Meet Mr. Menopause

By on June 14, 2013 in Menopause Relief & Treatment

Kris Smith aka Mr. Menopause

When I was first contacted by Kris Smith aka Mr. Menopause, I have to admit I was intrigued. He posed a question: how did a 35 year old male fitness trainer become focused on healthy menopause? I couldn’t wait to talk to him. I loved his story and what he is doing for Menopause Goddesses everywhere so I asked him to tell you his story in his own words. Here it is: enjoy!

Becoming Mr. Menopause
Hi I’m Kris Smith here, Personal Trainer, Bodybuilder, and Now… Mr. Menopause Here’s my story.
Why did I become a personal trainer?
Someone once told me I didn’t look like one! I wasn’t your typical Adonis with blond hair, blue eyes and washboard abs for the women to ooh and aah over. But, I didn’t let this keep me from going for what I believed was the career for me.  No one was going to tell me what I could or couldn’t do. Within 90 days of being told I would never make it as a trainer, I got my certification from the International Sports Science Association. Attaining my first certification gave me the confidence I needed to jump head first into my new career and never look back.
I first became interested in exercise and nutrition when I was a child. I was born with a leg disability and it helped build my confidence, despite the negative news the doctors gave my mother and I about my condition. They believed that by the time I was 18 I would be in a wheelchair.  Of course being in a wheel chair would have kept me from participating in any sports or physical activity that didn’t involve sitting in the chair. That was the first time I refused to listen to someone tell me I couldn’t do something and set out to prove them wrong. I started training my body way before I ever thought I would fall in love with helping other people change their body through health and fitness.
Once I was certified as a personal trainer, I discovered that I really enjoyed helping people learn about how they could change their body for the better just by exercising and changing their diets. After just over eleven years of helping men and women all over the world in countries like Ireland, London, Australia, and the U.S. lose weight, get motivated and inspired to reclaim their lives through living a healthier lifestyle.

 

On September 23rd of 2011, I came up with the idea of My Menopause Fix. The idea actually woke me up out of a dead sleep.  So I wrote it down and dozed off again, thinking I’d look at it again in the morning. My subconscious must have been working overtime, because by the time I woke up, I had created and planned out a complete new business opportunity. I took that plan and decided that I would set up a special community where women going through menopause could come and get answers for all their questions surrounding this change. This new community would revolve around three areas of expertise exercise, nutrition, and stress reduction methods which I had invest thousands of hours researching and mastering in my private personal training and coaching practice.
Initially, I was only going to launch My Menopause Fix as an offline community for my existing clients, but decided to start the My Menopause Fix Blog in February 2012. The blog is primarily focused on the topics like menopause and weight gain, proper diet for relieving menopause symptoms, and how to reduce stress to control menopausal hormone changes. I wouldn’t consider myself a great writer, but I had a vision, and mission, and passion for helping women overtime a challenging time with peri-menopause and post menopause symptoms.
I interviewed and surveyed my existing coaching clients to get their take on my new blog and community.  They told me all the challenges they faced as they were going through peri-menopause as it pertained to lifestyle, diet, exercise, and stress. After taking in the data I found out that 90% of my clients were women over 43 years old, having some type of peri-menopausal symptoms. They claimed my system was the reason they felt great and their symptoms had lessened or completely vanished.  They also told me that they stayed with me because I listened to what they had to say, unlike some trainers, and didn’t try to fit them into a one-size-fits-all weight loss program.
This got me really excited and I thought that if this was working so well offline, maybe I could take it online to reach more women who might be experiencing the same problems. That’s when I decided to set up the My Menopause Fix blog. From there, I started the My Menopause Fix coaching program, which reached women all around the world. I was able to keep in contact with them by phone, Skype, and other forms of technology so that I could provide the support they needed.
Then I had an AHA moment!
I decided to create and host a summit called World Menopause Day Health and Wellness Summit on October 18, 2012. I interviewed six other health experts about menopause nutrition, exercise, and hormone balancing through lifestyle modifications.  The summit was a success, we had over 160 people listen live and thousands have downloaded the audios over the past eight months.  With the momentum of the summit I decided that I wanted to set a goal for myself. This goal was to assist 1 million women coast through the menopausal process using my tools, tips, and services via my blog and podcast.
I wanted to teach them how to accept how beautiful they are, to get more active daily, and to learn how to use their positive mental mindset to overcome any menopausal challenge that they might encounter.  After coaching more than 17,000 hours of one-on-one in the trenches, hands on training, I’ve been able to study the trends and create a coaching system that I know can assist any woman who is willing to follow and trust the program.
Here is the first paradigm shift I ask new visitors to my blog, and listeners of my podcast. Borrow a little of my faith so that I can help them reset their body hormonally through proper exercise, nutrition, and stress lowering methods until they developed their own faith in the process. Next they must be willing to take immediate action on their goals. Lastly they must be willing to focus on the present, forget the past, and embrace the future. This mindset allows them to truly become immersed in the process of creating dynamic life changing results.
With the success of the blog I launched the My Menopause Fix Podcast early this year.  I’ve also written an eBook, and I’m working on a physical book, called “Menopause Success Triangle: How to Live a Happy, Healthy Menopausal Life.”  I believe that my system works because everyone has the capability and desire to change their body and transform their lives.

