084: A Candid Look at Menopause with Kim Schlag

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps after Babies radio episode number 84

Hello and welcome to Biceps after Babies radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PRs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, online fitness coach, wife, and mom of four. My guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise mindset, personal development, and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel, and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you, my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s jump into today’s episode.

Hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host Amber Brueseke. And today we have a topic and conversation that I think is not talked about enough. And if you know me, you know that I am not one to shy away from the awkward or uncomfortable conversations, especially when they involve something medical having a background as a nurse and a husband, who's a physician. We are very comfortable with talking about all things medical. And I was so grateful that Kim was willing to come on and share so openly about menopause, and about how that changes things in terms of training and how it changes things in terms of your diet and your nutrition and some of the symptoms and things that we have to look forward to as we approach that age of menopause. So, if you are somebody who is in your 20s or 30s and you're like oh my gosh, menopause like so far away, like this podcast episode has nothing to do with me. I want you to take a pause because I was impressed by how much I learned about menopause that I didn't know from Kim and she does a really good job of just sharing openly about what her experience has been like, how she's been able to help and coach clients through their experience with menopause. And she has some really, really good tangible takeaways, if you are in menopause. But I think even if you're not, then there'll be some things that you will learn. I definitely learned some stuff during this episode. And I joked with her that she may be really excited about wanting to go through menopause, but it's something that's going to happen. And it's and it's an experience that all women go through. Just like, you know, having your first period is an experience that all women go through. And the other end of that is menopause. And I think the more that we can talk and share about these things openly, especially as females, the more that we can be prepared, and we can know what to expect. And we can make it through you know, we can make it through it's something that women for ages have been able to make it through and the more that we more knowledge we have, the better equipped we are going to be able to deal with that time that is gonna, it's gonna happen in all of our lives. So I am so excited for You to dive into this interview that I had with Kim. I would like to welcome Kim slog to the podcast. Hey, Kim, how are you doing?

Kim Schlag  3:09

Well, I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me here. And in this amazing time in our history.

Amber B  3:16

Yeah, so we're recording this in the middle of the Coronavirus. I don't know when this is going to come out. But it's definitely something that is on all of our minds right now. And yeah, so I'm just grateful. I was telling some of my listeners on Instagram yesterday that I'm kind of trying to make the most of this by doing you know, getting ahead and like my podcast interviewing. And so Kim was awesome enough to say, hey, yeah, our kids are all home but we're gonna

Kim Schlag  3:43

I told them all to stay out of my office and stop printing things. The printer is right behind me.does not sound good on a podcast, guys. Stop printing.

Amber B  3:52

Yeah, I was trying to record yesterday and my kids kept coming in and out in and out, guys. Don't understand. So we're making we're making do but I'm really excited because I was just telling Kim that I'm bringing her on to talk about something that we really haven't broached in the podcast. And it's something that affects and impacts so many women, and that is menopause. And so I am so excited to bring her on as an expert, because obviously, this is not something I haven't hit menopause yet. It's not something that is something I've experienced, or is my area of expertise. And I'm really excited for Kim to be able to share her expertise and experience with those of you who maybe are getting close to menopause or who are going through it themselves or even have been through it. It's something that is inevitable for all of us women. And it's something that you know, I love to broach kind of the topics that people don't like to talk about a little bit. So that's what we're gonna do today.

Kim Schlag  4:44

Definitely a topic people don't like to talk about.

Amber B  4:46

Right? Yeah. Which I think let's let's give it a voice. Let's you know, all the more reason for us to talk about it. So Kim, if you'll just give us a little brief history, a little bit about you and kind of what you do and how you help women

Kim Schlag  5:00

Absolutely. So I am an online fitness and nutrition and strength coach. I really love working with women. I work with men as well, if they want to work with me, I specifically work with women in their 40s 50s and older. Though many of my clients are younger, I tend to attract this older generation because that's where I'm at in life. And I talk about it a lot. I talk about my struggles with menopause. I am actually a mom of three teenagers. And I came to fitness very, very late in life. So this is actually in my 40s is when I discovered fitness and I'm super passionate about helping women of my generation and older discover it as well.

