Your new year fitness plan; With MICHELLE BRIDGES

This episode of Prime Time is brought to you by Aware Super, the super helpful, super-unretirement experts. And thanks to Viking cruisers, no kids, no casinos, voted world's best. Welcome back to Prime Time and welcome to a fresh new year, ladies, this shows for you. This is the time of year when so many of us want to reset our health, get stronger, feel clearer, lose weight, and maybe sleep a bit better, I want all of it, do you? But here's the thing that almost no one says out loud. If you're a woman in your 40s, 50s or early 60s, every part of your health is being shaped by perimenopause or menopause, even if you haven't recognised the signs or don't want to talk about it. And that's why I wanted to start the year with someone who can speak honestly, practically and compassionately about what's really going on in women's bodies at this age, and how we can bring her wisdom into our health plans for 2026. So I'm bringing you Michelle Bridges. Michelle Bridges has coached thousands of women, and her work has decoded menopause, the symptoms, the physiology and the mindset. It's some of the clearest guidance I've seen out there. She's just released a new book called The Perimenopause Method, so we're going to dive into health, menopause and muscle mass right at the beginning of the year when we all want to know this stuff. Michelle, welcome to Primetime and Happy New Year. Happy New Year, I know, 2026. It's going to be a good one. I feel it. I have to start with a fun one. Do you believe in New Year's resolutions? Do you have one? Not really. No. I'm not a fan of them. I don't think that when you've got a list, a laundry list, you know, you know, probably feel, come away from it, feeling like you haven't been able to tick any of them. So if anything, I just say maybe one. I'm going in. I've got my, and I call it my intention. I've got my intention for 2026 already. Do you want to hear that? Yeah. Yeah. Please. I mean, it's not really all that glamorous, but I took my son over the weekend to help feed the homeless in Sydney, and I thought, right, this is what I want to do. I want to do more charity work next year. So I've already got a couple of things on the boil that I'm going to be doing, just giving back a little bit more to society. It's just, you know, it's a good time for me to be doing that. I'm a little bit older now, a little bit more time. I'm, you know, a little bit financially okay, so it's time for me to kind of start giving back. That's really beautiful. We can all take a leaf out of your book this year, I reckon. That's a good one. Well, it was good for him, too. He's only nine. Oh, he's now 10. I keep forgetting. But it's really good for a little 10-year-old boy to sort of understand how lucky we are and how to be, how grateful for his life that he has. Yep. I think that's a lesson we can teach every young person, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Now, we better get into your book because you've brought out the, what I reckon is ultimate Bible for us mid-life women. Thank you. That was the plan, actually, to have it so that it's kind of one of those books that you're going to read, get a truckload of information that you've probably never been given before. Certainly, wouldn't have been given it at school, probably would have never been given it from your mum or anyone for that matter. You're kind of doodling and finding out things here and there and everywhere. Now, the conversation is rolling, but it's all here in one book. And then I really see this as something that you would then give to your daughter. Yeah. Yep. And it's a resource, like it's not just a read, it's got food choices and exercise regimes and things to do and stuff all through it, right? Yeah. Really, this took a long time, this is my 18th book. Wow. Which is not, I've been a little busy, but I feel like this is the one I was always meant to write because this is really, it's so, it's so important for women of our age to understand what's actually going on with our bodies so that we can support ourselves with an educated and informed choices and educated and informed decisions. And really this portal of information, where was it? I don't know, like five, six, seven years ago when I was obviously in paramanopause and didn't even know that that word existed, that I didn't even, we don't know what you don't know. So you know, now that it's wonderful that there's conversation about paramanopause, I'll still go out to keynotes and I'll still have women come up to me and say, I've never heard of this paramanopause, what is this? Which I mean, I've been in this bubble now for so long that it still shocks me when I hear that. But I remember back, I remember back only when I was, you know, 49, 50, I didn't know what, I didn't know there was such a thing as paramanopause, I just thought there was menopause. Yeah, look, I went through period 46 and I didn't know what it was. I went to the doctor with all sorts of weird symptoms, like you talk about in your book and, you know, and the issue there, I don't know how you're, how was it with your doctor when you went to them, the symptoms, did you get, oh, it's taken me years to work through. It's taken me years to come back with more and more and more and more, and I will just put you on the pill. Yeah, and it's not, it's not the, it's the GP's fault. No, really, it's just that the system's a bit broken, a lot broken and it has never been in the curriculum and it still isn't in the, it's going to change, but that's going to take a decade before that information then reaches the next generation of GP's and then the next generation of women. So there's a lot of GP's out there that don't have the information that never, it was never in a university or if they were lucky to get a bit of air time in their curriculum, it would be maybe a couple of weeks. That's it. Like most, I've interviewed upwards of now nearly 20 specialists in this area and all of them said, all of them said the same thing. Michelle, I got minimal to no training on this topic. I've had to go out and do the hard yards research and educate myself. Well, I know that's what my GP does and she's very curious to take what you've learned yourself with research and stuff, I come in with my research and my information and like, like many of us I'm sure, oh, I think this is happening and they go, oh, oh, that's interesting. Why do you think that? Oh, that's, you