The Flamingo Diaries
Puberty. Periods. Menopause. Being a bit of a prude, these aren’t subjects I’ve ever been entirely comfortable talking about and, thankfully, I haven’t needed to as I was an acne-free teenager and had almost painless periods. Menopause, however, is different. When it happened at the age of 51, I was dismayed to notice that I gained 10kg, seemingly overnight. Soon after that my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so I didn’t have time to think about it. So what if I experienced hot flushes? Graham was suffering from far worse symptoms, so I simply renamed them ‘power surges’ (which I thought sounded less middle-aged) and cracked on with my cancer research. I thought I’d get to grips with it after his death, but then my dad developed dementia, so I became an amateur expert on that subject, too.
After my father died, I finally found time to seek some help for my menopausal symptoms, which by now also included aching joints and extreme fatigue. After buying former GP Juliet McGrattan’s Run Through The Menopause video course, I felt I needed some one-to-one coaching, so I signed up for her Zoombased ‘My Menopause Solutions’ package. After determining what my main challenges were, Dr McGrattan explained what was going on in my body.
‘Menopause is often called The Change,’ she said, ‘but there are actually many changes that happen at this time. Hormonal changes cause your body to lose muscle mass and lay down fat, especially around the middle of your body. Things that have worked before to keep your weight in check often no longer will, so you have to change what you’re doing – even to stay at the same weight.’ Relief flooded over me as I came to see it wasn’t just eating too many Tunnock’s Tea Cakes that was to blame – my lifestyle had changed, too. No longer commuting to work meant I was doing six hours less walking per week. Not only that, but I’m writing a new book, which involves glueing your bottom to your office chair for as long as you can. ‘Your body flips into fat storage mode after 20 minutes of sitting,’ Dr McGrattan says.