Amber B  5:39

I love it. And so what would you say to somebody who is maybe in their 40s or even 50s or even 60s who felt feels like they haven't started yet? What would you tell that woman of how to get started or how you got started and what kind of led to you diving into this process?

Kim Schlag  5:59

Yeah, well, the first thing I'd say is it is not too late. I don't care how old you are, it is not too late. I have started with women in their 60s who have never used weights before in their life. So, number one thing is it's not too late. As far as how I got started, I spent most of my adult life trying to lose weight is the sad state of affairs that many of us do that we just spend really long chunks of time losing and gaining weight. And I did, I was not overweight as a teenager, or as a child. But as I hit my 20s I was definitely one of those people who was like I could use I could lose five pounds, and I was always trying to lose five pounds, as long as I can remember, which makes me sad now, but that's where I was. And then when I started having babies in my 30s, I gained a significant amount of weight. I gained 50 pounds with every pregnancy, never fully losing any of that. And so by my late 30s I was obese and very unhappy and had tried so many fad diets and was extremely discouraged and I just kept going down. That rabbit hole of like, you know, what is what a Doctor Oz saying and what's on this magazine cover. And none of it ever worked. And I was so discouraged.

And then when I was 43, I think I was 43. I had lost a good amount of weight, but I was still overweight and very unhealthy and not at all fit. And we happened to be helping a family friend, by having their young son come and live with us. And it was my job to keep this boy out of trouble. And I didn't know much about him, except I knew he liked to lift weights. And so I got him a membership at our Y. And I would drive him there every day. And I would just kind of do my own thing. And one day, he said to me, he's like, What are you trying to do? And honestly, I'm just trying not to be fat again. And he's like, you're doing it wrong, which is such a great thing for this do 19 year old boy to tell me that he's doing it all wrong. But I was humble enough to listen and he's like, you need to start lifting weights and get off that equipment. And so I did, I started training with him and over the course of several months, completely fell in love with weight training. And for the first time, I was going to the gym, not because I wanted to lose weight, but because I just loved it. It was so exciting to me every week to think like, Can I pick up that heavier weight? Like, can I do it? And doing that is actually what finally completely changed my body. And in the process, learning about the fact that like, yeah, I really was just eating too much food. He called me out on that. He was like, You know what, I watch you, you eat nothing all day. And then at night, you're in that pantry, and you're eating pretzels, and you're eating candy, and he was right, that's what I did. And since then, um, you know, I just made substantial changes to the way I approached my fitness and my nutrition, and it's just become a part of my lifestyle.

Amber B  8:37

I love it. And I want to point out because I think this is interesting that you said that you you know really started with fitness in your 40s. And yet you had been dieting for you know, for years and years and years and making that distinction between like, what you termed fitness versus what we term dieting and that those aren't the same thing. So in your mind, what is the difference between like fitness And dieting.

Kim Schlag  9:01

So for me, the difference with fitness is that it was not just about getting smaller, it was about pursuing something with a goal. And for me, it doesn't have to be lifting for me, it's lifting for other people, it's you know, getting faster, you know, jumping higher, whatever it is having this kind of goal. That's not just about what my body looked like,

Amber B  9:22

yes, when you start to move away from what your body can do, and I know that we agree on this, because we've talked about it before, but what your body can do versus what your body looks like, and what kind of shifted that make in your life when you did that.

Kim Schlag  9:34

Well, first of all, it finally got me what I'd been looking for all those years, which is a body that actually looks the way I wanted, which is the crazy thing. You know, it really did end up changing my body. I had lost so much weight in my life. And I would always kind of get to what I thought my goal weight was and I would look at myself and be like, I don't think that's what I was gonna look like. And it was because I didn't have any muscle I didn't have I had never put on muscle before. And so it gave me what I wanted, but when More than that, getting stronger in the gym fundamentally changed who I was as a person. I did not even realize that I didn't think of myself as a strong person until I actually went through the process of I would go in and I would do really hard stuff in the gym. And I realized it started changing who I was outside of the gym, I started standing up for myself. There were some relationships that needed addressing in my life. And I had the strength to do that, that I didn't realize I was lacking before.

