Darling Dolly

My dad always took me to concerts as a kid, and one of the first was Dolly Parton at the Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles, CA. (IYKYK.) I can close my eyes and picture the whole scene: dusk, stage right, floor seats with a killer view, me standing on my chair because…well, I was a kid. I was ten, maybe eleven. (Googles exact details.) Eleven, going on twelve. The concert was August 10, 1986, and Dolly was in her absolute prime. Holy shit, that was forty years ago. [image from that actual show! Credit: David Middlecamp]

My favorite part was her just sitting in a chair, playing guitar. She was probably the most glamorous thing this little country girl with big city dreams had ever seen up close.

This earthly realm lost an absolute gem this week…although I’m not sure we deserved her in the first place. Her voice, her songwriting, her generosity, her down-home relatability, her whimsy, her sharp wit, her beauty, and yes, her genuinely legendary breasts: nobody will ever compare. The number of times I’ve scream-sung “Jolene” and “Islands in the Stream” over the course of my life is probably in the thousands. Thank you, Dolly. RIP, you sparkly queen.

Tim Curry

Once, in my 20s, I went to midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’d probably seen it before, but the culture surrounding that film is still one of my favorites: it welcomes everyone, even the prudish types who wander in not knowing what they’ve signed up for. I love how fabulous it is. Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter both terrified and thrilled me, all teeth and eyeliner and nothing held back. He played every other role like an absolute pro too, but in that one, he was beautiful. Iconic.

Pretty sure that film gave me the permission I needed to be weird. I already knew I was; Curry just made it look like a good time. Every “who am I” teenager should be handed this movie like a prescription.

Nepal

I don’t know much about this one (does anyone?) beyond the videos online of the insane amounts of rushing water tearing through the peaceful towns and ravines. Absolutely terrifying. SO many people’s lives were swept away. I’ve shared before how I encourage Mother Nature to go-the-fuck-off if she sees fit, but whoa…did Nepal and Tibet deserve that? Also: how, what, dang.

And strangely, out of everything this week (including news of my cousin’s husband taking his own life), it was this one that floored me most. A reminder of how small we all are. Even next to the seemingly larger-than-life celebrities and musicians, we’re small. Squish-us-like-a-bug small, in the face of what this planet can do in the blink of an eye.

Being humble, carrying on

Because what else is there to actually do? Send thoughts and prayers? Not sure those work, but go for it. Me, I’ll be sending beams of gratitude for the small stuff in my small little life. One: a pretty smooth perimenopause in general, even with my cycle running long this month (32 days and counting). Maybe this is it? A girl can hope. Those hot flashes that hung around for a month at the beginning of this year haven’t come back, fingers all-of-the-way crossed. Two: air conditioning, because I live in LA and Mother Nature is currently serving us heat and unholy humidity, courtesy of some storm in the Pacific that decided to swing by on its way through.

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I’ve been enjoying the heck out of all of the birthday brunches, lunches, and meals this week. My husband turned a year older (ahem, now he’s 50!), my bestie turned a year older, and somewhere in there I felt like 40-something me…or maybe even 30-something, because I successfully avoided any type of gut issue or hangover. So instead of one perimenopause-focused topic this week, you get the whole inventory: what I read, what I’m still reading, what I ate my way through, what’s in my ears, what I can’t stop thinking about, and what I bought myself because it’s summer and I said so.

Just Finished

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén. Bo is an old man in rural Sweden whose son wants to take away the one thing he still loves without complication: his dog, Sixten. That threat cracks him open, and the whole book becomes Bo reckoning with a life spent loving people badly, or at least sideways. It is sad in the way that’s actually useful. I finished it and did not want to waste a single ordinary Tuesday. Read it if you want a good cry that leaves you kinder to your own father, or yourself

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Currently Reading

The Last of Earth by Deepa Anappara. I’m only about forty pages in, so no verdict yet, but I am already fully in the Himalayas. It’s 1869, and an Indian surveyor is guiding a British captain toward a forbidden river while an Englishwoman tries to become the first European woman to reach Lhasa. Empire, ambition, all of it. But what’s got me right now is just the writing about the mountains: the storms, the altitude, the cold. I keep putting the book down to stare at nothing for a second. More on this one once I’ve actually earned an opinion

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Eating My Way Through Leo Season

Between my husband’s birthday and my friend’s, I have eaten out more during the middle of the week than I have in a while. We did the prix fixe lunch at Petit Trois on Highland and a seafood platter at Castaway in Burbank. I kept my digestive support on hand and stuck to what I always stick to: a veggie of some sort and a meat of some sort. Very “paleo-ish” always. I’m not trying to mess with my perimenopausal hormones…they are a delicate bunch. Then came the Red Lion Tavern in Silverlake for my bestie’s birthday, which is a beer garden, which meant a sausage platter for the table and a tequila blanco with soda water and lime for me. I am a functional nutritionist. I stopped ordering beer a long time ago…I literally call it grain water and have never liked the taste. Add in the fact that they spray glyphosate on most beer grains…and, well, it just sucks sometimes when you know too much. I can’t unsee stuff like that!

Here’s the thing: a week like this doesn’t have to be a wash. You can absolutely go out, order something delicious but in-line with your goals, have the tequila, and still stay balanced, you just need a plan for it that isn’t “fuck it, I’ll start over Monday.” That’s basically the entire premise of my Wellness for Winos course, which walks through how I personally stay balanced when alcohol is in the mix, because pretending it isn’t in the mix has never once worked for me. It’s half off right now with the code SUMMER50, which feels appropriate given the week I just had.

On Repeat

I have been hot girl walking to alternative-rock rotations on Spotify all week. Heavy rotation: Mt. Joy, Girl Band, Suki Waterhouse, Royel Otis, Lord Huron, and, because some things are non-negotiable, The Strokes.

Obsessing Over

A newer part of my work: creating content for brands I actually use. I just wrapped a project with Pique for their new magnesium electrolyte blend, and I’m mid-project now with Diagnostic Solutions Lab, the company behind the GI-MAP which is the stool test I actually run in my own practice. It’s a strange kind of fun to make content for a test I’ve ordered a hundred times for other people

.Also currently obsessing: finding a genuinely good microneedling spot in LA. Not a spa-day situation, an actual good one. Taking recommendations.

What I’m Recommending

Enjoying the end of summer, on purpose. We cram so much into these few short months, especially here, that I’m usually mentally checked into fall by early August. Not this year. This year I actually want to be fully present and slow down a bit for the rest of summer: dinners, my friends’ events and brunches, extra walks and hikes, whatever’s still good at the farmers market. I’m not rushing the pumpkin thing. I’m staying right here for a few more weeks.

Treated Myself To

A small, Proenza Schouler crossbody bag from The RealReal, in “very good” condition that looks suspiciously like new condition to me. I felt like I needed a concert-friendly bag so now it’s going to the Hollywood Bowl and the Wiltern with me this month and it is absolutely making an appearance for my friend’s wedding weekend. I love a new accessory to build my outfits around! It’s cute, right?

Couple goals

My husband and I have been coming to Mammoth Lakes for as long as we’ve been together: twenty years now, since we count our first “date” as the time we made out on his 30th birthday. We’d been friends for years before that, but that was the moment we actually chose each other. For life. I mean, that’s really how it went down. I’d been in a string of crappy relationships, and the second I started telling myself I deserved to be happy, my then-friend Nate was ready to leave his girlfriend. For me. A little serendipitous, now that I think about it.

Anyway, back to Mammoth. We come up this time of year because it’s Nate’s birthday (his 50th!), he loves to hike, and, well, he likes that I’m down to hike with him. In years past we’d also hit the Wine Weekend activities that coincide with his birthday: concerts, tastings, wine dinners. Not anymore. Mostly because wine and perimenopause aren’t really friends. Now we hike, hang out, eat at the local spots, and bask in that fresh pine scent.

Fern Lake excursion

“It’s just three miles,” he said. What he didn’t say was that it was all uphill. Like, steep-ass-incline uphill.

