Meet Shona*. Shona is a 42-year-old, married, mum of two. She works in a professional role that demands a lot of her energy and patience. Her home life is busy and she feels as though her life is spiralling out of control.
She constantly feels stressed and cannot remember the last time she slept well as she is woken with night sweats so bad, she soaks her clothes. Shona feels unable to get through the day without coffee and has headaches if she doesn’t drink it. She is also training for a race which will be the longest distance she has ever covered.
Shona approached me as she was recommended by a friend. She knows she needs to change her diet but felt she needed support and guidance to get it right.
How we worked together
Shona committed to 3 consultations with email support in between. During these appointments I took time to learn about her health background and symptoms she was experiencing. I learned about her lifestyle – work & family life, activity levels, her eating habits and food preferences. We also discovered that she had many other perimenopausal symptoms but these weren’t on her radar yet being in her early 40’s.
At each appointment we discussed changes she could make to improve her symptoms. At the end of each session she chose a goal to work on that motivated, excited her and felt easy to do. This could be related to small dietary changes or changes to how she managed her day.
By working slowly and in this targeted way, it enabled her to directly link the change she had made with the improvement in her symptoms, which meant the change then became part of her life. She didn’t have to fight for change to stick because the change made her feel good.
The results
On Shona’s second appointment, just 3 weeks later she was delighted to tell me that she “cannot remember the last time I slept that well” and her night sweats had significantly eased. She was also seeing a difference in her training, reporting that running “just felt easier”.
It’s not always smooth sailing and sometimes, things hadn’t gone so well. Eating breakfast was difficult sometimes but discussion enabled us to identify WHY and create new plans in place around this. She was now FEELING THE IMPACT AND SEEING RESULTS which spurred her on to continue with her changes.
By the end of our work together Shona felt much less stressed and anxious, feeling more able to cope with what the day had to throw at her. She had been trying new foods and gained a few new recipes that all her family enjoyed, which in turn gave her the confidence to continue trying new things. This meant benefits for them all, as they were eating a greater variety of foods. She had a much more balanced diet based around three meals a day, rather than constant snacking on sugary foods to keep her going and was able to identify hunger cues which she had never been able to do in the past. Increasing her water intake had been a challenge but she was now drinking enough that her headaches had stopped.
Shona feels more energised but more importantly, she feels like herself again.
*name changed to protect identity.
Shona’s case study is the perfect example of how simple changes to your diet and lifestyle can have a significant impact on how you feel as you progress through menopause. What I know to be difficult is stringing it all together in a way that works for you and has the impact you need.
If you have tried unsuccessfully in the past to make changes and are ready to finally ready to make change that lasts, book in a no obligation call to see how we can work together to make that a reality.
Julie
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