Amber B  10:26

Yeah, well, and and what I really want to point out too, is that that strength was always in you, right? But it was not until you started exhibiting it in the gym that you like, were able to tap into that strength that was already in there, like lifting weights didn't give you strength in your personal life that wasn't already there. But it made you more confident in tapping into it.

Kim Schlag  10:46

It made me realize that I could do really hard things because I watched myself like I physically watched myself do things I couldn't do, you know, seven days before, and I was like, wow, I can do stuff and it absolutely gave me confidence that I just didn't know is there?

Amber B  11:01

Yeah. When and I think in our day and age we have so much in life, that's not hard. You know, like, we don't have to like we can have a laundry machine we have a dishwasher. Like, a lot of us have housekeepers. Like, we don't have a lot of things that are hard. And so I think there's such power in intentionally doing something that is challenging, like weightlifting, because it does, it shows you that you have this strength and this power and this ability to get stronger that you didn't even necessarily have to tap into in another area of your life.

Kim Schlag  11:31  

Absolutely. So cannot agree more.

Amber B  11:33

Yeah, so let's get a little bit into you know, health and fitness and how it may be different for a woman in her 30s or in her 40s and her 50s or 60s, then maybe a woman in her 20s and 30s. What are some of the biggest differences you see in your clients who are in their 40s 50s and 60s.

Kim Schlag  11:48  

One of the biggest differences that people don't even realize is that it is actually more important to be trying to build muscle at this time of life. Because once you hit the age of 30 you actually start losing muscle, you know, three to 7% of your muscle mass, you start losing after the age of 30, unless you are actively doing something to prevent that. So if you're not lifting weights, you're not going to prevent that muscle loss. And you really want that muscle. I mean, besides, aesthetically, it looks better. But even besides that, if you think about aging, and you think about wanting to be independent, and not falling, and being able to, you know, get things from high shelves and bend down and pick things up and play with your grandkids, you're going to need that muscle. And so it is so important for that aspect. It's massively important. Otherwise, I would say a lot. It's the same stuff. Like we need to do the same stuff that younger people, I don't program, my older women different than I program, my younger women or my men, their nutrition isn't different. We have additional hurdles, specifically those of us in menopause, that we have to get around in. In reality, it all works the same way once we can get around those hurdles.

Amber B  12:55

Yeah. So will you elaborate a little bit more on what are some of those hurdles that you see?

Kim Schlag  13:00

Yeah, for sure. So for those of us in menopause, and I don't know how familiar, there will be different levels of familiarity with, with women listening to this, I have to say I like when younger women listen to me talk about this because they don't know what to expect. I didn't know what to expect, and was so so so surprised. And I really like to have conversations so people can know to be on the lookout. When I first started entering menopause. In my early 40s, I had no idea that that's what was happening to me. And I'll tell you some of the symptoms I experienced. I want to preface this with the fact that so many different symptoms are out there for menopause, and you'll start meeting people and I'll hear their symptoms and I'm like, Oh, I have that one. But not that. So my menopause doesn't look exactly like the next person's menopause.

But one of the first things that happened to me was I started having episodes of vertigo, and they were bad enough that I went to the emergency room. And I went to multiple doctors trying to get to the bottom of what was going on with this because it would be debilitating like days that I couldn't get up and nobody could figure out like what exactly was causing the vertigo, and they didn't happen all the time. But they happened, you know, once a year for several days and you know, it was it was a big deal. I happen once when I was driving a car, I had to go off to the side of the road and get somebody to take me to the hospital. So that was my first big and I didn't know for years that that was menopause induced. I started having allergies. I never had allergies in my life. That was really strange. I started having these zapping sensations in my head, like these electric zapping sensations. I thought I was having a stroke. It was terrifying. Again, these would happen a little bit at a time, obviously Of course and eventually I started losing my cycle and it would come in spurts it still does I'm so I'm still perimenopausal that means I haven't gone an entire year without my cycle yet. I can go long stretches but until you've gone one full calendar year with zero periods, you're not menopausal. You're perimenopausal and actually the perimenopause period is often the period where you experienced the worst symptoms.