I’d had one of those 3am wakeups the night before. Didn’t sleep great, and my head was throbbing a little from the celebratory Veuve Clicquot (plus a dirty martini at dinner) and the thin air, so my legs felt lead-like from the get-go. Still, I knew I was getting up to Fern Lake if it killed me. I love a lake view, and I knew I’d be proud of myself once I got there. But again: it was UP there.

Things that went through my head on today’s hike:

• Am I too old for this?

• It’s not fair that my hormones fluctuate and his don’t

• I feel like when I was younger I would’ve jogged up this part

• Did I use my progesterone cream before we left?

• Do I have enough water with electrolytes?

• I wonder if there’s any good gluten-free pizza in Mammoth

• What are we supposed to do if we see a bear?

• A tequila soda, hair-of-the-dog cocktail, sounds so good right now

• Now I’m really hungry

• Am I getting a blister?

• Holy shit, there’s the lake

It’s all downhill from here

What a metaphor for midlife, amiright? I think that saying is supposed to be about looks fading, weight creeping on, being past your prime. But in my current reality, the downhill is the easy part. Aside from not slipping on a rock and breaking my butt, or tumbling off the side of a mountain, not much is required of me.

The downhill is where I get to enjoy the view, notice the little sage bushes along the trail, chit-chat with people on their way up (”you’re almost there,” that kind of thing), and finally focus on the rational questions, like whether lunch should be a burger or a Cobb salad. I love the downhill. My quads get a workout, and since it’s still shorts season, that’s a major plus in my book. It feels deserved. A little luscious, even.

Last little musings before I go back to basking in the fresh pine scent

I’m 51. Does that make me a cougar if my husband is just now turning 50? I hope so. I love a little spice, and lately I’ve been feeling a little... flat. Blame the hormones, I guess, since they’re the ones running the show these days. But maybe flat isn’t the word. Lost, maybe? That’s closer. Or maybe it’s more of a shed. Shedding the outer layers I used to think defined me.

Either way, I’m grateful to give fewer fucks these days and just float downhill, whimsically. If I slip, I’m sure it won’t be the end of me. I don’t see myself going out clumsy.

P.S. If the flat, lost, shed thing sounds familiar and you want more than my trail commentary on it, Make Menopause Sexy (yes, that’s really the name of my course) is still open. I built it for exactly this stretch of the road.

This morning my husband put on his favorite Stance socks, the ones he wears quite often (maybe too often), and I said, “It’s probably time to get some new socks, no?” They ripped. Right then. On his foot.

I didn’t do anything. Except maybe I did. Because I’m increasingly in tune with things before they happen, a kind of knowing that shows up more like energy than thought. These days I have an easier time putting a label on it: it’s witchy. Whether I felt the rip coming or just hexed the poor socks, I’m trying to lean into my intuition and synchronicities like this more, because it makes me feel a little more powerful walking around on planet Earth.

I should say upfront: I’m interested in astrology, not devoted to it. I don’t check the cosmos before every decision, and I am not, at a dinner party, going to ask your sign in the first five minutes. Partly because I have a full calendar, partly because, when it comes down to it, I trust my gut over a chart. Although, if astrology is your thing, please tell me what you see in the stars for me!

Let me backup.

I was baptized Catholic, no say in the matter (’cause I was an infant), more ceremony than conviction. My parents weren’t religious; I think they did it to appease my grandmother on my dad’s side (mom, I know you’re reading so maybe share this story with me sometime). Growing up in the country, most of my friends went to church on Sundays, so I tagged along with my besties—sisters, Jennifer and Amy—went through my first Holy Communion, and mostly remember being thrilled about the crackers. I kept popping in through high school, but the disillusionment really landed in college when they asked us all for money, and I would rather go to a bar with that money: this is a business, I remember thinking, right around the time I learned how many priests had been quietly moved parish to parish instead of held accountable for fondling (ahem, r4ping) altar boys. That was the end of it for me. I took a few religion classes in college, and decided the Eastern traditions made a lot more sense than anything Western. Buddhism especially.

Now I see myself as a nature-worshipper

I’m a humble servant of Mother Nature (and/or The Universe…whatever you want to call it)…but have also recently dipped a toe in Human Design (I’m a Manifesting Generator, BTW). I’ve always been more moved by myths about the Earth and the sky than anything in the Bible, which, full disclosure, I have never read (but don’t really feel the need). Give me a gnome and a troll over heaven and hell any day. When a hurricane rolls through, some small, unhinged part of me is rooting for it: “go off Queen, do what you need to do to heal the Earth.” Praying never quite made sense to me; it always sounded like asking, maybe even begging. I’d rather send gratitude and energy out and let it come back. Less pushy. More flow. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be, and if you want something and it’s meant for you, you’ll attract it into your life.

Speaking of attracting

I talk about karma constantly, especially lately. Technically it’s Hindu (also Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh, I looked it up), but I think of it the way most people do: what goes around comes around, and I would very much like it to come around, in this lifetime, for a few specific people in the White House and a few billionaire douchebags too. I also believe, in my gut and soul, that we can bring things into our lives just by thinking about them clearly enough, making room, and allowing them to land.

Daily, I see the number sequence 818. On receipts, on clocks, on license plates. My husband’s birthday is even 8/18. But lately, I’m reading it as 8/8, the Lion’s Gate portal.

I’m not under the impression one cosmic day in August is going to rearrange my life. But every astrology podcast I half-listen to on my walks has been saying some version of the same thing: prepare your mind, body, and spirit to receive what’s already looking for you. Now that’s something I can do, because I could use an energy upgrade, and because none of this requires more than what I already have ten minutes for. So here are eight things I’m doing today and in the days surrounding August 8th while this manifestation portal is open:

1. Decluttering, to make room for something new

2. Writing down one thing about myself I’m ready to leave behind, then burning the paper

3. Getting specific about one intention I’m calling in for the next six months

4. Sitting in the sun with a glass of sun tea

5. Resting, and actually letting the intention set instead of poking at it

6. Taking one small, real step toward the thing I want, just enough for momentum

7. Saying thank you for what’s already here, because appreciation seems to compound

8. Turning it into a small ritual: “I welcome abundance, opportunities, miracles, and money into my life. May everything meant for me find me with ease. I open myself to receive it.”

Remember: no magical portal will change your life. You do. The portal just reflects back the frequency you’re already willing to embody.

That’s about as woo as I get (or is it?). Get witchy with me.

Happy manifesting gorgeous human!

xx,

Christina

I saw The Odyssey last weekend, which, once I thought about it, has parallels to my own personal perimenopause story (obviously much more dramatic and dangerous). From the moment Odysseus washed up half-drowned on a beach that wasn’t home, this epic poem could essentially be my last ten years.

Here’s the thing about the Odyssey that nobody tells you: it’s not really about the war. The war’s over in the first act. It’s about the ten years of trying to get home after, the tricks and the witches and the storms that keep showing up right when you think you’re almost there. That’s perimenopause. The war was your twenties and thirties when you’re fresh and resilient. This is the part where you’re just trying to get home to yourself, but the sea keeps having other ideas.

So. Let’s map it out.

The Cyclops: Turning 40

I didn’t see it coming so much as walk right into it, one eye, unblinking, impossible to ignore once it stared straight at me. Forty wasn’t necessarily a monster. It was just the first thing big enough to make me stop and go, oh, we’re for real doing this now.

Here’s the part I actually like about this one in the poem: Odysseus doesn’t run. He decides to f*ck with the Cyclops a little, then he pokes it right in the eye. Just like I did when I acted like turning 40 was no big deal. I looked the same, felt the same as I did in my thirties, after all. So just like Odysseus, I tossed on a cute coat and walked past the idea of midlife like nothing happened, which, if you know anything about how the rest of his trip goes, is either extremely brave or extremely stupid. Because what else are we going to do once we turn 40? Stop sipping wine, stop staying out late with friends, and start wearing a weight vest? Not me. I just kept going. But I knew something was probably coming my way eventually.

