Community Highlights: Meet Pamela Light of Perimenopause Powerup

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pamela Light.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
When I found fitness in my teens, I found my passion in helping women move and feel better in their bodies. Over the 30+ years of working in the industry, I have continued to learn and evolve as a trainer, coach, and fitness writer.

At the age of 38, I started feeling…off. My body was not acting the same, and as a fitness pro, I was very in tune with myself physically. I dove in to learning everything I could about the menopause transition.

What I thought would be a quick research project turned into a new niche. I studied under Dr. Stacy Sims, the leading researcher on women’s hormones in sport and author of Next Level, in her first Menopause for the Athlete course.

The information in her course changed the way I treated my body as an athlete in the menopause transition and helped me understand what was at stake in menopause. By 46, I was officially post-menopausal (one year after the last menstrual cycle) and coaching women on how to care for their own health amid changing hormones.

As my personal training and nutrition coaching client base grew (and grew) and I learned to scale. I converted my private workout clients into small group sessions, enabling me to provide workouts to more women.

To help more women with the whole-health picture in menopause, I started the website PerimenopausePowerup.com. This site is loaded with informative articles. It is also home to my two digital courses: 1) Powerup and Reset 2)How to Powerup Perimenopause: The Complete Guide.

Both courses are designed for the average woman to take control of her health during the tough time of peri/post-menopause to decrease her risk of heart attack and stroke, increase her bone density, and increase her muscle mass, so she can maximize longevity and health span.

The guides have been an efficient way for me to help more women. Rather than me slowly teaching the same info to one woman at a time over 6 months and $1000’s, they can learn the info in an efficient package, at a great price, loaded with resources to help them self-coach.

My latest endeavor is The Powerup Letters. This is an ask-and-answer newsletter, like the Dear Abby or Dear Sugar of health in menopause. The Letters are relatable, fun to read, and packed with practical and actionable advice delivered an entertaining format. It provides a sense of community to women in this stage who often feel quite alone in their struggles.

My goal with The Powerup Letters is to spread the message of self-care and strength to as many women as possible. I am currently publishing these on my site, but seeking a publisher for this recurring column.

I am currently a group fitness instructor at Bay Clubs, small-group private trainer, and fitness writer for PerimenopausePowerup.com and The Powerup Letters.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One I my biggest struggles personally in the menopause transition was with depression and anxiety. I am an energetic person with a very social job. I generally wake up early excited to start the day.

In the years before my last period, I came to truly know what anxiety disorder and depression feel like. I dragged myself through the day (which often included teaching multiple group fitness classes and training many clients) with forced cheerfulness, and found myself thinking my family (two teens and a husband) would be better off without me.

My mental self-image was the scum on the bottom of a trash can.

Now that I am three years post-menopausal, I feel like myself again and I am extra committed to talking and sharing about the struggles in menopause. Hot flashes are a great punch line, but they are really just one of dozens of symptoms women endure.

On the business side, I struggle with social media. I don’t enjoy posting or reading feeds to participate.

It is an excellent form of communication, so I put in some sweat into posting meaningful content in the hopes the right eyeballs will find it on the right day and it will make a difference, but it has the feeling of randomness and luck of the draw.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
The menopause playbook of olde read, “Too bad. You are getting old. Put your head down and deal.”

Not only are today’s aging ladies uninterested in throwing in the towel, the trouble with that plan is unchecked, the hormonal mayhem of the menopause transition causes women to lose muscle mass, lose bone mass, gain fat mass, and increase risk of heart disease.

This means, if we aren’t paying attention to our health in menopause we will end up weaker, fatter, and more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke (this is still the #1 killer of women in the US).

At Perimenopause Powerup, we believe menopause is not a time to give up, it is a time to powerup.

If we deliberately work to protect and build bone and muscle, while caring for our health, we can flip those odds and live healthier for longer.

PerimenopausePowerup.com offers:

1) How to Powerup Perimenopause: The Complete Guide.

This is a digital course that consists of videos, written lessons, worksheets and coaching resources. Students learn:
– What is happening with their hormones and why changes is needed.
– Food guidelines including food quality, gut microbiome health, macronutrients, and timing of nutrients based on activity.
– Exercise guidelines including types of exercise, how to say intensities for best results in menopause, and even includes video workouts.
– Sleep and Stress guidelines including step-by-steps on how to reduce stress and improve sleep.
– How to implement these health changes into their lives by setting goals, creating specific actions that work toward their goals, and reassessing what is working or not working to determine next steps. All of the information is meaningless if there isn’t a plan in place to make it work in your life.

2) Powerup and Reset

This is a digital course containing written lessons, worksheets and coaching resources designed to help women learn what foods cause inflammation and break destructive nutrition habits. It has been the key to success for so many clients who felt stuck and broken. The step-by-step plan is self-customizable and packed with information that motivates change that lasts.

3) The Powerup Letters

These ask-and-answer letters are a fun and relatable way to get answers to health concerns that are common in women over 40. All of the information is based on research, experience, and years of practice. Be sure to subscribe (for free) so you don’t miss a letter.

What does success mean to you?
It isn’t uncommon for me to be running errands around town with my teens only to be stopped by a woman who tells me I have changed her life for the better.

Over my lifetime there have been many mentors who have done the same for me. Knowing the appreciation I feel for those women, I am honored to do the same for others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://PerimenopausePowerup.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perimenopausepowerup/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/menopausepowerup
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-light-25bb7775/
• Other: https://ThePowerupLetters.com