Andrea Glover - The Perimenopause Handbook: What Every Women Needs to Know About the Transition from Perimenopause into Menopause

The
PERIMENOPAUSE
Handbook

What Every Women Needs to Know About
the Transition from Perimenopause into Menopause

ANDREA GLOVER

Copyright 2018 by Andrea Glover.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/28/2018

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Contents

In this book, I want to share my journey of the transition from perimenopause into menopause, my experiences and what I have learned along this journey.

But first, here is a little introduction about who I am.

I was a tom boy in my youth. I have never been very girly, worn lots of makeup or kept up with the latest fashion trends. I love bananas and almond butter, I love animals especially cats and cows! I love the sunshine and the hot weather and like nothing better than to be out in nature.

As far as I can remember I have suffered with digestive problems, I had dry skin for years in my early 20s and I have been a sugar junkie in my 20s and 30s. I also suffered with depression in my 20s and had gone through a lot of stress before the age of 40.

I started my passion for nutrition, health, wellbeing and how the foods that we eat affect our health, at school during cooking classes that I attended every week. I looked forward to these classes so much and my passion for cooking and learning how to create delicious recipes grew and grew. I bought my first vitamin book in my teens and I still have it today. My collection of various different cookery books started to grow and it is then that I came across Jamie Olivers books, Nigella Lawson, Deliciously Ella and Angela Liddon.

I always knew I wanted to help others with their health and wellbeing for years but did not know how I could do that so I just studied in my spare time and learned how to eat for good health and wellbeing.

I had a health crash in my early 40s and I could not digest any food that I was eating. I went to the doctors and they treated it like it was a stomach bug but I knew it was more than that. I was told to eat very ripe bananas, cooked rice and soup. He prescribed me some probiotics and a powder to mix with water to calm my stomach down. I tried to take it but it made my diarrhoea worse. I was having diarrhoea up to 10 times a day. I could feel it running through my intestines. It was not very pleasant at all. I was a bit worried because I was losing weight. I turned to the internet and I found a website talking about a diet to help treat a condition called SIBO and leaky gut. SIBO means small intestinal bacteria overgrowth and I had all the symptoms. It was recommended to starve the bad bacteria causing all the digestion problems and to follow a starvation diet to kill them. I did this and got well again.

I have eliminated gluten and wheat, soft cheeses and dairy from my diet and eat little meat. I stay away from a lot of food additives and processed foods. I much prefer to cook my own foods and I love to eat this way as it makes me look good and feel good inside and out.

In my late 30s, it suddenly hit me that this was my passion in life and I wanted to help others.

I began to study nutrition and diets with the Health Sciences Academy, The Diet Specialist and The Shaw Academy.

I not only changed my diet but I also began studying mindset and how our thinking and actions affect health and wellbeing.

I also changed the way I exercised. I did a lot of running but it wasnt giving me the results I wanted in my 40s. The more I studied how exercise and stress affected hormones and weight loss the more I realised I needed to cut back on my exercise and to incorporate some weight bearing exercises to get me strong and build up muscle tone.

I continued to study the endocrine system, hormones and how a womens body changed in her 40s and beyond. I spent the last 8 years studying what perimenopause was, what the symptoms were and just how many symptoms there were. I realised that not many women knew about perimenopause and how it affected their body over the age of 35.

A lot of women I speak to dont know what perimenopause is or what happens as they transition into menopause.

A lot of women are thinking that their symptoms are just a process of aging and they just have to put up with them.

A lot of women are not getting any support from their doctor as they are not trained to support women going through the change of life as they call it.

A lot of women are given advice from their doctor to just get used to the symptoms because this is what happens when they go through the change of life and their periods stop.

A lot of women are not getting the support they need at work with no procedures set up in the workplace. Women in business are also at a loss as to who to turn to for help and support.

This is where Healthy Lifestyle Over 40 was born. I want to make it my mission to help other women going through the perimenopause and menopause. I want to educate women about the symptoms and that they did not have to put up with them. They could go through the transition into menopause and look good and feel good inside and out.

I created my website Healthy Lifestyle Over 40 and a Facebook Group called Peri and Menopause Support.

Why not come and join in the talks, debates and helpful advice with other like minded women over the age of 40.

My Facebook Group is here https://www.facebook.com/groups/periandmenopausesupport/

So, lets begin your journey from perimenopause into menopause.

I want you to know that your body is capable of doing this with little to no symptoms.

When you give your body what it needs to go through this transition you can have little to no symptoms and your body will be able to keep up with balancing your hormones!

Ok, so the next step is to tell you what perimenopause is.

Perimenopause is a transition that happens to the majority of women in the years leading up to menopause. It happens any time after the age of 35. The average age of menopause is 52.

Some women may experience early menopause under the age of 45 and some women are thrown into menopause because they have had a full hysterectomy or had ovarian failure.

This is a normal transition and your body is well equipped to deal with the changes that happen during this time. This is why it takes such a long time for the transition to happen! If you are having a lot of symptoms then this book will help you to identify those symptoms so you can get them under control and get on with your life with little disruption.

Depending on how you have lived your life in your 20s and 30s, your diet, lifestyle, exercise, mindset and if you have taken the birth control pill for a number of years, will all have a big impact on your perimenopause journey and how many symptoms you may be experiencing.

During perimenopause the hormone progesterone is the first hormone to decline. This can start to cause an imbalance and some symptoms will start to appear.

Estrogen and Progesterone work together in a dance and when they are not working together to create balance then things start to go wrong.

During perimenopause, it is normal to be experiencing erratic periods and missing a few months here and there. This is happening because your body is getting ready to stop ovulating. Your hormones will be on a rollercoaster ride going up and down and this is what is causing you to miss a period here and there. Your periods will be all over the place and a bit frustrating because you never know when you are going to get one or miss one. Your periods can be light one month and heavy another month. You could have spotting here and there. You will find that you have to carry around tampons or sanitary towels in your bag all the time because your periods are all over the place. I created a perimenopause symptom tracker to download so you can track your symptoms and periods and you can find this on my website to download. The only time I would worry about your periods is if you are having continued heavy bleeding. This needs to be checked out with your doctor. It could be high estrogen levels or fibroids or something else causing this.