Harpaz Mickey - Menopause reset!: reverse weight gain, speed fat loss, and get your body back in 3 simple steps

To the three women in my life

I dedicate this book in loving memory to my grandmother Saftona, my role model and best friend. She was a gentle woman who walked the earth in peace and kindness, teaching my family and me how to find happiness and be happy each and every day.

To my loving mother, Pnina, a strong woman whose actions throughout all of her life, taught me the vast power of perseverance, dedication, and family values.

To my partner, Ingrid, whose love and support will forever bring warmth to the meaning of my life. I am immeasurably indebted to you, Ingrid, for your intelligence and insight, patience and compassion, which are everything I could ask for.

It was a beautiful spring day outside my office. Inside, the scene was a little gloomier.

Barbara was sitting in my office waiting for me to come in.

I walked in and smiled and said, Hello, Barbara, and how are

If this continues, she interrupted with a look of frustration, I will have to live on the treadmill for hours each day just so I won't get any fatter!

I knew she was joking, but I also knew that Barbara's lament wasn't that far from the truth.

You see, Barbara was on a journey that millions of women like her are on, a journey called menopause that leaves many scared, unsure, and in emotional tatters as they try to figure out what is happening inside their bodies and how long the uncertainty and physical and emotional challenges will go on.

Barbara then asked a question that I have always remembered.

Dr. Harpaz, she began, why is it that the older I become, the more I exercise, and the less I eat, the fatter I am?

And why is it that I've gained so much weighta weight I previously would have associated with the second trimester of pregnancy or perhaps having a daily midmorning glazed doughnut and a candy bardespite my daily 2 hours of a grueling yoga class followed by a workout at the gym?

She continued, I'm still not sure how midlife weight gain managed to sneak up on me in my forties. It's not as if I ignored all the troubling public health bulletins about the snowball effects of overeating. I know [page_x]that women's bodies gradually burn fewer calories because of the declining estrogen levels.

Barbara, like so many women her age, was frustrated, unmotivated, annoyed, and sometimes even livid about the midlife weight gain that had snuck up on her.

In this Twitter age of instant information (and of the plethora of it that's out there, much of it is confusing), it's not as if women ignore the media coverage and all the news about the snowball effects of aging.

What many women don't realize is the importance and consequences of their bodies gradually burning fewer calories over time and of the ever-decreasing estrogen levels that cause fat to be deposited where beautiful and shapely muscle once was.

And they have very similar reactions and responses.

Barbara explained it well.

After a month of religiously adhering to a grueling exercise program and reducing my caloric intake to minuscule amounts, my success was measured as a pathetic 1-pound loss on the scale. And my aggravation level went sky-high! I looked in a mirror, pointed a finger at my double-crossing body, and declared all-out war. You are going to lose weight or else! I am at my wit's end! I don't know what else I can do.

At that point Barbara looked at me and in a desperate, exasperated voice she whispered, Help!

Sound familiar?

It does to me because I see it all the time. I've seen it in the more than 10,000 women I've helped during my more than 20 years in practice.

You see, Barbara could just as easily be any woman.

Yes, even you.

And if you've ever felt helpless, powerless, and frustrated in the face of something you've believed was out of your control, then I've got good news.

Menopause Reset! will give you the direction, diet recommendations, and physiological strategies to reverse the menopause weight gain you've been experiencing.

Just like they did for Barbara. This is what I told her:

Barbara, I answered, we can tackle this obstacle together and succeed.

I can provide direction and physiological strategies to reverse the menopause weight gain process. So are you ready to face the challenge?

She smiled, nodded, and for the first time during the appointment she appeared to relax and look hopeful.

However, I continued, the necessary ingredients for weight control success for menopausal women like you are, first, an understanding of a woman's physiology and what happens during meno-pause. Second, I need for you to follow my guidelines. Third, and perhaps most important, do you have a deep desire and are you motivated to succeed?

With a big smile, Barbara nodded her head to indicate an enthusiastic yes! She was ready.

And with Menopause Reset! so are you!

Menopause can be a devastating and debilitating state that wreaks physical and emotional havoc on the lives of the women going through it.

Forty-five million women in just the United States are menopausal right now. Each day, thousands of women join their numbers. With its typical effects, including hot flashes, fatigue, hair loss, bloating, allergies, mood swings, depression, anxiety, migraines, digestive problems, irritability, panic disorder, joint pain, breast pain, whole body discomfort, osteoporosis, and more, menopausal women need help they haven't been able to find.

Until now.

Welcome to Menopause Reset!

Until now, menopausal women have lived without the help of a definitive plan that would ameliorate their symptoms and give them the solutions they seek, especially for weight and fat loss.

The problem is, they've been following diets and exercise plans directed at women of any age.

Only after months, years, and many thousands of dollars do menopausal women find out the harsh reality: The diets and exercise programs they've been following simply don't work because they aren't designed to attack and eliminate the causes and symptoms of weight and fat gain that are specific to menopause.

In fact, in the October 2008 issue of the Journal of Obesity, David Yankura, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and his colleagues reported that 95 percent of menopausal women who diet will regain as much as two-thirds of the weight they lose within 1 year of completing a diet program, and almost all of it within 5 years.

Only 3 percent of those who take off the weight will keep it off for at least 5 years.

Nine out of 10 American premenopausal and menopausal women will gain weight (as will 70 percent of all women worldwide, due to varied diets and other cultural influences), says Amos Pines, MD, former president of the International Menopause Society. They can expect to gain 10 to 20 pounds, which translates into needing clothing that's one or two sizes larger. Many menopausal women become frustrated, discouraged, annoyed, and even livid as they gain the weight.

Far too often, the menopausal woman's reaction to such a dramatic weight gain is to resort to a drastic starvation diet to rid herself of the extra pounds.