 

I BELIEVE in You!
Free 7 Day Menopause Diet Guide ebook for Menopause Goddess Readers ==> Instant Download
Stay Active, Stay Positive, and Embrace Your Beauty
Kris T. Smith, MPT, CNC
Author-The Menopause Success Triangle – A practical guide to living a healthy, happy menopause life.

Visit Kris at his site: My Menopause Fix.

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Creating A Menopause Goddess Group Part 3

By on June 9, 2013 in Menopause in Community
Butterflies Together © lynette sheppard

Butterflies Together © lynette sheppard

Here’s the final instructions for starting your own Menopause Goddess group. It’s not hard at all – and if you are worried about leading it or being in charge – just get one friend to co-create with you. That’s what Theresa and I did to start. Now all the goddesses participate. And you KNOW how much can get done when a group of women put their minds to it! So here goes, the final piece. We know you’ll come up with more – and hope you share them here.

5. Set Ground Rules – What Each Woman Agrees To Bring And Keep

None of us is sure that we verbally articulated each of these rules as such.  It seemed that they were just understood.  Looking back, we think it would have been a good idea to clearly state the ground rules as we saw them.  Our “rules” were essentially a set of values that we lived as members of the group

A.    Respect
Mutual respect and unconditional positive regard were a must.  This was pretty easy for us, and likely will not be difficult for any Venus group, but it needs to be understood.

B.    Confidentiality

Personal info that is shared stays with the group only, but the knowledge gleaned can and should be shared generally, especially with other women and our spouses.

C.    Safety

Trust is an absolute necessity for any Venus group.  We agreed to take the outer layers off and bare our souls. No envy, no cliques, no hidden agendas would be tolerated.  (and that included the book, which was secondary, even tertiary.  In fact, I didn’t even want to write a book, but my sisters prevailed upon my better nature after a couple of years.)

D.    Focus

Establish an agenda and focus, but allow the organic movement of the group.  Venus gatherings were not business meetings conducted with Robert’s Rules of Order nor was any agenda carved in stone.  Be focused but not rigid.

E.    Work Ethic
Show up to share and to work, as well as play.  As we said earlier, we’ve heard from so many women that they are members of “women’s groups” that never seem to grow or get anywhere as a result of their propensity to degenerate into bitch sessions. While we’d be lying if we didn’t cop to the fact that we occasionally enjoy a good “whine and wine” get-together every now and then, in our Venus group  we had some serious issues we wanted to tackle and we sure didn’t want to waste time.

Other than these five core values, we had no rules.  However, we did set some intentions in order to get the best from our efforts.

6. Set Intentions

A.    Compassionate Truth Telling

We would ask hard questions of one another with compassion and commitment to reflecting back what we heard to the group. We also would provide a reality check when a Venus was too hard on herself.

