GO Training

Oh my goodness, we are full of magical organs, all of us!

For this particular post, I am including the internal and external organs of folks assigned female at birth and male at birth.

My focus will be more on the female pelvis because it has historically had less emphasis, less awareness! Especially as folks move through the perimenopause and menopause transition.

So we all have a bladder and re**um, and then we have differences in our g***d goodness!

I am not going to get into the job of every single internal and external organ here but mostly want to give you a visual of what lives in the pelvis, how they are layered, before we get into the muscular components.

It is the muscular system and connective tissue that we speak to when we’re exercising, but it’s good to know the cast of characters that are being supported by our pelvic floor musculature!

In these figures, the first one of each couplet is a saggital picture, as if we’re looking down the middle of the body, cut in half for your perusal.

The second figure for each s*x, is a coronal plane. This is our jumping jack plane of the body as if we’ve been cut in half from the front to back much like the famous Michelangelo man in the three different position pictures.

I feel like people might come for me for this post… How do you dare come from my coffee?

Well, maybe we don’t need to come for your coffee at all or maybe we need to decrease caffeine intake or however you’re taking caffeine it in… see if any of the below info relates to you!

You may want to check in on your caffeine consumption if :
1. You struggle with sleep
2. You struggle with heartburn
3. You have some pelvic pain or breast pain
4. You struggle with hot flashes
5. You are concerned about health of your bones
6. You struggle with headaches and migraines… this is a maybe so keep on reading!

You may want to keep on trucking if:
1. Caffeine helps relieve constipation and keeps you regular
2. Caffeine helps you with attention and cut through brain fog
3. Caffeine can increase action of some painkillers, acetaminophen might help your headache or migraine instead of worse than them

OK, so you’re caffeine curious!
Things to put on your radar:
1. The current recommendation is to keep caffeine intake to moderate, which would be about 400 mg, for context or 12 ounce Starbucks coffee is about 235 mg.
2. Begin with a little data and observation dance: track and see how you feel with more caffeine or less caffeine get a sense of how it actually affects you
3. Experiment with timing: the half-life of caffeine is about five hours, but some people might take 8 to 10 hours to met
4. And if you experiment with less, make sure you taper off gradually!

I love pleasure, beverages, and yet I love feeling good in my body. So play around with alcohol and caffeine and see if there’s any changes you’d like to make!

Oh yes, I did I go down the research rabbit hole with blood pressure and salt management! I really wanted to understand the why! So cardiovascular and menopause week is becoming two weeks!🤪😂

😳The neural and hormonal dance that happens and how it changes during menopause is really complex.

😮 Both estrogens and progestogens impact the blood pressures. Both s*x hormones also influence a super complex neural and hormonal system for fluid regulation, which controls thirst, fluid intake, sodium appetite and renal fluid, and sodium regulation.

🫨 Meaning salt management is affected by menopause.

🤩 What do you need to know?

🧂Salt sensitivity increases after menopause, and high salt intake can worsen menopause symptoms. Salt sensitivity is when the body retains salt instead of getting rid of excess in urine. Keep in mind everything is on a spectrum so some o***y havers are going to be more salt sensitive than others!

🧂A study found that 52.5% of normotensive women were salt sensitive after menopause, compared to 22.5% before. Salt sensitivity can double as early as four months after surgical menopause.

OK, down to what is actionable?

1. Get spicy and herbal! Adding flavor through spices and herbs will bring flavor to your food without adding sodium!
2. Get saucy! Try making your favorite sauce at home because you’ll have more control over the amount of salt you put in it.
3. Find a good routine with your hydration. This is a low-cost easy to implement solution that can really help your blood pressure.

Reprod Sci. 2014 May; 21(5): 555–561. doi: 10.1177/1933719113518992
PMCID: PMC3984489PMID: 24492487

Hernandez Schulman I, Raij L. Salt sensitivity and hypertension after menopause: role of nitric oxide and angiotensin II. Am J Nephrol. 2006;26(2):170-80. doi: 10.1159/000092984. Epub 2006 Apr 25. PMID: 16645264.