From “You’re Fine” To Finding Answers: How I got in the best ENERGETIC and PHYSICAL shape of my LIFE in Perimenopause!!! with Dr. Sam

The body keeps the score, but it also leaves clues—and midlife is when those clues get loud. I share a clear, data-backed path through perimenopause: the first strange symptoms, the shrugged-off labs, and the moment I decided to stop tolerating discomfort and start tracking what mattered. If you’ve been told “you’re fine” while your hair breaks, your mood swings, your jeans won’t zip, and your LDL creeps up, this conversation hands you a roadmap.

We unpack the real turning points: timing hormone tests to the luteal phase and discovering near-zero progesterone, starting targeted HRT and monitoring results, and replacing performative cardio with short, intentional strength training to protect bone density and rebuild lean mass. I talk through raising protein, prioritizing recovery, and the overlooked variable that changed my labs—reviewing long-term psychiatric medication that can elevate LDL, then tapering safely with medical guidance. Finally, I demystify peptide therapy: what it is, how to vet a provider, why labs matter before and after, and what shifted for me when I paired peptides with smarter training and a cleaner med list.

This is a practical, compassionate guide for women who want to feel strong, clear, and in charge during perimenopause. You’ll hear the exact steps I took, the questions I asked, and the metrics I watched as my LDL dropped from 140 to 111 and my energy and composition improved. No quick fixes, no shame—just a precise stack and persistent self-advocacy. If you’re ready to trade confusion for a plan, press play, share this with a friend who needs it, and then subscribe and leave a review to help more women find this resource. What’s the first question you’ll ask your doctor this week?

To book a FREE discovery call with Dr. Harte, click the link below:

