 20s and 30s that could have changed my menopause journey. 

The basics of preparing for and thriving through menopause include understanding how dieting can exacerbate menopause symptoms, why strength training is non-negotiable, and the importance of blood sugar balance and stress management. 

Whether you’re already in menopause, in perimenopause, or decades away, these truths will help you prepare your body and mind for long-term health. The choices you make today determine how your body will experience this inevitable season of life.

Conclusion:

Menopause is not a disease. It’s a natural transition. While we can’t stop it from happening, we can prepare for it and thrive through it. By fueling your body, building strength, balancing blood sugar, and managing stress well, you can step into this season with confidence and power.

In This Episode:

00:00 The struggles and truths about menopause

03:36 Truth #1: Dieting will make menopause worse

08:14 Truth #2: Cardio without strength training limits thriving

09:33 Truth #3: Blood sugar balance is critical

14:03 Truth #4: Stress is a mindset

16:54 Truth #5: Menopause is an inevitable season, not a disease

18:40 Truth #6: Hormone replacement therapy is a proactive measure  

20:36 Final thoughts on thriving through menopause

Mentioned In the Episode:

Dr. Sarah Daccarett’s Hormone Replacement Therapy Treatment: https://www.innerbalance.com/

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Connect with Carrie Lupoli:

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Other Related Episodes: 

Looking for additional tips for a sustainable, healthy lifestyle? Check out these episodes: 

• I Went Through Menopause at 46 With Zero Symptoms
• A Masterclass In Hormones You Have NEVER Heard Before

Transcript: 

[00:00:00] Carrie Lupoli: What if I told you that some of the struggles that you're dealing with in your forties and fifties didn't have to be this hard? That if I had known what I know now back in my thirties, I mean about menopause, about hormones, about blood sugar, stress, how my body really works, I could have saved. Self, years of frustration, weight battles, sleepless nights, all sorts of things.

[00:00:24] Carrie Lupoli: And so today I'm pulling back the curtain and sharing the truths I wish someone had told me sooner. Because this isn't just about menopause, this is about preparing your body, your mind, and life for the decades ahead. So if you know somebody in your thirties, if you are not, make sure you share this episode.

[00:00:41] Carrie Lupoli: 'cause it's gonna be one to listen to.

[00:00:47] Carrie Lupoli: Well, hey there. So when I was in my thirties, I thought menopause was like something so far off in the distance. Something that like only mattered when I was gonna be in my [00:01:00] fifties, and that was like. Forever, forever away. But now looking back as I realize so much of what I struggled with, uh, when I was in my twenties even.

[00:01:15] Carrie Lupoli: Like they contribute to how life actually shows up for you in your fifties. And so this message, you know, if you're in your, your, your forties, fifties, sixties, you've gone through menopause, I don't want you to think that this is not for you because we are going to talk about things that regardless of what age you are, it's gonna help.

[00:01:35] Carrie Lupoli: But if you are in your twenties or thirties, I mean. This is so powerful to listen to. So if, if you are a subscriber to my podcast, uh, and you are in your fifties and sixties, I were gonna listen, but I want you to share this with somebody in their twenties and thirties because. This is going to be like gold.

[00:01:53] Carrie Lupoli: The stuff I wish I had known and how my body was changing and what I was [00:02:00] doing and how it was impacting it. If I had known then what I know now, I could have saved myself a whole lot of frustration, a whole lot of fad dieting, a whole lot of feeling like my body was working against me. And so today I wanna share the six biggest things I wish I knew when I was in my twenties and thirties about.

[00:02:17] Carrie Lupoli: Menopause. And again, if you are through menopause, if you're in perimenopause, this is still gonna be very, very valuable because these truths are what every woman needs to hear and it's never too late. Okay. So these six truths, as we dig into them, it, it's like. I think so many of us have just done what we have kind of been told and, and I, and I liken our body to an airplane all the time.

[00:02:49] Carrie Lupoli: Right? Like. Our body is like this airplane, and for too long we have been the passenger in our own plane, having no idea how to fly it. No idea. Well, [00:03:00] how all those button works, buttons work or anything like that. And so we just sort of sit back and it's almost like we feel like we don't have a right to know.

[00:03:07] Carrie Lupoli: It's just a, we're supposed to do what, quote unquote, they tell us. As I, I feel like I can't unsee the things that I have seen now over the last decade plus of working with women. And it's, it's, it's almost like so clear to me now, but I realize that it is still like clear as mud to so many people. And as confusing as things are, I think today is going to clarify a lot of things and I'm gonna try to make it as simple as possible.

