Welcome to another episode of “WTF Happened To My Body?”. I am your hostess, Natalie Garay. And I am so grateful that you're here to listen to another episode as I share my most recent and current obsessions about finding everything that I want to know about my body as I continuously grow further north of 40. So this episode is about what the fuck is the North of 40 Hub.
I love the term ‘north of 40’. I just, I think it's hilarious for one, I think it's so much better than saying midlife or ‘over the hill’, which, you know, 40 doesn't seem to be over the hill so much anymore. To me, 40 is somewhat of the new 30. If you ask me. I don't feel– well, I'm going into my 48th year in a couple of weeks. And I certainly don't feel 48, whatever 48 is supposed to feel like. I don't feel like I'm coming close to 50. When one of my daughters heard that I was turning 48, ‘cause I guess she didn't know my age. I don't know. She said, wow. And this was through texts and I said, what? And she says, you're pushing 50. I said, hang on a second. Hang on little sister, slow your goddamn roll. And it's not like I fear getting older. I certainly don't. But you know, 50 has some weight to it.
The number does. I certainly don't think that I'll feel any differently about aging. When I turn 50, I feel like actually– you know what? I'm just getting fucking better with age. If I do say self. I might be considered a late bloomer. I've been thinking about this term lately.
I just feel like I'm coming in a little bit into my stride more. So these days, if I can talk about myself and toot my own little toot-toot horn, I don't know. I just feel like I get to do whatever the fuck I want. I get to enjoy my life. I get to try new things. I get to, you know, go back to school because I decided to, and I have the time and I am so, so grateful for that.
Of course. Raising my girls was harder than shit, but I loved what it taught me and I loved how it stretched me. And I loved what I have grown to know and learn and all of these things have weirdly offered me the opportunity to share my experiences within my work. So obviously my last 20 years have been teaching Pilates, by working with moms, helping them rehabilitate their body.
And then as I started to work with moms and learn more and more about the body and how, wow, it's not just about the physical body, it's about our mental health, our emotional health, our spiritual health, our energetic health, all of these different layers. And I talk about these a little bit more in the book. And these are just from my experience of what I've studied, what I've heard. Mostly what I've read, actually, audio books and books I've read about all of these areas because I got so curious about them.
So north of 40 to me is just like. What are we doing here? What is our body doing? The most common questions that women of this age, of this stage have are about brain health, about the body, about weight gain, about energy or lack thereof.
So here's the five areas: brain, fatigue, weight, weight gain, especially around the belly and the midsection. Right. Cause we all start to feel that and see that more so as we increase in years and that has a lot to do with hormone health– which is a whole other episode and I will record one on hormones one day.
Because also hormones play a role in our perimenopausal and menopausal phases. So brain, weight gain, fatigue is another one. Why am I so fucking tired? Why does it feel like I need a nap at three o'clock? Why am I so drained when I've barely done anything? These seem to be what I hear a lot of my clients talking about and just women in general, especially moms in, like I said, in this age.
So north of 40 to me is so much better than saying. Midlife, mid forties, mid fifties, whatever. North of 40 to me is a fun way of saying I'm getting older and you know, I'm okay with that. And just show me what I need to know so that I can feel my best. And so I created what I'm calling the North of 40 Hub, and it's an online platform.
It's an online community. It's incorporating what I love, which is women talking about women. How can we support ourselves? How can we support each other? Who are the practitioners who give a shit and want to include us in the conversation of what the fuck is going on with our body. So, as I grow this hub, I've collected all of the amazing people in my life that I've been able to work with as clients who eventually turned into friends. Women in my life who are friends of mine that I've known forever, who have supported me and also some of my very own practitioners.
So I've asked my amazing acupuncturist, Dr. Cassie Dominick to join us in the hub. And she is so graciously offered to share her time and resources and information and knowledge. And she's so full of knowledge. We are going to have a Q&A and workshop session with her coming up in July. My other longtime friend, former boss, Dr. Natalie Samson, who was a doctor of physical therapy and is also a wealth of knowledge on so many different things. We were on the phone the other day, and I was talking to her about the hub. And she is also going to be, I'm going to interview her and have a Q&A with her within the hub.
And she's just a wealth of knowledge. And I said, fuck, we should have recorded this entire conversation. We talked about so many different things. The conversation was so amazing and so full of knowledge, and I was just pissed that I didn't record it and I wish I had. But we'll do another conversation with her and we will record that and we will put it within the Hub.
