How to Menopause Quotes

“take lemon balm leaf and glycine thirty minutes before bed with a warm cup of lactose-free milk. Puts me out like a light. The only issue is I end up going to the bathroom four hours later. It has helped me tremendously because before I would sleep in”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Kegel exercises: Tighten your pelvic floor muscles. Hold tight and count 3 to 5 seconds. Relax the muscles and count 3 to 5 seconds. Do 10 reps, 3 times a day. • Glute bridge: Lie on your back with both feet planted on the ground and lift your pelvis. Inhale on the way up. Hold. Exhale on the way down. Do 10 to 12 reps, 1 or 2 times a day. • Ball squeeze: Lie on your back with both feet planted on the floor, with a large ball (roughly soccer ball size) between your knees. Squeeze, hold for 5 to 10 seconds, exhale. Inhale, relax. Work up to 10 reps, 1 or 2 times a day.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Fortunately, there are plenty of great lubricants out there, as well as vaginal moisturizers made of hyaluronic acid that can be used a few times a week to replenish vaginal moisture. Estrogen that you apply directly to the vagina (via a suppository, cream, or ring) can also help, as can physical therapy that targets the muscles of the pelvic floor (more”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“That the small things that set me off were made very big by the fact my estrogen had plunged off a cliff. When estrogen drops, so do serotonin levels. To make matters worse, progesterone, “the calming hormone,” also begins to drop during perimenopause.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“She compares the lining of your uterus (which is what you shed during menstruation) to a lawn. Yes, I know. Bear with me on this. She says estrogen is the fertilizer that makes it grow. Progesterone is the lawn mower. During perimenopause, the lawn service fails to show up for a few months at a time, so the lawn gets overgrown. The result? A heavier period after a skipped one (or two, or three).”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“new nonhormonal prescription drug for hot flashes, Veozah,”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Turning fifty taught me many things, but one of them is that my eighty-five-year-old father’s advice was right: live your “someday” today. It doesn’t mean you have to figure everything out in a day, but it does mean you’ve got to do something every day that moves you toward where you want to be.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Growing bolder—and sexier: When you have no more effs to give, you stop using other people as a measure of what matters. As journalist Monica Corcoran Harel wrote in The Cut in an essay titled “Going for Botox with My 82-Year-Old Mom,” “That’s the beauty of middle age: You decide how you look and feel instead of letting other people be your full-length mirror.”22 You can now reclaim yourself. That makes you sexier.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“I am a huge believer in the power of a thorough decluttering session. I find that paring away what you don’t love, don’t use, and don’t need helps you embrace this tumultuous time as a gift—an opportunity to stop doing what you’ve always thought you “should” be doing and to make space for new and better things to flow into your life. This second adulthood is your time—you’ve earned the chance to create it the way you want it.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“letstalkmenopause.org”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Prioritizing our health and our happiness is how we have the energy and the desire to make the most out of this second adulthood. We need to redefine aging from a slow, painful decline to a positive process of staying actively engaged in life.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Remember that “No” is a complete sentence. We all have obligations, and it’s a privilege to be needed in life. But it’s also important to have our priorities straight. It can be pretty refreshing when you start to protect what you value most, even—or perhaps, especially—if that’s yourself.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Acceptance Is Sexy On the days when your eyes don’t feel like they did when you were twenty-five, look into them and tell yourself you are still right here. Because you are. Our hormones make us forget this sometimes. But it’s a lie. It is a privilege to live to the age you are now—accept that every day, you are younger than you’ll ever be, and allow it to give you power.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“The most important thing to keep in mind regarding your clothes is fit. It means everything. If you are wearing pants or jeans or a dress because you’ve always worn it, and it is tight or pulling or makes you feel uncomfortable—take it off and get rid of it. The goal is not to stash it away until you can “fit back into it.” The goal is to find what is working now—there are enough styles out there to choose from, and enough places to buy secondhand clothing if investing in new pieces is not a priority for you right now.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Doing it all herself. I asked her how she was staying so motivated with her long days. Her reply changed how I was talking to myself about going to the gym. Sherri said, “I don’t say, ‘I have to work out.’ I say, ‘I get to work out.’” I cannot tell you how many times I have repeated this to myself since that conversation. “I get to work out.” And I love it.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“And there’s even evidence that if you can hold a plank pose for one minute, you will not have lower back pain!18 (You might be happy to learn that the benefits max out after about two minutes.)19”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“While cardiovascular fitness is still important, high-intensity cardio training tends to stress our adrenals, which then produce cortisol in response. And as I explained in the previous chapter, cortisol leads to weight gain, particularly around your middle. Rather than going as hard as you can to sweat as much as you can for as long as you can on a run or on the treadmill, elliptical, stair climber, or bike for a high-intensity cardio workout, you want to aim for what’s known as Zone 2: a moderate-intensity cardio. Zone 2 is the sweet spot where your body is burning fat and not tipping you into a stress response. Moderate-intensity cardio also stimulates your mitochondria, the powerhouses of your cells, which you want to stay strong, because when their function declines, aging tends to accelerate.6”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“That means that when it comes to exercise, we need to aim for strong, not skinny. Without strength training, we risk becoming frail, and who wants that? Work out like a man and feel more womanly than ever.