[00:03:34] Carrie Lupoli: So, uh, truth number one that I wish I knew when I was younger. That even if you are not younger, you need to know now. Dieting will make menopause worse, and if you are in menopause, it is making it worse. Diet culture sets us up to fail, whether it's cutting calories, skipping meals, cutting carbs. I I will say [00:04:00] this, I, I've said this for the last 10 plus years.

[00:04:03] Carrie Lupoli: Tell me one thing that thrives. Thrives in a deficit. Just tell me one thing. I'll wait.

[00:04:14] Carrie Lupoli: Yeah. My little JE song. Nothing. Well, nothing thrives in a deficit. Why is it that health professionals, nutritionists personal trainers? I need you all to stop saying caloric deficit. I need you all to stop saying we gotta take in less than we burn. I need you all to stop saying it. Because the more you say it, the more women think that if I just eat less and less and less, oh, maybe I'm not at enough of a deficit.

[00:04:40] Carrie Lupoli: It's, it's like this magical number that we like that we're not allowed to have. Like, think about it, we are passengers on our own plane and people tell us like, you have to hire a nutritionist to tell you like you should be having 1,942 point. Seven calories per day. [00:05:00] Like nobody actually knows it. It is, it is like the Wizard of Oz and the man behind the curtain.

[00:05:07] Carrie Lupoli: You, yes. If you overeat, I get it. Calories have energy and it's, it's really like, it's not about calories and calories out. 'cause if it was, it's like 350 calories of an Oreo cookies, the same as 350 calories of Turkey, almonds and an apple. No, it just isn't. And so like we need to have the right amount of food, but constantly telling women to deprive, to restrict, to put their bodies at a deficit is like telling them to keep running their car on fumes.

[00:05:39] Carrie Lupoli: And you wonder why you aren't able to win the race. This is what happens when we don't know how to fly our own plane. We just sit back and we're like, oh, okay. Well, right now we're flying over Toronto and I'm just gonna trust that we're flying over Toronto. I'm gonna hope that I'm gonna get to where I wanna be, but I have no idea how to fly this plane.[00:06:00] 

[00:06:00] Carrie Lupoli: Now counting calories is a, a completely oppressive, uh, outlandish, time consuming, absolutely sucky experience. Like anybody that's ever counting calories, they know they don't wanna do that forever. You would never, never let a kid count calories. So why is it suddenly as we're an adult, this is appropriate practice?

[00:06:24] Carrie Lupoli: It's not. But nothing thrives in a deficit. And here's the problem. The more we restrict and the more we cut out macronutrients, macro means big like carbs. Carb is one of only three macronutrients. We are depriving our body. Restriction stresses out our body. It disrupts our hormones, and, and it leads to blood sugar swings because when we're deprived, when our, our blood sugar's really low and our body wants to grab nutrients, where's it gonna go?

[00:06:52] Carrie Lupoli: It's gonna grab nutrients from our muscles. One of the most, it's like gold. It's literally grabbing. Gold from our body. And [00:07:00] then when we eat, because like we're hungry, we binge, we're on and we're off, and our blood sugar goes up. Every time our blood sugar spikes, our body has to release insulin to try to mitigate that spike.

[00:07:11] Carrie Lupoli: Insulin's a hormone. Once one hormone's off, hormone is off, all hormones are off. Uh, okay. We have to recognize that dieting and restriction is actually causing our body to be out of balance. We have to ignore and, and push through hunger. No hunger is our body's way of talking to us. Chronic dieting will absolutely raise your cortisol.

[00:07:33] Carrie Lupoli: It will lower your metabolic flexibility. It will make menopause harder. If you are in your twenties and thirties, please just stop. Restricting and it may feel like when you're in your twenties and thirties, like if I diet and I lose weight, it's working. I need you to actually define working because losing a little bit of weight, which is actually not fat loss, it is not [00:08:00] healthy, it will come back to bite you.

[00:08:03] Carrie Lupoli: You can absolutely get to an optimal weight by eating as you should. Okay. Sorry that I get on a little tangent when it comes to dieting. All right. Two. Cardio without strength training actually limits our ability to thrive. Okay. Menopause brings muscle loss. It does as we get older. Okay. Uh, it's gonna lower metabolism muscle.

[00:08:35] Carrie Lupoli: Is this gold? Your metabolism, the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism is. Cardio. While we think it's fat loss, it is just such a myth. Strength training is a non-negotiable for women and like when I was a, I was a division one athlete, like our, we did very little strength training. It was like [00:09:00] ridiculous.