The Trojan Horse: Bioidentical Hormones

Before any of the sea monsters, there’s the horse. The Greeks don’t win the war by force. They win it by building something the Trojans recognize, something that looks like a gift, something with no obvious weapons showing, and they wheel it in through their own gates themselves. Nobody storms the walls. The walls open on their own, willingly, because the thing on the other side of them looked familiar enough to trust.

That’s what I think about every time I hear “bioidentical.” Not a synthetic stranger the body has to fight off at the border. A shape it already knows. Estrogen, progesterone, molecule for molecule the same as what my own ovaries used to hand out for free every month, walked calmly through the gate I didn’t even know I’d started guarding. And once it’s inside, it doesn’t announce itself. It just quietly goes to work convincing the rest of the system that the war might not be as over as everyone thought. Lights back on in rooms that had gone dark. A body tricked, gently, into remembering its reproductive years, at least for a while.

Maybe this analogy doesn’t quite work, because I need these hormones. Open the gates. Give them to me. I don’t care if my body is being “tricked.” I feel great having them around, and I know they won’t be burning anything down.

Circe: The Rage

Circe turns men into pigs, which is frankly the least of what I’d do with that kind of witchy power. I have always been an even-keeled person. Reasonable. The kind of woman who takes a breath before responding to a rude email. But somewhere in the steady progesterone decline of my forties, a rage moved in that I did not invite and cannot evict. She’s nonspecific, and no one knows, not even me, which small injustice might set her off. It could be shoes left by the door. It could be an idiotic politician nodding off at a World Cup match. Weird things bring out the Circe in me.

The thing about Circe, though, is she’s not a villain you defeat. She’s a witch you have to sit with. Odysseus stays on her island for a year, which isn’t really shown in the movie. He doesn’t slay her, he just learns to live somewhere dangerous for a while, and comes out the other side less naive, with directions to the underworld in his pocket. Kind of like oral progesterone. When I finally pulled the trigger on taking it cyclically in my luteal phase, I’d already seen some ragey things come out of my brain. And I’ve grown from that.

Hades: You Know Some Sh*t’s Gonna Go Down

It’s Circe who sends him there, actually. Before he can go home, he has to sail to the actual underworld and talk to the dead, just to find out what’s coming. He doesn’t get a say in whether he goes. He just knows, the way you know, somewhere in your forties, that a reckoning is scheduled and no amount of good behavior is getting you out of it.

This is that low hum under everything. Not a symptom. A knowing. And maybe a side of dread.

For me, that was the seventy-one days I went without a period at the beginning of this year. It hit me in an almost “oh crap, I’m drying up” sort of way. But also, whatever. I’m here for it.

The Sirens: The 3am Voices

Next comes the singing. Everyone remembers it as beautiful, but the actual mechanics of the scene are the part that matters: Odysseus has to be tied to the mast to survive hearing it, because the song doesn’t lie to you, exactly, it just tells you the thing you most want to hear at the worst possible moment. That’s 3am. The night sweats, the stress, the voices of regret that replay the second you’re awake, thanks to temperature sensors in your brain and a congested liver. They catalog everything stupid you’ve ever said and everyone you might have disappointed, all of it dressed up as insight. It isn’t insight. It’s just your ovaries closing up shop and your body trying to figure out what to do now.

The Strait: The Beast and the Whirlpool

The water narrows, and there’s no version of this that doesn’t cost you something. On one side, Scylla, the six-headed thing that just reaches out and takes a sailor, no warning, no pattern you can predict your way around. On the other, Charybdis, the whirlpool that doesn’t chase you, doesn’t have to, just sits there pulling everything down into her, slow and total. Odysseus has to choose which one to sail closer to. He can’t avoid both. Nobody gets through that strait clean.

That’s estrogen and progesterone doing this at the same time, which is, infuriatingly, the actual biology of it. The beast is the estrogen, unpredictable, grabbing whoever’s closest to the rail with no warning, some months generous, some months you’re the one left high and dry (literally) with zero notice it was coming. The whirlpool is the progesterone, quieter, less dramatic, steadily sucking your sleep under, then your calm, then whatever used to buffer you from your own thoughts at 3am. You don’t get to fight your way past this part. You just get to relent to whichever monster decides to get you today.

The Suitors: Waiting for the Date Nobody Will Give You

Home, finally, or almost. Penelope has a house full of men who won’t leave, eating all her food and being generally annoying, hoping that eventually she’ll give up waiting and pick one. That’s the worst part of this whole thing, honestly. Not any single symptom. It’s the not knowing. There’s an end date and you don’t know when it is, so you just keep weaving and unweaving the same piece of fabric, technically waiting, pretending you’re fine.

But Penelope never picks a suitor. She waits the whole thing out, and the second the real thing walks back through the door, she knows it immediately, no hesitation. There’s something in that worth holding onto. The waiting isn’t wasted just because nobody will give you an end date for perimenopause (BTW, menopause is technically 1 year after your final period).

Odysseus gets home eventually. It takes ten years, a horse he tricks his way in with before the trip even starts, several goddesses, and a level of persistence that borders on unreasonable. Nobody hands him a timeline either. He just keeps sailing until, one day, he isn’t anymore.

That’s the whole trick of perimenopause, I think. Not defeating the monsters. Outsmarting them.

And if you want an actual map instead of just a mythological one, Make Menopause Sexy is a good place to start, no eye-patch or trident required. Consider it your Athena: showing up right when you need her, pointing you toward the next island.

A dream I keep having

In the dream, my husband starts seeing another woman. A younger woman, obviously. I beg him to stay, and he makes it very clear he’s moved on. My normally over-the-top confidence in our marriage, gone, just like that. I wake up sad and a little desperate, every single time. I’ve had this dream for years. I tell him about it every time I have it, and every time he reassures me I’m the only one. Ever. Whew. *bakes him cookies anyway

More evidence that I’m needy now

My friends. Why haven’t they called? Texted? DMed me? Are they over me? All of this is completely unfounded (I have zero evidence for any of it) and I never used to feel this way. But lately I want proof they need me in their lives. Which is a ridiculous sentence to type, because I know they love me and would show up if I needed anything at the drop of a hat. And still I wonder: is everyone hanging out without me? *texts everyone a “happy Friday” just in case

Client work

Every client I’ve ever worked with has told me how much I’ve helped them, and yet I’m in a weird lull right now. I blame the anti-wellness trends: fridge cigarettes, actual cigarettes at parties, the World Cup alcohol boom. That’s a different post though. It’s probably just summer; nobody wants to heal their gut or test their hormones in July. Still, I’m taking it personally. So I’m blaming perimenopause. That’s the only real conclusion here. *rubs more progesterone on my belly

Here’s where I’m at with all this

Riding it out. Breathing through the little unfounded worries. Sending my friends love, hugging my husband. What else is a perimenopausal girl supposed to do, spiral over a stupid dream? Couldn’t be me. *adds St. John’s Wort to a glass of iced tea

Lastly

It’s been two years since I launched Make Menopause Sexy. Hasn’t sold like I hoped, and I’ve mostly made peace with that. What I haven’t made peace with is scrolling past women online describing, symptom by symptom, exactly what this course can answer for them. I built this thing and I wish everyone had it in their hands.

Turns out knowing what’s happening to your body, even when the answer is “your progesterone is tanking,” changes how it feels to go through it. That’s the whole pitch, honestly.

If you want in: code SUMMER50 gets you half off at checkout. Or just message me, if you’ve read this far, I’ll send it to you free. *feels validated and needed

I had zero clue that “crone” was a thing postmenopausal women get called until I read New Menopausal Years: The Wise Woman Way by Susan S. Weed. It was, quite literally, the first book I read about menopause. It appealed to me because it’s super holistic, like in a “don’t get mammograms” type of way. Witchy in the way individual herbs get named for symptoms like “emotional uproar” or “earthquake flashes” (this term also terrified me, BTW). And smart in the way that options are laid out for each symptom, starting at “Step 1: Collect Information,” hitting a practical middle at “Step 3: Nourish and Tonify” (basically her entire worldview in three words), and ending, all the way on the other end, with “Step 6: Break and Enter,” where Weed keeps it real and lets you know about the psychoactive plants, too (I mean…her last name is “Weed”). Bless up, babe. But in all seriousness, it’s incredibly helpful to have it laid out like that, a choose-your-own-menopause-adventure.

