Aging Well Coaching, Comox, Comox, BC (2025)

12/09/2025

Menopause Monday!

As estrogen and progesterone shift in perimenopause and decline in menopause, your body becomes more sensitive to stress—physical, emotional, and physiological from things like food sensitivities/intolerances/allergies, exercise, undereating and many other lifestyle-related factors. That means cortisol (your stress hormone) can stay chronically high, leading to:

- Afternoon crashes
- Belly weight gain
- Brain fog + overwhelm
- Anxiety or that “buzzing” feeling
- Poor sleep or waking at 2–4am
- Feeling wired but tired

If you have a few of these, you might benefit from making some changes to support your adrenal function. Some gentle, supportive ways to help your nervous system downshift and your hormones finally work with you instead of against you include:

- Eating in a way that stabilizes blood sugar
- Building micro-rest into your day instead of pushing nonstop
- Reducing inflammation + supporting gut health
- Light, restorative movement to calm your nervous system
- Setting boundaries that protect your energy & sleep
- Sleep rituals that actually work with menopausal biology
- Learning how to regulate cortisol naturally (and simply)

If you’re feeling depleted, scattered, overwhelmed, or like your fuse is shorter than ever… your adrenals may be asking for some love.

I hope this post helps! Leave me a comment if you found it useful and you would like more info on one of the ways to support your adrenals!

12/05/2025

Food Fridays!

With the holiday season fast approaching, I thought this was a good opportunity to remind everyone about blood-sugar-balancing meals to keep those afternoon crashes away, support better sleep, reduce cravings, and help you enjoy the season without feeling sluggish. It doesn’t have to be complicated — just a few simple principles can carry you through. Small tweaks make a big difference — and you can still enjoy all your favourites while supporting your body.

12/03/2025

Workout Wednesday!

Here are some of my favourite ways to train smarter so my body feels supported, strong, and steady:

1. Prioritize strength training

Building muscle supports metabolism and loading my body keep my bones strong. I aim for 3-4 sessions a week with progressive overload (small increases over time!).

2. Keep cardio sessions short - HIIT that is short & intentional

A little goes a long way. 10–20 minutes max, 2x per week. It gives my nervous system space to recover.

3. Recovery is part of my program

I feel more tired or sore than I used to and that’s normal. I have 1-3 rest days, gentle mobility, or walking between tougher sessions depending on how I feel.

4. I sync my workouts with my cylce and stress levels

High stress + high intensity = hormonal chaos. On tough weeks, I swap intensity for strength, walking, Pilates, yoga, or low-impact conditioning.

5. Fuel properly (because it makes all the difference)

I prioritize protein (25–35g/meal), hydrate well, and don’t train fasted because it leaves me drained. Muscles and hormones need nourishment to adapt.

6. Lift Heavy

Heavier weights boost my confidence, bone density, and muscle. I love seeing how much I can lift. I start with a safe amount I've lifted before and build from there.

7. Listen to my body (not my old “shoulds”)

My energy levels changed during perimenopause. Adjusting my workout didn’t mean doing less — it meant doing what helped me thrive.

12/02/2025

A quick reminder for every WOMAN:

Know your baseline. Know your cycle. Know what’s normal… and what deserves attention.

I ended up in a hospital gown recently, and it reminded me how many women minimize or normalize symptoms that actually need follow-up. I have been tracking my cycle for years, so I knew when something abnormal popped up and needed checking.

What’s normal in perimenopause:
• Irregular cycles
• Heavier or lighter periods
• Spotting before periods
• Mood + sleep changes
• Changes in cravings, bloating, breast tenderness
• Temperature swings

What’s NOT normal (get checked):
• Any bleeding after menopause
• Bleeding after in*******se
• Severe one-sided pain
• Symptoms that rapidly worsen
• Bleeding that interferes with daily life
• Unexplained fatigue or persistent lymph node swelling

If you’re unsure what your symptoms mean, you’re not alone. This phase of life deserves better support, better information, and zero shame. Reach out to your doctor, a friend or family or even me if you need a sounding board and support!

12/02/2025

Menopause Monday!

It's been a few weeks of craziness, but I am back to posting regularly again! I wanted to do this post, since it is something that a lot of people struggle with, but may not know the name for it.

Women in particular struggle more with it (in a totally unfair twist of biology) because:

1. Lower estrogen makes energy production less efficient. Estrogen helps your cells use both glucose and fat effectively. When it drops, your cells become slower and less responsive, meaning your body doesn’t switch fuel sources as easily.

2. Cortisol tends to be higher and more reactive. Perimenopause and menopause makes your stress system more sensitive. Higher or inconsistent cortisol levels can lead to more fat storage, more cravings, and harder time accessing stored energy.