[00:09:01] Carrie Lupoli: We have to build lean muscle. It protects bone density. It stabilizes blood sugar. It helps with body composition and just this endless cardio. No cardio. If you love it is fine. But don't do it for the reasons of weight loss or necessarily cardiovascular health. Like I'm not saying it, it doesn't bring about that.

[00:09:24] Carrie Lupoli: I'm saying that you can get all of that with strength training. If you're only doing cardio, you're speeding up the very thing you're trying to avoid muscle loss. Okay. All right. The third thing I wish I knew, I wish I knew and understood blood sugar and why it was so important that my body. Balances blood sugar in one of two ways, through food or on its own.

[00:09:45] Carrie Lupoli: And when it has to keep balancing it on its own because of restriction, because I'm not fueling it correctly, then my body's going to get very, very tired by the time menopause comes around. Stable blood sugar is [00:10:00] a foundation of everything. Our energy, our mood, our focus, our metabolism, our weight, our hormonal balance, literally everything.

[00:10:06] Carrie Lupoli: When your blood sugar is stabilized on a regular basis, your body is in something called homeostasis. Homeostasis simply means balance when your body's in balance. Everything's in balance. When your body's not in balance. Then multiple things are not in balance, and what we know is a dysregulated blood sugar over time actually adds up to a whole lot of problems, including metabolic disease.

[00:10:34] Carrie Lupoli: Metabolic disease like diabetes, pre-diabetes. I put them in the same category. By the way, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, PCOS, uh, is actually related too. Blood sugar issues, uh, even cancer and stroke, dementia, Alzheimer's. But if we're just going into hormonal balance, I'll tell you the story. One of my clients, [00:11:00] Tara, uh, had been learning how to bounce her blood sugar.

[00:11:02] Carrie Lupoli: She was pre-diabetic. She had horrendous night flash, uh, hot flashes and, and menopausal symptoms. She was 52 years old, 53 years old. And uh, after working with us for a year, working with me and my team for a year, she was like, I mean, within weeks she was feeling better and she hadn't had a hot flush in a year.

[00:11:22] Carrie Lupoli: And then she went out for breakfast and, um, got a. Big stack of pancakes and she did it to serve her soul. It was completely intentional and it's always like, there's no restriction if that's, if you're intentional about it. She was like, I'm having a soul fill a meal and I'm gonna, I'm gonna love every minute of it.

[00:11:38] Carrie Lupoli: But she did. She spiked a blood sugar. Now, the longer you're balancing your blood sugar intentionally, the better and better your body can be at handling it. But what's so interesting is that night she woke up with the worst hot flashes and night sweats, and she said it was unbelievable because I realized by having such a big spike in my blood sugar, how much it connected to hot flashes.

[00:11:58] Carrie Lupoli: And so when you [00:12:00] have stable blood sugar, you will experience your menopausal symptoms and you'll have a lower risk of all this. Disease, heart disease, diabetes, all of that, because we actually have such a sensitivity after menopause, we, we see heart disease and diabetes spike after menopause. So let's start balancing our blood sugar.

[00:12:20] Carrie Lupoli: So how do we do that? When I talk about, uh, balancing our blood sugar through food, we talk about the PFC three formula, protein, fat, and carb together at every meal as much as you can about every three hours, eating within an hour of waking up. And eating as mu as much as you can, making sure that protein, fat and carb are clean, hold unprocessed food.

[00:12:41] Carrie Lupoli: The older you get, the more sensitive you are, but it doesn't mean you don't have, it's sens sensitive to sugar spikes, but it doesn't mean you don't have carbs. Carbs can be also vegetables and fruits in addition to like bread and pasta. The, the vegetables and fruits are full of nutrients. You need those nutrients.

[00:12:58] Carrie Lupoli: You need the energy that comes with it. [00:13:00] Protein, fat, and carb every three hours. It, it, it's, it's literally like. Absolute gold for your body. And I know it. I, I, I, I know it works. I've trademarked it. But also, uh, I have taught this to thousands of not just clients, but other health professionals to be able to teach this to their clients.

[00:13:20] Carrie Lupoli: And just in the data around continuous glucose monitoring. That I've done with my clients and we just see it. You can keep your blood sugar stabilized all day long and eat carbs. You can't, you don't have to track. You don't have to count calories. You wanna always feel ready to eat, satisfied, ready to eat, satisfied, and your protein, you wanna have a little bit higher than your carbs.

