The #1 Mistake Women Make Trying to “Get Healthy” in Midlife | Dr. Andy Galpin | Be Well Moments

0:00Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers improve their health and well-being.

0:10So I had this question this week from a woman who stood up. She said, I'm in my 40s, like early 40s, and you haven't got an answer directly to her, but this is just a very general question. Pre-menopausal and have kids, and I just really struggle to stay healthy. Like, what do you advise? Like, how can you help me? What a great question. I think if you're listening, there's a large chance you're like, that's me. I mean, what a common thing. And there's good reason for that. Raising kids is really hard. Generally falls more on the responsibility of the woman than the man. And then also, if you're trying to have a career on top of that, you go to zero.

0:59And it's just a really real thing that happens. It's also at the time where what worked in your 20s probably doesn't. You don't have the energy. You are way more fatigued. Your mental load is high. And you haven't transitioned into a life because your kids are probably younger at 40. Where you're still managing the whole house or large part. Like there's just a lot going on. And then you're supposed to be on top of your health too. Okay, super challenging. So the answer to that question would be like, what can you do? What I'd say is find one thing, one thing that you can control that is a positive lifestyle thing and just like lock onto that thing with a grip.

1:43if this is protecting your time for sleep if this is protecting self-care time your personal time a lot of the times i say that because even if you're an introvert extrovert the one of the major challenges with moms in that age range is they get no space right because they get space work kids spouse family like everyone always wants them whether that's true or not many women feel that's the truth again it's not always the same but we're having broad generalizations of yeah characterizing every female 40 is the same person but it's interesting because when i spoke to a happiness expert from ucl he said people elite and it's very hard to like define what happiness is it's a very nuanced word and a fleeting part of fleeting emotion but he said you see this kind of bell-shaped curve where it goes it dips in mid-age because your parents are getting older you've got young kids, you're trying to be like at the top of your career at work.

2:40You have so many responsibilities and like basically no time for yourself. And then your basic happiness starts to increase again. Like once your parents pass and once your kids get to an older age of 18, you have a bit more freedom. The most traumatic event that women will ever go through in their life on average is childbirth. It is a insanely physically and emotionally difficult thing. And most people have no strategy with that. You just like get through it, right? And so what that does is one of the single, if not the single biggest creator of clinical sleep disorders in women is pregnancy.

3:17So you can create legitimate clinical sleep disorders through that. Postpartum depression is a very real thing. We could go on body weight, weight gain, right? So like the biggest contributors to all of these things, sleep disorders, body composition, mental health, like childbirth is the center of that for women if you have a child, right? So it's a huge thing and we generally don't do anything about it. We give very little like just get through it. Okay, there's like your OB who's handling the birth and stuff. But the other things, we actually created a program at Absolute Rest where we have three months when we're trying to conceive.

3:58Like if people are at that stage, they're intentionally trying to conceive. And then different strategies that happen during pregnancy, different strategies specifically in the third trimester, and then different strategies for like the nine months post-birth. Why? the demands and this is specific to sleep and the solutions differ very very much so in those individual stages but there's no education there's no information there's no things like that you're just like as a you know mom you just like just get through it right you just try to survive you just try to survive for sure so my answer to that again specific question was like find the thing, if it's the personal space you need, fine.

4:39If it is exercise, fine. If it is, you need to chat with your friends once a week for an hour, whatever it is you have to do, just try to get that one thing and just hold that true and say, and you fail. Like again, I have two young kids. My wife is 44. So like, I know this avatar like very clearly and we fail miserably all the time and all the stuff that happens right and we're not perfect and we've done different things but that would be the one resounding thing where I'm like you have to have something that's yours that's non-negotiable that is your complete thing and she still regardless of that will give up that thing for the kid when I'm like don't know like I'll do that but okay okay so moms are just like going to do that fine you're gonna fail a ton of times but just have something that you try to come back to.

5:33So as not a mom. But what about nutrition? Because she said to me, she followed her question on with that because she was like, protein's such a big thing. Should I be having more protein? She's like, I'm just so confused. Yeah. Okay. So again, the most dramatic thing most women will go through is having a kid. Why that matters is your taste buds will change and other things like that. So the nutrition aspect of it is like, meat is a common one. Sometimes after pregnancy, women are just like, I cannot eat meat. The smell of it, the whatever, I'm out. So yeah, push protein, sure. But if you're like, oh my God, it makes me feel nauseous.

6:08Then I would be like, don't, then maybe, maybe chill on it. Don't have to worry about that. My stomach, my wife has this weird, like stomach pain thing with eggs. Happened for years when she got pregnant, went completely away. Craved a ton of eggs and then had the kids, came right back. It's like, can't eat like it. So do the best you can with what your body is telling you. And if a food like fruit in this particular case that you know is really good for you and your body's just like, nah, fine. Don't let it get you down. Let it go. You don't want it. All good. Smoothies. Oh my God. So like never a smoothie again for Natasha.

6:46I'm like, okay, fine. So these things are now off the table. She wants to eat them. She, she's just like, I can't. Okay. Even though it's been seven years since her first kid, she's just like not there. So the protein or the recommendation specifically would be, you know, the numbers, you know, the guidelines. A bit higher than the guidelines. I believe that you should be eating a little bit more protein than what we're saying in the national guidelines right now. I think it's like low. And also it's based on sedentary old men in the UK anyway. Not true. Not necessarily fully true. There's more nuance to that.

7:17But if that is causing huge problems, the kind of point I was trying to get to is like, if that's causing huge problems and you're just like hating your relationship with food and it's stressing you a ton. my answer is like it's okay then it's like let it go a little bit you'll be fine thanks so much for listening to hear the full episode there's a link in the description