B.    Sharing and Examination of Dilemmas

We would hold nothing back.  We would indeed bare our souls.  No question was too weird or trivial to get our full attention.

C.    Sharing of Epiphanies Created By Our Synergy

We were committed to sharing all that we realized or learned without censoring or wondering if it was relevant.  Our entire raison d`etre was to share our bits of insight, cobbling together a whole of wisdom that might help all of us.

D.    Sharing of Remedies and Advice

It is our belief that the way in which women truly get their information about remedies and treatments is through the sharing of actual experiences with one another.  We intended to share it all sifting through the gravel for the gold.

E.    Mutual Compassion

Perhaps our most important intention, we would honor each goddess’s thoughts, feelings, ideas, and  stories.  We want most to be understood and heard, not simply ‘fixed’.  Especially since there seems to be no real FIX for menopause and midlife.  We need all the support we can get.

Our Venus group is like therapy with someone who loves you.  We are physician, homeopath, counselor, patient, sister, and best friend to one another.  As is the case with therapy, we contract to do some work:  exploring, accessing, shaping, and growing through our tears and laughter.  But our sisterhood extends beyond therapeutic relationships.  We’ve created a community that allows, no not allows, expects us to thrive. Thrive we have.  Individually and collectively, the Venuses are healthier and happier than we were just ten short years ago.  We’re still menopausal and we are still confronting challenges.  But together we’ve come a long way and we owe much of our progress to the synergy of our goddess group.

We wish you good luck in bringing together your own group of goddesses, though you won’t really need it.  All you need is desire and commitment.  If we can help at all, please let us know.  We can be found anytime on Facebook or here on our Menopause Goddess Blog.

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Medical Information in Your Smartphone? Yep, There’s An App For That!

By on June 1, 2013 in After the Pause
ipad iphone App RX

ipad iphone App RX

If you are like me, you don’t lug your computer everywhere you go, but you always have your smartphone readily available. And too, if you are like me, you may have questions about anything from diet regimens to treating symptoms while traveling. Now, there’s an app for that – actually several apps. HealthTap has just released their newest venture for taking charge of our own health and well being:  AppRX.  Here’s what is so great:

“Download Two and Call Me In the Morning”: Doctors Review and Recommend the Best Health Apps with HealthTap’s all new AppRx

Revolutionizing app discovery in health and wellness, HealthTap brings its vibrant network of top doctors to rate and “prescribe” mobile apps.

Palo Alto, CA – May, 2013 – HealthTap, the premier mobile health platform that connects people with a network of more than 40,000 top doctors, today unveiled AppRx, the only place for consumers to discover the best and most useful health apps recommended by top doctors.

With more than 40,000 health and wellness mobile apps on the market, and no easy way to determine whom to trust, people looking for help are left alone to navigate a thicket of apps that are of questionable relevance and quality. HealthTap’s all new AppRx alleviates the pain of health app discovery by making it easy for anyone to select doctor recommended apps in 30 different health and wellness categories.

App Rx Categories on Health Tap

App Rx Categories on Health Tap

“There are more than 600 different diabetes apps, 231 different children’s health apps, and more than 105 period trackers with new ones popping up almost every day! With only user reviews in app stores, it’s very difficult and time consuming to assess the quality and personal fit, let alone discern which apps are best suited for specific health issues,” said Dr. David Wyatt, a Family Practitioner from Atlanta, GA. “Together with tens of thousands of my colleagues, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to objectively and professionally rate the quality, reliability and helpfulness of the best apps on all platforms. We’re committed to putting people’s mind at ease with the knowledge that their selection is ‘just what the doctor recommends.’ ”

“AppRx is the latest step in making HealthTap everyone’s one-stop mobile health hub. Each month, millions turn to HealthTap to get the best answers to their health questions and valuable tips from top doctors,” says Ron Gutman, HealthTap Founder and CEO. “Now everyone can also learn from our doctors which apps can help them stay healthy, or improve their health and well being. Connecting consumers with the right apps will also help realize more of the cost-savings potential of data apps in healthcare, which McKinsey & Company estimates at $300 billion. We’re delighted to help consumers and our healthcare system save money, while  continuing to enhance people’s health and save lives every day.”