[00:13:39] Carrie Lupoli: I don't count or track, I just know I'm having more grams of protein than I am carbs, and maybe about half of that. In fat. You know, some of your protein is already gonna have the fat in it like salmon and steak and ground beef or ground Turkey. So being thoughtful about that is how you can ensure that you're keeping your blood sugar [00:14:00] stabilized and it's so simply, you don't have to restrict it all.

[00:14:03] Carrie Lupoli: All right. The fourth thing that I wish I knew you, uh, in my twenties and thirties is that stress is a mindset. Some people get mad at me about that. But we are not victims to stress. Everybody handles situations differently and perceives situations differently. And if I had been taught how to handle my stress in a more productive way, this is why like I love that right now people are more open to therapy than they were when I was in my twenties and thirties.

[00:14:32] Carrie Lupoli: It's sort of like a thing, like therapy is important. Therapy matters. And so what's so important is that menopause symptoms intensify with unmanaged stress. Cortisol spikes. Will then also spike your glucose level when your glucose level is spiked. Remember, cortisol's a hormone, insulin's a hormone. Once one hormone is off, all hormones are off.

[00:14:54] Carrie Lupoli: It impacts our sleep. One night of dysregulated sleep actually can impact our body like that of a type [00:15:00] two diabetic, and therefore our hormone balance gets completely off. Stress doesn't just happen to us though, it's how we interpret life. Our amygdala. This little tiny part in our brain can get really big, and it overwhelms the knowledge center of our brain.

[00:15:13] Carrie Lupoli: So emotionally we can absolutely get ourselves triggered. Stress is real. It happens to all of us, but how we think about it, how we process it, our mindset, it changes, how it impacts the body. If you can manage it. If you don't learn how to manage stress, menopause, menopause will absolutely manage you because you're not just gonna get older and think, okay, once I'm older, I'm gonna learn how to manage stress.

[00:15:38] Carrie Lupoli: No, you need to actually be able to learn how to manage it now, and so we'll do, I had lots of podcasts about stress and things like that. I, I. I teach this to my clients, um, write about this in my book and, and, and in my morning time every single day, I am live on Instagram at 6 45 in the morning and, and talk through managing stress.

[00:15:56] Carrie Lupoli: But the first thing I think we have to do, and I always say that self-awareness is health, [00:16:00] is to be aware that stress doesn't just happen to you. It's how we interpret a situation and how our feelings, while they are, should, and be respected as real, do not necessarily equal truth. We can, even if we can't control our feelings, we can control our thoughts and our actions.

[00:16:21] Carrie Lupoli: I say to my kids all the time, you're responsible for how you act regardless of how you feel. You are responsible for how you act regardless of how you feel. And by acting in a certain way that aligns. With the identity that you really want. So if you are stressed and then you get angry and frustrated, but you act angry and frustrated, it turns into this horrible cycle.

[00:16:44] Carrie Lupoli: But if you can control your actions, you can control your thoughts, which you can, it's amazing how your stress can actually dissipate. So let's keep moving. All right. The fifth thing that I wish I knew is that [00:17:00] it's not if, it's when menopause happens. And I am going to like literally scream the next time I hear about diagnosing menopause as if menopause is a disease that has to be diagnosed when we get our periods.

[00:17:18] Carrie Lupoli: Nobody diagnoses us as if getting your period is a disease, as if it's something that happens to some people and not others. We're all, we're all going to get older. It's inevitable. It's not something to fear, but we prepare for it. Too many women treat it like this is this illness, but it's actually just a natural transition.

[00:17:40] Carrie Lupoli: It doesn't mean your body's broken. It means your body's asking you to take care of it differently. And if you're in the middle of it now, all these things that I'm telling you are going to make it better. In fact, that's the majority of women that I work with are already in it, and we can actually make it so much better.

[00:17:56] Carrie Lupoli: But imagine if we can get in front of it. How much better [00:18:00] it can be. We need to normalize the conversation. Women need to stop being blindsided by this because we're sitting in the passenger seat. If we are Dr. Flying our own plane and we know the turbulence is ahead, we prepare for it. That's what I'm asking for us to do, and I'm asking for you to be able to share with the women in your life.

[00:18:17] Carrie Lupoli: So make sure you're subscribing to this podcast. If you're on YouTube with me, just hit that subscribe button. If you're not on YouTube and listening and like wherever you get your podcasts, I encourage you to get to the YouTube channel because the video is there and uh, you can kind of interact with comments and things like that.