A ritual interlude

This is when she got my attention. She describes taking a solo journey, a “Crone’s Time Away,” like a cocoon getaway to kick off puberty in reverse. So…like, Hawaii? That’s where I was when I read that part, and I felt like she was describing me. I was living it. Mind you, I didn’t have many symptoms at that point, but I still love the idea of every midlife woman going away to think it through. Give every perimenopausal woman a plane ticket so we can all have our ritual interludes, a proper rite of passage. This is happening whether we RSVP or not, so we might as well get smart about it, and maybe celebrate it a little instead of just dreading it.

Why I’m not planning to become a crone (in name)

I associate the word “crone” with being old. It just sounds old. I picture a rough-looking, muumuu-wearing, no-pedicure-having woman…and nope, that could never be me. No shade on any woman who identifies as a crone, you do you, babe. I love a witchy, wise woman, and even think of myself as one, but I have an aesthetic. I love knowing and using herbs. I love hexing the patriarchy. I love manifesting things for myself (I am so good at manifesting parking spots) and for those I love. I love a full moon crystal charge. But what I don’t love is settling: letting the dryness and wrinkles that come with this phase just set in, when I can plump them up with a really good serum and maybe a touch of Botox on my elevens. I also don’t love going up in pant sizes…truly not interested in looking or feeling too puffy.

Don’t call me a biohacker (or maybe, do?)

Weed actually splits healing into three traditions: Scientific (fix it), Heroic (cleanse it), and Wise Woman (nourish it). By her own framework, I’m an amalgamation of all three: nourishing with food and herbs, fixing with hormones, occasionally cleansing my life of a bad Seamless habit (taking a lil midsummer break from drinking booze at the moment).

As a functional nutritionist, I’m fully aware of how my fluctuating hormones impact blood sugar regulation, and how much my food choices matters when I’m trying to maintain my optimal weight. I know how important it is to prioritize nourishment over a cocktail, sleep over a late night out, cooking for myself over ordering takeout (okay, I have a few spots I order from…but you get it). BTW, I documented everything I’ve learned in a convenient online course called Make Menopause Sexy. If you got this far into my little Substack, subscribe & message me and I’ll send it to you for free!

Not old yet

Listen, I’m not “anti-aging,” because that’s just silly. We all age, every second of every day, some of us faster than others, and it’s fine. It has to be, we don’t have a choice. But I like feeling spry and energetic. I like looking dewy and slim. I like toned arms and legs. There’s a whole ombre of ways to age naturally, and I intend to sit at the dewy end of it. The physiological piece of that puzzle is hormones: the way we feel and look in our reproductive years hinges on the very ones that sputter and fade during this midlife change. So for me, hormone replacement therapy is a gamechanger. You won’t be able to pry my progesterone from my cold, dead hands.

To reiterate

As someone already deep into perimenopause, I’m not here for being called a “crone.” Or ma’am, not a fan of that one either, no matter how southern and “polite” it’s supposed to be. I feel like you must be talking to the crone behind me, so I’ll just keep walking. I’m Christina. Christina who prefers to learn everything she can about perimenopause so she’ll never feel out of control.

I feel like when some men hear “women need women” they assume I’m a man-bashing feminist. I’m not, not exactly. Feminism is the theory. What I’m referring to is just the plain, whimsical, physical feeling of being around other women of various ages and realizing we pretty much think the same way, love the same movies and music, and even love (mostly) the same foods. In a world that STILL runs on rules men wrote, that recognition means more than it gets credit for. Mostly, though, it just feels like relief, the kind you don’t know you’re missing until you’re surrounded by women who get it without you having to explain.

From work friend to best friend

Margo sat two desks over from me when I worked as an account executive for Clear Channel Broadcasting in Santa Barbara, and it took almost no time for my “work friend” to turn into something closer to worship. I loved her smart sass, her style, the specific way she commanded a room and killed it at her job. I wanted a peek at her instruction manual. I wanted to be her when I grew up.

Before Margo, my friends were basically all my age, give or take a few years, until I was about thirty. Older women existed in a separate category in my head—they were all very nice, but maybe I didn’t think they’d take me seriously…or maybe I wasn’t a serious person (hmmmm, that’s another topic for another Substack). Weirdly, I dated—and clicked with—older men…it just never occurred to me that I’d click on the same level as a woman older than me. Margo and I were two peas in a pod.

Someone to lean on

Then Beth. Beth isn’t even that much older, but when we met, she’d already lived a whole different type of life than me: married, two kids, and in the middle of a divorce by the time I met her. We love hanging out together. And for me, this different vantage point was (and still is) so fascinating, especially since I chose not to have children in this life and I got to watch her raise her kiddos to be total badasses. She’d been somewhere I hadn’t gone, and we found each other at the most perfect time in our lives.

Wine besties

Around that same time in Santa Barbara, I worked part time at a winery, and that’s when my girlfriend age-gap flipped. Jaime and Laura were more than a decade younger than me, and it turned out not to matter even a little because wine brings people together. LOL. We had some times. Some real, real, real good times! Shoutout to both of them, and to Jaime especially, who I’m still close with today, although we drink WAY less wine now and both decided to change careers and become functional nutritionists when our lives took weird turns.

My new besties live in LA

Los Angeles is where it all came together. I have the widest, most diverse range of ages in my girlfriend groups that I’ve ever had, and I love every minute of it. I tell the younger ones “I’m coming to them from the future,” which mostly means I hand out unsolicited advice like a woman with a badge. Sometimes they even ask. Sometimes I watch their eyes glaze over the second I say “perimenopause,” like I’ve switched to a frequency only dogs can hear. I don’t care. I love being the older one. I’m older and I know things…but I still have so much to learn from them too.

Here’s the part I can’t quite explain. My older friends—who are in their late fifties now—don’t offer up much about what their own midlife transitions were actually like. I don’t know if it’s generational, or a privacy thing, or just that nobody ever asked them either. My mom is in this camp too. She still says things like, “just wait, you’ll see,” and well, I don’t have time for that! I’m a prepper. I want the deets now so I’m ready. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll sidestep a lot of the weird stuff! And if you know me, you KNOW I’m just gonna straight up ask for deets. I want the full report. Tell me, wise ones, what is happening with your body, your mind, your relationships, your families. I’m taking notes for later, because later is coming for me too.

Organized girlism

I cannot recommend having friends of every age enough. And I’m clearly not the only one figuring this out: my friends have created the LA Girl Dinner Club, which now has women of all ages having cute dinners together, picnics together, beach hangs, dance parties, and the Club is popping off. Because girls need girls. Not the same girls, ALL of the girls. It’s a smart, pink rebellion in a world that would rather brush us aside, but never underestimate girl-power. It’s not about feminism at all. It’s just about being a kickass girl.

Okay, so I went to see the new Jackass movie last weekend and I have thoughts (no spoilers here, but I’m sure you already have ideas of what it’s all about).

First of all, girls would never

We’re all about preserving the shell, at least I am, and even more so the older I get. A bruise is a big deal. A cut that might leave a scar is slightly mortifying. A pulled muscle, good lawd, those take forever to heal and always have me questioning if this is my forever injury (BTW, I talk all about the musculoskeletal syndrome of peri/menopause in my online course, Make Menopause Sexy, and it turns out I’m not being dramatic. A 2024 study found that 80% of postmenopausal women deal with musculoskeletal symptoms like joint pain, stiffness, and frozen shoulder, and a quarter of them are seriously debilitated by it. Declining estrogen literally changes how our joints and connective tissue function, it’s not just in our heads). A broken bone? I’ve never actually had one and I will do everything in my power to keep it that way.

This isn’t necessarily a spoiler, but Johnny Knoxville, what are you doing? I know you’re 50ish, so why are you voluntarily concussing yourself? Girls would never. We don’t want dementia.

I myself, am 50 & fragile(ish)

I fall sometimes now. In memorable and embarrassing ways.

