SHE2.0

If you’ve ever wondered what Reiki is, you’re not alone. If you’ve ever wondered how Reiki can help with peri/menopause symptoms – you are DEFINITELY not alone! Sandra Zager is a Reiki Master & Instructor for both people and animals (admit it, doesn’t hormone rage make you feel just a little bit like a wild animal?). She is also certified in long distance healing which is ideal in this Covid climate.

Reiki emerged from Japan in the late 1800’s and is a form of alternative therapy commonly referred to as energy healing. It works with the energy fields around the body and transfers the universal energy from the practitioner’s palms to the patient.

Using Reiki, Sandra has been able to help her clients heal by clearing blockages within. Her goal is to empower women to put their crowns back on. 

Have a listen!

Ladies, have we got a treat for you. We are going to introduce you to the ‘bravest man alive’! Our special guest on this week’s podcast is Rodger Donaldson who is going to give us a glimpse of what menopause looks like from the other side.

Rodger met his wife, Mary Jo about 15 years ago. Today they own and operate Elk Lake Wilderness Resort which offers fishing and family vacations. They have their hands pretty full and to add to that, Mary Jo started to go through menopause and that was a whole other ride!

Rodger is honest and really insightful and gives us a really valuable perspective from the partner of someone going through this major life transition. We tend to think of our own experience, but this is a good opportunity to hear from someone who is truly supporting their partner through thick and thin. No pressure to all the other partners out there!

We’re pretty impressed by Rodger and hope you’ll have a listen because he shares some really wonderful advice with the rest of us.

Tune in!

You may have heard that ‘shrooms’ (psilocybin) are making a comeback. The use of psychedelics is being touted as helpful for depression, anxiety, smoking cessation, PTSD and many other conditions.  They’re also a great support for some of our menopause symptoms. We’ve tried a daily dose and can attest to its calming properties and its ability to help us focus!

In this episode we talk to Irie Selkirk, Co-Founder of GoodCap Wellness and co-founder of the MAPS Canada Toronto Support Chapter who gives us the lowdown on microdosing, macrodosing and why taking a microdose daily can give us all a ‘really good day’.  Don’t we deserve at least one? Tune in!

Monica Graves is a talented and wickedly creative jewelry designer. As owner and designer of glamjulz, Monica has to balance designing, purchasing, running a business and a marriage all at once. And she's doing it all while suffering through hot flashes! Tune in to hear how she is riding through the wave of menopause and the things she's tried to help alleviate the symptoms so she can continue to keep all the balls in the air!

Navigating menopause is tough with no one at the helm. There are so many gaps in our healthcare and the information we need to really thrive during this time. It can be so frustrating and lonely made worse by not feeling like we have someone who has our back.
When we found out that there was such a thing as a 'Menopause Practitioner' we almost fell over! What? Someone to finally help guide us through this challenging phase full of questions, symptoms and sleepless nights?

Carolyn Whiskin, RPh, BScPhm, NCMP is a ‘Certified Menopause Practitioner’, and we feel like we’ve just met a real-life unicorn! Carolyn is with Brant Arts IDA Pharmacy and is one of a few practitioners across Canada. We are so excited to have her join us in this episode. We know you’re going to be relieved and excited to know these practitioners actually do exist!
So tune in!

Some of us are embracing aging while some of us are raging against it. Is it a no-win battle? Maybe not.  In this episode we’re talking to Melissa Fillion (M.Sc) - Personal Training Coach. Melissa knows better than most that we are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to aging. For example, did you know that muscle mass decreases later in life for men than women?  She talks about how the decline in estrogen has a direct correlation to loss in muscle strength, function and mass. Is HRT safe and does it affect all women the same? Melissa shares some really helpful knowledge around this hot topic. What if you can’t take or aren’t open to HRT? There are other options to help mitigate some of the symptoms we get with muscle loss.  But regardless of who you are, the one viable option for all women in helping with these symptoms is exercise!

Melissa also shares how we can turn that around and combat the effects of estrogen deficiencies in our bodies so we can remain strong and kick ass! This is definitely an episode that speaks to all women.

When it comes to menopause, it is not a man’s world and Gerianne DiPiano, CEO and founder of FemmePharma is leading the charge when it comes to research and product development for women going through this critical time in their lives. Geri has some great stories to share about sitting around a boardroom table discussing menopause -with men. Don’t miss it!

The one thing they don’t tell us about menopause is how important it is to understand and treat our bodies before we hit menopause. Especially during the perimenopausal years. But that’s no surprise given we’ve been left mostly in the dark up until recently. That’s why it’s so important to have such incredibly passionate and relentless trailblazers in women’s health. Geri talks about the importance of locking things down before we hit menopause.

