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Thread: My experience with menopause

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
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    50 yr old Female
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    Default My experience with menopause

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    I have not been here in a while.

    I finally hit the start of menopause and am almost 2 years into it. I get hot flashes every day, day and night. They interfere with my sleep. Otherwise it's not so bad and I continue on doing the things I normally do. I feel so much more stiff and sore than I ever have before. I'm stiff and sore all the time so I have to stretch even though I know upstairs there's a lot of antagonism about it. It helps a lot. There's no other way to walk or squat or do anything without pain without some stretching.

    I have given up on the idea of breaking any new records. I spend my time working up slowly and then something in life sends me back to the beginning again. Nothing wrong with "exercise" instead of "training" I am learning, too. Exercise is helpful, not a waste of time.

    Recently I got giardia on a backpack trip. I was tested for it so I know it really was giardia. If you want to roll back your strength real far, get giardia. I could barely squat 95lbs once I recovered from it.

    I think Rip said once that menopause is great for women because they'll have a better ratio of testosterone or something ridiculous like that. It's not true. Weakness reigns, but I keep on keeping on. As I age, I only want to need help onto the toilet because I'm sore, not because I'm frail. I'm sore a lot, though.

    I've provided this info for any of the coaches on here just for the demographic info that is so lacking for people my age. I have no coach. Maybe if I did they'd push me harder than I push myself. But let me tell you, hot flashes suck--I can feel a tingle that feels like a free-fall off a building just before it happens. Getting old sucks. I'm ridiculously sore all the time. I squat, dead and bench once a week. My last squat was triples at 145, deadlift was 5s at 165, bench was 3s at 65, press was the machine at 40 x 5. I also do some lat pulls, assisted pullup machine, and cable machine fuckaround stuff because why not. I can still walk 20 miles per day on my vacation when I go backpacking, so I've still got it. Not dead yet.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Indianapolis, IN
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    2,266

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    Sleep has been the biggest problem with my menopausal clients as well. As far as excessive soreness, that is not something I have observed.
    Starting Strength Indianapolis is up and running. Sign up for a free 30-minute coaching session.
    I answer all my emails: ALewis@StartingStrengthGyms.com

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
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    1,843

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    Not to hijack your thread, but the giardia jumped out at me. Did you treat your water, filter it, or both?

    I ask because when I backpacked, I started with a filter (heavy) then switched to just treating it (light), with Aqua Mira. I never got sick from the water I drank, but then again I only ever section hiked a few days at the most. Still, I typically hiked close to home, which for me is the beginning sections of the AT in GA, some of the most high-traffic areas.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Location
    Treasure Coast, FL
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    1,552

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    My 58th birthday is in August, so starting my 59th year. I am 4 months into menopause, I'm assuming.

    I’m so sorry you are dealing with this! I’m going to ask, have you asked your doctor about the hot flashes? My doctor doesn't think HRT is worth the risk; but I've known other women (competing in olympic weightlifting) who are having bioidentical HRT and they say it helped them tremendously.

    I’ve had lymes and I have arthritis, so yes pains, although its hard to say they're due to menopause, because of the unusual weather pattern in the northeast this year. Generally if its warm and sunny I feel best; when it's cold or rainy and stormy it definitely affects me. I tend to just ignore this as much as possible, and use acetaminophen, which helps some.

    Stretching; I was confused about that too, to say stretching is needed never; possibly they mean stretching in and of itself rather than with a specific purpose? I was told there’s no evidence suggesting that stretching affects the muscle in any lasting way physiologically, they go right back to the same length. Maybe that’s true. But if you were able to squat after and that is your goal, who cares? I feel if it helps you, go for it.

    I haven't had that much trouble with sleep that I hadn't had in perimenopause; do you find you sleep better after hiking? I get warm sometimes but I wouldn't say its a "flash” like lightning striking or unbearable, again it could be the weather (unseasonably cool and wet spring, mixed in with days that are 90°, what the heck?! Tonite it's supposed to go down to the 40s here). But for me its just, I’m sometimes hot. I’ve also always slept with a fan on. For a couple months now I’ve added LISS 2x a week, and I would say I'm sleeping much better since, with less "hot" (even though I find LISS stultifying.)

    I don't understand the loss of strength lament, unless you were competing before? Certainly I too could do MUCH more when I was younger. But with PMS, I would have a week where it was like Samson’s haircut – I wouldn't be able to hit weights that were EASILY doable; and then there would be a bounce-back; tried training around my cycles (I was EXTREMELY regular and it was still a crapshoot). Now, everything is just more even. I probably won’t ever be as strong as I COULD have been at 20, 30, 40, or 50, but really what’s the difference; arbitrary numbers - everything’s relative. I'm probably stronger now than I've ever been; we're probably stronger than the majority of women our age; and look at you, could barely squat 95, tripling 145 now, you go girl, awesome!! You just keep going; enjoy the process.

    All the best!!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Tucson, Arizona, USA
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    72

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    My wife was having hot flashes (power surges!) but she went to our anti-aging doc and was put on sottopelle and progesterone and that seems to have fixed it. Don't know if it would be as simple as that for you, but it's probably worth looking into...

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Murphysboro, IL
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    726

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    DB swears by pregnenolone for extinguishing hot flashes.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
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    53,557

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    Quote Originally Posted by sbhikes View Post
    I've provided this info for any of the coaches on here just for the demographic info that is so lacking for people my age. I have no coach. Maybe if I did they'd push me harder than I push myself. But let me tell you, hot flashes suck--I can feel a tingle that feels like a free-fall off a building just before it happens. Getting old sucks. I'm ridiculously sore all the time.
    Describe your diet and especially your protein intake for us.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
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    50 yr old Female
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    I have not been measuring what I eat. I drink a scoop of whey protein powder for breakfast. I eat a generous portion of protein (fish or chicken or eggs usually) for dinner. Anything else is opportunistic and probably doesn't add much to the overall total. It's probably not enough but I got to a point where I just couldn't stand to eat so much chicken.

    I'm not trying to win anything, just trying to stay strong enough for life and strong enough that once I break through to the other side of this menopause maybe I can have the ability to work harder then. It was pretty amazing to me how difficult the menopause made everything. Having a hot flash hit in the middle of a set sucks. I hope it goes away soon.

    I have chronic soreness in my hips and can't seem to squat down very well at all. Stretching has yet to help me squat without pain even though it has helped my achilles tendinitis a lot. I have no idea where this pain even came from.

    Another weird thing that has changed since menopause is that I get bruises in my hands really easily. Deadlifts will break the veins in my fingers sometimes. So I struggle with being able to deadlift very heavy.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
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    North Texas
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    You're not eating enough to support recovery from training. Until you do, you will be sore and unrecovered.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Indianapolis, IN
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    2,266

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    starting strength coach development program
    Quote Originally Posted by sbhikes View Post
    Deadlifts will break the veins in my fingers sometimes.
    What does that mean? Do you mean the capillaries in your hands pop?

    If you choose not to fix your diet, you'll have to design the training stress around the recoverability that you've constrained on the system.
    Starting Strength Indianapolis is up and running. Sign up for a free 30-minute coaching session.
    I answer all my emails: ALewis@StartingStrengthGyms.com

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