And so as I've gone on through my 40s I'm 49 now, I had an increasing number of these symptoms, and some people will have migraines, really severe migraines. I get those as well. The most debilitating for me besides the vertigo was about a year ago. Yeah, this time last year I was in the throes of this I started in with one that most people are probably familiar with, which is hot flashes. But you might not know what that actually looks like, in real life to feel like the first time it happened to me about a year and a half ago. It really was I was just sitting in a car on the Fourth of July and I just got really hot, like weirdly hot and I started like taking off my clothes and putting it back on as I would get hot and cold. And my husband and I were laughing so hard. I'm like What is wrong with me. And that was it was no big deal. And that started happening with increasing frequency. And it was disturbing, and it was distracting. And I could lose my train of thought. But last winter, it started happening at night and those are called night sweats. And it would keep me up and that would keep me up. And this would happen what I'm describing. It feels like fire through my entire body. You're dead asleep, and all of a sudden your entire body feels like it's engulfed in flames. And you rip off your clothes and you're sweating. And then it passes and you're cold, right? And you had to change your clothes and dry off. And it would happen 10 12 13 14 times a night. I literally didn't sleep for months. And it went on from, oh, gosh, February to May. And I finally went to a doctor and I made the choice to start hormone replacement therapy. Not everybody makes that choice, and it was life changing for me. So some of the hurdles that if you think about a woman going through that, and that is very common, like the night sweats part. How on earth am I supposed to go in the gym and train? How am I supposed to make good nutrition choices? I'm not sleeping. And that's a massive hurdle. It doesn't mean that I'm going to gain weight. If I still make the right choices, it just makes it harder to make the right choices. Does that make sense?

Amber B  16:50

Totally. Yeah. And you're really talking about menopause. I'm really excited about it.

Kim Schlag  16:59

None of it's fun, none of it's fun. But what I want people need to know about it. Like, I wish that I had heard

Amber B  17:06

I haven't heard like any of these things. Not that a lot that I've like, I've never researched it. But even so like, you're right, it's not something that women talk about. And so if you start to experiencing these symptoms, and you have no idea what's going on, it's like, it's it's hard to know what to expect or what's normal or what's not normal. And so I think these are patients, for women in their 20s in their 30s and early 40s are so important to be had. So, I am just so happy that you're educating us on this.

Kim Schlag  17:34  

And like I said, the ones that I just described you, those are just mine, right? The list goes on and on, like painful vaginal dryness, like nobody wants to talk about that. That happened on a lot of women. You know, like, my brain fog is a huge problem for me still, even with my hormone replacement therapy. I have such terrible brain fog. I scare my family. They think I have dementia. Sometimes I don't, but it's really bad. Like I can't remember things. And that one is a very embarrassing one for a lot of people, I talk about it freely because to me like, it's just the only way I can I can manage dealing with it is to just tell people like, I will literally be speaking to you and have no idea what I was about to say. And that will happen over and over. And I will forget, I lose things all the time. I can't I cannot keep things straight. And, and for a lot of women, it's Can you imagine being a woman at work trying to deal with that? It's hard. It's really it's a big challenge.

Amber B  18:24  

Mm hmm. So, it you know, one of the common things that I hear from women, especially as they're going through menopause, or they're reaching that age is that, you know, waking is something that's a big deal that a lot of people experience and it almost becomes this thing of like, it's inevitable, right? Like, I'm going through menopause, like it's inevitable that I'm going to gain weight. And you kind of touched on this a little bit of some of the challenges that there may be with, you know, sticking to a routine or being mindful about your nutrition or making it to the gym. So, how can women focus on creating a plan of attack so that as they're going through menopause, something that I is totally normal and totally natural, but yet can cause these, you know, make it a little bit more challenging in terms of our health, nutrition, how can they find that balance so that they aren't experiencing the weight gain that is so often associated with menopause?

