Frances Bavin Fitness

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Frances Bavin Fitness Face to face PT, Online Coach & long time Zumba queen 💪🏋🏻‍♀️💃🍌🥑 https://www.francesbavinfitness.com/ For booking & more info www.viasession.com/francesbavin

This week will be my last week of teaching Zumba for possibly ever.Which is really weird!The reason I am finally stoppin...
19/09/2026

This week will be my last week of teaching Zumba for possibly ever.

Which is really weird!

The reason I am finally stopping is that my coaching business is really busy and when I'm not with clients, I'm working for them in the background. Zumba was never something I did for the money, and that's only got worse tbh.

It takes a long time to learn routines and, as much fun as it is, if I'm putting my grown-up hat on, as someone running a single-parent household, with a dog to walk and kids to look after, it's starting to not make sense.

Then there's my energy right now.

You may have noticed my recent obsession with hormones! Well, my own have been, let's say, an inspiration. 😂 Trying to get to the bottom of what the hell is going on with me and finding the right answer is an ongoing project, and there are definitely days when standing up in front of 25 people to dance and bring joy feels harder than it used to.

(Even though, to this day, I have only ever felt better after a Zumba session.)

But I want to take a moment to look at what teaching Zumba has brought to my life, because it has been SO much more than I ever imagined when I did my one-day training course back in 2010.

💃 The feeling you get from 45–60 minutes of dancing, in the zone, with other people.

💪 Discipline. There is absolutely no way I would have got off my lazy bum and gone to this many classes if I hadn't been teaching them.

🥹 The joy of watching people get the hang of it, improve week after week and really come out of their shells.

❤️ Friends. So many really special people have come through my life through Zumba, and quite a few of them are still very much in it.

🎶 Allowing myself to drop the music snobbery (not entirely) and find a new appreciation of cheese.

🧠 Fitness — mental and physical.

😬 Getting over my phobia of standing up in front of people and speaking. When the adrenaline goes into jumping about, it just kind of disperses and I finally stopped feeling scared.

👯‍♀️ Being part of a gang of really non-judgemental, supportive women (and the odd man).

Honestly, what a beautiful crowd.

I think Zumba is to dance what Pickleball is to tennis — d'you know what I mean

A rough map of the four stages, and how to work out where you are.The bit that surprised me most: in early perimenopause...
18/09/2026

A rough map of the four stages, and how to work out where you are.

The bit that surprised me most: in early perimenopause, oestrogen isn't running out. Progesterone drops first, because you stop ovulating every cycle, and oestrogen goes erratic — high, then crashing, then high again. That's why symptoms are so all over the place. The real decline comes later.

Average age for perimenopause starting is 47. It lasts about four years on average — sometimes two, occasionally ten. Menopause itself is a single day you only identify looking backwards: twelve months since your last period, average age 51 here.

Two things I'd want you to take from this. It's a normal life stage, not a disease. And normal doesn't mean you have to grit your teeth through it — if symptoms are making your life hard, you deserve to be offered options.

Also worth saying: none of these symptoms are unique to perimenopause. Thyroid, vitamin D, B12 and blood sugar can all look exactly like this. Get the bloods done before you accept the label. More on that in the next one.

Where do you think you are on this? Or are you nowhere near sure — which is entirely normal too.

16/09/2026

Cortisol is not the villain it's been made out to be.

It's essential. You'd be genuinely unwell without it — it regulates your blood sugar, your blood pressure, and it's part of what gets you out of bed in the morning.

There is a rare condition called Cushing's syndrome where cortisol really is chronically raised, but it's uncommon and it looks quite different from a stressful few months. If you're exhausted and something genuinely doesn't feel right, please see your GP and let them work out what's going on.

For everyone else: it's stress, not cortisol, that gets in the way. And that's a much more workable problem.

12/09/2026

Part 6. The luteal phase. Roughly day 17 to 28. This is the one that causes most of the trouble - apologies for the captions going a bit squiffy.

Once the egg is released, the follicle it came from turns into something called the corpus luteum, and that's what produces progesterone. So progesterone climbs through this phase, peaks about a week after ovulation, then drops away. That drop is what brings your period.

The first part of this phase is usually fine. It's the last stretch that gets you — when oestrogen and progesterone both fall quite abruptly.

So what does that feel like? Energy goes. Patience goes. You're hungrier, hotter, more irritable, more anxious. Sleep gets worse — you'll wake at three in the morning for no reason. And in perimenopause that lands on top of night sweats you might already be having.

Importantly, the feelings of "I'm failing at everything." "I can't cope with my life." can feel like absolute fact but knowing where you are in your cycle explains it, try to remember that and know that it will pass.

So — don't make any big decisions about your life in this week. Give it a few days and it looks completely different.

What actually helps. Finish things, don't start things. Say no to stuff. And eat more, not less — your body genuinely needs more food in this phase, and undereating makes every single symptom worse.

But the real answer is that you sort this out in the good fortnight, not now. Freezer full. Calendar clear. Non-negotiable bedtime. Because when you're in it, you've got nothing spare.

And that's the whole point of this series, really. Build your bad week during your good week.

Please let me know if you want me to cover anything in particular or if you have any favourite accounts on here that you follow. It's great that there is more work going into women's health now but we have a long way to go - there's a lot of very interesting info now but a lot of it still contradicts each other so it can be difficult to untangle it all.

09/09/2026

Everyone's talking about a "nervous system reset" right now, and it's something we all seem to need!

This is it. This is what it looks like for me.

The students are back so the gym's rammed, and I'm still the calmest I'll be all day. Music on, breathing steady, just me and the bar and the next rep.

That's the bit people miss about lifting. It's not all gritted teeth and shouting. When you've got something to concentrate on — the breath, the tempo, the count — your brain gets a break from everything else it's been carrying. And your body reads that as safe.

You come out steadier than you went in. Not just stronger.

Anyone else find the gym is the quietest place in their day?

07/09/2026

One of the things I'm here for....

06/09/2026

Part 4 — the follicular phase. Days 6 to 13ish, after your period and before ovulation. This is the fortnight to do the things you've been putting off.

Oestrogen is climbing back up, which supports the systems behind mood, motivation and focus. Better sleep, better recovery, more patience. This is when to push the intensity, start the new habit, have the difficult conversation, fill the freezer and get the admin done. Build your bad week during your good week.

Women with ADHD often describe this fortnight as the one where their brain finally works properly — and the second half of the month as being a different person entirely. More on that in a later video.

The catch: in perimenopause this window stops being reliable. Oestrogen doesn't just decline, it goes all over the place. So if you feel like you never get a good stretch anymore, that's why. It isn't you failing.

And yes, I'm filming this in bed. It's the one day a week I don't have to get up and do things, so I'm milking it — even if I am technically working.

Address

Oriam, Heriot Watt University
Edinburgh
EH144AS

Opening Hours

Monday 6:30am - 2:30pm
Tuesday 9:30am - 2:30pm
Wednesday 9:30am - 2:30pm
Thursday 9:30am - 5:30pm
Friday 8am - 3pm

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+447733111592

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