know, and then she'll relate back to study to go read and we'll share studies and all sorts of fun things like that. I mean, I love it when you, you can share studies with your GP. That's, that's great and it's great that you've got a curious GP and one that's kind of, you know, interested in the topic, I think if you can probably be one of the best things you can do outside of getting yourself a GP that actually knows their staff and you can find them, that you can go to the Australasian, Menopause Society website and you can, there's a lot of registered GPs that, that state that they have got the knowledge. I, I think there are a little bit of you and far between but that again, that's going to change. But the best thing you can do outside of getting a specialist doctor is log your symptoms. So take notes and even if it's just in your phone, just take notes and start getting a little bit of a read on what's happening for you and you might even find some rhythms that are going on and then you can go in with all of that information and you've done half the job for them because you've got all the symptoms and you can even track it to maybe around your period or on the other side of your period or your periods of glitching or whatever your symptoms are, you've done half their job for them by doing that. It's, it's important, I think and so look, it's the second week of the year and, you know, just about every woman out there in Australia right now is thinking about how she can get a fresh run at 2026 and her health and how she can look after her body and her hormones and her mind and, you know, I just think you're the guru on it. Well, I have definitely done a lot of research and spoken and interviewed multiple specialists but they are the, they're the bags of knowledge and I've just got and collected it from all these different, you know, neuroscientists, professors, GP specialists, um, it's good. Neurologists. Yeah. But that's what communication takes, right? You've got to have to be able to communicate it all together and so I mean, it's been a fascinating journey and I've loved every minute of it. I've become quite passionate about it because I was, my mind literally blew apart when I was finding out all of this information that I never knew. I never knew about any of this. I knew, I mean, I thought I knew about menopause. I was clueless. I knew nothing and you know, and I've looked back now and I think what a, what a woeful personal trainer I was for all those mid-life women that I was training back when I was in my 20s and 30s, thinking I was doing them a really good job and I was completely clueless. You know, like, you know, training, everything has to change quite a bit, you know, there has to be a little bit of a rework, a work around on, you know, how you do things when you get to this point in life, which totally makes sense. I think we all want to know what we should be doing. I just love you to walk us through what's changed biologically in our bodies at this point, you know, where do we start understanding this stuff? Okay, so a quick 101, we start losing progesterone estrogen and testosterone in the chaos of perimenopause, it's chaotic, it's up, it's down, it's here, it's sideways, it's like a mental rollercoaster, but overall what's happening is that they're gradually going into decline. And this is all happening, as I said in the perimenopause stage, now they say the basic stats are between 45 and 55 will be, you'll become menopausal and that's, and perimenopause will begin seven to ten years prior to that time. So if you did your maths, if you hit menopause at 45, you could easily become perimenopause at 35 and it has happened and I've interviewed plenty of women that it has. So this is an age group that you're not even in about any of that stuff, right? So we'll get to that, but back, come back to the menopausal time and that's really just one day. It's the one day that you've no longer had a period for 12 months and then you are classified as menopausal. Now will your symptoms all suddenly drive and go away? No. They'll stay. Some of them may subside slightly over time. Some of them might even go, but some of them might even stay for well ever. And that's not to sort of, you know, fear mongor or have you sort of going, "Oh my God, you know, I'm doomed." It's more just that that's just nature and it's nature at work. Oh, one of my best friends is ten years older than me and she's, you know, well and truly on the other side of menopaus, but she's still having hot flashes all the time. They can stay. They can go sometimes, you know, sometimes they don't. It's all, you know, everybody's different, so everybody's symptoms will be different as well. The reason why we have so many whacked out symptoms upwards of, you know, 70 plus is because of the fact that we have estrogen receptors in every single part of our body, skin, hair, bones, muscle, gut, every brain, they're everywhere. So when estrogen and progesterone and testosterone decline, then you can have symptoms that can affect any body part. So you can have brain fog, you can have sleep disturbances, you can have skin that itches like you can't know, you can have burning mouth, you can have achy joints, you can have frozen shoulder. You're making a sound so delightful, so sexier, isn't it? I had tinnitus. I was waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of the old dial-up. Do you remember that? Oh, yes. I thought it was. Oh. The screaming noise of internet. The internet issue in this house. What the hell? So that's kind of like the premise of it, but there are so many things that you can do to support yourself and solutions and workarounds, but if you don't know, then you can't do those workarounds because you don't know what you don't know. So it's getting that education and then going, "Okay, all right, I can see this is where it's at and I'm already experiencing X, Y and Z. Now what can I do? What can I actually start to do to really support myself?" And the first thing is you've got to roll up your sleeves and put yourself first. You really do. The thing we tell everybody here, we're in the podcast for putting yourself first. That's what we do. Because everyone else is going to suffer, you know, everyone in the household, the family, mum and mum's in a really important job, role, career, you know, you're firing on all cylinders when you're in your 40s. You're hitting your strides, career-wise potentially. The