Kim Schlag  19:13  

That is a great question. You know, I think the number one thing that people need to do is realize that menopause is not a sentence that you are going to be overweight. You didn't you do not have to gain weight and menopause. It is not inevitable. I work with women all the time who completely transform their body in the midst of perimenopause and menopause is 100% possible. I think when people are just like, this is how it is now, how can you get past that right if you're if they're convinced that it's their body. So number one is knowing that you don't have to gain weight menopause. Number two is realizing that there are some things that like you might notice that are different. You might notice you're holding on to more fat in your belly and you're like, what the heck is this? Where did that come from? When our estrogen starts dropping at the onset of perimenopause, one of the things that happened is that we can store more fat in our bellies. But it's important to know you can still lose that fat just like you lose any other fat like there's no special like menopause, belly fat recipe or like workout plan. If you are losing weight and eating in a calorie deficit, you will eventually lose that fat. So it's really important to notice you don't have to have that. But menopause belly is a real, that's a real thing.

And then the other thing is two things. I would say one, it's really important to get moving. we so often like you were talking about, like, Oh, we have people who clean our houses and you know, we have grocery delivery. And so in all of these ways, we've stopped moving as much and it's a huge, important piece of our metabolism. If we can get what's called our NEAT or non exercise activity thermogenesis up those are all of the things you do outside of structured exercise, things like how much you walk in a day, and literally just getting up from your couch and moving around. And so making a purposeful effort to increase your NEAT your non exercise activity thermogenesis is huge, best way I know How to do that is get a step tracker, figure out what you're doing now, like, if I'm not trying extra, how many steps do I get in a day, and then start increasing that over time. If you're looking to lose weight shooting up to like 10 12,000 is amazing. Don't go there. If you're at 3000, little by little, little by little inch that dial up, and it's not a magic number. If you don't need to lose a ton of weight, you just want to generally be healthy. Six to 8000 is a great range to be in. So that's one really big thing.

The other thing is addressing is addressing your nutrition. We just are eating more than we think we are. It is a I find it every time people will say like I just don't eat that much, which could really be true, you might not eat that much volume of food. It doesn't mean that you're not eating too many calories. Like if I go to like get a muffin, and then I eat a burger and fries like that doesn't feel like a lot of food. That's a lot of calories. And so really getting a hold on how many calories am I actually eating? It's the same as at any age. We just don't think we're eating that much and women at my Generation, we've really gotten on this like whole, like clean eating kick. And so people think because they're eating healthy, they're eating to lose weight. And those two things can go together. But they're not the same thing.

Amber B  22:12  

Mm hmm. Absolutely

Kim Schlag  22:13

Not the same thing at all. And so that's another really big one. And then the last one, I would say, and I'm a huge proponent of this, I know you are to is get weight training, like building muscle is going to change the shape of your body, it's going to make you look different. So really, and you know, it does boost your metabolism. It's not a huge amount. It's a very small amount, but it still helps. And so strength training is a huge piece of it as well.

Amber B  22:39  

And so if there is a woman who's listening, and she's maybe in her 40s, or 50s, or 60s and she hasn't ever weight trained in the past, what would you say is the number one first step to to making that transition maybe from the cardio machines over to some strength training.

Kim Schlag  22:56  

So if you have the ability to hire an in person trainer like literally even for a session or two, to show you around the gym to help you with your form on like, Hey, this is how you do a squat. This is how you do a hip hinge. This is how you do a row. This is a good push up, like get somebody to just show you those things, do it. If you're like, I can't quite even do that totally fine. use YouTube. You don't you can search my name. And Amber I don't know if you have tutorials. Look for those things. You want to learn how to squat and hip hinge which is any kind of deadlift variation. You want to learn how to row you want to learn how to do push ups, look to lunges, you want to learn how to do those basic moves. I've actually worked with women before who were so intimidated by the weight room that how I had them start with just go and get on their usual cardio equipment that they were comfortable with. And after they were done. Pick one move that they had practice at home like maybe we taught them how to like goblet squat, and they would go and do their cardio machine. And then they would go pick up a weight and do a set of goblet squats and we would just have them get comfortable like I go to the gym. I pick up weights, and I goblet squat and then little by little, we would add more things on, maybe it would be a machine. And so you can start really slowly, because I know it is very intimidating, you know, like, I don't know what I'm doing. So educate yourself, do it a little bit at a time and accept that that is enough. Like it really is enough. If you've never done anything before, and you want to just start goblet squat and great, you want to then add in a second move, let's try some you know, go over and get the chest press machine and do that. It's worth it to just do that little bit at a time. And as your confidence grows, and as your knowledge grows, you can add in more and more, and eventually get to the point where like, Hey, I'm doing this two and three times a week, and I feel comfortable there. It's an amazing place to be.

