January Reflections: Women's Health and the Start of Midlife Transformations

Welcome to Midlife with Courage™! Join Kim’s solo episode as she recaps January's women’s health theme with inspiring guests and shares what they have taught her this month including insights on perimenopause, diabetes prevention, and body positivity. 

Plus, learn how to connect with her community, join the Courage and Confidence Circle, and explore speaking opportunities.

00:00 Welcome to Midlife with Courage
00:15 New Year Reflections and Format Changes
01:07 Health Insights from Recent Guests
01:36 Sharon Neilson's Health Tips
03:50 Michele Folan on Strong Over Skinny
04:30 Anne Poirier on Body Neutrality
06:47 Join the Midlife with Courage Community
10:09 Courage and Confidence Circle
12:29 Speaking Opportunities and Conclusion

Sharon Neilson Episode 

Michele Folan Episode

Anne Poirier Episode

Ready to dive in deeper to these episodes? Join my Midlife with Courage™ online community for even more connection, courage and confidence. 

Transcript

0:02

You are listening to the Midlife with Courage podcast. This is where women and midlife come for inspiration, motivation, and sometimes a little education to help them flourish after 40. Let's get started. Hello everyone and welcome back to Midlife With Courage. Happy New Year. I hope you are all enjoying this first month of the year, and that might be the last time I say Happy New Year since we're. Coming in the end of January here, but I hope you're all having a wonderful January and, things are going well for you. This is a solo episode, as you can tell. I wanted to come on and just share some things and some thoughts with you. And actually this is something I'm going to be doing every month now. I'm trying a new format. I'm of course going to be sharing the beautiful stories of my amazing guest every month, i'm also going to be taking a week to share things with you from my point of view and my thoughts, and, so we'll see how this goes. I'm really excited to make some little bit of changes and some have some new things that are coming along. So I will talk about those in a minute as well. You may have noticed a theme this month, and I will tell you this happened accidentally, but it really did work out. So I had three women this month, Sharon Neilson, Michele Folan, and Anne Poirier they shared their stories, but we also talked about health, women's health in perimenopause, and they each had a slightly different take on a different aspect of, perimenopause and how we can help our bodies and what things we can do to help us feel better and be healthier. And we had Sharon Neilson, who was a lovely nurse from, down under, she's from Australia. She talked about, her journey through divorce and the healthcare system, and sounds like it's not a lot different in Australia than it is here. But she actually taught me something, which I didn't know and. I don't, maybe I should have known this, but as we get older, I know you've heard the term insulin resistance, and as we get into perimenopause, I'm sure you know this, that our estrogen levels drop or as she says, estrogen and estrogen is a hormone that helps the insulin get into the body cells so that we can use it for what it's intended for to help break down the food and when our estrogen levels are lower. Then it's harder for that insulin to get into the cells so it doesn't go into the cells. It ends up in your bloodstream floating around and causing problems. And eventually, if it gets to a higher point, which. Unless you make some changes, that's what's gonna happen. That's when we develop type two diabetes and diabetes is something I'm really paying attention to because my mom has type one and I had it when I was pregnant. It's called gestational diabetes. And so I'm really at high risk for it. And I have been watching my labs the last couple years. The hemoglobin H one C it's a test of the last three months about your blood sugar. Anyway, it's gradually coming up and they've already mentioned pre-diabetes. I'm getting to that point. And all they say is, well, we're just gonna watch it. I don't wanna just watch it, I wanna do something. So Sharon has some great ideas for us to help and I shared, I've been sharing this. One of the things that we talked about is, putting some protein powder in your coffee in the morning. Just one simple thing, and especially if you don't eat breakfast right away in the morning, that's something you can do. What I've been doing is putting it in my coffee and then I do my workout and then I eat my breakfast and. You listen to the episode, you'll hear about it. But, it's just one little thing that I can do and I actually do feel better. And. Hopefully it's gonna make some changes for me. And that's just one thing. So there's a lot of other things that we talked about with Sharon as well too. And then of course, Michele Folan, we talked about strong over skinny. I love that. I think I wanna make that a poster or something strong over skinny and so check her out. We also talked about the GLP ones, in that episode as well. And I love her take on it because she feels that GLP one should be a tool, and along with exercise and eating right, use the GLP ones. I'm not gonna go all into it here today, but just know that the GLP ones aren't the only thing that you should be doing to help with weight loss, feeling better, all the symptoms and all the things, and then. Last week I had Anne Poirier back. She was actually a guest that I've had on in the past in October, if you wanna go back. Her first episode was episode 188 and she talked about, body neutrality and what that means, and how we can learn to focus on the function of our bodies rather than the appearance and to show gratitude for our bodies. And so if you haven't listened to that one yet, it's a wonderful episode and she has so many great messages and she actually has a masterclass coming out called Weight Loss Freedom. And so I wanted to have her back on to talk about that a little bit as well. So, yeah, it's been a good month and as I said, this month happened. The theme kind of happened accidentally. When people book with me to, to record their podcast episode, I just take them as they schedule, and that's usually how I put them out. And it just so happened that Sharon and Michele, they scheduled within the same, within a week of each other. And so it was Sharon and Michele. And then, Ann reached out to me and I thought, oh, this would be a great one to add in with this month. All three of my guests were wonderful this month, but I wanted to share a little clip of Sharon's conversation that I had with her. She has some amazing messages and I wanted to make sure that you heard this one again. So take a quick listen at this little clip from Sharon Neilson from her episode of the Midlife with Courage Podcast. women are so much cleverer than this. Why do we end up in a scenario where oh, is this all there? Like when you know, in your mind and in your heart. You are capable of so much more. I want you to climb the biggest mountain you wanna climb, if that's what you wanna do. But if you don't wanna do that, then that's okay. You live life to who you want to be. And I think that part of the health and wellness journey is. That doesn't happen overnight, and there's a whole bunch of barriers and personal issues that you have to reclaim and push through, and that just takes time. So it just so