last thing you need is to be like firing on one cylinder. You need all cylinders and then perimenopause comes along and kicks you in the ass. So again, knowledge is power. What can we do about it? We need to, I guess, first and foremost think, like have a look at our life and who we are and what we represent to our family members and to our work and realise that by looking after yourself, taking that time for you, it's a win for everyone. I agree and, you know, I've read your book and I sat with it and I thought, this is bigger than menopause. What you're teaching us is a whole health regime for looking after ourselves and it gets me excited that we're thinking beyond just the hormone balances to looking after our bodies better in this way. I understand. And, you know, like, I classified my symptoms as mild, although, you know, when I look back, they were still pretty debilitating. I was, you know, not sleeping well and I had a very badly aching hip, which I put down to maybe osteopenia or arthritis or from all of my years of doing a squat with a barbell on my back. But it was part of perimenopause for me and I've always taken care of myself. I've always, you know, looked after my health and I'm so glad that I have because it's really sat me in a very prime position now moving into my 50s, like how grateful I am to the girl that when I was in my 20s and 30s and 40s that I was doing all the legwork then to have me in the prime position now. But that's not to say that things can't change. You can make changes and you can make positive changes moving forward any time, any age, but the best thing to do is to start now. It's January, so it's the best time of year two, start. We all like to start new beginnings. It probably makes you cringe being in the coaching and health world because it's when everybody starts something and they don't always keep it going, but, you know, if everybody's feeling like they should start something, one of the big themes you start people off in your book with this movement, you know, why is strength training one of the most important things? What does it do for us after and during menopause to change our bodies? It's like it's, it is the fountain of youth, I'm not going to lie. So I wrote that in my first book, like 20 on years ago, and I stand by it. It's just so darn good for us, biomechanically, physiologically, mentally, the stimulus that it provides our bodies is going to set you up in so many positive ways. We met a bottom metabolically, so it will help improve insulin resistance. So insulin resistance, you know, diabetes, type two diabetes, you know, these are all the things that we want to try to avoid. I mean, obviously, diabetes, that's one of the things maybe is genetic, but type two certainly is something that can be done or supported through lifestyle choices. So building your muscle will turn you, if I want to put it into a layman's terms here, it will turn your body from a two stroke engine into a V8, basically, so the more muscle you have on your body, the more the more body fat, the more calories you're just automatically burning because it needs those calories to survive. So the more body fat, sorry, the more muscle you have on your body, the more you're just going to remain lean. And that's what really gets rid of body fat, that's what gets rid of belly fat is making sure that you've got lean muscle, but the benefit is not just aesthetics, although that's what everybody wants, aesthetics, but it's more than that, it helps with your bone density. So by strengthening the muscles, you're also strengthening your bones. It's just a muscular skeletal system, so your muscles and your bones work together simultaneously. So you're then now strengthening your bones, which is critically important from the age of 30, we hit our bone muscle mass at 30, and from that age, I know, right? From that time on, you are literally just trying to hang onto it as best you possibly can. And you do that through exercise, you do that through strength training, you do that through training that requires a jump of some sort, so whether it be a jog or whether it be skipping or whether it be jumping onto a box and stepping down, anything that gets your bones diring, which sounds like that doesn't sound good, but it actually is the beautiful, osteopaedic surgeon, Dr. Vonda Wright from the US, I interviewed her, and she's all about bones and bone density, and she's like Michelle, you've got to bash your bones to keep them strong, which is why we prescribe skipping, jumping, jogging, and you work your way up to that, obviously. Interesting. So those two things, but also cardiovascular exercise is still really important, and if you want to know the best bang for buck, when you've got minimal short periods of time, the best bang for buck for women of our age bracket for cardiovascular training is interval training. And that might be, it's anything that gets your heart rate up, and I'm not asking you to do it for like, you know, 10, 15, 20 minutes at a time, I'm only asking you to do it for like 30 seconds. So you get on a bike, or you get on a rowing machine, or you get on a cross trainer, or you get on, you go for a, you go to an oval, and you, you know, your jog on an oval, and it doesn't matter what it is, it's just you spike your heart rate for 30 seconds, and then you walk it off, or you cycle it off gently for like, say, two minutes, and then you repeat, repeat, repeat. So it's not exactly pleasant, but it's only 30 seconds, like, it's nothing. You could do 20, so you could start with 20 seconds, and then, so I get on a spin bike often, or I'll get on a cross trainer, and I'll blast myself for 30 seconds, and then I'm like, for two minutes, I'm just cruising, I'm cruising. And then I off again, and I just use my little timer, either on my watch or on the machine. And that type of training is the best stimulus for cardiovascular health, heart health, blood vessel health, that you can do, and it's very good time-wise, like, I'm not asking it to go for an hour's run, you know, this is, this is like a, a short 10 minute bit of training that you could throw on the end of your weights, that's usually what, how I do it. Frankly, you could do your running with it, and then you could be doing your jarring by the sound of it. Well, that's right. You can kill two birds with one stone here, you know, you're getting your, you're running, and you're getting your bone density work as well. But a lot