About HealthTap
HealthTap is the best way to connect with the most trusted health information and doctors. With top-rated web and mobile apps, HealthTap offers immediate and free access to relevant, reliable and trusted health answers from a network of more than 40,000 U.S.-licensed doctors. Sign up today and download HealthTap’s free apps for iPhone, iPad or Android at www.healthtap.com.

Htap2

Stay tuned for Part III of Creating Your Own Menopause Goddess Group in the next post. I didn’t want to wait on letting you all know about the launch of this cool new tool.

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Menopause in Community: Create Your Own Goddess Group Part II

By on May 21, 2013 in Menopause, Menopause in Community
Plumeria in Paradise © lynette sheppard

Plumeria in Paradise © lynette sheppard

Much of our knowledge about creating a menopause goddess group, we gained in retrospect. Looking backward and marveling at our unfolding over the past five years, we pondered what had made the Venuses so successful. Maybe we were just lucky;” we thought. Or maybe the right women simply came together at the right time through kismet. Is is possible that our Venus group is so special that it can’t be duplicated? We honestly don’t think so.
Time and again, we’ve bonded on the same menopause and midlife issues with women we barely know: on planes, in restrooms, and in grocery store checkout lines. The raw material of women in community is powerful magic indeed. The willingness to open up and share is a part of our essential female makeup. All we need is a structural framework, tight enough for focus and loose enough for the alchemy that results when women come together. With that in mind, we offer a few more thoughts designed to help you create your own Venus group. Remember that these are not rules, simply guidelines.

1. Meet No More Than Once Each Year
Perhaps every six months would also work. We are not sure, since we began our group with annual meetings. However, it seems that it takes us a full year to realize and integrate changes from the insights proffered at each meeting. We didn’t start out knowing this; we initially met once a year because the Venus’s schedules are busy (read crazy). In hindsight, we see how valuable it was to have a full twelve months to embody what we learned at our previous gathering.

2. Meet No Less Than Once Each Year
We feel that we can indeed create and enjoy virtual community via the Internet. After all, we started the Menopause Goddess Blog, not only to expand our community but also to help nurture and connect us when we aren’t physically together. But we don’t think there is any substitute for meeting face to fact with open hearts and arms. Not to be too woo-woo about it, but the energy we create together fuels our transformation into the goddesses we want to become. And it just plain fills us up to bursting to be with one another. We honestly look forward to it all year.

3. Nobody Can Know Everybody
In retrospect, we realized that it was incredibly important that we didn’t all know one another from the start. Every goddess knew some of the women at our initial gathering, yet not one of us knew everyone. Because we had no shared history or patterns as a group, it made it easier to focus on our intentions and what we hoped to accomplish. Too often a group who know one another well can slip and slide into bitch sessions that may be fun but make no forward progress. In addition, we had no preset roles that we enacted within group. For example, Sandy-Venus is the strong peacemaker in her group of close friends at home, and to be vulnerable and open is just not her role. In the Venus group, she is able to allow and even celebrate sharing her deepest feelings and fears.

4.    Begin Before The First Gathering
Again, looking back, we see how important it was to start working before we came together initially.  We sent out the questionnaire in Chapter One to all our potential attendees, as well as to some women who were interested in the questions for themselves once they heard about what we’d planned.  (These women were satellite Venuses and contributed their thoughts and feelings in the spirit of helping us all.)

We thought that the questionnaire might serve as a focusing tool and general icebreaker when we did come together.  Little did we suspect that it would serve as much more. The process of looking at our attitudes and feelings, past and present, fostered a level of self-awareness that propelled our Meeting One forward.  Our questions and answers also helped inform our group as a whole.  Personal information gleaned was as new to each individual goddess as it was to our sisters.  Yet universal themes emerged and we knew we were on the right track.  Feel free to use all or part of our questionnaire.  Download the pdf here: Questionnaire for Goddess Group.