So the Hub, if you're interested in trying it out, you can try it out for 30 days free.
I want you to get in there. I want you to fish around a little bit. I want you to look around and want you to send your questions to me. What is it that you want to know? What is it that you want to learn? I'm continuously growing this hub to include all of the information that we need that involves our body, and the WTF questions that we have as we continue to grow in knowledge.
Let's just say that. Grow in knowledge as we grow in years. And I will continue to grow this hub. There's also a video library of Pilates videos that are always available to you. And we will add to that as well. I hosted a Pilates church earlier this month in June. That's available in there, and it's a Pilates workout.
It's a guided meditation. It's also a journaling practice and we used an oracle. I pulled an Oracle card to use as a prompt. And so I love doing that in the morning. That's part of my morning routine, and I thought I would share that with you. And it seems to be, I did this a little bit over the pandemic too.
I taught some virtual classes. Just for friends and some former clients as well. And it was a fun, fun practice just to not only move your body and kind of increase your energy and mind clarity, but also to get a little bit more grounded. And just to go in a little bit internally and write things out, like what's coming up for you right now. Is this card bringing up any thoughts, questions, or comments and concerns? And then give you the option, or the ability, the time to journal about it.
So the North of 40 Hub will continuously grow, especially as I continue to grow in knowledge. I listen to audio books. I list some of my favorite books in there constantly. I list some of my favorite podcasts. Favorite doctors, favorite people. I follow on Instagram. And as you may or may not know, I am taking prerequisites certainly to hopefully– I'm not going to say hopefully– to be in a naturopathic doctor program in the fall of 2025.
And so once I'm in that program, and I'm taking in everything I am going to shout it from the rooftops, because I want you to know and want you to have this information. And you may be seeing more and more online how women's bodies just weren't part of the studies, the scientific studies, about just anything.
We just didn't know a whole lot about how a woman's body operates and functions and how to support them. And so, a lot of the time we have questions. A lot of the time we're dismissed because people just don't have answers. Your practitioners may not have the answers. And the good news is that this is changing.
There's so many doctors, female doctors, women, even male doctors who are included in the conversation, including women in their studies and their research. And it's going to be, there is a shift happening for women and women's health, and it's going to be amazing. And I am excited to be a part of it and to be able to share that with you.
And it's going to be fun because. God, cause I can't do anything boring. Because I love to do things that are fun and humorous and we'll have competitions in there. We'll have challenges, we'll have giveaways and just kind of share the tools and things that I've learned. On my journey, my wellness journey over the last few years.
And all of this came about, it kind of came about with my mom's health journey. And I've talked about that before in previous episodes. And it's really turned into something amazing and exciting for me. And so I'll just continue to share this with you. I've also recently created a free meetup. Called the North of 40 Club. Same idea.
This is an in-person event. On the first Sunday of each month. The first event will be Sunday, July 7th at 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM for fuck's sake. Where did that come from? It's not 7:00 AM folks. Don't freak out, even though you're north of 40, you may be already waking up at 5:00 AM sometimes like me, but we're not fucking meeting at 7:00 AM. We will meet at 9:30 in the morning, because that is a good, respectable time to meet on a Sunday morning. And we'll meet in downtown little Italy. And the Piatsa. And we're just going to meet up.
We're going to pair up because I think if it's designed to have a walking buddy, it just makes it that much more fun. I want to have a walking buddy and guess what I'm going to be pairing you up. So there'll be a small little intake form when you join us for our meetup. Just to get to know you a little bit, and I can put you with a buddy to chit chat it up.
As we walk along the waterfront, we're going to walk along the Harbor here. And to the midway museum and then we'll walk back and you can choose to hang out longer in the Piatsa. You can choose to go home. The walk is a good, I don't know, mile and a half. I'd take it every morning. I love that walk.
I listen to my podcasts. I have a good laugh. I get to see the water. Water is soothing. To anybody, but I especially love it. And sometimes I get lucky and I get to see some of the big military ships come in and out of the bay, which is always amazingly exciting for me, for some reason. I don't know why. But again, Sunday, July 7th is our first meetup. We'll meet in the Piazza.
We will be posting it on the website. I will be posting it on social media. We are on Meetup and then I'll be posting on other platforms. But even if you're not in San Diego, come down, come down for the weekend. This is an amazing place. I moved here about a year and a half ago. I absolutely fucking love it.
