If you’re a perimenopausal woman, this should be music to your ears!

It’s something you can control.

An opportunity to get rid of (or at least greatly reduce) the hot flashes and the night sweats.

The opportunity to start addressing those brain changes and start remembering  people’s names and why you walked into a room.

For many women these symptoms continue long after the perimenopausal years . . . and they don’t have to.

Sally (not her real name) was that person. She went through menopause. But afterwards, the hot flashes continued, the forgetfulness continued. Indeed, she was convinced it was just part of aging.

Then, after we talked, she decided to give some of my suggestions a try.

The change wasn’t overnight and it wasn’t perfect. Still she noticed measurable differences. . .in the number and intensity of hot flashes. . .and in her memory. 

Oh yeah, and she lost 10 lbs.

With that in mind, here are my top 3 hacks:

1. Eliminate dairy!

I know this is a tough one for many people. But dairy is really just bovine growth factor. It’s loaded with hormones, especially estrogen.

Have you ever noticed an adult animal consuming milk anywhere in nature? No, neither have I.  Maybe we are not designed to consume it.

Cow’s milk is designed to fatten a calf from 40 lbs. to nearly a thousand pounds in a year! That’s a 25X weight gain. In contrast, human milk produces a 3X weight gain in a year. So all those hormones & growth factors are what you’re eating in your cheese.

When you stop taking in all that excess hormone, it gives your body a chance to eliminate what you’re not making. The result is not only helping to balance your hormones but decreasing weight, and the likelihood of cancer, heart disease and more.

2. Eat soy regularly.

Few people outside of those who have specifically studied it understand soy’s benefits.

Let me explain: Compounds in soy bind to the estrogen binding sites of our cells. That means our own naturally occurring estrogen can’t so it can now be metabolized by our liver and eliminated.
These soy compounds have lower estrogenic activity than our own estrogen so they effectively reduce estrogen levels (provided we eat enough fiber so the estrogen isn’t resorbed.)

3. Eat more high fiber plant foods.

Fiber will help push the metabolic byproducts mentioned above through your digestive tract quickly so they can’t get resorbed. If you don’t move them & eliminate them quickly enough, they will be resorbed and they will be re-converted back to estrogen.

Do just these three things and they will help. Start today. You’ll be glad you did.

Want more? Join my Empowered Wellness Membership Group. This low-cost program will give you all the assistance you need to make changes and the results you need and want. Learn more here: 

The post My Top 3 Healthy Happy Hormone Hacks appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.

And I was SO convinced I was fat that I spent most of the time I was in college dieting and running; getting down to 103 lbs. on my 5’4” body and STILL thinking I was fat!

I know many of you can relate to this.
We’re conditioned, as women.

You must look right. Not too fat. Not too thin. You mustn’t have an ass.
Oh, yeah, and your boobs. . .they’re for men’s pleasure, not their intended natural purpose. 
You must be thin but you must have SOME curves. Huh? 
Above all, you must look good to men!

Bullshit! To put it bluntly.
How about: It’s not about what you look like!
How about this: a healthy body attitude is about having a body that you can use as an instrument to do what you choose to do . . . throughout life.

An idea that’s easily lost in our society. Lost amid the skinny models, the multi-million dollar diet industry, and the contrast and contradiction between what “they” (men and corporate culture) say we “should” look like and what’s healthy.

Back to the ‘story.’ . . 
Somewhere, somehow amidst all the BS, I developed a love of bicycling.

Truth be told, a lot of it was originally to spend time with a boy I had a crush on.
A boy, who, looking back now, I think may actually have been gay!

But then I found the exhilaration of propelling down a hill on a bike and I was hooked.
The faster the better.

That was my turning point. The point at which I stopped worrying about “fat Leslie” and learned a healthy respect for fueling my body with nutritious food and staying fit enough to do what I want to do.

Now “being in shape” became about having the strength and endurance to get up that hill.

Later, it even became about having the strength and endurance to carry everything I needed (indeed almost everything I owned) on a 3 month long 3,000 mile bicycle tour from Billings, Montana to the Oregon Coast and then south to the Mexican Border.

Circling back around to the years of body shaming:
Some years later, I found a picture of myself. You know, one of those pictures that Mom & Dad took on the front steps on the first day of school. I was shocked! 

I saw a little girl who definitely was NOT overweight, let alone “fat.”

Yet all these years later. I STILL constantly have to reframe it ALL THE TIME!

The idea that my body is my own. . .  that women’s bodies are their own.

That our bodies are for OUR use and pleasure; for how we choose.

And then we need to fuel them in a way that’s consistent with allowing us to continue to do the things we want to do till the day we die.

So what kinds of things do you want to be able to do?

It might be as simple as going for a walk on the beach with your family. It could be as complex as taking an extended bicycle tour, hiking the Appalachian Trail, or mountain climbing.

Whatever it is, it’s essential to both fuel your body and strengthen your muscles in a way that’s consistent with your goals, both short and long-term.

So when you look in the mirror and you’re not pleased with what you see, choose to reframe it.

Ask yourself, “How can I fuel my body (nutrition) and what actions (exercise) can I take today to make all my tomorrows days when my body can support the things I choose to do?”

A healthy body attitude is about having a body that you can use as an instrument to do what you choose to do.