That’s a big enough chunk for now. Stay tuned for Part III of Creating A Menopause Goddess Group. (Material adapted from our book Becoming a Menopause Goddess.)

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Don’t Go Through Menopause Alone: Create Your Own Goddess Group

By on May 15, 2013 in Menopause in Community
Hibiscus family © lynette sheppard

Hibiscus family © lynette sheppard

With all the wonderful remedies and helps we have found to help us on the Menopause journey, the singular most important one is girlfriends. A group of like-minded, like-afflicted women can share humor, heart, and help with one another. I can’t imagine dealing with the Big M without the goddesses.

On a whim, Theresa-Venus and I asked a group of women to attend a long weekend to discuss Menopause and ultimately the Second Act of our lives. It turned out to be one of the most important things we have ever done. Over 10 years later, and the Venuses still meet annually. We come from all over the country, so once a year is all we can manage with our busy lives. And we share and cover so much that it lasts us an entire year.

If you don’t have girlfriends who are going through the same changes as you are, we urge you to start your own Menopause Goddess Group. And so you don’t have to re-invent the wheel, here is how you do it!

In answer to those who have written wanting to know how to begin their own menopause goddess group, we offer this little nuts-and-bolts guide based on our experience with the Venuses.

Getting The Right Mix
Theresa-Venus and I started by asking one another “Are there any others out there like us, who are wondering just what the @#&* is going on with this crazy time of life?” We subsequently invited women we knew (in turn having them ask one or two of their friends) to join us for a weekend slumber party with a focus.

First, and foremost, we didn’t try to overcontrol the makeup of the group. Whether blessed or naive, we simply trusted that the right women would come together for our first gathering. Naturally, we did avoid asking women who routinely seem to suck the oxygen out of any room they occupy. Thankfully we know few of them. (Although it seems like everyone knows at least one!)

Begin Before The First Gathering
Again, looking back, we see how important it was to start working before we came together initially. We devised and sent out a questionnaire to all our potential attendees, as well as to some women who were interested in the questions for themselves once they heard about what we’d planned. (These women were satellite Venuses and contributed their thoughts and feelings in the spirit of helping us all.) The questionnaire was to be completed and returned prior to our first meeting. It was also meant to weed out anyone who wasn’t serious about working on these issues and questions together. Interestingly enough, no one opted out and most spent a great deal of time and soul searching in their answering.

Theresa-Venus and I also thought that our questionnaire might serve as a focusing tool and general icebreaker when we did come together. Little did we suspect that it would serve as much more. The process of looking at our attitudes and feelings, past and present, fostered a level of self-awareness that propelled Meeting One forward. Our questions and answers also helped inform our group as a whole. Personal information gleaned was as new to each individual goddess as it was to our sisters. Yet universal themes emerged and we knew we were on the right track. For a pdf copy of our questionnaire click the following link:  questionnaire_for_blog.  (Pdf files require Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free – click here.)

Enough for today, goddesses. Stay tuned for part Two in the next blog post. If you have burning questions about starting your own Venus group, comment or write us by clicking on Contact Us on the left side of the homepage.

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Summer Style with My New Sunglasses

By on April 29, 2013 in Aging Gracefully
Lynette and sunglasses © dewitt jones

Lynette and sunglasses © dewitt jones

I’ve worn glasses since I was thirteen years old. Except for a spate of time when I wore contacts, I’ve worn them every day until now.

I love my progressive lens eyeglass prescription. No longer do I whip off my distance glasses and fumble for my reading glasses and vice versa. I can see far, middle, and close-up with no problems.

My only problem is the need for sunglasses. Oh sure, I have a pair of prescription ones for driving, but they are never with me when I need them (there’s that memory thing again.)