[00:18:36] Carrie Lupoli: But wherever you're gonna do it, go subscribe so that you can continue to learn. All right, now let's get to this six one, which I think is honestly one that I've only recently really believed in and understood. HRT Hormone Replacement Therapy Treatment. There's a lot of different ways people use that t it's proactive, it's not reactive.

[00:18:59] Carrie Lupoli: [00:19:00] Hormone replacement therapy is often misunderstood, and I think this is something that's so important. Thank God for Dr. Sarah Dre. Sarah has been just a mentor of mine now. Uh, she's younger than me and she is an expert. Like your OB is not necessarily an expert in your hormones, and I, I didn't know that.

[00:19:21] Carrie Lupoli: I, I did not know that. But a hormone expert like Dr. Sarah dib inner ballads.com, I cannot speak about her enough. I cannot speak about her practice enough. I cannot speak about her philosophy enough. It's not about waiting until you're miserable and then trying to fix something, because we know all of our hormone levels are estrogen and progesterone or test testosterone are going to decrease.

[00:19:44] Carrie Lupoli: They're going to start to diminish as we get older, and we can actually be proactive in that because. Our hormones are there for a reason. They are about like, they protect our heart health, our bones, our cognitive function, and if we know they're gonna decline, then why not do something [00:20:00] proactive about this?

[00:20:01] Carrie Lupoli: So I know my girls like, once they finish having their babies, they're gonna be starting, they're gonna work with Dr. Dra. Without a doubt. Research shows like HRT bioidentical hormones, especially when it started earlier, can actually reduce risks of osteoporosis, dementia, metabolic disease. It, it's a proactive measure that is not talked about because we are sitting in the passenger seat of our airplane and nobody who's showing us the flight manual and how to fly it.

[00:20:27] Carrie Lupoli: That's one of the passions that I have to be able to do. We don't need to wait until the wheels are falling off the plane. This is about supporting your body for longevity, so. Here it is. Menopause is not something to tread. It's something we prepare for. Like we're preparing for a wedding, we're preparing for childbirth, we're gonna prepare for this.

[00:20:48] Carrie Lupoli: The choices that you make in your twenties and thirties and forties are shaping how your body's going to experience menopause in your fifties and beyond. I, I ate whether menopause at 46, but I had been living this [00:21:00] lifestyle, the lifestyle that I'm talking about right now for almost, almost 10 years by that point.

[00:21:05] Carrie Lupoli: So I didn't have even close to the symptoms. That I had or that many of my clients have had. But holy cow, I mean, I've gone through the wringer when it came to what I did to my body, and I know that a lot of that caused some of my infertility issues and some of the other things like that. I wish, I mean, if I had known about this, how much further I could be, but I always say, wherever you're on your journey, there's a place for you and it's never too late.

[00:21:33] Carrie Lupoli: Dieting over cardio, ignoring strength training, pushing through stress, neglecting blood sugar balance. These are the things that are making menopause harder, whether you're in it or will make menopause harder if you are not there yet. But fueling your body, stabilizing your blood sugar with PC three, protecting your muscle, managing stress, being proactive with tools like HRT.

[00:21:56] Carrie Lupoli: That's how you thrive through the season of life. [00:22:00] I wish I had noticed. My early thirties. I'm telling you now, I'm telling you now. If you are in your early thirties, I'm telling you now if you are in the middle of the menopause or through it, because it all matters and it all will help. So who are you sharing this with and what are you taking from this in terms of your own journey in the menopause?

[00:22:28] Carrie Lupoli: Madness. I actually think it's just so miraculous. It's something that I always say in morning time, like, let's get grounded in gratitude as part of your morning time. It changes the way your brain looks at situations, and we know that. We know the research around having gratitude and I think about what my body has been through all that I have put through it, and how it continues to show up for me and tries to be my best friend.

[00:22:50] Carrie Lupoli: How I was able to birth miraculously one amazing little girl and how throughout the last 50 years of my [00:23:00] life, it has kept me upright and has kept me moving. It has kept me to be able to serve my purpose. So if you are in the middle of it and you are struggling, let's take a step back and realize what a miracle our body is.

[00:23:14] Carrie Lupoli: And we can absolutely thrive through menopause. So I actually have a menopause guide that I've written that I will include in the show notes here so you guys can actually go through and look at some of the pieces of the menopause puzzle, a little bit more about what I talked about with and balancing your blood sugar.

[00:23:29] Carrie Lupoli: And hopefully that will help give you a sense of like some strategy. But continue to follow, continue to subscribe, continue to tag along because this journey is one of continued self-discovery learning and never ends. So let's keep going at it together. Thanks.