https://calendly.com/drharte/free-discovery-call-w-dr-harte

Chapters

• 0:13 Why This Conversation Matters
• 2:51 Early Signs And Medical Dismissal
• 7:20 Body Image, Motherhood, And Grief
• 13:15 Weight Gain, Labs, And Shrugged Advice
• 17:19 Hormone Testing And Progesterone HRT
• 21:06 Rethinking Training And Protein
• 24:20 Medications, LDL, And Weaning
• 28:12 Peptide Therapy And Lab Vigilance
• 31:14 Results, Resolve, And Next Steps
• 34:06 A Call To Self-Advocacy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Welcome back everybody to the truth about addiction. I am doing a solo episode today, and I'm gonna be fully transparent. Number one, I'm under the weather on antibiotics, so I'm just bunkering up at home and working on content. And I went on this really easeful walk, and I decided to listen to We Can Do Hard Things, which is Glenn and Doyle's podcast with her sister Amanda and her wife Abby. And it's been a minute since I listened, and they did an episode on perimenopause and menopause, which of course is a super hot topic right now. And I am about to turn 43. And I have been on a massive detective exploration of this time in a woman's life because of my own experience of it and how much the medical system, as we know it, has failed me. And I will say I look and feel the best I have ever looked and felt in my life because of my own self-advocacy. And I feel that it is my obligation to make this episode and tell women exactly what my experience has been and everything I've been doing about it so that I can be of service, so that more women are armed with valuable information and ultimately so that they are brought out of a state of suffering. So Glenn and Doyle, if you hear this, hit me up. Because what an important conversation. About a year and a half ago. So we're talking, you know, early, early 40s. And I think, first of all, a lot of women don't even associate perimenopause with that age. Some women start to go into perimenopause before the age of 40. Okay, and some women don't experience symptoms until mid-40s. So number one, be open to the possibility that if you are attuning to your body and its normal cycles and rhythms of energy, of hormone fluctuation, that you continuing to attune to it, whether you are 38 or 42 or 47, is going to be the most valuable initial indicator into something being off and you going down this self-advocacy pathway. And by the way, be prepared to be met with your fine, all your values look within normal range. This is what aging looks like. Be prepared to be met with feeling like you're a little bit crazy. And be prepared not to accept that as the answer. Okay, so let's just start there. So I would say I was forty, maybe forty-one. At this point, I have two young children. So I've gone through studying obsessively when I was trying to have babies, my cycle, my natural hormonal cycle month to month, and came to understand what to expect week to week, depending on what phase of my menstrual cycle I was in. So when things started to get out of sync with that, I was like, huh. I wonder if this is perimenopause. Here's what was happening. My hair, which historically has always grown easily, whether I've dyed my hair or not, just kind of stopped growing, right? It wasn't getting thinner. A lot of women get thinning hair, but it was just breaking at the ends. It was more brittle, it was like it was lacking moisture, nutrients somehow. Okay. Maybe I just need more frequent haircuts. What else was happening? Well, after I don't know, my teenage years and not suffering from acne for over two decades, I was getting not a little pimple, but giant cystic-like pimples on my forehead that were itchy. And once one broke out, it was like it spread as if it were a rash. It was embarrassing, it was super uncomfortable, and it was bizarre, not normal for me and my body. I was also getting chronic, meaning like every month, or maybe even every three weeks, yeast infections. So if you're a woman, you know how horribly uncomfortable this is. Now, I need to say this part. This is really uh, really important just to speak to the beauty and body standard for a moment, and then we're gonna bring it back to a physiologic marker that I had been suffering from that was also not being diagnosed properly. Okay. But for a second, right? I grew up in a house where thinness was revered, right? And so I was always chasing thinness. I love movement, and I went in and out of having healthy relationships with movement, but I would say in general, in my 20s, everything I did for exercise was to fit inside of the beauty and body standard, to be thin, to have access to power. Okay. Then we get into our 30s and I reconcile with my husband and I decide I want babies. And even though I'm feeling like I am supposed to be grateful, I'm watching my body become bigger and bigger and bigger. I'm hearing people make all kinds of comments, and I have a massive amount of pressure to only gain the 30 pounds that you're supposed to gain, and I'm going over it, and then postpartum, I'm not bouncing back right away. And then I get postpartum depression, and my body looks insane to me, and I feel insane. And this happens not once but twice, right? With both of my kids. So the 30s were this period of going in and out of trying to accept my body as it went through wild swings physically and hormonally, which was extremely difficult. And coming up against comments literally like this, where I would be seven months pregnant, and random people in the grocery store were like, Oh, wow, I thought you were nine months pregnant. Seriously. Okay. Now I lose my father when my daughter was three months old. So I'm overweight postpartum with baby number two, hormonally in flux, sleep deprived, and grieving. And I declare that I will bounce back. Little did I know that that declaration was really me trying to regain a sense of power and control over the loss because my relationship with my dad was really complicated. And I had a lot of guilt, regret, and shame when he died about the way things stood between us that I felt I couldn't reconcile now that he was gone. And so I ran as far as I could from my grief and straight into an eating disorder. Which is another fun, dangerous bonus of a woman who loses weight. Okay. Because what's the intention from which she has lost the weight? Right? And is she really okay inside? I say all of that because it's been a hell of a ride. And I had been in a several-year thawing out process of trying to heal from that eating disorder, feel my feelings around the loss of my father, reconcile with that relationship. And I'm in this wonderful place with my body. No fitness watches, no counting calories, no tracking macros, none of it. And all of a sudden, 41, 41 and a half, 42 rolls around, and I can't fit into any of my clothes. Nothing has changed. I'm healthy now, I'm eating well. I exercise