of people say, "Oh, I can't run." It's like, okay, well, let's, you know, start small and we'll build from there, skipping again, back to that bone density bone strengthening work. So those three things, strength training, three to four times a week, throwing on that bit of cardiovascular interval training, and part of that interval training could be the jumping. So I've done that with skipping. I'm going to skip the 30 seconds and, "Ah, it's okay, man, skip this harder than you give it credit for it." And then I'm going to walk around the room going for two minutes, and then I'm going to go again for my 30 seconds. It's not, once you, you know, you're in the swing of it, you get a couple of rounds down, get maybe five or six rounds of that done. You've done a great job, and you've spiked your heart rate accordingly to a place that is really going to be the best stress stimulus for the best absolute band for Bach. So, a lot of women pull back in this stage, they might have, as you said, hip pain or fatigue or just a fear of their bodies, you know, after the last phase. Is there somewhere that you sort of say, "Is it easy place to start?" Is that where you think we should be starting is four times a week of. I would maybe start three, three times a week of some strength training, and just start small with some light dumbbells. You know, it's great if you can work with a personal trainer. It's really good if you can do that, maybe with a friend or a couple of friends to help with the finance payment of that trainer. And then you suck them dry for as much information as possible. You get them to write, you get them to write your programs that you can follow for the next six or so weeks, and then you can go back and they can check in on you. But you learn all your techniques and so on, because gradually, surely you're going to increase those weights. And so I feel like for some women, probably the best place to start, there would be with using pin-loaded equipment in the gym. So as opposed to picking up free weights even, particularly if we started to get a little bit heavy and now, you know, you started to really push, you know, hard, then a pin-loaded machine is going to set you up in a pretty good form, a pretty good technique, and it's pretty hard to hurt yourself or, you know, that's what I do. I get a trainer make me a program for about eight weeks and I go along and use the machines that have all the little settings on them and a way I go. It's, I mean, a lot of people go in it like gyms are like, well, you know, I don't like hospitals and I don't like retirement villages and I don't like sitting in a couch with a rug over my legs staring out the window because I can't, I've got no longer got any mobility. I don't like that either. So, find a way to like gyms, I've taught myself to like gyms, find a great playlist or an excellent podcast. Yeah, yeah. I listen to podcasts or music, or I go, I don't want to go, I still go, I don't have it in me today, I still go, I don't really feel it, I still go, like there'll be days some days when I just don't go, but for the most part, I go mostly because I am teaching myself that I am stronger than my excuses. That's great. Love that. And I always feel better afterwards. You know, I always have my little halo shining and, you know, it could be 20 minutes. You know, on the 12 week body transformation, we have the two methodologies, the perimenopause method and the menopause method. And both of those programs are 30 minute workouts. That's it. And that includes the warm up and the cool down, so the actual meat and bones of the workouts are 20 minutes. Wow. No, people probably don't think that they can do it in that efficient amount of time. Do you know what it, it's not the time, it's the consistency, that's what it is. It's not training for an hour or two hours, it's turning up and getting your 20 minutes or your 30 minutes done. And I just find that if I offer someone a 30 minute workout, it's more likely to get done than if I'm asking them to train for an hour. Yeah. Wow. I love your section on nutrition in the book as well and how you break it down by age group. That made me really excited to see how it changes from your 30s and 40s into your 50s and 60s and go all the way up to your 70s, because we have people listening here from probably somewhere in the mid 40s all the way up to their 70s. So it's, you know, could you talk to us about how things change in those different phases? Right now, the research is telling us that the best diet for a women mid-life and beyond is the Mediterranean style diet and low carbohydrate and minimal processed foods. That's really, and that's pretty much how I have eaten most of my life and it's pretty much how most of my program nutrition has been, nutrition programs have been written. So it's, you know, I think protein is having its moment in the sun today, you know, in this era. Like at the moment, everybody's just talking about protein protein. Yeah. Well, I want to ask you about it. Is it everything it's cracked up to? Yeah, it is. It is. But I think something that gets forgotten and I kind of feel like the next moment in the sun coming is fiber because, you know, that's where all of your, you know, processes around how your whole body and digestive system is really going to be a powerhouse when you get great, sorry, fiber into your diet as well. So yes, protein is absolutely important, great for all the amino acids in the way in which your body recovers and repairs itself and helps you maintain and build muscle, which we know now is, you know, going to turn our bodies from a two stroke into a V8 and help us burn body fat. I'm going to say that was those words again, burn body fat because I know that's what everybody just wants to hear that. That's what they want in January, they want to know how bad body fat. So yes, protein is absolutely essential, but we need to, most of us probably need a little bit more than we actually do, but if you can get it into your three meals, you're doing really well. But also looking at fiber and fibrous products, you know, all your green leafy vegetables, legumes, whole meals, whole grains, but lots and lots of, like in my house, I've constantly got green leafy vegetables, bok choy, broccoli, kale and I make beautiful salads with a really lovely vinaigrette. And yeah, that's, we're very simply. It's just whatever protein we're having and then our legumes and vegetables, and my son's used