Chanel here. Welcome to Menopause Nutritionist.
I believe women can thrive in menopause and
have the body composition of their choice
if they must have been nutrition and lifestyle.
Hey. I am super excited to have a
chat with my lovely Sheree today. She has
an awesome story, and we were chatting last
week having a check in and just kind
of talking through
where we started
and where she now is on her journey.
And some of the
the maybe limiting beliefs or confidence
pieces that she was sharing with me, I
was like, I know other people tuning in
will
really maybe hear themselves in her story
or, you know,
hear her journey and the things she's done
and and really go, okay. I can do
this. Like, this is if this is possible,
I can achieve this too. So I'm really
excited to have a chat with you today.
Maybe, actually, I'll just start with throwing it
over to you, Sherry,
and
you can give your side of the story,
like, you know, coming in and and starting
working together
and
how we'll go from there and probably bounce
back
off each other. How's that sound? Yeah. That
sounds amazing, Chanel. Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity,
but also just huge thanks for the support
that you have been through this whole entire
journey.
So kind of starting in the in the
beginning, like, I think about February.
So there was a group of us, and
we are qualified to go and pedal in
Hawaii
in August. That's in 5 weeks.
Oh, great. And we all had different goals
that we needed to meet. And one of
the biggest ones was probably around,
you know, nutrition and exercise.
So one of the lovely ladies,
Sandra and our team, she
she found her, and she said, let's do
this. And we thought, okay. Let's do it.
And I think at the time, we were
kind of well, me personally, I was in
a space that
I just
knew I needed to do something different
because
everything that was
everything that I used to do in the
past was no longer working.
Like, literally, I was putting on weight merely
by breathing.
So
it was it was so so super duper
frustrating,
and I was getting nowhere with it. And
in my head, because
you're right. You were very right in your
in what you were saying that
society
kinda tells us that we have to do
it this way to be able to achieve.
But when we when we're kind of in
the throes of menopause, that doesn't work anymore.
And, that's exactly where I was. And I
got to a point where I think
for me, a lot of
I I didn't know whether or not it
was gonna work for me. I was I
was a bit skeptical, to be honest. And
that was only because I just thought, well,
that's not what I know.
But I thought, what the hey. I'm gonna
have to try something different.
So I did. Joined a program.
Got on board.
The first thing was about eating more.
Blew my mind. Just blew my mind
because
we've been always, you know, conditioned to say
eat less, do more.
So those two things just were kinda like
going opposite direction for me. And I was
like,
okay. But I'm gonna give it a go.
I think one of the biggest things about
getting on the program is
kinda as a mom and as a person
who is always caring for others,
I actually saw
that I needed to start investing in myself
and making positive changes for me
to benefit others.
But I'd never seen that before.
So, you know, I I think at the
very beginning till I picked up a program
from Patty.
Yes.
So I put the 2 of them together
and I thought, look, let's just go for
gold. See what
happens. But it so through all of that,
meal prep was always a real struggle for
me because it wasn't a normal thing. But
me, my husband, and my kids, we kind
of all got on board with it.
So in terms of all the meals, it
was so super duper easy.
We love all the stuff that gets thrown
on a crock pot, and we turn up
home and the house smells like, you know,
someone's been cooking all day long.
And and the food that comes out of
the crock pot is amazing.
My husband loves it. My kids love it.
So my youngest one who is
10
puts it all in a wrap and then
goes and sandwich presses it. She loves it.
So we're all eating it, and everybody
is feeling super duper charged by it. We
don't ever think about,
you know, what we need to have for
lunch anymore.
We're saving a crap load of money, actually,
not having to buy food.
Oh, good. Now when we go out, you
know, we we go out. We have
whatever, Mexican or and everyone's looking at the
menu thinking about
well, I am anyway, protein value, fat value,
carb value.
Yeah.
Hubby looks at it and then he just
goes, oh, you know, it's either steak or
chicken, wherever
it used to just be anything goes.
But yeah. Look.