It’s a life-long process. Let me know if I can help.

The post Weight Loss Attitudes: Body Shaming vs. Health & Fitness appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.

“If only the hot flashes didn’t come at the most ridiculous times! Right in the middle of an important presentation . . . Again! This Peri-menopause stuff just makes me feel so out of control!

”The mood swings; I’m so short-tempered with my kids! My poor son, I blew up him again yesterday over something really stupid! … And I just can’t think straight anymore. Sometimes it’s really scary! … ” She went on.

I could feel her pain & frustration.

This had been going for what seemed like forever to her. Really, it had been about 6 months. That’s a significant amount of time in anyone’s world; especially when you don’t know how to make it go away; you feel so out of control. Now she was thinking the only choice she had was medication; either ‘traditional drugs’ or ‘bio-identical hormones.’

Sally (not her real name) had consulted with me to learn how safe or not safe the choices were (and if there were other choices she didn’t know about). Over the years she had made other healthcare decisions that she is now questioning. She knew, like most of us, that she wasn’t being pro-active “enough” (her words) in other areas of her health too (diet, exercise, stress reduction, maybe more).

Peri-menopause; the hot flashes, short temper, and brain fog; it was all just “one more thing,” as she put it. But it was having a profound and devastating effect on her life. She thought peri-menopause and the symptoms from it weren’t related to anything accept her ‘age and her cycles’ but she was about to learn differently.

First, after I listened to how out of control she felt things were, I gave her some much-needed information about ‘traditional’ hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Studies show it DOES increase cancer rates and is associated with an increased rate of death from a few different conditions.

And I explained that studies DON’T show bio-identical hormones are significantly better in many ways. (set up your consultation here.)

I also told her my own personal story and why I love working with women in this stage of life so much.

“I’ve been there.” I let her know. I had gone on bio-identical hormones, assuming they were safer because I, too, had felt so out of control. Then I gained nearly 20 lbs. in 2 months! We tried adjusting the dose and I was still gaining weight. Finally, I just said enough is enough. At that rate, I’d weigh 200 lbs. in just a few months! (more about me another time.)

That’s when I started really researching facts vs. hype.

Hype: Bio-identical hormones are ‘safer.’

Fact: The research I’ve done; actually reading studies; NOT looking at doctor’s or interest group’s websites, shows differently. For some side effects there is a statistically significant decrease (a small one) but for many side effects of hormone use, either the jury is still out or there’s no difference.

Hype: Organic dairy is ‘better’ than soy for women.

Fact: Even organic dairy comes from a (usually pregnant) and nursing cow and is loaded with hormones. Fact: the genistein in soy has LESS hormonal activity than estrogen but it binds to your cells like estrogen; thereby allowing your body to excrete excess estrogen (IF you eat enough fiber to move it out of your system before it gets resorbed!) Fact: Societies that eat little or no dairy and more fiber than we do (traditional Japanese, Chinese, Okinawan, and others) don’t suffer like we do.

Hype: If you don’t go on hormones in some form, your symptoms will be out of control and how much you’ll suffer for how long will be anyone’s guess.

Fact: There are specific foods, like Cole-plants (broccoli, kale, etc) and others that help your liver metabolize & excrete estrogens. Fact: there are some foods that societies who don’t suffer like we do consume and there are foods we eat and they don’t. Fact: when these women move to the Western World, if they adopt a Western Diet, they have more symptoms.  

Hype: Weight gain is a part of the process and the only way around that is a paleo or keto diet.

Fact: Your metabolism does naturally slow some as you age. Fact: There are hundreds of hidden calories in the Standard American Diet (SAD) and even for those of us who think we are eating healthier than SAD, we are still quite SAD. (Really check the labels, you’ll be shocked.)

To bring this back around to Sally.

She thought she was doing pretty well with her diet. She was trying to keep mostly to a keto diet. When she first started it, she had lost 20 lbs. in just a couple of months. Then the weight loss slowed to almost a standstill.  When I inquired closer, she’d sometimes have things like a commercial yogurt or a piece of fruit if she was in a hurry or hadn’t prepared.

When I explained that doing that keto really requires you be much stricter and it has an increased mortality rate of 12-25% in studies, she was shocked.

Then we went on to talk about how her diet, her lifestyle, her history (just normal stuff), underlying inflammation, and more were effecting her hormone balance, memory and brain fog issues, her temper and other perimenopause symptoms as well as her weight. She never understood, until now, that it all tied in together.

“Medicine and Western philosophy has done women a great disservice,” I told her.

“We’ve separated ourselves so much from our bodies that we’ve lost sense of how integrated we really are. Our mind affects our body; our body affects our mind. They both affect what we eat; that affects our gut, our microbiome, and more which, in turn, affects all our systems and our entire being.

Just like we’re beginning to see the big picture of how EVERYTHING we do on this planet affects the earth and its health (our environment), we must realize that everything WE do personally affects our health (our internal environment) and that it’s all inter-related.

Now that she understood all that, she was more willing to re-take control. From there, we went on to craft her plan and her program.

If you have a health concern you’d like to discuss,  set up a consultation here.

The post Your Hormones & Peri-Menopause: It Doesn’t Have to be Out of Control appeared first on Dr Leslie K. Empowered Wellness.