to eating it, like that's just how he's used to eating, so he's fine. I think that's key. I think he makes nice salads and salad doesn't become a chore, does it? No, I mean, it's having, and having your playlist of your recipes, you know, like again on the 12 week, we have all of these, that's what people come back to for us again and again usually is for the recipes they love them. And then you've got your playlist and you've got your favourites and you know, we're creatures of habits, so you just kind of put them a little bit on repeat and you throw a new one into the mix every now and again, and you bring out your old favourites. And that's kind of, you know, it's cheaper than eating out, it's way cheaper than Uber Eats, way cheaper. I'm just looking at my, in my book now, nutrition, I know I've got a whole list of, what's your favourite salad? At the moment, I've got this one on rotation, I can't stop. It's from one of my favourite, I follow her on Instagram. And it's basically a kale, a Tuscan salad, so it's Tuscan, kale, and then you shred that off and then you chop it up really finely and then you bake some pecans and oven so they're toasted, chop them up and throw it in, then you get radishes and you match, stick the radishes and then you get an apple and you match, stick the apple and then you get shredded chicken, so I just poach a chicken and shred it and throw that in. And then the dressing is the killer, it's the dressing people, it's olive oil and apple side of vinegar with some Dijon mustard and a smidge of honey and you mix that all up and you mix it through and then you massage it because kale can be quite a lot to chew. But we've lost the art of chewing because we eat all this highly processed refined food that you put in your mouth and it just melts, you don't have to chew and it's the chewing of that fibre that's going to help you on the other end of the toilet, hallelujah. I talk about poo, excellent, I talk about poo, you have to, that's important, I think. I talk about the poo tests a lot to people and try to encourage them to make sure they don't throw out their poo tests, so. No, we'll see, okay, so I had a colonoscopy, I'm 55 and I thought probably should do that, you know, no symptoms or anything but I went along and did it and I'm glad I did, he said you like, honestly, I have a pristine colon is what my doctor said which is quite surprising, I wasn't expecting those words coming out of his mouth, I was like, oh wonderful, I can't wait to tell mum. That's the benefit of all that fibre. Yeah, but for someone you age you had no polyps, you had none of that which is what I usually see for in people you're once, you know, they get to around 55 and beyond, so I was really pleased with that, you know, I put in the hard work now to make sure that I'm benefiting at this age, but again, like I said, it's, you can't, you can change so many things just by starting today, you can change so many health markers, so many, you know, just so many things. Like, it's a no, it's a no brainer, people, I promise you, you will not regret it, it's a case of being consistent and that when you sit at the top of the show, you know, you said, oh, people know that they want to do something but they may not stick with it, it's, it's about hanging in there for probably the first two months and then you, you got yourself into a bit of a rhythm, it's not just going to like walk up and don't cue over the head, oh, I love this. And, you know, there's days I wake up and go, um, I've got it in me today, but the benefits of that one hour session, the 23 hours that I have outside of that one hour session, those 23 hours of brilliant, like I'm independent, I'm fit, I'm running around, I'm doing this, I'm getting things done, I'm busy, I'm active, I can, I'm independent, you know, and if I speak to, I mean, I've asked this question of so many people, if you're looking to your future, how you see yourself in your 60s, in your 70s and in your 80s and hopefully into your 90s, you know, one of the things that you want to see for yourself, and there's always two things that come up commonly. One is that they don't want to be a burden and that they do and they want to remain independent. I'm here with Health Superstar and author of the Perry Manipur's Method, Michelle Bridges. So many of our community field that way and like I'm watching my mom and my dad go towards their 80s now and, you know, there's, there's a bit of real life in that. Yeah, that's cool. You know, it's a, well, dad goes to the gym three hours a day, I can tell you, he's strenght, oh my god, he's mobility and his fitness, it's just phenomenal. He's coming skiing with me for my birthday and, you know, that, that, that's so cool. Yeah, and, and I think my mom wishes she's, she's not as fit and the mobility is tougher and, and we can see it, she's probably five years younger than him and you can see a massive difference and, you know, the realities of what we do now. Yes, so you just don't want to become fragile, you know, there's this slogan that's going around strong over skinny, and I'm a, I'm a big believer in it as well. The frailty that can turn up from the loss of muscle and therefore the loss of bone density is a reality for so many women and it, you can actually reverse that. I've seen women go from osteoporosis to osteopenia and even back from there as well. It is doable, but you've got to roll your sleeves up and do the work. It's not going to just happen. You've got to do the stuff that's required to get yourself there. But we want to stay as far away from being fragile and frail as possible. The one and two women in middle age will have an osteoporotic fracture. One and two. Really? That seems like an extraordinary number. It probably leads me to my next question for you, which is what have you learned about vitamins and minerals and what, what can we get through our food and what should we be supplementing in this stage of our life? Yeah, so I mean, obviously you want to be aiming for as many nutrients through your food as possible, like absolutely want to be, you know, going for things such as, okay, let's go through a few. So for best fibre rich foods are legumes, lentils, chickpeas. If you're looking for those foods that contain, you know, sorry, pardon me, calcium, magnesium and vitamin D are the bones strengthening trio. So foods with calcium and the building box of bones without enough bones become brittle and more prone to