So, when Vibrant Nation contacted me to see if I’d like to try a pair of Solar Shield sunglasses by Dioptics, I jumped at the chance. (I am part of the Vibrant Nation Influencer Network: how cool is that?) They let me pick out a pair as a free sample to try .

What really sold me is that they have sunglasses that FIT OVER your prescription glasses. And they are – wait for it – stylish. I remember having a pair of fit-over sunglasses years ago that were huge, clunky, and downright ugly. Not these. I feel like I look good in them (and not just for my age.)

Dioptics also has clip-on versions (which I don’t really use, but some people like them better than the fit-over version.) The Solar Shield sunglasses are super easy to use, inexpensive, and there are loads of styles and sizes to choose from. They sell them at Walmart, Walgreen’s, CVS, and other big retailers. Even if you live on a tiny rural island like me, you can still get them by shopping online.

I have a pair that lives in my purse, I’m going to have to get a pair for my car. No more sighing and squinting because I forgot my prescription sunglasses (yet again!)

Ladies, if you are interested, check out their website: www.solarshield.com. Just because we are Menopause Goddesses doesn’t mean we can’t look cool and protect our eyes at the same time.

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Is There A Doctor In The House? Yes, At Health Tap!

By on April 16, 2013 in Menopause

Htap2

Did you ever just wish you could learn health information from the best physicians without an appointment or flying halfway around the country to visit them? Would you like a central clearing house for medical and health knowledge? Would you like to ask questions of the best physicians and get solid answers online? For Free???? Sounds like a pipe dream, I know. And yet…

I’m so excited to share with you the launch of a new web resource called Health Tap. It features health tips, updates on the latest findings, info that includes complementary and integrative medicine, healthy living, Q&A with physicians on all health topics, even daily tips for your complete health.

As a launch partner, I got to experience it before it went live generally – and to quote Steven Tyler, it is just crazy good. I was very impressed with the quality of information, and the range of expertise. And my own personal bias of including integrative health info along with standard allopathy (translation: alternative medicine along with “regular”) was  amply met.

Here’s Health Tap’s press release where they explain the features better than I can. They explain their top doctor competition where the winners are chosen by both their peers and consumers. Kind of like an Angie’s list for physicians. Read it below and hop on over to the site and/or download the apps for your mobile device.


HealthTap brings the Full Spectrum of Doctors’ Knowledge to Mobile Health

Leading mobile health platform unveils results of nationwide Top Doctor Competition, and announces new ways to interact with winning doctors and their insights.

Palo Alto, CA – April 15, 2013 – HealthTap, the only place to immediately connect with 36,000 top U.S. doctors for free, today announced an even easier, more reliable way to find the top and best doctor for you.

HealthTap unlocks the full spectrum of doctor knowledge by providing unparalleled insights into some of the country’s best medical minds through these doctors’ answers to health questions, healthy tips,and health related updates and articles.

Furthermore, on HealthTap medical help experts identify the very best doctors, through a national Top Doctor competition spanning 128 specialties in over 3,100 cities across the United States.

Today’s announcement of the winners of the HealthTap 2013 Winter Top Doctor Competition
recognizes some of the world’s best and most helpful online and mobile medical experts. Tens of thousands of doctors competed for the prestigious awards, which include: Top Doctor, Top Specialist, Most Influential Doctor, and Thought Leader Awards. Doctors judged peers based on their demonstrated medical knowledge and expertise, and consumers rated doctors on qualitative factors, such as bedside manner and personality.

Winners from the competition include:
Dr. Michael Sparacino, a Family Medicine doctor from Saint Peter, MN who won the National TopDoctor Award for helping over 29 million people!

Dr. George Klauber, a Pediatric Urologist from Boston, MA who won the Thought Leader in
Massachusetts Award for guiding the most people to helpful answers through his comments and peer review.

Dr. Colin Kopes-Kerr, a Family Medicine doctor from Marysville, CA who won the Most Influential Doctor in the Nation Award for connecting with both patients and doctors and providing valuable education and support.

Dr. Maritza Baez, a Family Doctor in Buffalo, NY who won the Top Family Doctor in New York for helping millions with her knowledge and care.