Picture this (okay, it’s actually the photo above). I’m with one of my best friends, Caroline, who’d been invited to the opening of a rooftop restaurant and bar in Venice Beach. We are looking very, very cute. I am feeling very, very cute. It’s sunset, we’re sipping drinks, nibbling snacks, vibing, being cute, when I decide to stand up from our prime location table and, well, I can’t remember why…it doesn’t matter. Because then this happens. The heel of my shoe gets wedged in the slats of the wooden floorboards, and then, like a slow motion tree falling in a forest where everyone can see it, I flutter backwards. About ten hands shoot out toward me in unison and ten voices yell, “are you okay?!” And I am. I am totally, completely fine. No harm done, other than to my ego. Then, to make matters worse, the restaurant manager comes over after hearing about the fall and asks me to sign something saying I won’t sue. So embarrassing.

The second, more recent time I fell was at the entrance of a very, very busy restaurant, where luckily everyone was facing the other way. I had new cowboy boots on, so the bottoms were slick, but so was the floor (I was also a couple cocktails in). So as I stepped inside, down I went. Only a server or two saw me, and thankfully they could tell I was fine when I hopped back up and yelled, “I’m fine” and reassured me that yes, the floor was slippery. My friends didn’t even notice. Still, my ego took the hit. Here I was thinking of myself as a graceful gazelle. Turns out, no. No, I’m not.

Poo = bacteria

Honestly, eww. All I can visualize when Steve-O or any of the other guys are doing some sort of port-a-potty challenge is E. coli plus giardia being ingested. Y’all are so nasty. I don’t even eat veggies in Mexico for fear of Montezuma’s Revenge! Jackass guys, reach out, let’s run a GI-MAP and see what’s taken hold and overgrowing in your gut. I’m so curious. And also, I can help!

Stress

The jump-scares, secret punchings, and electrocutions look absolutely hilarious on camera. But my nervous system was spiraling just watching it. I laughed, like really hard, but geez, I hope some of that Jackass money is going toward touching grass on a tropical island to chill the eff out.

Repercussions of laughing my ass off

As I’m leaving the theater, I turn to my husband and admit I feel weird, because I do. That funny feeling in my head, almost dizzy. I’m thinking, is it the edible I ate beforehand, or is it that whole vertigo thing again? A few days later, yep, still a little dizzy, especially when I turn to the left. More evidence of my perimenopausal fragility. I can’t even laugh too hard without paying for it. Will that stop me? No. I loved laughing my ass off watching that movie. Well done, fifty year old boys.

The takeaway

Don’t be a Jackass, unless you’re in your twenties. And even then…it’s a “no” from me.

I clearly remember not crying. For like, years. Even when I felt sad, or empathetic, or fully aware that crying was probably the socially appropriate response, I just never tipped over the edge. The tear ducts stayed dry. I was contained.

A boyfriend once told me I was “too cool,” which he probably meant as a criticism, which tells you everything you need to know about him (we eventually broke up, duh). In retrospect, maybe what read as “too cool” was just a hard chocolate shell situation. Hard on the outside, soft-serve ice cream melting underneath. He just didn’t have the patience for getting me to crack.

And then.

Somewhere in the last few years of perimenopause, I became a person who wells up regularly. Not in a blubbery, full-sob-on-the-floor way. More like a mist. A gentle, almost cinematic mist that starts somewhere in my chest and lightly threatens to spill from the eyes. The key word is threatens. I’m not a mess. I’m just…mistier now. Think: single perfect tear rolling down a cheekbone…my emotions are properly keeping it classy.

I used to make fun of my mom for crying at the end of every single episode of Family Ties. Every one. I genuinely could not understand what was happening to her. Now I understand completely, and I owe her an apology (I get it now, mom).

Things making me misty lately:

The Obamas. In any context, doing anything decent and intelligent. I miss their leadership vibe so much it physically aches. Everyone wearing chic tan suits at the Grand Opening Ceremony of the Obama Presidential Center got me too, because…well, I love the unifying theme.

Kacey Musgraves lyrics. Just quietly devastating in the best possible way.

Taylor and Travis. I don’t know them. I love them.

The Michael Jackson movie. I loved him so much growing up, but reflecting his talent again today, even knowing everything I now know: it hits differently. His genius was mind-blowing then. It’s somehow even more so now.

World Cup celebrations. The colorful, tribalist mosh pits surrounding games. The fact that kilts and Mexico’s jerseys actually work together as a fashion moment. People completely losing their minds with collective joy over a ball going into a net. Something about mass human feeling just undoes me.

People in love. Wedding announcements. Love is literally what it’s all about, people. (I am getting misty typing this right now and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.)

Cancer. I’m not going to be funny here. Dude. Fuck cancer.

Sincere compliments from friends, and also giving them. The kind that come out of nowhere on a random Tuesday. Gets me every time.

A bar-convo worth sharing

I was recently at a World Cup watch party at Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood, waiting for my group of friends to show up, when I ended up in a completely random conversation with a straight guy from Idaho about crying (I only mention he was straight only because we were in WeHo, where the emotional intelligence baseline is already high, so context matters). I don’t even remember how it came up, but he told me he loves a good cry. More than that: when he cries, he cries about everything. He said he picks a moment and just goes through it all. Every sad thing, every frustrating thing, everything he’s been quietly holding. One big cathartic purge. A cry-sesh of all cry-seshes, roughly once a month.

Men. Take actual notes. That is literally healing.

Feelin’ a type of way

I guess I’m not as tough as I thought, and I think I like it. Being moved by things, feeling the world a little more…there’s something genuinely beautiful about that. I’m not who I was at thirty, and that woman wouldn’t recognize me, and I am completely okay with that.

Also: my skin looks dewy after a little cry. I’m just saying. There may be something to it.

If this resonated, forward it to a perimenopausal friend who’s been a little mistier lately and doesn’t quite know why. She’s not alone, and neither are you.

One thing I’ve learned about this bizarre perimenopausal shift that every single born-female person on the planet goes through: nothing happens in isolation. It’s not like stepping over some invisible threshold where one thing happens, then the next. Looking back, lots of things hit at once…so, I can’t even point a finger at any one thing.

My ears

I’ve written about my high estrogen symptoms before, so let’s talk about some of my weirdest low estrogen symptoms. Example: my here-and-there tinnitus suddenly got louder and consistent (aka my ears ring all of the time). The inside of my ears got so itchy and flakey it was maddening. And then I had vertigo so bad I almost quit Pilates for fear I’d fall off the Reformer. (I’m going to need you all to understand how devastating that would have been for me.)

Luckily, my husband is a chiropractor. He explained that I had Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) and then performed the Epley Maneuver on me various times, which shifts displaced calcium crystals in the inner ear back where they belong. The dizziness only happened when I turned to the right, and it lasted a couple of weeks before it went away. But geezus, I genuinely thought I was broken there for a minute.

Here’s the part I didn’t know: estrogen receptors exist throughout the entire auditory pathway, from the cochlea in your inner ear all the way to the auditory cortex in your brain. Research suggests that as estrogen drops, it can disturb the metabolism of those little calcium crystals (otoconia) in the inner ear, making BPPV significantly more common in perimenopausal women. And up to a third of women in perimenopause or menopause experience new or worsening tinnitus. A THIRD. Who knew there were so many estrogen receptors in our ears? Not me.

Everything is hard (and stupid)

Now we’re into progesterone decline territory, and the way it affects mood. For me, it wasn’t rage or anxiety exactly. It was more like a subtle loss of ease. Things that used to be effortless suddenly felt like a lot. Getting dressed. Putting on makeup. Washing my hair. Shaving my legs. Tasks that genuinely take ten minutes started feeling like a project.

If I weren’t so vain, I’d fully lean into perimenopause sasquatch. The fucks I used to give are declining at roughly the same rate as my hormones. But I am vain, so I march through the “take care of yourself” checklist anyway and I do feel better once I do. It feels silly, but I love looking pretty.

