Lifestyle_med_WNC

To all my perimenopause/menopause friends: come join the club.

🌸✨ Midlife is the perfect time to put yourself first and rediscover self-care! Join Michelle, a Master Certified Health Coach for an empowering event focused on self-care strategies for perimenopause, menopause, and beyond. Learn tips to nurture your body, mind, and spirit through this transformative season. 🌿 Let's prioritize health, wellness, and joy together. You deserve it!

You know your body. If you feel like crap- don’t accept “nothing is wrong” and keep suffering! Dig in- let’s figure it out!! Life is already too short to suffer! This has become my favorite patient to help!

Somehow, in my late 30s and early 40s, my personality changed, and I didn’t even realize it was happening. I used to be vibrant, silly, and tolerant. I enjoyed my children so much that our house was nicknamed Anna’s Wonderland, and I had a preschool in the basement. The constant noise and commotion of children never bothered me. But slowly, I became more irritable and anxious. My sleep suffered, my body started to break down despite my efforts to stay strong, and I experienced mysterious aches, pains, and injuries.

I began self-diagnosing, undergoing biopsies and imaging, but found no clear answers. I didn’t want to work anymore but couldn’t see a way out. Nothing was fun. Burnout was real. The pivotal moment came when my youngest daughter looked at me in the kitchen and simply said, “Mom, you don’t laugh or smile anymore.” Her words cut deep. I realized I was no longer the fun, silly, vibrant role model she once knew.

It took time for me to recognize that I was going through perimenopause. I had to figure it out on my own because doctors weren’t recognizing or treating it. It’s not their fault; it’s the system. Thankfully, things are changing, and I’m thrilled to have received the training needed to help others avoid this struggle. I hope to educate and support women through the transition so they can recognize the symptoms and be prepared.

Through lifestyle changes and supporting my hormones, my migraines, miserable periods, personality changes, and sleep disturbances began to improve within weeks. Menopause is real, and you are not alone. The best is yet to come.

I share this picture because it makes me so happy that my children can see me laugh again. I hope they remember their silly, full-of-life, proactive parent who wants to enjoy every precious moment. Let’s make each day count, be joyful, and grateful. Laugh every day, love every day, and feel like ourselves every day.

Perimenopause: when fiber from real food is a part of your menopause tool kit. I have always been a “healthy person”- by average standards. But when inflammation decides to take center stage in midlife, it’s more of a non negotiable to focus on anti-inflammatory nutrition. I can take/prescribe but without starting with lifestyle- it’s a bit of a waste!
Shout out to my husband who has learned to find his midlife therapist is his garden and one of his love languages is kale and cabbage!!

Let’s do this!!! Women suffer, see countless specialists, take unnecessary meds with side effects that don’t get to the underlying cause of their symptoms because they have been under researched for too long!
The bill would authorize $125 million in menopause-related research grants through the National Institutes of Health, create a $50 million public awareness campaign about the condition, fund $50 million in additional training for health workers and provide $50 million to improve diagnosis and treatment of chronic conditions affecting women at midlife. The legislation also includes new federal requirements, such as directing the Department of Health and Human Services to report to Congress on its menopause work.