I just gotta say, like,
when I started this,
I was kinda, like, at about the 88
KG mark,
and I expected to lose maybe about 5
kilos.
Mhmm.
But here I am today
sitting at
76
kilos.
Incredible.
And I just I'm like,
it wasn't that wasn't necessarily always the motivator
to keep going.
Yeah. But I in my adult life, and
I'm talking ever since I was 18 plus
Mhmm.
I have the,
you know, like,
I'm the lightest
I'm probably the healthiest I've ever been in
my life, to be honest. You look incredible.
Like, so you look like you're glowing. It's
it's
god. Thanks. It was probably more about and
I,
even in my head today so, like, we've
been going for 6 months with this. Even
in my head today, when someone asks me
how much I weigh,
the first number that comes to mind is
starts with an 8, and I know it's
not a 8. But on my head, it
still registers as an 8.
Yeah. Yeah.
But it's hang on. No. No. It starts
with a 7.
But yeah. And I have a so it's
just really transferable to my whole family, which
is
amazing. I don't know how long I would
have actually kept going, to be honest, if
it was just about me and having to
do me and wasn't
it wasn't being enjoyed by my husband. So
my husband has also
lost a ton of weight just by being
able to be part of the nutrition.
So awesome.
He and and he's feeling great for it
apart from the cold mornings when we don't
wanna get out of bed. But,
so he's doing great.
We really feel the benefits.
Just also your advice about taking different types
of supplements. So we take fish oil where
we never had,
magnesium
at night,
not during the day, so it made me
sleepy.
Drinking lots and lots of water.
Yeah. We carry water bottles everywhere.
You know,
just really fueling the body properly.
I've never been a weightlifter.
I've never weight lifted weights before
this program. Mhmm. And a lot of that
was because I was always told
you're gonna make yourself bigger if you lift.
So never lifted in my life.
Mhmm.
How do you feel now? How do you
feel now there?
Oh, I couldn't imagine my life without lifting.
Yeah.
I just think about it. How's your body
changed
as well? Oh, yeah. Look.
I suppose with
the the loss of weight too. So when
I started, I was about a size 18.
Yep.
I'm now around about a size
12
to 14.
That's amazing. Never happened in my adult life.
Yeah. But it's not it's something that's not
necessarily
hard to maintain. Like, it's a sustainable change.
Mhmm. And because it's come with habit stacking.
Yep. It's another one from you. So habit
stacking, trying to put things together, so it
just makes life a little bit easier.
Yeah. It prompts your memory because I've got
a crap memory.
Yeah. One thing that when we were talking
last week, you talked a little bit about
in the past,
you have had, like, different things you have
done, like, you know, preparing for time where
maybe you've lost weight, but then
it's like gone back and you've actually, you
know, returned to old ways and then put
on more weight or and this situation
has gone on kind of, you know, like
pretty much your whole life. Like, you you
kind of touched on that a bit. Do
you wanna expand? Yeah. Absolutely. I I've always
been a bit of a yo yo dieter,
and it's always been because of, you know,
I've really limited myself
to, you know, like, deficit calorie, you know,
like diet
and,
you know,
every waking hour
working out,
and it was just not sustainable.
So we get to a point now where
everything is sustainable
because there's the nutrition, there's the exercise, and
there's the sleep. Right?
So just trying to make time for all
of those,
because
it works and the benefits are huge. Everybody
needs more sleep. Everyone needs good nutrition
and just a just a bit of exercise.
But,
it certainly
it certainly made me see it all differently.
But,
yeah, it's huge. The biggest thing for me
was I struggled within my head before I
even started was trying to invest in myself.
Yeah. That really questioned how much I actually
found myself in terms of
just self worth.
Yep. Was I was I was I worth
the money? Was I worth the time?
Yeah.
And when I asked myself those questions, I
had to say, yes. You are. Mhmm.
But you need to be able to invest
in your future, which is probably the biggest
thing in my head was the change, and
I'm like, yeah. I gotta do it. Yeah.
And the and the benefits have been huge,
not only to me, but to my whole
entire family.