Amber B  24:37  

Yeah, it's so good. And I love how you just broke that down into something that's so simple and so actionable. Because I do think that women, a lot of times if they're feeling very comfortable on the cardio machine, they feel like the next step, if they want to do weight, you know, weight training is they have to like go do a whole dumbbell routine. And they've never heard of a dumbbell before and they're like that, you know, they have this list of exercises they're supposed to complete and they're like I don't even really know how to do this and So they're trying to YouTube it while they're in the gym and you're overwhelming. So I love the idea of just picking one exercise watching YouTube at home, maybe practicing at home with like cans, and then just doing that one exercise. And so slowly starting to build your confidence because that confidence pieces is a huge barrier for women is once you start to feel confident, and you start to feel like you belong, because that's another thing too is women tend to feel like Well, I don't belong over at the weights or that's, that's for the big boys or, you know, that's for the young girls.

Kim Schlag  25:31  

Absolutely. I felt every single one of them. I thought every single one of those guys, I was thinking like I don't belong here. But eventually you get to the point where you're like, wait, I know what I'm doing. Yeah, I can start so small.

Amber B  25:42  

Yep. I think we are really starting to get to that point where it is like everybody, everybody should be lifting weights, right? Whether you're 20 years old, or 70 or 80 or 90 years old, like doing some form of resistance training is beneficial to you. And that's actually my husband didn't get into weight training really until his like mid 30s and his The reason that he got into it was because as a physician, he dealt with an older population. And he would see these women come in who just weren't even strong enough to like lift their legs up on to, you know the table. And as he has seen this like muscle decline of these women and recognizing how much it impacts their lifestyle, right, like, think think of as you age, like you have to be able to get yourself off the toilet or you have to be able to climb into a bathtub, or you have to get out of a chair and lack of muscle tone, lack of strength plays a huge role in the quality of your life as you age and as you you know, get older, you know, into your 70s 80s and 90s. And I think we've started as a society kind of realize that that strength training isn't just for the 20 year olds like everybody every woman every man should be including some sort of strength and resistance trading.

Kim Schlag  26:52  

Without a doubt I could not agree with you more Amber and you know if you know anybody if you have a you know, an older parent and you watch them decline it can really make an impact. You know, I see this, I see these older people. And I think like, I want to be able to do more than that, like, I want to be in my 70s and 80s. And be able to, you know, open a door by myself or open a can by myself or like get out of the chair by myself. That's a big deal to me.

Amber B  27:14  

Yeah, for sure. I am curious. So we talked a little bit about your strength training, and I know that you've, you know, done some competitions and you're big into doing some powerlifting and I'm curious what your current health and fitness goals are right now.

Kim Schlag  27:30  

Yeah, I do love powerlifting I love it a lot. And so I've been chasing a 300 pound deadlift for a while now, was waylaid by injury and got back into it last year, I got to 275 and so this year, I'm really hoping by year that I get to 300 that's 300 pound deadlift. That's my big goal. And I would like to I'm hoping to compete at the end of the year and so I would love to I have a 200 pound squat right now I would love to in competition beat my 200 pound squat. And I randomly just recently started training pull ups instead of chin ups because I was having pain with the internal rotation piece of a chin up. So when you place your pump face your palms towards you, that's your internally rotating your shoulder and I was having pain in my shoulder. So now that I just started training pull ups seven weeks ago, so with my palms facing away from me, those are a little more challenging, and I had to start doing them with assistance, which was humbling. And I've worked my way up to just this week, I was finally able to get my first unassisted pull up. And so my goal is, yes, yeah. So I'm super psyched about that, because I've been doing chin ups for years and I was really discouraged that I was having so much pain with them. So my goal is to see how many pull ups I can get in a row now.

