Marjolein Dubbers - Hormone Power: Transform Your Diet, Transform Your Life

Copyright 2019 by Marjolein Dubbers & Kosmos Uitgevers, Utrecht, the Netherlands

English translation 2019 by Dymphny Dronyk

First published in English by Greystone Books in 2019

Originally published in the Netherlands in 2016 as Het Energieke Vrouwen Voedings Kompas

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Greystone Books Ltd.

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Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-1-77164-355-9 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-1-77164-356-6 (ePub)

Editing by Stephanie Fysh

Cover image by Saskia Lelieveld

Cover design by Briana Garelli and Nayeli Jimenez

Interior design by Nayeli Jimenez

Typesetting by Shed Simas/Ona Design

Greystone Books gratefully acknowledges the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples on whose land our office is located.

Greystone Books thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada for supporting our publishing activities.

The advice provided in this book has been carefully considered and checked by the author and publisher. It should not, however, be regarded as a substitute for competent medical advice. Therefore, all information in this book is provided without any warranty or guarantee on the part of the publisher or the author.

Neither the author nor the publisher or their representatives shall bear any liability whatsoever for personal injury, property damage, and financial losses.

CONTENTS

The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.

ANN WIGMORE

To all women who take the responsibility for their physical and mental health into their own hands

INTRODUCTION

WHEN I TURNED 52, my body gave me a wonderful gift: I ended up totally burned out. Of course, at the time I didnt see it as a giftit was a problem or a failure, as much a failure of my body as myself. Even though I felt completely done in, the only thing I wanted was to quickly return to my more-than-full-time workweek, with long commutes, draining meetings, and workplace stress, but also with great colleagues and the good feeling that I was involved in tasks with purpose.

MAAM, WHAT MORE DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT?

Because I was in reasonably good shape, I thought Id recover quickly, but in that I was bitterly disappointed. To be honest, I knew that my condition had declined over the previous year. A year before that Id gone to my family doctor with complaints about exhaustion and my diminished strength as a runner. Blood work showed nothing out of the ordinary. That summer, for the first time, I didnt fit into my cute white summer slacks, even though my diet and fitness regime hadnt changed. It was very frustrating.

Given that my issues had gotten worse, I was referred to a neurologist. He also couldnt find anything. His message was Maam, youre over 50. Its normal to lose some muscle strength, be able to do less, and feel tired more quickly. To me it sounded like Maam, youre 50what more do you actually want?

I had accepted his statement, but now, at home on leave due to burnout, his words came back to me. Was I really in the autumn of my life? Were the best years of my life behind me? If I were to believe everyone who speaks or writes on this topic, a woman over 50 is past her prime. After 40 its all downhill: memory, muscle strength, hormones, healthy hair, concentration, metabolism, and lets not forget, libidoin short, our overall vitality and health. Everything decreases, with one exception: our spare tire. Thats also out of balance, but its on the road to getting bigger.

AUTUMN? ALREADY?

Books about menopause talk about the autumn of our days and the wisdom of the ripe woman. To be honest, I didnt understand that at all. I didnt feel like it was my season for harvest, and more often than not, I didnt feel ripe or wise. In fact, I still wanted to be seeding all sorts of new things in my life, although I wasnt quite sure what. I had the feeling that there was still so much I wanted to do and could do that I just hadnt quite got to because Id been so busy with my work. But if my vitality and health were only going to decline, then I had a big problem. My life would be over long before I felt like Id lived it. Could that really be the way things were going to be?

I still remember this feeling of despair as if it were yesterday that feeling that while I was definitely over 50, I still hadnt lived the life I wanted. To be honest, I often thought my real life had yet to begin, that I was still standing in the starter blocks.

I suddenly realized that Id always been busy with other peoples goals. In particular, a large part of my life, over 25 years, had been dedicated to my employers. What were my goals? What did I want? All of a sudden I felt it was urgent to get my life back on the right road.

STRAIN UPON STRAIN UPON STRAIN

On the internet, I searched for what exactly was wrong with me and what I needed to fix it. I read that if you always demand too much of yourself, you can end up burned out, and I learned that as a result my adrenal glands had become exhausted. Adrenal glands are the organs that work overtime if they think youre in danger. Draining meetings and other work-related stress acted as alarms for my adrenal glands. Who would have thought?

I also discovered that as a woman in menopause, my adrenal glands were especially vulnerable, because during this time they have added responsibilities. They have to take over the ovaries job of producing estrogen and progesterone. But if there is too much stress, the adrenal glands just dont get around to that, and a shortage of estrogen and progesterone results in an avalanche of other problems, among them an underactive thyroid, due to which you can feel dog-tired. Do you see the pattern? In short, experiencing too much stress during menopause became a strain on top of a strain on top of another strain. So now what? I learned that for women all hormones are complexly intertwined and more or less determine everything about your vitality and health. How could I give them a helping hand? What did my hormones need?

MALNOURISHED? ME?

I began to deepen my understanding of hormones and nutrition and came to the shocking conclusion that I was malnourished. Not that I had such a bad diet, but it simply wasnt nutritious enough for a 50+ woman in our hectic society.