Michelle Bridges on Mental As Anyone podcast: ‘Men don’t know anything’

The Biggest Loser’s former trainer Michelle Bridges has claimed the show would never be televised these days after revealing one thing most men know nothing about.

She made her name as the take no prisoners trainer in The Biggest Loser. But Michelle Bridges says the format that shot her to fame wouldn’t work on TV today.

Today, Bridges is fighting another battle — to increase awareness of menopause and perimenopause — which left her unable to get out of bed.

“Men don’t know anything about it. Most women I talk to don’t really know about it,” Bridges said on the latest episode of the Mental As Anyone podcast.

“They say, ‘Oh, isn’t that something that happens when you’re like, in your 50s, and you have a hot flush and you can’t sleep and you might put a bit of weight on? That’s not even scratching the surface.”

Michelle Bridges was interviewed on the Mental as Anyone podcast. Picture: Christian Gilles

Bridges, 54, has helped many thousands of women with their own health, fitness and lifestyle journey over the years.

When it came to her own, she struggled. It was during Covid, when she and fellow former Biggest Loser trainer Steve ‘Commando’ Willis split that her body began to change.

“I’m a 54-year-old woman, if I haven’t had any trauma in my life, then I’ve been living in a shoebox,” she said.

“It’s life, and certainly I’ve had some trials and tribulations. I’ve also had the flip side of that, an incredible, big life and fun life.

Bridges and Commando Steve are parents to son, Axel.

Michelle Bridges and her son Axel. Picture: Gaye Gerard

Steve Willis and Michelle Bridges in 2015. Pictures: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

“Going through a separation is tough, I think that is tough for anyone, and I decided that, in an epiphany … I’m going to pack up, I’m going to take my son, and I’m going to move down south on a country property, 30 minutes from town and five minutes to drive to a neighbour.

“And my specialist, who I have now, who specialises in perimenopause and menopause, she said, ‘that’s probably about the last thing I would have suggested a perimenopausal woman to do, to take yourself and isolate yourself like that’. It was good for a year or two, particularly great over Covid, we had a lot of space and I felt like I was protecting my son.”

Then, the intense feelings of isolation hit.

“I was still trying to get through the process of being a single parent, co-parenting, and I was perimenopausal, but I didn’t know it,” she explained.

“I even went to the doctor and said, ‘look, there’s something not right, like, I’m just struggling sometimes to even get out of bed. I was waking up in the middle of the night a lot. This is a perimenopausal symptom, sleep disturbances, hot sweats at night, tinnitus ringing in my ears. I wake up to the sound of the old dial-up internet.”

Michelle Bridges.

Naturally inquisitive, and with many of her clients going through menopause, Bridges buckled down and researched.

She is now on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and said that while menopause can start anywhere between 45 and 55, perimenopause can begin a decade before that.

“Being supportive and understanding a little bit more of what’s going on for her, because what’s happening is she’s having an absolute chaos of hormones going on in her body, oestrogen and progesterone have fallen off the cliff, and that’s going to affect all sorts of parts of her, from her mood, from her potential anxiety, to things like frozen shoulder, vertigo, ringing in the ears,” she said, calling for blokes to be more understanding.

“There’s a lot of really good information out there, and women have just been told to get on with it. That’s all good and well, but when you’re trying to do 100 things all at once and be the pivotal source in your family and have a job. You know you don’t have to put up with these symptoms. There is so much you can do.”

Bridges rose to national fame as a trainer on weight loss reality show, The Biggest Loser Australia.

Michelle Bridges speaks with Jonathon Moran on the Mental As Anyone podcast. Picture: Christian Gilles

The now defunct show has received criticism over recent years due to the brutal training methods, the rapid weight loss and emphasis on body image.

“I think we could do something on TV, but it’d have to be pretty different to what it used to be,” Bridges said.

“I’d love to do something on TV with health and fitness and wellness, but it’d probably make very boring television, like, who’d want to watch it, really? But I think that there’s still scope for it, because there’s still scope for people educating themselves on hacks and what they can do to just make their lifestyle a little bit easier, that they can fit their exercise in, and how they can feed themselves better and teach themselves how to cook and how to train in the gym. So I think yes, a version but probably not the version that we had back then, let’s say.”

* A new episode of the Mental As Anyone podcast drops December 31.