Amber B  28:40  

That's awesome. Oh, that's so exciting. I there's something to me about doing pull ups. Having a woman be able to do pull ups. I just think it's such a milestone. So that is awesome.

Kim Schlag  28:50

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Amber B  28:51  

Awesome. So, you know, as you're now in your late 40s, and you're getting you know, when's your birthday, when are you going to hit 50

Kim Schlag  28:59  

October October. The big 50 Okay.

Amber B  29:02  

All right. So I want you to put yourself back, you know, in your late, you know, 30s maybe, you know that about 10 years ago, right. So, what would you tell the 39 year old Kim? Now that you are 49? And looking back, what would you go back and tell her?

Kim Schlag  29:20

Oh man, I've had this conversation with myself so many times. I love. I love this question because I think like, Whoa, I would have done this all differently. My best advice is put as much muscle on your frame as soon as you can. as young as you can. As much muscle as you can do it. It's not going to make you look manly. It's going to make you look amazing. It's going to make you feel amazing. It's going to keep you healthy. That's what I would tell myself and eat a freaking vegetable. You know, Amber, I didn't start eating vegetables to my early 40s. I hated them. And I finally thought this is ridiculous. I'm a grown woman. I need to eat vegetables. Do it sooner Kim eat a vegetable. Pick up a dumbbell.

Amber B  29:56  

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, and it's never too late. To make a good positive change,

Kim Schlag  30:02

If you are 70 and you are listening to this and you don't eat vegetables and you don't lift weights to start now, it is not too late. It's too late.

Amber B  30:09  

So good. All right, Kim. Well, as people are listening and they're wanting to connect with you or listen to more of your things, how can they find you?

Kim Schlag  30:17  

So, Kim Schlag fitness. Let me spell my last name is SCHLAG. I'm on Instagram. I'm on YouTube. I have a podcast, a podcast can talk a podcast called Fitness Simplified. That's wherever podcasts are. So that's how to locate me.

Amber B  30:33

I love it. Thank you so much for coming on and teaching us Kim.

Kim Schlag  30:36

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Amber B  30:38  

I hope that you enjoyed that interview as much as I did. I hope that Kim didn't scare you too much in terms of what may be to come with menopause. I just thought it was so fascinating that she was willing to share her experience and some of the things that she's dealt with over the years and after we pushed pause and stopped recording she she shared that you know, for a lot of women, menopause is like a 10 year journey. And, you know, she's about six to seven years into that 10 year journey. And, you know, it's still not over with and that to me was kind of mind blowing, you don't think about that perimenopausal period, at least I didn't thinking about it being that long. And so I'm just really grateful that Kim was willing to share and open up about a topic that so many people don't talk about. But it's something that impacts so many of us. And if you are going through menopause, or you're experiencing some of the things that Kim was talking about, I hope that you had some really good takeaways about how you can continue to thrive during this time and, and to view it as you know what Yep, that's a circumstance. That's something that's occurring to you, but it doesn't have to define you. And it doesn't have to mean that you can't set goals and it doesn't have to mean that you can't start lifting weights or that you can't get your nutrition on board that those things are all available to you whether or not you're going through menopause. So I hope that the takeaway from it was positive and that If you guys enjoyed the episode, please go to Kim and and let her know she's a wealth of information. She definitely knows more about this topic than I do. And that's why I like to bring other experts onto the podcast because you know what, I don't know everything. And I love to be able to bring people on who are willing to share their expertise with you. If you loved this episode, will you please share it especially with women who this may be timely for them and their age and right now send them to you know, send a text message to your friend or post it on your social media, the more that you can share the podcast that's just something that's so helps me and you know, to get the word out and I always appreciate it when I see us sharing it, the podcast on social media. I hope that this was a good episode for you. I hope you enjoyed it and until next time, I'm Amber now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

Outro

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