fractures. Magnesium is the helper that ensures calcium gets properly absorbed and used also playing a role in muscle relaxation, mood stability and sleep quality. And you would have seen people or heard of people taking magnesium to go sleep every day. I take it every night. Vitamin D is a key that unlocks the door allowing calcium to actually get into your bones and without enough vitamin D, your body can't properly absorb calcium no matter how much you eat. So yes, it's important to get out and get a bit of sunlight and they say the best sunlight is the morning sunlight on your face, in your eyes, on your skin, even if it's just for like 10 minutes. Now you don't talk about GLP ones in your book. I didn't cover that actually. No, and it's an area that people talk about quite a lot at the moment and a lot of women are considering taking medications to help with their weight loss, particularly in perimenopause and menopause. Sure. I've heard of it. I know of ladies that are doing that. I know of ladies that have had some success. I know of others that haven't. I think, you know, I'm not a specialist in the area and so I can't really talk to it with a lot of gravitas, but what I do believe in my own personal opinion is that if you are going to partake in using supplements such as that at GLP1, then I would suggest that this is the most incredibly important time to really get your ducts lined up in a row as far as your exercise and your nutrition so that you're getting absolute best bang for bark out of this supplement that you may potentially be taking. So make sure that you understand about nutrition and you may not be eating anywhere near as much, but what you will eat, you want to make sure it's got the absolute maximum nutrients in it. Would you not think? Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And the muscle mass seems to be a big concern with this stuff as well. School's of thought that says, no, you won't lose muscle and there's lots of schools of thought that says, yeah, you will. So like why not just get that extra insurance policy and make sure that you are doing strength training. You've got all your exercise, ducts lined up, you've got all of your nutrition ducts lined up, so that then when you potentially stop taking that product, you're still, you're well-supported, you've been, the scaffolding is there to support you all the way through the metabolic framework. It sounds like the core stuff we should be doing shouldn't be turned off. Yeah, look, I'm not going to poo poo it one way or the other and I think it's been a success for so many people out there, but I do still think that there needs to be support and structure and education for those people so that when they eventually stop using that product, that they've got something there to support them to be able to continue on. Now my next one for you is alcohol. I've seen the way my body metabolizes alcohol change over the last five years. I used to love a glass of wine. Now it just does not agree with me at all. You're pretty candid about it in your book. What do you think women need to understand about alcohol's impact on their bodies? Well, probably one of the big ones is you either choose the glass of wine or you choose to have a good night's sleep. That's what happens to me. Choose because one of them's not going to work. I didn't use to happen like this, did I? I don't remember it happening like this in my 30s. No, I think it just definitely changes your body. Definitely metabolizes it very differently and it's going to affect you in more ways than having a lovely night meal with the glass of wine because you're going to probably find, thank you. You're going to probably find that your sleep is going to get knocked over and then if your sleep gets knocked over, then the rest of your day gets knocked over. So you're less likely to want to train or you're less likely to be able to function correctly throughout the day. Then potentially you have brain fog. It's one of your symptoms. I mean, it really is a house of cards. So it can be that one catalyst that can tip you over the edge, so to speak. I'm not saying to stop, but I think it's worth investigating, giving yourself breaks and throughout the year and really just, I guess, taking stock of what's important to you right now. For some ladies, I'll say, "The glass of wine with dinner is really important to me." I say, "Okay, that's fine." How's your sleep going? Have you got that sorted out? Are you prescribing to good sleep health with a dark room, cool sheets, cool bedding, a fan if required, preferably a fan with a remote so you don't even have to get up out of bed. What are you doing before beds? So you're starting to set yourself up with a little bit of what they call a night routine, which is giving your body signals and cues that it's time to go to bed. Have you got your phone in your room? Can you remove it? Are you watching TV right up to the last minute? So all of these things, if you've got your sleep health sorted and then you're having a glass of wine and you don't think it's affecting your sleep, then more power to you, but I would, most women, I speak to, they say the same thing that alcohol just does work for them. Completely blows mine up. And it's only been the last four or five years since I had parimenopause coming to my life. It has affected me and you also talk and you talk a lot about sleep in the book and you also talk a bit about brain fog and mood shifts and how all of this emotional stuff combines with the physical through our midlife and it can be quite an unrecognised problem. Absolutely. So I've spoken to a handful of neuroscientists about this and it's so interesting and this really gets me very excited. There's a doctor by the name of Dr. Lisa Moscone on Instagram if you can follow her. She's doing incredible work in New York on the brain and what is actually happening to women come parimenopause and it's like you're having a refurb, you're having a whole refurb going on upstairs. So it's changing, it's morphing and it's changing in many different ways. There's so much research on it, it's fascinating but with the decline of estrogen and progesterone and the brain having extraordinarily rich estrogen receptors, often what can turn up for most women. I'm not saying every woman but for a lot of women I've spoken to. The first symptoms tend to be neurological which are the sleep disturbances, brain fog, mood swings, agitation, depression, hot, the