There’s actually a clinical term for this: anhedonia, described as the inability to feel joy or motivation from things that used to bring them. It’s driven by the way progesterone and estrogen together support dopamine, serotonin, and GABA pathways. When those hormones fluctuate, so does our brain chemistry. So no, ladies, we are not lazy. Our neurochemistry is just…going through something.

Speaking of things going through something: is everything getting dumber, or is that just our current administration? Probably both. But also, probably progesterone.

The meno-pot

Speaking of dumb. My body literally betraying me is so dumb. Like, why the need to tack on a poochy belly during this time? I heard the term “meno-pot” and I cannot unhear it or unsee it on myself.

Despite maintaining the same eating habits and exercise routine that had always worked (lower carb, balanced blood sugar, anti-inflammatory food), I developed what felt like a completely different midsection almost overnight. Here’s what’s actually happening: as estrogen declines, the body shifts from storing fat subcutaneously, which is just under the skin, to storing it viscerally, which means around your organs. Research shows visceral fat can increase from about 5-8% of total body fat premenopause to 15-20% postmenopause. That’s not a subtle shift. That’s a biological pivot.

The meno-pot is real, it’s documented, and it has nothing to do with willpower. Here’s what I’m doing about it anyway: eating significantly more protein, going heavy on the springs in Pilates, adding more fiber, and prioritizing sleep so my body feels safe and calm (no need to store fat for later: we are not headed into a famine). All of that, plus HRT. Thank Buddha for HRT.

Crepey skin. I can’t.

I remember seeing crepey skin on my grandma’s arms and chalking it up to being a “fluffier” woman. Then I saw it on my own arms and thighs and had to have a little sit-down with myself.

The science here is annoying but worth knowing: women can lose up to 30% of their collagen in the first five years after menopause, and then another 2% per year after that. Estrogen supports collagen production and the structural integrity of skin, so as it drops, skin gets thinner, less elastic, and drier. Hence: crepey. Hence: laser consultations. Hence: the realization that it is expensive to be both old AND vain. Dammit.

It is what it is

My body is responding to hormonal changes. Sometimes they’re dramatic, and sometimes I might be the dramatic one. I know what’s happening biologically. I understand the mechanisms. I still want more control than I have, which is very on-brand for me.

So I march through the “take care of yourself” list, which keeps growing, and I settle in. Because who knows what comes next. Whatever it is, I hope it’s subtle. And there you have it: acceptance. Kinda.

I remember being a kid and being absolutely bored out of my mind.

To be fair, I grew up in the country with hippy parents who didn’t get me a TV until I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. And even then? My mom got a tiny, black and white one. I can clearly recall zoning out for what felt like hours, just staring at the walls of my room like they might do something interesting.

My activities didn’t involve scrolling Instagram because it didn’t exist. My chores involved feeding and riding my horse (or sheep, depending on the 4-H season), some homework, some cleaning. That was it. I never felt this urgent need to hurry up until college, when papers and exams actually required a deadline. And even then, I’d go to the library, do my research the old-fashioned way, and call it a day. Computers were barely a thing. The internet was definitely not yet a thing for me.

I know. Ancient.

Fast forward to now, and I am always rushing.

And I know I’m not alone in this.

It starts the second I finish the latte that took me 15 minutes to make. Then I’m rushing to Pilates. Rushing back home. Cramming in 20 minutes of cleaning before rushing out for a speed walk where I simultaneously try to absorb a podcast like my brain is a sponge that’s been left out in the sun. I rush home to get ready, create content for my functional nutrition business, and see my 1:1 clients (who have been increasingly flaky lately, though I completely get it). Sometimes I eat standing up, or in front of my computer, because apparently something very important is happening on the internet that I need to see (or buy) immediately. On laundry days, I’m physically bumping into furniture and walls because I’m trying to cut literal corners.

My husband comes home and suddenly it’s dinner, so we rush to cook, and then we decompress by sitting on the couch and watching hours of TV while I scroll my phone looking for...honestly, what? I have no idea.

Why are we like this?

I blame the internet. And increasingly, I blame AI.

The second we log on and see what everyone else is doing, it looks like they’re doing so much more. And now we have to keep up. “Keeping up with the Joneses” used to mean the neighbor’s new car. Now it means drinking from a “Keeping up with the Kardashians” fire hose that never turns off.

And as a perimenopausal woman (who is also a functional nutritionist), I am hyper-aware that all of this rushing is one of the fastest ways to wreck my digestion, spike my blood sugar, and fry my nervous system. Which makes this already weird midlife phase so much harder.

Here’s the thing: progesterone, the hormone responsible for calm, sleep, mood stability, and stress resilience, is already declining during perimenopause. It is doing its job less and less, at the exact moment modern life is demanding more and more. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a collision.

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And yet getting “still” feels like the one thing we’re least willing to do. I see it in my clients constantly, this quiet resistance to slowing down. But we live in a world that profits off our busyness, and it has zero interest in us slowing down. So we keep going, even when our perimenopausal hormones are waving a little white flag.

Here’s what I keep trying to tell myself:

• It’s okay to say “no.”

• You can’t control everything all the time.

• Not everything needs to be optimized or “hacked.”

• Some things actually work better when you slow down.

Sounds obvious, right? But genuinely practicing it is another thing entirely.

(Functional nutritionist hat back on.) The goal isn’t perfection. It’s consistency. Even 10 minutes of intentional stillness a few days a week adds up more than we give it credit for. That might look like sitting with your coffee instead of chugging it over the sink. Eating an actual meal at an actual table. Walking without a podcast blasting into your ears.

Chase the quiet. Embrace it.

We’ll all feel better when we do.

Hi, I’m Christina, and I’m a former party girl.

From around age 14, I had what I can only describe as a love affair with alcohol. My family drank. A lot. And rather than have me sneaking off to drink behind their backs, they gave me sips of things from a pretty young age. My dad once had a bottle of tequila (or mezcal, unclear) with an actual worm in it that he insisted I try. Parenting in the 80s was wild. You could genuinely do whatever you wanted with your kids, and nobody blinked.

By early high school, I was regularly drinking wine coolers, peppermint schnapps, and a beer or twelve. And that’s when I got my first real education on what hard alcohol actually does to a body. Spoiler: it was not a gentle lesson.

Holidays with my family meant everyone drinking until 2am. Thanksgiving, Christmas, random Sundays. It wasn’t a problem. It was just...our culture.

College in the 90s

College is a little blurry, which probably tells you everything you need to know. Blacking out (or “browning out,” if we’re being clinical) was a regular occurrence. Hangovers were accepted as part of the package, and I treated them the way everyone around me did: with more alcohol. The hair of the dog wasn’t just a phrase, it was a strategy.

But here’s what kept me going: I genuinely believed I was superhuman. I could drink most people under the table, stay up the latest, wake up the next morning, eat a giant burrito, go for a run, and then do it all again. Weekend after weekend. Probably weeknights too, honestly. I worked in bars where bartenders made us “attitude adjustments” (shots) any time we seemed sluggish (shoutout to Mother’s Tavern in San Luis Obispo aka “Mo Tav” now). I fit right in.

Wine Country

After college, I moved to Santa Barbara, where drinking is basically an outdoor sport. I made friends easily, went to great parties (where other things made appearances too, no shame), and somehow ended up working for wineries on the weekends for fun. Drinking there wasn’t just accepted, it was part of the job.

This pattern followed me into every career I chose: sales jobs where taking clients out for drinks was relationship-building, PR roles where open bars were a perk, not a red flag. I wasn’t an outlier. I was thriving, by every external measure.

And then, a decade slipped by. My body quietly started raising its hand.

Eczema on my face. Hair falling out. Weight creeping up and not coming back down. I couldn’t ignore it anymore, so I started making changes. I went semi-vegan for a stretch. Tried alkaline eating. Cut back on the drinking, a little. It helped.

But even after moving to Los Angeles, I still loved my wine. My cocktails. The whole ritual of it. I knew it wasn’t serving me, and I kept doing it anyway, because honestly? I wasn’t ready to stop. Then I went to nutrition school…

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Perimenopause and alcohol are not compatible

Once I hit 47, my perimenopausal body had had enough.

