The Happy Menopause

How daring do you feel these days? Sometimes it’s easy for us to write ourselves off in midlife and think the fun and adventure is all over. In this episode, we’re going to explore the extraordinary adventures of some inspiring women who have smashed through barriers, broken taboos and paved the way for the rest of us. I promise you that by the end of the episode, you’ll be just raring to go and start an adventure of your own!

My guest will be well-known to many of you, because she was a much-loved presenter on BBC Breakfast for 20 years. She’s used her profile to champion women’s stories and to raise awareness of the menopause, mental health and women’s safety. She’s also a highly successful triathlete who represented Great Britain in her age-group. If you haven’t guessed already, I’m chatting to the brilliant Louise Minchin who’s here to discuss her latest book Fearless: Adventures with Extraordinary Women and to give us all an appetite for adventure.

Louise introduces us to a whole host of inspiring women and talks us through the adventures she shared with them, including freediving under ice, cycling across Argentina, wild caving and a swim escape from Alcatraz. We discuss the importance of challenging yourself to build resilience and how vital it is to remain physically confident to ensure we keep fit and well through mid- and later life. Louise is an incredibly positive role model and full of great advice on how to empower yourself to take that first step into adventure so that you can make the most of this latest stage of your life. 

She was a delight to chat to and I promise you that you’ll enjoy listening to her as much as I enjoyed chatting to her! 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places. 

Do you ever feel left out of the menopause conversation? If you’re dealing with the menopause post-cancer it can be very frustrating when all the messaging in the media seems to revolve around HRT as the solution to all your symptoms. So in this episode, I’m focusing on the very specific diet and lifestyle steps you can take to manage your menopause if you’ve recently had cancer treatment, or are taking hormone suppressant medication, which means that you can't take HRT, even if you wanted to..

Cancer nutrition is a highly specialised and complex area so I’ve brought in the big guns with my guest for this episode. I’m delighted to be joined by Dr Carol Granger. She’s a registered nutrition practitioner and microbiologist who works with people with a cancer diagnosis, before during and after treatment to complement their treatment and support resilience and recovery. She’s also an executive member of the British Society for Integrative Oncology and has published numerous research papers on nutrition and cancer. 

Carol is a mine of useful information and shares her practical and expert advice on the do’s and don’ts of diet and lifestyle after a cancer diagnosis. We discuss the importance of the Mediterranean diet; why you need to follow a smart-fat rather than a low-fat diet; and why it’s important to apply caution with certain supplements. This is an incredibly helpful episode for anyone looking to manage their health and wellbeing during and post-menopause after a cancer diagnosis.

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places. 

Are you fed up with dieting and not making any progress with weight loss? Managing a healthy weight in midlife can be a real minefield and it’s incredibly disheartening if despite your best efforts you’re not really getting anywhere. The female body is complicated and the cocktail of hormones around the menopause can make it a real uphill battle to keep in shape. We often find that the tried and trusted methods of the past don’t really work for us now, so what can we do about that? Surely there’s a better way? Well, there is! And I’ve got just the woman to help us with it in this month’s podcast.

In this episode I chat to Elizabeth Sherman, a life and weight-loss coach who supports women through the hormonal shifts of the perimenopause and menopause and who’s made it her business to guide them through the challenges of managing a healthy  weight in midlife. She’s also the host of the excellent Done With Dieting podcast which is for all of us who are looking to manage our health, wellbeing and weight in a way that’s successful and sustainable. 

We discuss the ups and downs of weight management in menopause; explore the issues around emotional eating with Elizabeth’s expert advice for managing this; and we look at the 8 healthy habits you need to get in place to support a healthy weight in midlife. Chatting to Elizabeth was a really helpful reminder of just how complex our body is and why we need to be giving it the best possible support through the menopause and beyond. 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places. 

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is Embrace Equity focusing on forging equality for women and raising awareness around discrimination. And this got me thinking about the inequalities around women’s health and the menopause, because there are a lot of them. It’s still very much a man’s world and it can be hard for women to ensure their voice is heard in the health arena. In this IWD special episode, I chat to a hugely inspiring woman, who’s been campaigning around the menopause for years and who’s made a material difference to the conversation around women’s health.  

Back in Season 1, I invited Elizabeth Carr-Ellis and her Pausitivity colleagues to share the work they’d been doing around raising awareness of the menopause amongst local communities. I’m thrilled that she’s back with me today for an update and to give us her insights on the ongoing challenges of managing inequality around the menopause.
 

