43 min
E031. Cindy Willems - Fit over Fifty Matters of Movement
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- Health & Fitness
Cindy is the owner/creator of My Fit Over 50, a website dedicated to the health of women going into menopause and beyond. After enjoying a great professional dance career (working all over the world including Stratford Festival), Cindy reinvented herself becoming a certified Pilates instructor, acupuncturist and holistic nutritionist. Now she uses her over 10 years of clinical experience and passion to help other women embrace the changes that happen as we age offering up an opportunity to become our best self. She believes that it’s important to keep challenging the body safely and efficiently and lives by that rule by getting her black belt in Kung Fu at the age of 50. Cindy also has a busy acupuncture and Pilates business in Toronto.
The Importance of Self-Care
During the podcast, Cindy speaks passionately about the importance of self-care and being the best advocate for your health. She empowers women to ask questions and have conversations about the changes that happen to their body going into peri-menopause and beyond it. She wants women to know that there are ways to help support the body as their hormones fluctuate, and often this can help make those uncomfortable symptoms of menopause easier to manage. Menopause is natural and should be the next part of a life well lived.
What is peri-menopause?
Cindy explains that you can actually be peri-menopausal for about 10 years. During this time your progesterone and estrogen are not in balance anymore. That brings on certain physiological symptoms like: night sweats, the inability to get a good night's sleep, and of course your period changes.
It's a time to be reflective on the fact that things are shifting and changing, and that you need to be a little mindful about what that next part of the journey will look like.
Self-education is a good tool!
It is important to have conversations about how you are going to support yourself now that your estrogen is starting to drop, because estrogen is the fuel and the goodness that helps support your brain and your bones?
When you stop producing estrogen, it is going to affect your bones. So what you may want to do is talk to your doctor about hormones that are going to help supplement the estrogen loss.
What can we do to support our health going into menopause?
Taking care of yourself is one of the most important things when approach peri-menopause into menopause.
Your bones become your bank account, so if you deposit into your bank account before you are 20 years old, you are going to be able to withdraw from that bank account and be okay, but if you don't deposit into your bank account, then you are going to be in some trouble.
We need to be more mindful now about how we move, how we approach fitness and exercise when we are in that peri-menopausal and menopausal state because depleting ourselves is not a good idea.
Be mindful, mindful of your eating, mindful of your sleep, and mindful of your exercise. Cindy explains that those are the three key things to focus on.
They call it the Second Spring
It is a woman’s second puberty, and it can be a really exciting time. It is good to have that guidance to just let you know that it's okay. When you have those maybe not so good days that it's okay. When you just can't kill it on your workout today, it’s okay; at least you got that workout in. Right! That's good.
It is just about having that little bit of education around, what your body needs now that it's changing and shifting?
Contact Cindy
https://myfitover50.ca/
Cindy is the owner/creator of My Fit Over 50, a website dedicated to the health of women going into menopause and beyond. After enjoying a great professional dance career (working all over the world including Stratford Festival), Cindy reinvented herself becoming a certified Pilates instructor, acupuncturist and holistic nutritionist. Now she uses her over 10 years of clinical experience and passion to help other women embrace the changes that happen as we age offering up an opportunity to become our best self. She believes that it’s important to keep challenging the body safely and efficiently and lives by that rule by getting her black belt in Kung Fu at the age of 50. Cindy also has a busy acupuncture and Pilates business in Toronto.
The Importance of Self-Care
During the podcast, Cindy speaks passionately about the importance of self-care and being the best advocate for your health. She empowers women to ask questions and have conversations about the changes that happen to their body going into peri-menopause and beyond it. She wants women to know that there are ways to help support the body as their hormones fluctuate, and often this can help make those uncomfortable symptoms of menopause easier to manage. Menopause is natural and should be the next part of a life well lived.
What is peri-menopause?
Cindy explains that you can actually be peri-menopausal for about 10 years. During this time your progesterone and estrogen are not in balance anymore. That brings on certain physiological symptoms like: night sweats, the inability to get a good night's sleep, and of course your period changes.
It's a time to be reflective on the fact that things are shifting and changing, and that you need to be a little mindful about what that next part of the journey will look like.
Self-education is a good tool!
It is important to have conversations about how you are going to support yourself now that your estrogen is starting to drop, because estrogen is the fuel and the goodness that helps support your brain and your bones?
When you stop producing estrogen, it is going to affect your bones. So what you may want to do is talk to your doctor about hormones that are going to help supplement the estrogen loss.
What can we do to support our health going into menopause?
Taking care of yourself is one of the most important things when approach peri-menopause into menopause.
Your bones become your bank account, so if you deposit into your bank account before you are 20 years old, you are going to be able to withdraw from that bank account and be okay, but if you don't deposit into your bank account, then you are going to be in some trouble.
We need to be more mindful now about how we move, how we approach fitness and exercise when we are in that peri-menopausal and menopausal state because depleting ourselves is not a good idea.
Be mindful, mindful of your eating, mindful of your sleep, and mindful of your exercise. Cindy explains that those are the three key things to focus on.
They call it the Second Spring
It is a woman’s second puberty, and it can be a really exciting time. It is good to have that guidance to just let you know that it's okay. When you have those maybe not so good days that it's okay. When you just can't kill it on your workout today, it’s okay; at least you got that workout in. Right! That's good.
It is just about having that little bit of education around, what your body needs now that it's changing and shifting?
Contact Cindy
https://myfitover50.ca/
43 min