Geri is a pharmaceutical industry executive and women’s healthcare expert. She founded FemmePharma in 1999 in response to the industry’s narrow focus on women’s health needs – such as contraception and hormone replacement therapy and lack of attention to other important women’s diseases and disorders.

Guided by her vision to provide more effective treatment options for women, FemmePharma is focused on improving women’s health by developing prescription pharmaceuticals and over the counter products that are specifically designed for women across a broad range of therapeutic categories.

Tune in because you don’t want to miss what Geri has to share about boardrooms, bedrooms and gearing up for the big “M”!

Essential oils have been known to have many calming and healing properties but most of us picture using them with a hot bath or in a calm and restful environment. We don’t, however, consider hot flashes, hormone rage or night sweats those calm and restful situations!

Today, Angela Everett is joining us to talk about the soothing, cooling and calming benefits of using essential oils to help treat some of the more common symptoms of peri/menopause. Angela is a doTERRA Wellness Advocate and passionate about her oils and their myriad of uses.

Follow our Facebook Group as we share some of the great ways that oils can help bring some peace and relief to those pesky symptoms. Tune in!

Whether we want children or not, could have them or not or weren’t even sure about the topic all together, going into menopause takes all the decision making away from us. It’s like Mother Nature pulls the rug out from under us and says ‘There. No more babies for you!”  It’s a lot to process.

Imagine if the ability to start a family was taken away from you all together while you were in your prime.  Our guest in this episode of “Real Women. Real Stories’ is Mallory McGrath, Founder & CEO of Viive Planning, a collaborative aging & end-of-life planning company for families. Mallory is a 34-year-old entrepreneur and mother who went through Premature Ovarian Insufficiency at a very early age. We love that Mallory doesn’t shy away from the tough conversations about aging, illness and death because these are important conversations to have. As we know, stigmas are formed when we don’t have the courage to talk about these topics. Tune in!

Menopause can affect our digestive system and impact our gut health which can throw things right out of whack! So how can we listen to our gut to help reduce some of the symptoms we experience through peri/menopause? Monika Tupholme  (BSc., Biology, Chemistry, BioChemistry, PT,PN,FNC) has over 25 years experience as a personal trainer and in functional and performance nutrition.  As a 47 year old Mom of 2 works, Monika works with women in their 40s and 50s) to lose the energy zapping fluff.  She is also the founder and creator of The 3M System to Rev Your Over 40 Metabolism, an is also a former professional volleyball player.

So she’s got it going on and we love what she has to tell us about what scientists are calling our ‘second brain’. Tune in!

While some of us are embracing aging gracefully, we admit that we might be raging against it – just a little! But like most consumers, we’re wary of brands that tout key messages over key ingredients. If we’re going to drop a lot of dough on a new skincare regime, we want to know that the brand we’re buying really understands the changes our skin goes through as we hit perimenopause and how we need to treat those pain points – like fine lines, sagging skin and puffiness which make us look more tired than we really are.

This is our first episode of Season 2 of the She2.0 podcast and we’re shaking it up! Not only will we continue to bring on our amazing experts to share their wisdom in order to make peri/menopause a more positive experience, but we’re adding ‘Real women. Real stories’ to the mix. It was hard to find women who were happy to come forward and not only share their menopause story, but also their identity! With menopause – the stigma is strong! But it is only by sharing and openly discussing it that we can chip away at it to make it disappear. And why should we feel shame? Why are we raised to feel that we must hide the reproductive miracle of our bodies? Today our friend Sharon DeVellis joins us to talk about how menopause has impacted her marriage, motherhood and career. You’ll probably find yourself nodding in agreement -to most or all of it. Got a story you want to share? Reach out to us because we’d love to hear from you!

We think that after everything that’s happened this past year, we all deserve a MONTH off for the holidays! The season ahead is going to be a challenge for many of us who are combining menopause symptoms with many areas in the Red Zone or, like us, full lockdown. That makes holiday shopping even more chaotic! Thank god for egg nog and wine!

Tune in and listen to what’s ahead for you and She2.0 in the year to come.  We’re lining up more experts and more great content to ensure that we all enjoy the smoothest ride possible. Why? Because we know that menopause doesn’t have to suck. So tune in!

It’s hard to talk about a topic no one seems to want to talk about. Take menopause, for example. So how do you talk to the people in your life about this important change? How do you let your husband know it’s not him or tell your kids that sometimes Mommy comes unglued? Better yet, in an ageist workforce – how do you gain support and understanding for some of the gaffs you might make due to your symptoms like memory loss or brain fog?

Kelly Bos, MSW, RSW, joins us to talk about HOW to talk about menopause you’re your partner, your kids and even your boss.

Most of us don’t really understand the function or location of our pelvic floor. Some of us couldn’t locate it even with GPS.  In fact, it was only a few months ago that one of us even realized we had a pelvic floor!