Red wine became an “absolutely not.” Mixed drinks were out. I’d get hot and my heart would race at 3am. And sleep, which had already been getting harder to come by, became basically impossible after any amount of alcohol.

Sleep might be what finally broke me. Not in a dramatic way. Just in a “I am too smart to keep doing this to myself” way.

And here’s where I have to talk about how deeply, cosmically unfair this is.

Because my husband? My male friends? They’re fine. They’re out there drinking the same wine at the same dinner table, waking up feeling totally normal, living their best unbothered lives. No flushing, no racing heart, no lying awake at 3am wondering why they did this to themselves. Just...fine.

Meanwhile, I have been training for this my entire life. Decades of practice. A legitimate alcohol résumé. I have put in the work. And perimenopause just benched me.

The biology is real and it’s infuriating: as estrogen drops, our liver enzymes change, we metabolize alcohol more slowly, and our sensitivity goes up, not down. Men don’t have a hormonal shift that rewires their relationship to alcohol. They just get to keep going. We get night sweats and a two-drink maximum.

I’ve said it out loud to anyone who will listen more than once: “It’s not fair.” And it’s not. But I’ve also made peace with it, mostly, because the more I have learned about what alcohol actually does over time, the less I wanted to keep negotiating with it. The inflammation. The cortisol spike. The sleep disruption. The way it quietly taxes your liver, your hormones, your skin…and can cause cancer. The data is not on alcohol’s side, and once you know it, you can’t really unknow it.

So I got curious instead of defensive. I started researching what alcohol actually does to hormones, sleep architecture, cortisol, and the aging body. I learned about how perimenopause makes us more sensitive to alcohol’s effects, not less. I learned that the “nightcap helps me relax” thing is genuinely a lie our bodies tell us, and the science is not subtle about it.

I made rules. Researched, thought-through, non-negotiable rules. Strategic supplements. More water with electrolytes. A real cutoff time. And no nightcap. Like, ever. It’s tea and activated charcoal for me, thank you very much.

Because when I’m deciding whether to drink alcohol or not, I’m not just thinking about tomorrow-me and her groggy, foggy morning. I’m thinking about future-me, the old lady version, the one I actually want to show up as. Sharp. Clear. Feeling good in her body.

That version of me deserves more than a blurry Saturday night.

If any of this sounds familiar, I made something for you. Wellness for Winos is my mini-course for people who love wine and also love their health, and are trying to figure out how to have both without lying to themselves about it. It’s not necessarily about quitting. It’s about being smarter, feeling better, and actually enjoying the glass you do have.

Calling the Tone Police

This past weekend brought me two separate incidents where those closest to me called me out—not for being a bitch, exactly, but for the bitchy way I said something. And when my husband repeated my words back to me? Yep. Dang, that WAS bitchy. My bestie pointed out another moment was “harsh,” and when I asked for a hall pass because “that’s just me,” she said no. I respected the hell out of that.

Here’s What’s Actually Happening

As estrogen swings high and progesterone crashes, mood symptoms ramp up fast. But here’s the thing most of us don’t know: recent research shows that irritability—not depression—is the primary symptom reported by perimenopausal women experiencing hormonal mood disruption. About 40% of women are biologically susceptible to mood changes during this transition, according to 2025 research on estradiol fluctuations.

The science is clear: as estrogen levels vary wildly, they disrupt dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine—the exact neurotransmitters that regulate emotional stability. So my sharp tone during follicular-phase estrogen surge? That’s not a character flaw. It’s a neurochemical event. Still not an excuse, but absolutely a fact worth understanding.

Why Progesterone Actually Matters (Beyond The Hype)

This is where bioidentical progesterone changed my game. Unlike synthetic progestins, bioidentical molecules are structurally identical to what your body produces. But more importantly for your nervous system: progesterone converts to allopregnanolone, which activates GABA receptors in your brain—the same receptors responsible for that “calm down” signal your nervous system needs.

In other words, progesterone is literally your brain’s chill pill.

That’s why I keep both a 75mg natural progesterone cream and 200mg oral capsule on hand (you can use my code if you want to try: SIDEBENEFITS). I’m 51 and still cycling regularly in late perimenopause, which means my progesterone crashes hard mid-cycle. When I notice that harsh tone creeping in, it’s my body signaling me to boost progesterone levels. It works.

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Can I Blame Perimenopause? (The Honest Answer)

No, I can’t use hormones as a free pass to be a jerk. And I’m glad my friends held the line. I don’t want to be that woman. I want to choose my words carefully and save my edge for moments when everyone’s equally sharp.

But here’s what I can acknowledge: my brain chemistry is literally different than it was five years ago. The person I was—the one who handled stress effortlessly—isn’t gone. She’s just working with a different neurochemical landscape. And yes, I grieve that ease sometimes.

Perimenopause isn’t weakness or lack of discipline. It’s not failure. Your body is changing. Your brain is changing. Your hormones are reshuffling the deck. And here’s the part nobody tells you: women deserve actual support during this transition—not judgment, not self-blame, not being dismissed as “crazy” or “just a bitch.”

That’s why I built an entire course around this—so you can feel informed and empowered instead of gaslit by your own nervous system.

Sources

• Psychological Changes at Menopause: Anxiety, Mood Swings, and Sexual Health in the Biopsychosocial Context (2025)

• Estrogen Variability and Irritability During the Menopause Transition

• Mood Changes During Perimenopause Are Real - ACOG

• Progesterone and Its Metabolites Play a Beneficial Role in Affect Regulation in the Female Brain

I loved this “Top 5 Horror Movies” trend on Instagram so much that I wanted to expand upon it! "‘Cause here’s what nobody tells you about perimenopause: it sneaks in quietly, making you irrationally annoyed about things that have never bothered you before.

A 3 am wake up. A latte with gum-laden nut milk. An 8 pm dinner reservation. A hotel lobby pumping phthalates into the air via their “signature scent.” A recipe that calls for canola oil…terrifying.

I know these won’t kill me. But they do freakin’ bother me. And I honestly LOVE figuring out the “why” behind it all.

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The Progesterone Problem

I know this stuff. I literally teach it. Progesterone makes allopregnanolone, which is your nervous system’s calming agent. It binds to GABA receptors in your brain and basically tells your nervous system that everything is fine.

Except when progesterone drops, that signal drops too.

So when you wake up at 3 am for no reason, or when you want to scream at the smell of a hotel lobby, or when a simple dinner reservation feels logistically infuriating—that’s not you being dramatic. That’s your GABA receptors sitting there waiting for the chemical they’ve relied on for decades, and instead getting silence.

Your nervous system is legitimately destabilized.

My Top 5 Horror Movies

1. 3 am wake ups (or just not getting the most perfect night’s sleep). This one’s straightforward. When blood sugar crashes, cortisol spikes, and welp, that wakes you up. I lie there in that specific 3 am darkness thinking about things I don’t want to think about…like how rapidly we age when we don’t sleep. THE ACTUAL HORROR!

2. Crappy nut milk in my latte. Most store-bought nut milks—and the ones used at most coffee—are loaded with gums (guar gum, locust bean gum, xanthan gum). Gums can irritate the gut lining, which feeds dysbiosis, which impairs detox pathways, which makes my already-fragile hormone metabolism worse. So when a coffee shop uses crappy nut milk…well, I’ll still drink it, but I strongly disapprove.

3. An 8 pm dinner reservation. First of all, I like to be in bed by 10. So that’s cuttin’ it SO close. Late eating disrupts the circadian rhythm. It spikes cortisol right before bed. It interferes with the hormone shifts that happen at night when we’re supposed to be winding down. Make a 5 pm dinner reservation and I’m happy. It’s not preference—it’s endocrinology.

4. When hotels have a “signature scent.” This one really triggers me. Because fragrances contains phthalates, which are xenoestrogens. They mimic estrogen in the body. In perimenopause estrogen is already fluctuating, progesterone is plummeting, and the poor endocrine system is desperately trying to find balance. So all of that phthalate-laden fragrance is literally throwing off my (and literally everyone else’s) hormone receptors. I’m not overreacting about the smell…and honestly, everyone should be horrified too, IMO.

