The Happy Menopause

The Happy Menopause made me a vey happy reader. As a perimenopausal woman in her 40s, I found the information helpful and hopeful. The advice is given n an engaging conversational style and explanations were easily understandable. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to women in their 40s and 50s.

I’ve been in menopause since 2007 after a total hysterectomy and to say it’s been a difficult journey would be an understatement! From multiple HRT medications to hot flashes, I tried to get a handle on the symptoms without much relief. Over the years, I’ve done my homework on HRT meds only to find they may do more harm than good, especially when taken for a long duration. Needless to say, I no longer take any meds and control my symptoms with diet, exercise, and very few supplements when needed and while I know this isn’t for everyone, for me it’s helped me feel better than I’ve ever felt.

When I saw this title available on Netgalley, I couldn’t pass up the chance to check it out! I highly recommend it to anyone heading into their 40s and 50s and looking for more information and tips on managing this mid-life season. Broken into sections this book gives a great overview of symptoms, diet to alleviate them and more.

I was reluctant to read this book, expecting yet another treatise on why I should adopt a vegan diet. But that’s not the case. This is an overview of menopause and how food -and other lifestyle- choices can influence how the body feels. The changes can be great or small, but one is not expected to throw out the contents of fridge and pantry and start over. Although not categorized as such by the author, there are options for vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore preferences.

This book starts with an overview of the hormonal changes that take place during a woman’s monthly cycle, how those shift over the years, and the impacts they can have.

Then, for those in a hurry, Chapter Two is titled “If you only do one thing...” It outlines the most crucial dietary decision, its role in the body’s ability to perform hormonal functions, and the impact on overall well-being. Rather than throw an arbitrary diet at the reader, the author recognizes that by this phase of life, eating habits and preferences are usually well-established, so she starts with suggested small changes to common meal options. (This may be my favorite thing about this book!)

The third chapter goes into menopausal symptoms and how to manage them. For each of many common symptoms there is a description, a simple scientific explanation of why they occur, how nutrition and other lifestyle choices can help, and foods to avoid. The author provides a number of food alternatives for each nutrition suggestion, and, taking it a step beyond just suggesting what to eat, there are ideas of how to incorporate these foods into your existing diet as well as some suggested recipes.

The final chapter looks at nutrients - what they are, what we need, which foods provide them, and signs of deficiency.

I devoured this book in one sitting and have plans to reread again and again, incorporating new/different/more foods over the weeks, and keeping a food diary (as the author recommends) to track my progress. Highly recommended!

A wonderful resource for women of a certain age. :) As I am headed for this journey within a few more years, I thought this book was full of great information and helpful tips and advice. I will be keeping it around to reference when really needed.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

This was a very informative read, I loved the fact it used nutrition to help control symptoms and gave you meal ideas that you can make at home and not rely on hrt! I thought the information on vitamins was really handy to know.
I found the book easy to read and understand.
I will certainly be following the advice given in this book
Thank you netgalley.

So many useful facts and figures and so much help and advice for women of a certain age (what that age is, I have no idea, Mother Nature decides). It seems though that I’m at that age and unlike some of my friends I’ve chosen not to use HRT, unfortunately it’ll be a while before I find out if that decision backfired on me or not. For now I’m taking some of the wonderful advice and life lessons from Jackie Lynch and Co. Basically, it’s eating a balanced sensible and nutritional diet. Common sense. Healthy eating. Oh, and try to reduce that stress. Useful facts and lots of advice on a healthy eating lifestyle to try and ease all those symptoms that I definitely have. I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest review.