I am 48 years old , a Personal Trainer/Pilates instructor and I’ve always been fit and healthy. But then my life changed …
Maybe my journey began 2 years ago when my best friend and husband of 25 years passed away suddenly, blowing my world into a million pieces. Looking back I am very thankful I had the strength, courage and resilience to get out of bed every morning and keep moving. I had my 3 young adult children to help through their own grieving process and so I think I put a lot of my own grieving on hold for a later date when my children seemed to accept that our world had changed (actually maybe we still haven’t but we continue to move through the process).
However from the day my husband died I stopped menstruating which was understandable. I was in shock, grieving and very stressed, which meant my body weight dropped from my normal 62kg down to 57kg in a month.
I then remembered seeing Wendy’s Menopause Transformation Programme information from a conference I had attended and decided to join up. And the strength of the programme was having someone else guide me through it. The the on-line webinars and emails to Wendy and her responses, got me on track for my own personal journey. It also pushed me into getting a full check out from my Doctor too. With the supplements Wendy recommended based on these tests (which had nothing to do with the menopause ones on the market!), within the week I was feeling better. Now I’m at the end of my ‘Circuit Breaker’ programme and I sleep through the night, no night sweats and my energy levels back up. I am lucky enough that I enjoy my gentle run around the block which is almost a mediation thing. It’s when I plan my day and put my mind into order and de-stress. Armed with the strategies that Wendy teaches, I also strengthened my own ‘yoga-lates classes’ at work with some of the skills I was learning.
Two of my children have now left home, so an empty nest syndrome hit me hard, I was supposed to be going through this process with my husband not on my own. I fell off the rail a bit, falling into a few old bad habits but after a few restless nights sleep and hot flushes, this actually reinforced the need for me to get back on track again. Lesson learnt! Life doesn’t come with a magic wand, does it? I discovered through this programme that routines matter for our hormonal health and we don’t need to ‘deny’ ourselves with crazy regimes at this stage of life – many of us still have a lot going on. I know that I’ve been incredibly stressed and this has affected my symptoms perhaps more than other women, but I cannot believe that now I sleep all night and I love the feeling of having energy the next day, so I can put my own energy into my clients as well as my family and the next journey of my life… whatever that may be.
So a big thank you to Wendy and her team for helping women take control of their life! There are different plans of attack, as we don’t all fit in the same little box and because Wendy has been through menopause, she knows it can be can be a 2 steps forward and 1 step back. But that’s the great thing. The tools and support are all on-line to help women like me, move forward again. When I see Wendy one day, I ‘m going to give her a big ‘thank-you hug’.
Stephnee Jenkins
Ambitions Personal Training Pilates Studio, Mosgiel, New Zealand