Dr. James W. Ferguson, a Pediatrician in Waco, TX who won the Top Pediatrician in the Nation Award for helping the most parents help their children live healthier happier lives.

Users on HealthTap can easily see what makes these doctors winners, connect with them, and learn from them for free. Through the all new HealthTap Spectrum, now a part of all HealthTap’s apps on mobile devices and online, people can find highly trusted, doctor-created and rated content, including:

• Concise doctor updates on the latest health findings
• Daily health tips created by doctors in more than 100 topics
• Quick, personalized doctor answers to health questions
• Deep Health posts where doctor share their opinions and insights
• Transparent doctor-doctor consults and dialogues

“HealthTap is putting care and trust back into healthcare by placing the doctor and patient relationship back at the center of the healthcare experience,” says HealthTap Founder and CEO Ron Gutman. “By giving top doctors a simple way to share their knowledge and opinions and get recognized by their colleagues for their expertise, and by users for their bedside manner and care, we’re creating a healthy competition that motivates the best doctors to stand out and help millions everywhere. In a world where we expect to get immediate, reliable and deep insights on movies and restaurants on our mobile devices anytime anywhere, it’s high time we have an easy way to get the same when it comes to our health and well being. With the new HealthTap Spectrum we’re leading the way to comprehensive, caring, trustworthy and high quality mobile health.”

About HealthTap
HealthTap is the best way to connect with the most trusted health information and doctors. With toprated web and mobile apps, HealthTap offers immediate and free access to personalized, reliable, and trusted health answers and tips from a network of over 36,000 U.S.-licensed doctors. Sign up today and download HealthTap’s free app for iPhone, iPad or Android at www.healthtap.com.

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Getting Attuned to Menopause Fashion

By on April 9, 2013 in Aging Gracefully

attune image the M word

I’m always looking for comfortable clothing that doesn’t look dowdy and grannyesque. I’ve found some great stuff at J. Jill and love Not Your Daughter’s Jeans. I doubt I could rest as well without my wicking sleepwear. I’m still looking for a bra that simulates the soft cotton of our training bras (with a lot more support, of course.) That may be an impossibility, but I can dream can’t I?

With Menopause fashion in mind, please enjoy our latest guest blog post reprinted from our fashionable friends at Attune. They specialize in a variety of clothing styles for the Menopause Goddess. Based in the UK, they will soon be offering international shipping. So visit their site and bookmark it for future visits.

The M Word (reprinted with permission)
I think it’s time, don’t you?

Time for us to stop dancing around the subject.  Time to stop using wonderful euphemisms about temperature control and getting ‘hot under the collar’.

We know that Attune clothes are great under any circumstances – I would have loved to have been wearing them when I worked in a new, classy, glass-fronted office. I was leaving a (very) cold house to commute to a city some distance away and then walk for a mile (which warmed me up considerably) to sit at my desk in an  air-conditioned office (think pleasantly chilled) only to have my temperature race when the sun – on one of its occasional outings – shone brightly on our floor-to-ceiling windows. Attune would have been perfect for such occasions.

But we have skirted around the most obvious advantage to wearing Attune clothes. When I have described the Attune collection to other women, they instantly know what I am talking about.  One colleague said “oh, I see, clothes for when you are ‘having a moment’”.  So I am outing us – these clothes are perfect for when you are a having a menopause moment. A hot flush. Or, as one US blogger has put it, when it’s all gone a bit peri como.

It’s not just time that we revealed our identity. It’s also time that you – as successful, busy women – have clothes that can help you keep on living those great lives. Clothes that will help you cool down quickly without feeling rebound chilliness, clothes that will dry quickly if you have experienced a hot flush, and clothes that stay fresh so that you don’t feel self-conscious. Clothes that actually do what we say they can do.

And the good news is that our range is expanding quickly. Keep an eye out for new products coming soon – dresses are next, but we won’t be stopping there. It’s all getting a little bit exciting.

Visit Attune here.