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, author of the New York Times bestseller Forever Strong: A New, Science-Based Strategy for Aging Well, describes muscle as “health currency”—as vital to our physical health as money is to our financial health. As Dr. Lyon describes it, muscle is armor for the body; it produces chemical messengers that cue various systems in the body, from the immune system to the brain, to stay strong; and it is key in regulating our glucose and insulin levels. Saying you don’t want more muscle is like saying you don’t want better health.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Estrogen protects our heart and blood vessels until menopause, when it disappears. That’s when we have to take our heart health into our own hands. Exercise strengthens your heart muscle, which improves its capacity to pump blood and deliver oxygen and nutrients throughout your body. It also lowers blood pressure, raises good cholesterol, and lowers levels of triglycerides.1”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“I know it can be frustrating to feel your sleeves tighter and weight redistributed no matter what you do. It can feel as though it comes out of nowhere and that if you don’t get control, you will never be the woman you once were during your personal peak years. Please keep these two things in mind: • Change is inevitable. • Acceptance is powerful. I am a true believer in the fact that sometimes you can’t really make changes until you accept who you are today. 18”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Overall, you want to keep your daily consumption of added sugars under 25 grams a day. It will be a challenge at first. I find that focusing on the potential negative outcomes can be quite motivating, so remind yourself of these facts about sugar: Aside from the obvious drawbacks of weight gain and mood swings, having excess sugar in your bloodstream creates a process called glycation, which stiffens our cells and thus, our tissues. One result? Wrinkles. So, maybe you can appeal to your vanity.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Overall, you want to keep your daily consumption of added sugars under 25 grams a day. It will be a challenge at first. I find that focusing on the potential negative outcomes can be quite motivating, so remind yourself of these facts about sugar: Aside from the obvious drawbacks of weight gain and mood swings, having excess sugar in your bloodstream creates a process called glycation, which stiffens our cells and thus, our tissues. One result?”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Sugar is a triple enemy: it contributes to weight gain and inflammation, the two major issues that plague us during (peri)menopause. It also triggers hot flashes and is lousy for our mood because it puts us on a roller coaster of blood sugar highs, then crashes, then cravings, then the ride starts all over again. And a diet high in sugar can actually increase our chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease,10 which is sometimes referred to as type 3 diabetes.11”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“The most important glass of water you drink is first thing in the morning when you wake up, because your body hasn’t had anything to drink for many hours and is already a little dehydrated. This first glass promotes digestion and detoxification, rehydrates you, and boosts metabolism.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Instead of tracking your weight, track your waist-to-hip ratio, which will help you keep an eye on your visceral fat. Overall, you want to prioritize strong over skinny. Stop doing so much cardio and pick up some weights. If you’re walking, put on a weighted vest or a backpack with some weights in it. Or pick up some hand weights.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Carbs aren’t “bad,” but highly refined carbs spike your blood sugar, which then crashes after your body releases insulin in response to the spike, and then you’re craving more carbs. Insulin is also a fat-storage hormone, so when it’s around in high levels, your body gets the cue to store more fat.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“When estrogen declines, it impacts your microbiome. The diversity of your gut bacteria tends to decline, and that can negatively impact your immune system and your brain (as gut bacteria manufacture a lot of neurotransmitters). This change has also been associated with the changes in cardiovascular health that make postmenopausal women more susceptible to cardiovascular disease.1 The fiber and nutrients in greens feed the good bacteria in your gut.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Inflammation is one more effect of the reduction of estrogen during perimenopause and menopause because estrogen has an anti-inflammatory effect. When estrogen declines, inflammation tends to rise.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before

“Also, simply cutting down on calories, which may have worked so well when you were in your twenties, no longer works now. So many of us were raised to count calories that when it stopped working, it felt as if an entire belief system was crumbling. And the reason cutting calories doesn’t work is that estrogen affects how your body uses starches, and when it declines, you use blood sugar less effectively, increasing fat storage, mostly centered in the belly, or visceral, area. Visceral fat (a.k.a. belly fat) is a particularly dangerous kind of fat because it wraps around our abdominal organs and impairs their function.”
― Tamsen Fadal, How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before