Dear Denise, you talk a great game of getting “me” back and loving the menopause life but I don’t like veggies, I have no energy to workout and my schedule doesn’t allow me to go to bed early.
Now what pill can I take to feel like me again? Just tell me the pill please.
-Barely getting through the day in Philly
Dear Barely getting through the day,
If you’re looking for a pill let’s get started!
A quick story first.
One day in my early 30s I had just showered and my 8 year old girls were chatting with me as I got ready. Suddenly one says, “MOM! did you even wash your pits? You smell like a skunk.”
I HAD showered and put on my prescription strength deodorant.
I was already embarrassed by my stink but had been hoping others couldn’t smell it. Now I was certain I stunk and I’d already tried every soap, scrub and deodorant. As far as I knew, I’d done it all. There was no hope for me.
Month’s go by. I’d taken some nutrition education and had been eating different. Little things at a time. No yogurt cleared up my dandruff. No corn made my skin quit itching. No bread flattened my stomach. A couple of veggie only weeks to rest my digestion.
One day daughter #1 says in her most unbelieving voice, “Mom! You don’t stink!”
Quick pit check. Holy smokes! I didn’t stink!
Now the thinker in me takes over, what happened?
Over several months of experimenting focused on the other discomforts, I had gotten to a smell free place.
My point?
This didn’t happen over night.
And there was no magic.
This took a long time and now I can go deodorant free!
But I had tried quick fixes in the past, the detox teas and belly bloat wraps and even though my belly would flatten the stink was always there.
It was in the consistent effort of removing hard for me to digest foods, and toxins that my body had time to heal and returned to working as designed.
During those months I learned how to prepare veggies I could love, that fruit was actually sweet enough for dessert, fast food gave me the poops and dessert pizza made me crash.
8 1/4 hours of sleep get me jumping out of bed energized and able to face my day without a nap and when I skip too many workouts my sleep becomes restless.
I learned meditation really alters the way I think and behave and that a Milky Way doesn’t dissolve stress.
I had time to change the stuff I put on my body, having learned that the aluminum, sodium laurel sulfate and teflon were easy to replace with less deadly products.
AND
I DO BELIEVE there is a time for pills. For the quick fix.
Only after you’ve cleared up your insides so the pill can be the thing that flips the switch to remind your body how to work vs a life long prescription.
Some supplements you may eventually try include:
Vitamin D, Bs, zinc, magnesium, fish oil, evening primrose oil, ashwaganda, maca root, black cohash.
But what if you tried a little of The Sexy Unsexy Life?
Did the daily things that get your body running as designed?
Because that maca root is way more effective at #fixyourfrisky when it doesn’t get processed through the sludge take out food leaves behind.
The ashwaganda and magnesium are way more calming on acute stress when there’s no chronic stress.
The Vitamin D helps with depression quicker when not sitting in a windowless room in front of a computer all day without some movement in nature.
Fish oil cuts aches and pains faster when you aren’t also eating inflammatory foods like dessert pizza.
Bs increase energy when supported by extra nutrients in veggies.
The Sexy Unsexy Life: Eat your veggies, move your body, enjoy the wine.
The Sexy Unsexy Life: Feel like “you” even in menopause.