In this episode we’re talking to Nav Grewal, BSc, MScPT, Pelvic Physiotherapist who shares a thing or 10 that we didn’t know about pelvic floor health. Starting with – what is a pelvic floor?

We thought all we had to do was Kegels to keep things in shape but boy were we wrong! And you might be too so tune in to find out what you need to know to keep things strong, healthy, tight and … intact!

There are so many aspects to pelvic floor health that we really didn’t know or understand. Nav explains the structure, function and anatomy of our pelvic area as well as its importance in sexual, bladder, bowel and core functioning. She also takes us through the changes it experiences through our lifespan.

Tune in!

There’s more to menopause!

In our last episode we introduced you to our new resident expert, Andrea Walsh, MD. Andrea is an OB/GYN and advocate for women and women’s health. We discussed the difference between peri and menopause but we didn’t get to dive deep enough into the potential health risks that can become larger issues if we ignore them.

In this episode we’re picking up where we left off by talking about some of the red flags and health risks that can happen during perimenopause and menopause. Andrea enlightens us on the basics of HRT, pelvic floor health and cardiac health amongst other things. We’re learning a lot we definitely didn’t already know and feeling a bit frustrated because these are all things that would have been good to know.

Important for you to know

She2.0 is a place to come for advice from experts on all areas of peri and menopause. We bring the experts to you to provide you with information, solutions and strategies to help navigate through this next  phase. While we present advice and perspectives from a wide range of disciplines, we do not endorse any particular approach. We know everyone woman is different and everyone’s experience with peri/menopause is different and unique. Therefore, we want to present all the options and information we can find so you can make your own decision for your own journey through this next phase of life!

In this episode we’re excited to introduce our new resident expert – Andrea Walsh, MD! Andrea is a huge advocate for women and women’s health and she shares her experience and information supported by date from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

We’ve saved up a lot of questions for Andrea so grab a glass of wine, whip of your bra and have a listen while we talk about the basics of perimenopause, the difference between peri and menopause and why you need to listen to your body and be aware of any red flags during this period.

It turns out an hour just isn’t long enough for this type of discussion so Andrea will be joining us regularly to talk about many of the loose threads we couldn’t get to in one episode. We’re excited to hear more and we’re going to take some of the information she’s given us during this episode to heart. Spoiler alert – your hand mirror is going to come in handy for this episode!

Tune in!

Happy Halloween! And what a scary time of the year! For us it’s because the clocks go back and we’re going to miss the longer days and even though there may not be trick-or-treating this year, we’re still loading up so we have a stash that will last us till Christmas!

This week grab your Halloween candy and snuggle up while you tune in to She2.0, the podcast! Ramona and I have had the pleasure of interviewing experts on all things related to menopause but then we realized, “Hey! We haven’t even explained why we’re doing this thing called She2.0!” So that’s exactly what we’re discussing in this week’s episode.

Where did the idea come from and how did it hit us like a truck that we had to do this? Why do we relate on everything from a macro level to a cellular level on all things about menopause? We definitely have some stories to share and we want to explain why we’re so passionate about shining a much-needed light on this cloaked topic so that women can enjoy better health and a more optimal experience. We’re here to help you keep your mind sharp, your body strong and your sex – HOT!

Endorphins really are a great ally during this pandemic. In fact, with so much screen time and time around the house, we’re starting to feel a little unglued! So, what’s the best way to keep your mind sharp and your anxiety down during both perimenopause and a global pandemic? You guessed it – EXERCISE. Did we hear a groan? Or was that us?

Exercise doesn’t have to be a drag though. If you make it fun, you won’t even feel that calorie burn! In this episode we’re having a ‘play date’ with Health coach, play expert and author Janet Omstead.  Janet is the author of She’s been in the coaching and fitness industry for 20 years and watch out because she’s on a mission to reignite people's passion for play.

So, put on your play clothes and tune in! And if you want more on Janet – check out our post so you know where to find her! And try a free chapter from her book along with great resources to help you get back in touch with your inner toddler!

We get a lot of terminology thrown at us by the healthcare system. Add symptoms of perimenopause and we practically need to keep Wikipedia open on our phones permanently just to understand what the heck is going on with our bodies!

This week we’re going to throw another word at you: endocannabinoid
 
Did you know our bodies all have an endocannabinoid system made up of receptors that can interact with cannabis and potentially relieve some of the more unpleasant or uncomfortable symptoms of menopause? Can it help with hormone imbalance and the myriad of symptoms that come along with perimenopause and beyond? Kim Lam, Patient Care Specialist from Apollo Cannabis Clinics joins us this week to help answer some of those questions.

Kim shares some eye-opening information on how cannabis can be used to help treat symptoms related to hormone changes as we age including their biological properties and makeup. She’ll take us through some history, and consumption options including oils and capsules.
 
Stay tuned to learn how a little cannabis might just help you sleep through the night among other things!