I would love to host other meetups or events and things down here. We're going to start slow. We're going to start in baby steps. With this free meet up just to have an in-real-life connection. To meet you in person to talk and just move, because guess what? Walking is one way to support your brain health and your brain function and believe it or not, the simple act of walking is completely underrated and has so many benefits.
And one of them is brain cognition. And as I enter into my graduate school program, I'm going to need all the brain function that I can muster. So walking, swimming, all of these things I've added into my routine, and what better way to do it than to do it with a bunch of amazing women? So Sunday, June 7, join us for the in-real-life meetup event, but if you can't make it and you want to join us in the hub, join us in the hub.
You get 30 days to poke around, try it out, check out the videos. We'll be hosting some live events. This podcast episode probably will not air before the next event, which is Wednesday, June 12th. And that will be at 11:00 AM Pacific time with Melissa from For The Love of Yoga. And she will be hosting a yoga flow class for the group. Again, if you are in the hub and you can't make it live, no problem.
Every class and workshop is recorded and then lives in the hub for you to enjoy at your own convenience. We do have some upcoming sound bath healing classes. Yes, we will be doing sound baths online and I've done it before with Jasmine. And it's amazing. And again, if you can't make it live, all of these dates are already posted in the hub, so you can go in there, put them in your calendar and plan to join or just know that they will be there shortly after the event. In the hub, you can also, like I said, connect with other moms to shoot your questions to me or any of the experts within the group. And we will be consistently adding more and more practitioners within the group. While also creating a directory. Of what I'm calling “practitioners who give a shit”.
And if you are a practitioner and you want to join us, I would love to chat with you. These are the practitioners that we all deserve. The ones who will listen to you and take in all that you were telling them about your symptoms, about your feelings, about what seems off to you and work in a collaborative manner to help support you or find ways to support you. Not to dismiss you and tell you that it's all in your head. Not to dismiss you and tell you that, oh, you are “midlife”, north of 40, continuing to age, and these are all normal and you just have to live with them because you don't. You don't fucking have to live with them.
You don't, and these are all fixable, treatable, and all manageable. So please don't suffer in silence. And please, if you know someone north of 40, who likes to have a good time who might have an affinity for using the word fuck, like I do. Send the Hub their way and let them know that they can also join for free for 30 days.
Try it out, poke around. And to have classes and then join us in, in real time for our live meetups. So again, I thank you for being here. I know, I didn't share a ton of helpful information other than to let you know that all the information I want you to know is going to be held in one particular space, which to me seems really helpful, actually. Because how awesome would it be if we didn't have to search online for the practitioners who give a shit.
If we didn’t have to search online for the answers to our questions, if we didn't have to have these conversations with our friends, but not have any answers to it. So my goal between now and the time when I am no longer breathing is to create something that is available to anyone, everybody who wants it, who wants the answers, who wants the tools and who wants an easy way to find it all.
This is just an ongoing, growing, amazing platform for you. And any mom out there who's looking for the answers. So share it, share it, share it, share it, share it. And the other thing I will say is some of this information will also be available in my book coming out this fall, WTF Happened To My Body? Fixing the aftermath of having kids, no matter how long ago that was.
So that will be out in October, shameless plug. And you'll want to share that too. It's basically the “what to expect” when you're no longer expecting.
The guide book and tools you should have received when you left the hospital so you can navigate everything that comes about after having kids. But really this information is all women, not necessarily moms. There are things that are very specific to moms, obviously like diastasis recti, and C-sections. And, you know, even if you didn't have kids, pelvic floor strengthening and urinary incontinence and stress incontinence.
These things can all happen. Even if you didn't have kids, because they’re muscles. And guess what? If you don't work out your muscles they become weak, things fall, shit happens. And literally shit happens. And, you know, we need this information. We don't have to live like that. Because we've got shit to do. As moms, as women, as community leaders, as business owners. As friends, family, you know, we have got stuff to do that we just don't have the time to sit around and talk about or try to ignore. An achy shoulder or, you know, stress incontinence, or a nagging, throbbing back pain.
So, okay my friends, I love you. Thank you for being here. Send this episode to a friend who needs it. Shoot your questions my way. You are more than welcome to send your questions to me on Instagram at @nataliesaysWTF. And if you want me to send you a link to the North of 40 Hub or even to our North of 40 Club’s free meetup, DM me.
I'm happy to share any and all resources that I have with you. All right, until next time, peace!