Yeah. For
sure. I can't So if if someone's listening
in today and they're like,
you know, they know they need to change,
they're hearing themselves in what you're saying. Maybe
they've been yo yo doting. They don't understand
what they need to do to change their
nutrition and and lifestyle.
How would you
what would you say to them, like, so
they can
they can put themselves first? Like, from our,
like if you're caught in that trap where
you're like, am I worth this? Like, am
I worth this investment? Am I worth this
money? Like, what what how how do we
go about
changing our,
like, views on this?
Yeah. Look, it's probably, you know,
it sounds a bit
noisy, but, you know, health, you can't
you can't underestimate
the value of it because we need it
to stay alive.
But for me,
everything else that I tried before
didn't work, and I knew I was gonna
get into a space of just
giving up. Mhmm.
And when I thought about it and I
thought, hey. You know what? I'm I'm worth
the money. The worst thing that's gonna happen
is I will probably end up spending
the same money I had on the yoyo
diets that I was doing. Mhmm.
And now
if I
And the extra food.
Oh, look. And the thing was is that
it was it was only really only ever
about me because I had to, you know,
make family different meal, me different meal. It
was just it was painful and it was
just too hard.
But now we've got meals that everybody likes
and even if they don't like it, they
seem to change it up for themselves. But,
Yeah. Right. Oh,
it's I can't really explain it, but being
able to invest in yourself, invest in your
future,
and just make a realization
that some that, you know, when life gives
you a change, you gotta make a change
to see a change. Yeah. True. I am
the healthiest I've been in my life.
And I say that even from when I
was in my twenties because I was just
kinda having to starve myself to be able
to perform, and I wasn't performing well, which
is why it all
the wheels fell off the cart. Yeah.
Yeah.
I I think what I I remember kind
of going back to your journey.
I think too I remember like when we
close to when we got started, you went
to New Zealand like,
couple of weeks. And I remember you coming
back and you're like, oh, I feel like
I didn't do a good job there and
I didn't, you know, you were like quite
hard on yourself. I remember the conversation.
And
so I think that
having
being able to, like, you know, work through
some of those
things probably enabled
you to
be able to keep going where in the
past maybe, like because it's you were you
were pretty hard on yourself.
Yeah. I, yeah, I think honestly, I think
sometimes as women, we, we probably are worst
critics, right?
Yeah. And I just said, oh, bugger that
up. I can't get back on, you know,
be too hard to get back on, but
got back on the wagon.
Yeah. It just keep going. Like, I think,
just gotta
keep going. Like,
some it just depends on how people going
to measure that success. Like, I used to
always think it was the
it was the scales that set my success.
But I had to go get into a
place where I thought, hey. I feel stronger.
I can go I can do I can
lift more. I can
gotta find some other indicators that make you
feel that you are
being successful.
Yeah. But, mate,
you know, we're probably our worst critic. So
Yeah. That's where I was at that stage.
Like, I I think now
if
I, for whatever reason, get busy in life
and I can't go and do that,
I can't do the 700 steps because it
take I don't have time.
Mhmm.
I'm okay to forgive myself Yes. For a
start and just go, hey. You know what?
Tomorrow's another day. Let's go tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah.
Which is which is probably a thing that
I used to I used to beat myself
up because I couldn't do it.
And then that used to just make me
feel a lot less
worthy of my of my own self. Yeah.
So when yeah. Now I'm just like, mate,
just get up tomorrow, go again. Okay. So
you're kind of almost like learnt to,
like, embrace the journey and forgive yourself along
the way for not being perfect. So there
may be
been some, like, expectations that you put on
yourself
that now you are like you you know,
it's almost like you love yourself enough now
to give yourself a break. You know? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think I've gone
it's it's taken away a while to realize
that I that I am worthy of me,
my time, my energy,
and obviously my investment. So,
yeah, it's been amazing. It's been an amazing
journey. I
and it's paid off in spades,
in more ways than one. So it's not
only about me and my body. It's helping,
you know,
it helps mental health. It helps, like, just
even interactions with people.
