Intro
Hey, I’m Megan Pfiffner, and welcome to Mornings with Megan. Grab your coffee and let’s have a convo.
Show Open
Welcome back. I’m Megan Pfiffner, nutritionist and perimenopause decoder, back with you this week. I’m going solo today. No guest, no research roundup, no frameworks to unpack. Just you and me, the way this whole thing started. I’ll just say it: I think this episode is what we both need right now.
Seeing Her
Before we go anywhere, I want to do something a little different. I want to take a second and actually see you.
Not the version of you that has 17 tabs open and a to-do list that rolled over from last Tuesday. Not the version of you who is behind on something, or hasn’t done the thing yet, or is pretty sure that she is falling short somewhere. I want to see the real you. The one who got up this morning. The one who is here right now, listening, trying.
Can I ask you something? And I mean it. Take a second and actually think about it.
What have you done this year that you feel good about? What are you proud of? What happened, big or small, that you’re glad that you experienced, or did, or finally started?
Maybe it was a career move. A new job, a promotion, a pivot that you were scared to make but made anyway. Maybe it was something smaller and, honestly, sometimes more impressive. You started eating breakfast, actually eating it, not just grabbing something over the sink on the way out the door. Maybe you added a walk to your day, not because someone told you to, because you wanted to and you protected it. Maybe you finally asked for help. That one is huge, and people don’t talk about how hard it is to actually ask for help. Maybe you booked a class that you have been wanting to take for two years and you just kept waiting for the right moment and then one day you did it. Maybe you made room in your schedule to read because you love it and you had stopped making time for the things that you love.
Those are not small things. Every single one of those is a real thing that required something of you: attention, courage, effort, prioritizing yourself when a thousand other things were competing for your time. That is worth a moment of appreciation.
Summer Check-In
It’s getting into summertime, and I know for me that can feel very busy and like a lot is going on. I like to have things to look forward to, but I also know that during this season, if I’m not paying attention, it flies by and suddenly it’s fall and I can’t remember anything I did.
How are you feeling? Excited? Overwhelmed? There’s no wrong answer. The most important thing is asking the question. You may not know, and that is totally okay. Think on it. Marinate for a few minutes. You don’t have to answer out loud. You don’t have to write it down or put it in a journal or share it anywhere. Just let yourself actually feel it for a second.
I think we are so trained to immediately pivot to what’s next, what’s left, what’s still undone, that we almost never let a good thing get celebrated or appreciated.
Summer Is Hard
Summer can be hard with barbecues and parties and beach or lake trips. The kids are out of school, expectations to free-range parent and guilt about childcare. For a lot of women, food comes up. They may have allergies or sensitivities, and you don’t want to be that person. As a gluten intolerant individual, I get it. It is so hard to roll into someone else’s house and navigate telling the host that you can’t eat something, or bringing your own food.
Sometimes it’s the drinking. Maybe you don’t want to, or maybe your body doesn’t tolerate it the same way. A lot of women feel disconnected when they can’t participate in wine night or margarita night. A lot of women in perimenopause wake up one day and they just can’t anymore. They feel like they got hit by a truck after one glass of wine. Sometimes the low sulfate wines or drinking liquor without any sugary mixers makes it doable. And sometimes it’s just not worth it.
And I want to say something about that, because I think it matters. The fact that your body has changed is not a problem with your body. It’s information. Perimenopause changes the way that you metabolize alcohol. It changes the way that you respond to sugar. It changes the way your gut handles certain foods. Your body is not broken. It’s communicating. And you get to decide what to do with that information.
So if this summer looks a little different, if you are bringing your own food to the cookout or skipping the rosé or leaving earlier than you used to, that is not you being difficult. That is you paying attention to yourself. And that’s a skill, a real one.
Permission Slip
You don’t need my permission to do anything. But sometimes it feels good for someone else to give it to you anyway. So you have my permission to take care of yourself this summer, to prioritize how you feel, to put yourself at the top of the list.
You have my permission to say no to things that cost you more than they give you. You have my permission to show up at the party and to leave when you are ready, not when it seems like it’s okay to go. You have my permission to eat the food that feels good and to skip the food that doesn’t, without apologizing for it or explaining yourself six different times. You have my permission to not drink, or to drink a little, or to drink a lot, to figure out what works for you and to do that without making it a whole thing.
And you have my permission to feel whatever you are feeling right now. If summer is feeling exciting and full and good, great. If it’s feeling heavy and overwhelming and like too much, that’s allowed too. Both are real, and neither one means that you’re doing it wrong.
The Five-Minute Invitation
Just noticing can be enough. You don’t need a 15-step morning routine and another thing to check off your to-dos. Sometimes you just need to make space to be, to exist, to not be doing. I know this can sound like an impossible task.
But imagine five minutes of time that wasn’t dedicated to someone else. Five minutes to sit and breathe, to look out a window, to sit in the grass or stare up at the sky. Five minutes to listen to a song that makes you feel jazzed. Five minutes to dance and move your body in a way that feels really good. Five minutes to not answer your phone, your text messages, or your emails. Five minutes to not think.
That’s it. That’s the whole ask.
Five minutes. Not five minutes of meditation if you hate meditating. Not five minutes of journaling if that feels like homework. Five minutes of whatever it is that makes you feel like yourself. And if you don’t know what that is right now, five minutes to just do nothing. Stare at the ceiling. Sitting in your car in the driveway. Those both count. Standing in the backyard with your coffee before anyone needs anything from you. That counts.
That is the Recharge pillar in its simplest form: before you pour into everyone else, put a little something back into yourself. Even just a little. Even just those five minutes.
Closing
You matter and your health matters. In this busy season of summer where we tend to do and go and never stop, remember to take a little time for you. A little time to be a priority. Because if you don’t make yourself a priority, nobody else will.
I want to say something in closing, and I really mean it. You are not a project. You are not a before picture. You are not someone who will be lovable and worthy and deserving once you have fixed the sleep, nailed the protein, lost the weight, figured out the hormones, or gotten it all together. You are lovable right now, exactly as you are, in the middle of the mess and trying to figure it all out. And the big secret? We are all just figuring it out.
Whatever you have done this year, however small it may seem, it matters and it counts. You were brave when something asked something of you. You tried. You kept going. You got back up. That is not nothing. That is everything. I see you. And you are doing great.
I’m sending you a really big hug, my friend. And remember: you got this.
Share Prompt
If this episode felt like something that you needed to hear, share it with one woman in your life who needs to hear it. You know the one. Forward it to her, text her the link, and tell her there’s a nutritionist in Brooklyn who wants to give her a permission slip for the summer. I’ll be here when you’re ready for more. That’s all from me this week. I’ll see you next Wednesday.
Disclaimer
Can you do me a favor? If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with one woman in your life who needs a different story about perimenopause. Our bodies didn’t come with a user manual, and this perimenopause thing can feel confusing and lonely. But you are not alone. You are not crazy, and you are definitely not broken. And maybe someone in your life needs that reminder today. Let’s spread the word and be kind to each other and ourselves.
Now the legal bit. I’m a nutritionist, but I’m not your nutritionist. This podcast is for information and education only. No client relationship is formed. Always seek medical advice when necessary. I’ll see you next Wednesday morning.