hot flushes. I've got all of them five years ago. The hot flushes are, you know, they're the poster goal for menopause and the only reason is because they can't pin it down to anything else. You know, that's a reaction to menopause or parimenopause but with the other things it's very easy to you know go oh well you know I'm a 42 year old woman, I've got three kids, I've got a mortgage, I've got a full time job, I've got a partner, I've got elderly parents, you know like I've got a problem. I was running a travel business in COVID, you know, that that was nothing better than running a travel business in COVID to have that and you were doing, you know, some training in COVID, I mean it's the realities of this journey into menopause that sometimes life stresses make you think it's life. That's right, that's right so it's very easy to kind of you know push those thoughts or feelings or symptoms aside because you're thinking that it's just you know it's 2026 and life is extraordinarily busy and full. That being said I just would also like to preface that it's important to get things checked out so you know I think at the moment everybody's because parimenopause is such a hot topic and menopause is such a hot topic and now everybody's- But not until you get to it right not until you hit it if you think about it's there in our world right but but for people who haven't been there yet I still have lots of friends that haven't crossed over they don't speak parimenopause yet right it's a bit like retirement I teach about retirement until you're tuning in to it yeah you're it's invisible it is it's very true which is again why we we should be talking about it because the messages are slowly potentially filtering through to the younger generation I've certainly got a lot more younger women you know coming to me asking questions and joining my programs in there in there you know I always thought my demographic was 45 plus but I'm getting women in it from 35 now coming in and getting getting all their ducks lined up in a row because they want to be prepared and ready which is great but I think it's easy to sort of throw the gauntlet down and say oh it's parimenopause that's what it is I still think it's important to get things checked out because if you dive deep on and look under the hood it could be something other than parimenopause but you know needless to say those neurological symptoms that start to show in parry can end up having a woman just feeling deflated and not really understanding what the hell is going on with me what the hell what's wrong with what's going what is going on and that's the word menopause because a lot of them don't know many years ago a lot of them didn't know about parimenopause so the word menopause for a 42-year-old woman is not even in their vocabulary no it wasn't in mine it wasn't even in minor 46 to be honest I just thought it was a 50-year-old woman's thing yeah so I think there's a lot of reality around the whole concept for men out there and possibly we have scared all the men off today from from listening to this show but I think a lot of men are quite interested now I want to know because it affects them too yeah and I also probably want to relate in because you know a lot about training men's bodies at this age as well you know muscle mass exercise and protein and all those things that they're not too different for men are they no there's a lot of bro hacking going on out there at the moment where all the bros are chiming in and telling all the midlife women what they need and should be doing and like they're not in my circle dudes bro it's not too dissimilar but it is really dissimilar for sounding like I'm sitting on the fence because there we are not small men with boobs we are a completely different biological you know mammal if you like and we we're very different we're really different so we need to train differently according to our cycles when we're younger we need to consider you know the things that we really need to put as a high priority when we keep midlife and our estrogen and testosterone and progesterone is declining you know men's testosterone will decline somewhat but you know nothing like what happens for us so there are some things that really really do become very important for for midlife women around their training and around their nutrition you know i was only just having this conversation about ice baths because they're all the the go like they've been they've been the go for a couple of years now really and there's big science behind the science and what I was pointing to it you know it's absolutely big science at behind it but now what's coming out is that women shouldn't be doing their ice baths as cold as men and they're not being wimpsed by doing that it's a different women get colder quicker and you want to get a woman to a state of shivering but not to a state of like absolute shutdown so that I found that really interesting because you know with you know I'm not a massive fan of the ice bath I'll tell you that and if I get to have my one-year in my mind a little bit warmer than the bros well I'm very happy with that another research was coming from a lady by the name of dr stacy sims who has incredible incredible knowledge around athletes athletic training for women and for men um and that you know I so I take a lot of um I take a lot of what she recommends and says as pretty pretty good pretty valid and well researched stuff yeah well I love I'm gonna go look up all these paintings stacy sims yeah stacy sims and and put them onto my instagram feed we haven't talked about the big elephant in the room hrt can you tell us a bit more about where it's going and what what we need to know about it yeah certainly and I think it's been was given a really bad rap back in 2000 sorry back in 20 so again I'll go again I'll go again we haven't talked about the big elephant in the room hrt it's such a game changer for people can you explain it and explain what's going on in that space yeah absolutely and it's a really big topic of discussion because you know so many of the myths have been lifted with facts and in 2002 the women's health initiative in America did this like billion dollar study it was like one of the biggest studies financially funded ever in the world it was massive so it was like getting a lot of attention and they were doing they're supposed to be doing some groundbreaking trials and exploring the risks and benefits of hrt but in