Every now and again, a powerful and emotional story from one of the MyMT™ ladies on my programmes, arrives in my inbox. This one came about rather unexpectedly. Christine in Wellington, New Zealand responded to a post in my private coaching group about ruby-red kiwifruit. Every week I have a new topic and that particularly day, we were talking about the rich-nutrients in kiwifruit. Another lady had found ruby-red kiwifruit at her grocery store.
So, Christine placed a note and a photo of her feeling inspired by the post and was using red kiwifruit in her real-fruit ice-cream at her partner’s art gallery at Petone Beach. What evolved was Christine saying that she had pivoted her corporate career and now owned ‘Beachside Real Fruit Ice-cream’ – and lost weight!
Christine’s is a remarkable story of symptom confusion, exhaustion, stress, fortitude, resilience and coming out of the midlife fog to find her purpose in (mid)life. I feel so privileged that she has chosen to share her story with you too.
“Looking back, I think I started to experience perimenopause symptoms when I was around 48, not that I recognised them as such at the time.
The onset of perimenopause also collided with a very stressful period of my life. My husband had been diagnosed with a brain tumour and, following surgery, out of the blue announced he didn’t want to be married anymore. I was left to raise our two beautiful young sons by myself.
During this time my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. What began was a journey of many demands on me during a time I was feeling far from my best to be able to deal with them.
My first perimenopause symptoms showed up in my starting to have significant gut issues. I was referred to a Specialist, who, over the course of a year did every test under the sun. He couldn’t find anything untoward and eventually said he didn’t know what was causing my issues.
No-one ever mentioned menopause.
It was from then on that I started to gain weight. Over the next decade despite not eating differently (therein lay the problem) I gained 17kgs.
During that time my physical symptoms started to arrive with a vengeance. The 3am wakeup, hot flushes, brain fog, mood swings and the symptom I found most distressing, aching joints and plantar fasciitis.
I was always so sore, so I gave up going to the gym, the thing that had been keeping me in a good head space.
My GP told me that menopause didn’t cause women to put on weight, she had no suggestions except to confirm that indeed I was going through the menopause transition.
Thank goodness I then found Wendy and the MyMT™ programme. That’s when everything started to change for me. Slowly!
I have always been someone who needed to know the “why” before I would do something and the depth of Wendy’s “why” on so many things was a breath of fresh air. Having lost my mother in an accident when I was 12, I felt I had no reference for what menopause looked like and no understanding of it.
I made changes slowly in line with Wendy’s research-based information and things started to improve.
Firstly, my sleep. I finally started to feel that I was in control of this transition which I now understood. I started to realise that I didn’t have to accept that this was how I was always going to feel and I didn’t need to let the old woman in.
I also knew I didn’t have to follow anything to the letter – the 80/20 rule was quite a relief! I frequently fell off the wagon of my good habits, but I didn’t beat myself up about it, I just picked myself up and got back on track.
Despite positive changes my weight never really shifted, and I thought I would just have to accept that. I finally succumbed and brought clothes that fitted me. Luckily, I didn’t throw out my other ‘me’ wardrobe. Halfway through last year I decided to give myself a career break for a year. Thanks to Wendy’s insight, I realised that it was the stress making me hold onto my weight.
By this time sadly Dad had died and had left me some money. I decided I would use it to give me a re-set.
I left my busy corporate role and went searching for how my life could look different.
I re-joined the gym and found yoga. I moved out of my house of 26 years and moved into my partner’s apartment at the beach. We walked on the beach and had coffee together every morning.
I started doing volunteer work for things I was passionate about and decided to start a small business. A real fruit ice cream shop called Beachside Real Fruit Ice Cream in my partners art gallery. It’s at the beach in Petone on the northern side of the beautiful Wellington Harbour.
I am just about to finish my first season, and I can’t wait for next season to start.
I am now excited to jump out of bed every morning. My joint pains are gone; my feet are still a work in progress but improving and finally I have started to lose weight – 7kgs in the past year so far and I’m starting to feel good again.
I really don’t think I would be in the great space I am in now, if I hadn’t found Wendy and her programme. Thank you Wendy. I hope one day if you are in Wellington over summer you will pop in and have a real fruit ice cream or yoghurt on me on a day you are letting yourself have a treat for all your great work!”
Christine, Ice-Cream Vendor Extroadinaire, Wellington, New Zealand