Since we last spoke, Liz has continued to campaign tirelessly, and she even took the menopause to the UK parliament, addressing MPs and peers at the All Party Parliamentary Group on menopause. She’s also been named a Big Issue Changemaker for her work taking the menopause into vulnerable communities. 

We discuss the postcode lottery of the menopause experience for women in the UK; the shocking truth around the majority of medical research which is based on the male experience; the heart-breaking challenges that women face as they grapple with their menopause symptoms; and the lack of support from government and some elements of the medical community around the HRT shortages. 

It’s enough to make you want to get out there and (wo)man the barricades! Tune in to find out what concrete steps you can take to ensure that you receive equity around your health and the menopause. 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places. 

What does your menopause look like? The chances are it’s not much like a lot of the media portrayals of the menopause! 

With International Women’s Day fast approaching and with a theme of Embrace Equity, I wanted to take a closer look at diversity around the menopause, because it doesn’t just happen to the tired-looking grey-haired white woman that seems to take centre stage in so many of the slightly depressing stock shots used in the media. 

Every woman goes through menopause – and it can happen at any age, some women experience premature menopause, others may have menopause triggered by medical treatment or a surgical intervention.

 And women of every ethnicity experience menopause and it’s really important to understand that the timing and some of the symptoms and risk factors can vary quite significantly if you’re black or Asian, for example. 

If that’s you or one of your loved ones, it’s essential to understand these key differences in order to take positive action and this month’s guest is just the woman to help us with this. 

Meet Karen Arthur! She’s a fashion creative, menopause diversity campaigner and host of the ground-breaking podcast Menopause Whilst Black. Karen is also the inspiration behind Wear Your Happy, because she believes passionately in the power of clothing and accessories to enhance your mood and lift your spirits.
 
In this episode we discuss the different way that black women experience menopause and the challenges that they face. Karen talks through her own experience and the motivation behind creating her Menopause Whilst Black podcast. She’s keen to open up the menopause conversation to women of all ages and ethnicities, taking the conversation out to communities and is doing a brilliant job of it. 

Karen is also completely inspirational on the subject of fashion and how what you wear should make you happy. She’s a complete bundle of energy and positivity – tune in to hear her words of wisdom!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places. 

What do you think about yoga? Are you a regular devotee; is it something you do occasionally, or do you really think this is something for other people? If yoga is something you’ve discounted or let slide in your wellbeing journey so far, you might want to think again after you’ve heard what my latest guest has to say about the multiple benefits for women in midlife. 

Meet Libby Stevenson – she’s a yoga instructor and therapeutic wellbeing practitioner for women at different stages of life but with a special interest in midlife and menopause. Libby’s own journey of discovery into yoga inspired her to train as an instructor and to gain specialist certification in the areas she’s passionate about, so she’s just the person we need to tell us more about this wonderful practice.

In this episode we drill down into the different ways that yoga can support our health and wellbeing. We discuss the role that yoga can play in supporting the nervous system and reducing stress levels, really underpinning our mental health at a stage in life when we can be feeling a little fragile. 

There are a range of physical benefits too, from improving flexibility, stamina & balance and helping to build bone and muscle strength to reducing hot flushes and supporting sleep. 

Find out why yoga is for everyone, regardless of your shape, weight, flexibility and fitness. You won’t regret giving it a try, I promise!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode, and please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on.  And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places. 

It’s 2023 and New Year, New You, they say! But is there actually anything wrong with the old you? Probably not, but we’re often very self-critical! Rather than making a whole lot of radical resolutions that won’t last more than a week or two, in this episode I’m focusing on small, consistent changes that can reap big benefits as you transition through the menopause. And I’ve found just the woman to help us with this, because I’m chatting to the brilliant Amanda Thebe who’s just the most practical, pragmatic and relatable menopause champion and she’s made a material difference to thousands of women through her work. 

Amanda is a Women’s Health and Fitness Expert with nearly thirty years of experience in the fitness industry and the author of the best-selling book, Menopocalypse: How I Learned to Thrive During Menopause and How You Can Too, which is her story of how she was trapped in the perimenopause rabbit hole and how she got out of it. She’s a bundle of energy, positivity and wisdom, so tune in to hear what she’s got to say!