Certainly
has helped my whole entire family. We're eating
better, feeling better,
going out and doing so many more things.
We're connecting on on different levels in terms
of being able to go out
and just walk together, be together.
Yeah. Spend more time together, eat together. I
mean,
so it's okay.
That's like because I know the last time
we were chatting, you were like, I've got,
like, my 2 or 3 places that when
we're eating out as a family, like, you
prefer to go to, you know, and the
rest of the family are like, oh, no
more KFC.
Like
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, we'll we'll still go to KFC
or whatever, but it's kinda not, you know,
like, 2 2 big huge boxes anymore. But
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, and everyone's just a bit mindful.
So Yeah. People need to know that too.
It's not like that you can't still go
out and enjoy your takeaway or you can't
you still can. It's learning how to incorporate
that. So what happens is you actually don't
crave to go
out and have the takeaway like you used
to. It's still a treat and you still
do it, but it's not like you're not
doing it all the time and that's where
then it's a better balance, you know? Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. I
so, you know, like, we'll go to, you
know, like,
GYG and we'll go to
even when we go out with friends and
we go to restaurants and whatever, we're kinda
just scanning the menu a bit better. Yeah.
So we're not just going to the,
oh, that one. Yes.
Yeah. And that is actually because
over the time,
you now have I call it nutritional
literacy,
where you actually know
more about food and you understand what you
need. So that's why you can now go
in. What happens is beforehand,
we actually just don't know. And so that's
why we don't make the choices like and
you hear me say this like, when we
know better, we do better. And so that's
what's happened is along the journey, you guys
as a family have just learned
different skills. And so now you just make
different choices because you know better.
And that's the cool thing. So Absolutely. And
it's just stuff we do,
naturally.
Yeah. Now, like, we don't
it doesn't feel like an absolute chore.
Oh, we just go there, and we don't
even think about what we're gonna get. We
usually figure it out before we even get
there. But Yeah.
But, yeah, it's
it's
it's gonna sound pretty cliche, but it's absolutely
life changing.
No. Well, losing 12 kilos is life changing.
And the the funny thing is, I remember
Sheree right at the start, the focus for
us was for you to get fit and
strong for the worlds that is upcoming for
you. The byproduct
of us working together
is you have learned about how to master
your nutrition and lifestyle. And in the process,
you have transformed yourself and your body, like,
because you now know what to do. And
that's the byproduct of
the first initial goal. So that's
the cool thing. But I think this is
why it's been so cool talking to you
today
because
when we have been chatting and, like, uncovering
some of, like you said, the limiting beliefs
and not feeling worthy and, like, shit, I'm
doing this and the yo yo dieting.
There's so many women out there and, and
we were even talking, you were like, there's
so many of my friends that need, you
know, to do this. And so this is
why we wanted to have this chat today.
So we yeah, because obviously
as a nutritionist myself, my passion is to
help as many people as possible. Like Yeah.
I know, like you do now,
that when you know what to do, you
truly can thrive in this chapter. Like, it
is
possible, and you've just heard Sheree's story.
So if you're listening in and you're, you
know, you're feeling doubted, you're not sure, like,
you're feeling hopeless, just know
that you can do this. It is possible.
Both of us have done it.
I I too have a a messy story.
And so we both are feeling great and
living our best lives, and that's what this
is about. So thank you so much for
joining us today, Sheree. I know that this
story will really impact and help a lot
of other women, and that's what we're here
to do. So thanks so much for Amazing.
Thanks so much for your time. Thank you
for your support. I couldn't have done it
without you.
And you're incredible.
Good luck at the world, and keep on
being amazing.
Truly hope you enjoyed
this chat
today. I think so many people can probably
hear themselves in Sheree's story.
So, so proud of her and just want
you to know what is possible for you
too. So if you are happy to leave
a 5 star review, a 5 star rating,
like share comment,
send this to a friend who may need
to listen to it, would truly appreciate it.
And as always you're amazing, thanks for tuning
in and putting yourself forward.
Have a great rest of your day and
I will see you next time.