reality it had devastating consequences for women's health because it became like a cautionary tale of bad science biased interpretation and then media sensationalism so yeah the media were not they were not there was a breakaway rogue crew within all of the doctors and professors that were doing the study and there was a like sort of a large number of people involved in the study and there was a rogue crew that broke away and said that they'd discovered that it was causing breast cancer that they were going to go to the media about it they hadn't even finished the trial which is like you know like the words you just don't go to the media with observations of a trial that hasn't even been clinically finished it was a disaster basically well and the study was studying 60 year olds if I remember it wasn't actually studying 46 year olds right so it was basically a just a disaster and then they went to the media and the media took it like clickbait and it went around the world that it breast hrt causes breast cancer and so every single doctor dropped it like a hot cake and so then that meant that probably two maybe three generations of women missed out on utilizing hrt now all of that research all of those clinical trials everything has all been walked back and debunked all of it yeah so so I mean it is it does have positive impacts on cardiovascular health and all sorts of stuff doesn't it yes it does the problem is that the mega microphone that they had to say that it was you know causing breast cancer the mega microphone hasn't been as loud letting people know that all of that was actually completely debunked and misinterpreted biased interpretation and just basically bad science so that's why we had all these generations of women that just wouldn't even go nearer and I remember even in my 30s and 40s thinking oh I won't be touching that stuff that's that's not always said don't you ever take it it'll give you breast cancer don't you ever don't you ever and it's just not true now it's just not and also the the science with we don't we no longer use horse urine which was part of what they used in hrt medicine back then we have bioidentical so it's it's it's exactly what we create in our bodies for our hrt which is now called mht that just changed the name standing for menopause hormone therapy so you can have you can be provided estrogen either through a gel or a patch in Australia there may be other forms in other countries but at the moment here it's a gel or a patch and you wear your patch for three days roughly and then swap it to a new one or you put on your gel every day you have a progesterone tablet that you take at night and this helps with your sleep and calms you and then you can also use testosterone well one of the very few countries in the in the world that will prescribe testosterone it's being a bit tricky I won't lie like I had I was prescribed it and I had a chemist like make me feel almost shamed about using it and so that sat me in the Nordic corner before he would give it to me really I know I rang my doctor and she rang him up and he said listen you're you're gaslighting my patients she's been prescribed it for a reason like it's there's still a lot of push and pull it about the testosterone it's so interesting testosterone's not on the PBS but estrogen and progesterone are but men have nine testosterone's on the PBS wow we don't have one we have to pay $90 for a one tube of testosterone that looks like the tube of a toothpaste and you just use the little tiny pearl like the size of your little fingernail and that's all you use but it's a hundred bucks so there'll be a lot of women that go I'm not buying that yeah wow which is a shame it's a very interesting space and I would encourage any woman struggling with side effects to go and explore HRT and find out from their doctor well you know I mean some women won't want to go on it some women will and that's fine some women can't but I think every woman every woman deserves the conversation and an educated understanding and an educated choice we all deserve that I guess for every woman out there listening um who doesn't know where to begin have you got one action she can start this week today to feel better by the end of January and then feel like she's on a path other than other than by the book which is obviously well obviously by the book or join my 12-week body transformation because you know that's always going to be the lifeline that's there for you um but I would suggest being kind to yourself giving you know cutting yourself a little bit of slack and it's been a big a big 2025 um and going taking yourself off for a walk every day particularly if you're lucky enough to be on holidays or have some time off then you know get up in the morning get some sunlight in your eyes take yourself off for a walk and you'll be probably quite surprised at how that just sets your day up beautifully um as opposed to jumping straight onto a phone or a screen or you know having a fight with your teenager because their room's messy whatever just get yourself out the door take the dog and just put yourself first and they can all sort themselves out for breakfast I'm a bit tricky for me because mine's 10 and he's probably pretty good to get himself breakfast now you but I don't you know like I think the most women my age have got teenagers I've got a 17-yard as my youngest now you know getting you out of bed still hot work yeah well there's always things called megaphones and tasers I'm joking Michelle Bridges thank you so much for coming on the show you're a legend we uh we admire everything you do and uh you know we'll put all the book information in the show notes for everybody but thank you so much you're so welcome you're more than welcome thanks for having me thank you for listening to Primetime Michelle Bridges new book is called the Perry Menopause method and it really is a powerful guide to the things we can do for our bodies right now I'll pop a link in the show notes so that you know where to find it now while I have you here and wearing to go for the new year don't forget our how to have an epic retirement flagship course is now booking for the 19th of February kickoff and you can get copies of my new books Primetime the 27 lessons for the new midlife and the updated and improved edition of how to have an epic retirement wherever you buy books for more sign up for my weekly podcast 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