3. Blood sugar becomes harder to regulate. Your body becomes less sensitive to insulin. This makes you more prone to energy crashes, carb cravings, and feeling like you “hit a wall” after meals.

4. Muscle mass naturally declines. Muscle is metabolically active tissue. Less muscle = a slower metabolism and reduced ability to use stored fuel efficiently.

BUT Metabolic flexibility can be rebuilt.

How to support it?

Strength training
Protein at every meal
Regular meals (no extreme fasting)
Daily walking
Prioritizing sleep
Managing stress consistently

Remember, start small! Even small changes like walking for 10 minutes after every meal can have a positive impact!

11/13/2025

Workout Wednesday!

"Workout because you love your body, not because you hate it.”

I remind myself of this often and plan to share it with my clients — not as a slogan, but as a mindset shift.

For years, movement (and honestly, nutrition too) felt like punishment — something I “had to do” to make up for what I ate or how I looked.

But when movement, nourishment, and rest become acts of self-love instead of punishment or control, everything changes.

Consistency stops feeling like discipline — it becomes care.

You start to choose protein because it fuels your energy.
You go to bed earlier because your body deserves recovery.
You move because it feels good to be strong.

This is what I think it means to age well — to support your body with love and acceptance, not criticism.

11/10/2025

I love giving back and helping out women that may be struggling with their health and wellness. One of my new offerings is purposely designed as a super affordable and easy way to kickstart your health journey! Everyone's body is so different and we all experience perimenopause and menopause in our own unique way. Our hormonal shifts can impact our energy, mood, metabolism, weight, sleep and so much more, but....many nutrition approaches aren't geared towards women in this stage of life. If you'd like to understand your hormonal patterns more & how your nutrition choices may be influencing them, please consider checking out my nutrition audit,

https://www.agingwellcoaching.ca/nutrition-audit

Also, I have to say this, because honestly lol, I love how the image displayed for my video is always so flattering 😆 🤣

11/10/2025

So well said! “Comparison is the thief of joy.” — Theodore Roosevelt

11/08/2025

Having fun at the North Island Menopause Conference with so many fantastic women!

11/07/2025

Food Fridays!

At a recent talk I was giving to women about lifestyle habits to support perimenopause, I had a lovely woman mention concerns about hypothyroidism so I thought I would share this post. Yes there are nutrition aspects so it fits with today's theme 😉

Postpartum, like the woman I was chatting with, I was one of the unfortunate percentage of women to develop hypothyroidism. While being medicated to bring my TSH levels into the "normal" range, I noticed a small improvement in symptoms, but still didn't feel right. I felt like some things were being missed and sought the help of a naturopath, who helped me understand the root cause of my condition.

Some things I learned along the way.....Your thyroid makes mostly T4, an inactive form of thyroid hormone. Your body must convert it to T3, the active hormone that powers energy, metabolism, mood, and focus. That conversion can slow down with stress, nutrient deficiencies, inflammation, or poor gut health — even when labs look “normal.”

So yes, you can have symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, stubborn weight gain, cold hands and feet, or low mood… and still be told everything’s fine.

Some lifestyle tips that I adopted to support my thyroid naturally were:

1) Eating foods rich in selenium, zinc, iodine & vitamin D (think: Brazil nuts, eggs, seaweed, wild salmon, mushrooms). I also reduced consumption of raw cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale (goitrogens) which block iodine uptake.
2) Managing stress through mindset shifts, boundary setting, yoga and meditation because cortisol blocks T4→T3 conversion.
3) Healed my gut — 20% of thyroid conversion happens there. This involved reducing or eliminating inflammatory foods like gluten & dairy because these were my trigger foods for discomfort.
4) Reduced my exposure to toxins like alcohol, plastics, harsh chemicals, heavy metals, cleaning and cosmetic products.

And.... I started to feel better. More energy, less brain fog, better mood. My biggest takeaway is that while medication helps replace hormones, lifestyle can heal the system that makes and converts them. I hope you found this helpful!

11/06/2025

I’ve been thinking about my last post on self-care and realized I had more to say. One of my biggest struggles during my military career was constantly trying to meet standards set by an institution and culture that valued service before self. I joined at 18 and never really questioned it — I just learned to adapt, achieve, and keep pushing.

But as I gained more experience — both in uniform and beyond — I started to realize that the expectations and motivations I’d lived by for so long no longer aligned with my values or goals. My life had changed and so had my priorities and beliefs. But....my mindset was still focused on meeting external expectations, not my own.

It took stopping, reflecting, and redefining what “being my best” actually meant — not by someone else’s standards, but by mine.

My journey taught me this: strength and success aren’t measured by meeting someone else's standard — it’s about having the courage to create your own and showing yourself some compassion when you fall short of your own expectations.

Have you ever had to redefine what success means for you? I'd love to hear your experience in the comments.

Aging Well Coaching

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