We discuss the many different ways that you can take a proactive approach to managing your menopause and Amanda shares her five keystones of optimal health in midlife. She also busts some of the popular menopause myths out there around diet and lifestyle, shares her thoughts on supplements and speaks frankly about her views on some of the misleading (and expensive!) advice that is out there without the relevant evidence to back it up.  

Just chatting to Amanda has made me feel more energised and positive – imagine how it would feel to work with her! 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places. 

Are you a caregiver? The shoulder for everyone else? The fixer in your family? The workplace workhorse? Is there no time for self-care?  Women are hardwired to nurture, and it can be very difficult to know where to draw the line if we think that other people need us. 

And that can be a real issue, because self care is a non-negotiable for women in midlife and it can make a world of difference to the way we experience the menopause. But many of us aren’t very good at it, although we’re brilliant at looking after other people!

That’s why I’ve called in the big guns for this episode, with Jess Baker, psychologist and co-author of The Super Helper Syndrome, which is a survival guide for compassionate people. She’s a chartered psychologist and an award-winning coach, and her new book is a fabulously helpful guide to supporting people who want to adopt a healthy helper mindset so that they can meet their own needs, as well as supporting those around them. 

In this episode we explore where the urge to help comes from and how it can often lead back to childhood and the influences we encounter as we grow up. Jess talks us through the classic signs of someone who is a compulsive helper and explains the implications this can have on health and wellbeing. We discuss how to set boundaries in our professional and our personal lives so that we don’t overload ourselves and can take the time to look after ourselves too. 

She’s full of very practical advice on how to get the balance right in our lives, so that we become healthy helpers. As she so beautifully puts it: “When helping comes from a place of compassion and not from compulsion, that’s when caring gives us courage.”

This episode is for all the women out there who are so busy helping everyone else that they often don’t give a thought to themselves, their health and their wellbeing.

Find out more about Jess and her work in the Show Notes on my website: www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast.

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places. 

In this episode I’m focusing on good mood foods, because there is no doubt that what we eat can have a huge impact on our brain and cognitive function. 

Mood swings, anxiety and brain fog are incredibly common issues for women in their early 40s onwards, which can come as an unwelcome surprise. And while there’s no doubt that your hormones are playing a big part in this, the right diet and lifestyle can play a huge part in helping correct the balance so that you get your brain back on an even keel. 

I’ve decided to go solo for this podcast so I can focus specifically on my own area of expertise, which is nutrition. I’m sharing 8 ways that your food choices can help to calm your nerves, regulate your mood and clear your brain, so that your neurotransmitters are fully fired up!

Tune in to find out why it’s important to boost the B’s, maximise magnesium, power up the protein and be good to your gut and I’ll give you some practical tips on how to do all that. I set a fun foodie challenge for you as well – you’ll have to listen in to find out what that is, but I promise that you’ll enjoy it!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on. And do tell your friends and family about it too. I’d be so grateful, because it really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. Thanks so much for listening, bye for now!

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places. 

This summer I discovered The Expectation Effect, the latest book by David Robson and what I learned was fascinating, so I was thrilled when he agreed to come on the podcast for this World Menopause Day special on cognition.  

Our mindset shapes every facet of our lives, and our expectations have a direct impact on every experience. Of course, we all know that looking on the bright side promotes positivity, but there’s an impressive body of research around the way that our expectations can significantly influence our health, wellbeing, fitness and even our weight and the way that we age!  As we work our way through the challenges of midlife and the menopause, it’s really good to know that at least some of the power is in our hands and this episode is full of good advice about how to make the most of that. 

My guest is David Robson, an award-winning science writer specialising in the extremes of the human brain, body and behaviour. His second book, The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life is a journey through the cutting-edge science of how our beliefs can create self-fulfilling prophecies in every area of our lives. 

We discuss all the different ways that your expectations can influence your health, your wellbeing and your life. David shares some extraordinary research about this and explains how very small changes can make a world of difference to our experience of a situation, a challenge or a health problem. 

It’s incredibly empowering to discover just how much we can influence our own health and wellbeing, especially at this time of our lives when we can often feel as if control is slipping away from us. I promise you’ll find this a very helpful episode!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please give it 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. And if you're tired of feeling tired and grappling with brain fog, check out  my new book: The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy; Nutrition to Rejuvenate Your Brain & Body. It's available in all the usual places.