 

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Sweet Six-ty

By on March 26, 2013 in Aging Gracefully, Life Changes & Stages
Change For The Better © lynette sheppard

Change For The Better © lynette sheppard

Enjoy this guest post by one of our favorite Menopause Goddesses, Saskia Andreola.

Embracing 60 this past year has been far better and, in many ways, serendipitous than I could have imagined when I was that 16-year-old, wildly-impetuous Jersey Girl. The only thing I miss is my butt. A girlfriend of mine use to tease me that I should turn around and introduce myself sticking out my derriere because of the compliments I’d get. I would have rather had her wonderful breasts, as I was lacking in that department.

There are parts of me that have been rejuvenated and enhanced and didn’t come with my genetic packaging; but that’s been a conscious choice. Because the simple truth is that when we look our best, we feel our best, and everyone in our inner circle “wins.”

Running a plastic surgery practice while working closely with patients on a very personal level has taught me that we all have a basic need to be paid attention to and feel recognized. I admire women who choose to age gracefully, however, I’m not one of them…yet. It is a relief/maybe a release not to have the 3-inch heels taking up real estate in my closet. Gone are the tight jeans, long nails and extra time in front of the mirror. I don’t miss them anymore because I’m not interested in pretending to be younger than my hard-earned and well-deserved years on the planet.

These days it’s much more intriguing to me hearing someone’s story of what hoops they’ve had to jump through, lessons they’ve learned and choices they’ve made that makes them who they are instead of wanting to know where they bought their shoes or had their hair done. Doesn’t mean I don’t ask, I do, because to be noticed and to be complimented is one of life’s easy pleasures.

There is a ring of truth to the statement, whether it is fair or not; “When a man gets up to speak, people listen. When a woman gets up to speak, if they like what they see, then they listen.”

Having 5 planets in Leo, born under the sign of the Dragon, and being an 8 on the Enneagram scale has given me plenty of fire this lifetime. Now that I’m 60, it feels great to be comfortable in my skin….of course if it were a little tighter, I wouldn’t complain (smile).

Saskia Andreola RN runs Dr. Clyde Ishii’s plastic surgery practice in Honolulu Hawai`i. She is also one of our satellite Menopause Goddesses. To learn more, click here.

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The Goddess-Like Way to Discipline Menopause Hot Flashes

By on March 14, 2013 in Menopause
Inner Wave © lynette sheppard

Inner Wave © lynette sheppard

This latest guest blog post features cooling relief you can hold in the palm of your hand. Sure wish I’d had this when I was going through the worst of the hot flash hell. Check it out:

When you’re a Goddess, being cool when you are the wrong kind of hot is important. The image of a goddess can vanish quickly as you turn into the “Glistening one”, with beads of sweat running down your face. The image of a calm, cool, collected goddess is hard to maintain if I seek relief through overt, aggressive fanning motions; although, some nicely styled hand fans do allow some degree of grace and style.

As a professional business woman, being the only one in the room that was in the middle of a heat wave did not appeal to my preferred image. I actually started trying to avoid face-toface meetings. The challenge of trying to appear collected and cool when I’m hot was helped when I discovered the new BlowMeCool mini-fan.

This little fan does just what the name suggests, it blows me cool. It’s always with me in my purse or a pocket – it’s my new best friend. As a handheld fan, it has no exposed propellers or blades, so it can operate while largely hidden in my hand, and it’s quiet and light weight. It pushes enough air to provide me a soothing flow of air and instant hot flash relief.

Also, I like the fact that my new best friend is also environmentally friendly, it’s rechargeable battery means that I’m not regularly increasing the number of hazardous waste batteries in the world.

I’m glad that today our menopausal sisterhood allows us to share our discoveries, and expand our awareness of the growing number of ways to manage our individual hot flash hell. We can now utilize many layers of ways to gain relief from annoying menopause issues. We are lucky, years ago no one seemed to care – women simply endured alone – let’s hear it for blogs.

Susan

BlowMeCool Inc.

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