at least five days a week. I'm eating nutrient-dense foods, I'm not running from pain. And my cholesterol is slowly going up. So now I'm like, what is going on? I've got pimples that I haven't had since I was 13. I've got yeast infections. My hair is kind of brittle. My mood is a little unstable too, by the way, not as predictable as my normal menstrual cycle. And I'm just steadily gaining weight. I've got back fat. I can't fully close my size four genes. And I'm like, I gotta get this checked out. Now, when I got my LDL numbers back, and by the way, since 2022, LDL is your quote unquote bad cholesterol, it had been steadily going up from 2022 until 2024, 2025. It's supposed to be a hundred or less. Mine was maybe 120 in 2022 and 140 by the time I got it checked in 2020, early 2025. From not one, but two different doctors. I didn't get a I didn't get a phone call. I got an email message through the you know health chart that said what you should do is get on the Mediterranean diet and make sure you're getting at least 30 minutes of exercise five days a week. That was pretty much it. They had no idea I already exercised five days a week for more than 30 minutes, and I had actually been doing that for almost my entire life. They had no idea that I ate really healthy. They had no idea that I was in the fitness and wellness space, that I was extremely educated, that I was not a statistic of maybe an average American, I don't know what they're going off of, who is overweight and has increased risk for cardiovascular disease based on their LDLs. They didn't ask me anything. They didn't even suggest that perhaps I was entering perimenopause and that that might be contributing to the retention of fat and the increase in my LDL. So guess what? I did what I've always done. I did what I've always done with my clients, which is teach people how to be their own advocate. And I went across the board trying to solve this mystery that is parimenopause. And I've been at it this entire year, right? So we're in November of 2025, and this has been going on since before this year, but I've been really attacking this with getting armed with information and then taking action about it, which is extremely important since January of this year. Okay. I went to my OBGYN who is a woman, and I do believe that is important. I explained my symptoms the pimples, the irritability, the weight gain, the yeast infections. And I said, I need my hormones checked. And even if they show that I'm within normal range, if the markers are on the low end of normal, I need to discuss with you what my options are because I'm symptomatic. Right? Now I was fortunate that it showed right away. They have to test your hormones at a certain time in your cycle when they expect the markers to look a certain way. That way, if they don't, it's more clear. So they checked me when my progesterone was supposed to be elevated in the second half of my menstrual cycle. And sure enough, my progesterone was super low. They were like, wow, you have almost no progesterone. I'm like, great. So what does that look like? And it was extremely safe to get on a certain dose of pill. And I said, How do we know this dose is the right dose for me and my body? And they said, Well, it's been shown to be a very effective dose. And I said, Great. Well, we can also continue to monitor it to actually make sure it's boosting my progesterone back to where it should be, right? And we'll know if my symptoms are improving. And they said, yes. So halfway through my menstrual cycle, on day 15 from the day that I get my period, I take at night a progesterone pill. That is considered hormone replacement therapy. And I am on it, and I will say, by the way, this is just one of the things that I have done. But it has helped tremendously. And whether or not it has assisted in losing weight, I'm not entirely sure. But it has been a huge help. Now this whole cholesterol thing. Okay. I had to ask myself, what am I putting into my body that could potentially be contributing other than hormone fluctuation and chaos to potentially my cholesterol going up? Is there anything in my diet that's relatively high in cholesterol that I have been a little lax about that I could pull back? So I looked at that. Not really, but I certainly knew I could increase my protein. And with that, that I could increase my resistance training. Why? So that my body would become more efficient in burning fat and my body composition could shift from less fat to more lean muscle mass. I was probably lifting weights twice a week from a period when I had lost my dad of lifting so many times a week. I mean, I was five days a week lifting plus doing cardio plus doing yoga. So I had backed off in my healing era to twice. And I thought, well, I'm not trying to do so much cardio that I want to drop like I did in my 20s, right? Like, can I scale back my cardio and increase my resistance training? Which, by the way, for a woman who experiences very frequently osteopenia, osteoporosis, bone fragility, also part of our hormone fluctuations and a bad consequence because if we have a fall later in our life, the repercussions going to the hospital for that are severe and sometimes dire. Can I actually become willing to downtrain in my cardiovascular area and to uptrain in my resistance and with that increase my protein? Yes, I can. Great. So I'm gonna make a commitment to doing that. So since the beginning of this year, I have increased my weight training. And by the way, I don't lift weights for more than 30 minutes when I do it. So I'm not spending out hours and hours of my day doing this stuff. I probably exercise for one hour or less total when I work out. Okay. I've never worked out less and been more fit in my life because now I'm super intentional about what I'm doing. But I was like, what else? What else have I been putting into my body that potentially has something to do with my cholesterol that nobody has asked me a single thing about? So the other part of my story is that I have been on postpartum medication since my daughter has been born, and my daughter is about to be seven. Why? You're probably like, huh, right? I had severe postpartum depression with my son, got on medication, saved my life, and weaned off of that as I got better, right? My daughter was a high-risk pregnancy. It was super scary circumstances. And the doctors were like, we need to put you on something prophylactically, because the chance of you getting postpartum depression again is very, very high. So I got on something, and then I told you guys when she was three months old, my dad died. And then three years later, and so in that interim of dad dying, running from that into an eating disorder, trying to heal, I considered weaning again. But then my sister died. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not. I'm not gonna try to get off of medication that's stabilizing me when this horrific thing happened, and I'm totally derailed as a result of it. Not a good time, okay. So I say all that because I was like, I need to call my psychiatrist and have a conversation. So I call and I say, hey doc, I'm in perimenopause. My LDL is elevated and it kind of keeps going up. Here's what the Western medicine docs are saying to me without even knowing anything about me. What are the repercussions and long-term side effects of the medications that I've been on for seven years? And is one of them an elevation of my bad cholesterol? And he said, as a matter of fact, it is. Okay, this is what I'm talking about. Self-advocacy. So guess what I've been doing? Weaning the fuck off of these medications because I'm ready. Slow and steady. I have been weaning off of the medicine that I no longer need that potentially could have been contributing to my cardiovascular risk being increased. So you see, I'm tackling this from a multi. How do I say this? It's like multiplanar, multidisciplinary approach, and there's one final piece of this puzzle, okay? Which is peptide therapy. Honest to God, up until this year, and I know biohacking has been buzzy for a while. I didn't really understand, nor did I really care about peptide therapy. I didn't even really know what it was. But I have a girlfriend in this space, and this is what she does for a living. She partners with a physician. This is what she went to school for, and she specifically works with women who are in perimenopause and menopause and uses peptide therapy. Peptides are amino acids that are naturally found in our body that start to diminish in their functionality as we age and as we go through this hormonal chaos. And using peptide therapy, and there's hundreds of different peptides depending on what you need, that can boost these amino acid chains back to the level of functioning that you once had, just like hormone replacement can give your body back what is diminishing and creating chaos, symptomatic chaos, metabolic chaos. Okay, so I reached out to her and I was like, This is what's going on, this is everything I'm doing about it. Can you help me? So, of course, she wanted to see recent lab work, right? They're not doing this blindly, and so there is so much discernment, especially with peptides, because most of the peptides are being prepared through compounding pharmacies, so there's limited research. You have to vet who you are working with, make sure they are working with a physician or they are a physician, that they are looking at blood work and lab values prior to prescribing you, and then following up and constantly checking on your labs to make sure that the peptides are effective, right? So you don't just do this blindly, you vet your source, you make sure you trust them, and you rigorously follow up. You don't wait for them to say time to do blood work again. Okay. So I've been on a combination of a few different peptides based on what my lab values showed for three or four months now. I got my labs done less than a month ago. And I'll just say this not only does everything look amazing, my LDLs are down to 111 from 140 for the first time in almost four years. Now, is it the peptides? Is it the weaning down from the medicine the medicine? Is it the resistance training? Is it the progesterone? I don't know. And guess what? I don't care because I needed all of that, and I'm doing something about all of that. None of this works without waking up and taking a stand for your health and your well-being. I can't tell you, despite how many women are finally talking about perimenopause and menopause, how many of them are not doing anything about it. I don't know what that is. I don't know how deep the conditioning has gone inside of us as women that we have become so good at tolerating discomfort and othering ourselves to death, putting the needs of others before our own, that even with all of this awareness and conversation, we are still not taking the time to go get the help that we not just need, but we so desperately deserve. I seriously hope that this podcast. Lights a fire under your ass to start having these conversations, to start making a super comprehensive plan for this decade of your life. I have never looked or felt better, and this is my birthday month. I'm about to be 43. My lab values have never been better. I've never been more fit. I've never had more energy, and I'm in the middle of perimenopause. Guess what? My hormones are going to keep fluctuating through this decade. Which means it might feel really good right now, but guess what? My estrogen is gonna start decreasing. And I'm gonna have to do something about that and make some decisions and get educated. So I am constantly a detective for my own health and wellness. And I am happy to do that job. Because I will better serve myself and everyone around me. You guys. For everything that's wrong with health care and medicine. Please take advantage of everything that's right. We have access to care now. That women who came before us didn't. We have access to conversation and truth telling. That women before us didn't. Don't sleep on this. Don't walk around unconscious in the beautiful vessel that you have been given. Love on it. Make an appointment. Check your values. Just get a baseline. It's the least you can do for everything your body is doing for you. And if you want to reach out to me, please do. There's a link in the show notes to book a free discovery call. I coach not just women, people all over the world. But you can just talk to me for free. You can send me a DM on Instagram at Dr. Samantha Heart. I'd love to hear from you. Please send this episode to another woman you love who you think this will help. Leave a comment. Like, subscribe. And I know this was a bit of a departure, but boy, when we think of cycles of addiction outside of the lens of substance abuse, and we think about addiction to people pleasing. To codependency. Not taking care of ourselves in this era might actually fall under that umbrella. So take a good hard look at why you're not taking a stand for yourself right now. And just do one tiny thing this week, if you can, that casts a vote for becoming a woman who loves herself through this very difficult time. And I will see you soon on The Truth About Addiction.

SPEAKER_01: 33:46

Awaken up, I hear the desperation call. I turn my back and hit my head against the wall. I'll whipping my mistake to jump over the creed. Break it, make it worth it, oh get tired of the voice inside my head. Never good enough, it's leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make believe. Gotta break the pattern, find a new reprieve. Break it, uh word the boat Don't make a day. I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Big tiny steps dumb. Just the process gun, it's gonna set me free. Break it, uh, you worth it.