happened that this month happened to be about women's health and wellness with the perimenopause. And I really wanted to focus on that this month and I'm gonna be doing that again. I like that idea of having a theme for the month and I'm going to keep doing that. So watch for that as we go through the, this year of 2026. I can't even believe it's 2026. Alright, another thing I wanted to talk to you about this week is to share with you how you can join me. I love that you're listening to the podcast and if that's the extent of my relationship with you, that is great. I am happy about that. I love having the listeners. I love having you here. I know you're out there. I know you're listening because we are a top five globally ranked podcast. Yay. Thank you so much. But I wanted to share some other things with you as well, of how you can join me or maybe you listen to the podcast and you're thinking, gosh, I'd like to. Hear more from Kim. I'd like to know what she's doing. So I have some wonderful ways for you to join me and, most of them are free, believe it or not. So the first of all is of course, this podcast. Listen to the podcast every week. If you like the episode, if you are listening to, maybe you already listened to Anne Poirier's episode and you thought, oh my gosh, I love that lesson, my friend Joan needs to hear that too. Send the episode tour. It's really easy to do it on your phone. Most people listen to the podcast on their phone anyway, so just grab the link, send it to your friend, and it's a great way to share the messages and get more ears listening. And that helps me get the message out to other midlife women that I am, trying to do. And so I would love it if you would do that. Simple, easy, free, no problem. It's awesome. And then the second thing. Is also a freeway to join me and you're gonna get a whole bunch of, information and fun. I have a school community and that's S-K-O-O-L. It's a newer thing. It's this whole big group of communities and it's very intentional, so it's not like. Your social media, it's not like a Facebook or an Instagram where you go and you scroll through and there's all these different things coming at you and you might not see something that you wanna see or you have to search for it. My school community is called Midlife with Courage, and it's for you. To come and I talk about the podcast, we go a little bit more in depth. I put some clips in there. My plan is to get some of my podcast guests back to do a live, to talk live to you, maybe answer questions if there's things that you wanna talk about in there. And. I did a five day declutter challenge in there. There's just some fun things in there and it's free. You don't have to pay me anything to join the group. It's just a really fun way. I'm really, I hate to say this'cause I do have a Facebook group, but I'm trying to get away from Facebook because it's just so. It raises my blood pressure, first of all, not the group, not the midlife part, the midlife women part, but the other parts of it. And I'm just really tired of all the stuff there. And I thought, why not try this school group and see the. Where I really want to, I really want to build a community of women and connect and a great place to connect is the school community. That's so important in midlife, and I'm finding that more and more and more as I go through what I'm doing. So yes, join the school community. I will put the link in the show notes and I would love to have you there. Check it out. You can always, if you check it out and you don't like it. You can leave. It's okay. I won't cry about it. You won't hurt my feelings or anything, but I would love to have you check it out and, see what's there. One of the things that, one of the things that is in there is my courage and confidence circle and. That is something that you do pay for, but I wanna tell you a little bit about that. The Courage and Confidence Circle is a three month program that I put together. We're starting a new one in March. But I have. It's been a wonderful place for midlife women to come in. We share stories each month. I have a topic related around confidence, and the first month we talked about growth mindset versus. Not growth mindset and what that looks like and how that helps us find our confidence again. And then we talked about, change. Fear of change is one of the biggest reasons that we don't feel confident in what we're doing. And so that the second month we talked about that. The third month we talked about taking action. Now what can we do? We're using that growth mindset, we're. Looking at the fear and dealing with that, and now what are we gonna do? What do we want to do and how are we gonna do it? And so it's been a really wonderful experience. The women in there share stories. I don't go in there and tell you what to do or talk the whole time. It's a group, it's an interaction, it's a circle. So we're all sharing and we're all interacting with each other in a safe place. It's not public. As I said, it's something that you have to, pay to, to join and in the school community, the only people who see the courage and confidence content or lessons or videos are the people that are in it. So people who come to the school. The midlife with courage school community can't see those. It's a really connected and supportive place. And one of the ladies, the first thing she said was, it's very cozy and I love that word. I love that. So. Join that. Check that out. It's a wonderful place to feel connected and to be with other women who are in the same boat as you, or they're on the same ocean or in the same river, however you wanna put that. And so I would love to have you join us as well. As I said, we will be starting a new one in March and that will go March, April, may. And then we'll see what happens after that. And then the last thing, I am looking for opportunities to speak. I have a voice. I have found my voice through my podcast and I have done some little speaking here and there. I want to do more. And so if you know of an opportunity for me to share my message, I love to talk about. That four letter word, JUST, just how we use the word just to minimize ourselves without even realizing it. I'd love to talk about that. I'd love to talk about discovering our voice, rediscovering our voice in midlife and a lot of other topics. So if you know anyone who maybe has a retreat coming up or a group that would like to hear my messages. Let me know. Send me a message, send me an email, kim@midlifewithcourage.com, and I would love that. I would love that connection there. So that is what I have for this month. I cannot believe the month of January is pretty much over, but I'm excited about the rest of this year. I'm excited to connect with all of you. I hope that what I am bringing to you is. Amazing. I know that what I'm bringing to you through the podcast and through my online community and all the things is something that will help ground you, help you find your courage and help. You find that confidence inside of you, help you grow your courage and live a flourishing life after 40 and well beyond that. So I hope you all have a beautiful week, and I will talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to the Midlife with Courage Podcast. If you liked what you heard, I would love it if you would leave a review or even better send a link of this episode to a friend. Until next time, take care of your beautiful self.