5. “Plant-based” protein. Eww, no. Most of it is made of pea protein isolate held together with seed oils and gums. It’s processed, inflammatory, and nutritionally incomplete compared to actual protein. My body knows the difference. I feel the inflammation after I eat it.

These things bother me. And they’re not irrational.

How I’ve Been Staying Balanced

I just started noticing patterns when I became more tuned-in.

Blood sugar-stability matters so much. Proper meals (not snacks) with protein, fat, and fiber keep me stable and help minimize 3 am wake ups (or at least not as many).

My supplement protocol matters. Magnesium glycinate, B vitamins, creatine, pregnenolone, bioidentical progesterone. My entire system functions better when I support it intentionally and consistently.

Gut health matters more now. When my digestion is “off”, everything gets worse. My hormones can’t detoxify properly. My immune system stays activated. My nervous system stays dysregulated.

My bedtime routine matters. Late meals, late caffeine, alcohol—all of it disrupts my circadian rhythm and my cortisol pattern, which makes my progesterone problem worse.

It’s all about working WITH my current physiology.

What I’m Not Saying

I’m not saying I’ve figured it all out. I’m still waking up at 3 am sometimes. I still feel annoyed about things that probably don’t warrant annoyance.

But here’s the difference: now I understand why it’s happening. And once you understand it, you can actually address it instead of just pushing through.

This is perimenopause. The body is asking for something different.

So I’m listening. Are you?

I was listening to Kacey Musgraves’ new album Middle of Nowhere and had one of those deeply specific midlife revelations that only happens when you’re doing something mundane like making matcha, folding laundry, or staring in the mirror wondering if your face looks saggy just because of lighting or because of perimenopause-related estrogen loss.

The album is gorgeous. It’s my kind of “smart + cool” country. It’s witty. It’s lonely. It’s a little dusty. It has the energy of a woman who has been through some things, looked around, and said, “Well, I guess this is where I am now.”

Relatable.

And then it hit me: this album is basically perimenopause if perimenopause wore a hat & boots.

So, for today’s very scientific and deeply personal analysis, I present:

My perimenopause symptoms as Kacey Musgraves songs.

Dry Spell = The Great Drying Out

Let’s start with the obvious.

Dry skin. Dry eyes. Dry mouth. Dry vagina. Dry + itchy everything.

There comes a point in midlife when your body starts behaving like it has been left in the desert without electrolytes, hyaluronic acid, moisturizer, or a coherent hormonal strategy.

And yes, declining estrogen can absolutely play a role here. Estrogen keeps things looking tight + firm, and helps support skin hydration, collagen, vaginal tissue integrity, and mucous membranes to help us stay juicy. So when levels start fluctuating and eventually declining, many women begin to notice they feel less “dewy goddess” and more “vintage leather handbag.”

Chic, maybe. Comfortable, no.

This is where I become deeply annoying about hydration, minerals, healthy fats, protein, blood sugar balance, and not pretending vaginal dryness is just something we’re supposed to deal with forever (BTW, THIS is my fave sexy lube at the moment).

Because a dry spell is one thing.

Feeling like your body has become a reclaimed wood table is another.

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Uncertain, TX = Brain Fog, Indecision, and Walking Into Rooms for No Reason

There is a very specific perimenopause brain fog that makes you question your entire identity.

You’re not exactly dumb. You’re just…buffering more often than you’d like.

You open your phone to do something specific and 20 minutes later you have purchased something random from Revolve instead of looking up the recipe for protein-crust pizza. You walk into the kitchen and stand there waiting for the reason to come to you (hot tip: walk out and walk back in). You start a sentence with full confidence and then watch the thought evaporate into the atmosphere.

And then there’s the indecision.

What do I want for dinner?
What am I doing with my life?
Do I need a hormone panel, a vacation, a nap, or a new personality?

This is where Uncertain, TX feels spiritually correct.

Because sometimes perimenopause is not a dramatic breakdown. Sometimes it’s just standing in the middle of your own life, mildly confused, wondering why your brain has been replaced by a fog machine at a community theater production.

Through my functional nutrition lens, this is where I add in daily supports like Lion’s Mane mushrooms and minimize alcohol. I’m also thinking about how to use foods like raw carrot salads for estrogen detox, phytoestrogens to support estrogen dips, bioidentical progesterone to replenish declining levels, nourishing my body with food to keep my blood sugar stable, prioritizing sleep like it’s my job, minimizing stress, eating fermented foods to support my microbiome, and taking enzymes and betaine HCl with meals to support my digestion.

So yes, maybe I’m “uncertain.”

But I’m not broken.

My biology is just giving mixed signals in a Texas accent.

Horses and Divorces = “We Both Like to Drink,” Except Now Wine Betrays Me

I love a little wine moment.

I love the ritual. The thin-rimmed, delicate glass. The taste. The “I’m fun and bougie” feeling that arrives halfway through a crisp Sancerre.

But perimenopause has made alcohol less of a cute personality accessory and more of a physiological betrayal.

I can have one or two glasses and feel like I’m living. Then at 3:17 a.m., I am wide awake, hot, dehydrated, mildly anxious, and reviewing everything I have ever said out loud since 2009.

Alcohol can mess with sleep architecture, blood sugar, cortisol, body temperature regulation, and liver detox pathways. And in perimenopause, when hormones are already doing interpretive dance, that glass of wine hits different.

This does not mean I have become a joyless wellness robot.

Could NEVER be me.

It means I have become a woman who knows that “drinking smarter” is not just a brand concept. It is a survival strategy. (BTW, I share all of my best “drink smarter” tips in Wellness for Winos—a mini-course you can binge in an hour or 2).

Protein before wine. Electrolytes. B vitamins. Minerals. Liver support. Activated Charcoal. Not drinking on an empty stomach. Knowing when the vibe is worth it and when it’s just going to steal tomorrow from me.

Because yes, Kacey, we both like to drink.

But my sleep is now a delicate hostage negotiation.

Rhinestoned = Cannabis, CBD, and the Midlife Nervous System

I know not everyone includes cannabis as part of the a wellness conversation, but I grew up with hippie parents, have gone to see Phish a few times, secretely love reggae, and live in Los Angeles where you can go chill at The Woods in WeHo for fun…so I’m not here to lie to you.

There are moments when a mellow cannabis strain feels like the emotional equivalent of taking off tight jeans.

Not to escape my life. Not to numb out. But to soften the edges and add a touch of whimsy when my nervous system is…bajiggity.

And CBD + CBN? For me, it is a helpful part of my insomnia toolkit, especially when my issue is less “I’m not tired” and more “my body forgot how to land the plane.”

That said, I’m not casual about this. Cannabis and CBD are not magic, and they’re not for everyone. They can affect people differently, and quality, strain, dose, timing, and personal tolerance matter.

But as a midlife woman who understands that anxiety, irritability, and sleep disruption can all intensify when progesterone starts declining, I’m also not going to pretend the endocannabinoid system doesn’t exist.

Sometimes the goal is not to be a perfectly optimized wellness machine.

Sometimes the goal is to be rhinestoned enough to stop spiraling about whether everyone secretly finds you annoying.

Middle of Nowhere = Moodiness and the Sacred Desire to Be Left Alone

There is a point in perimenopause where solitude becomes less of a preference and more of a medical necessity.

I love my people.

I also sometimes do not want anyone to perceive me, speak near me, ask me what we’re doing for dinner, breathe loudly, or stand in the doorway while I’m trying to regulate my entire hormonal existence.

This is not antisocial.

This is midlife discernment.

Moodiness gets such a bad reputation, but sometimes what we call moodiness is actually overstimulation, depletion, poor sleep, low progesterone, blood sugar crashes, burnout, and a nervous system that has been politely asking for quiet for years.

Then one day it stops asking politely.

Suddenly you’re in your own personal Middle of Nowhere, fantasizing about a cabin, a linen robe, an empty beach, and a life where no one needs anything from you for 48 uninterrupted hours.

And honestly?

That sounds medicinal.

Mexico Honey = Low Progesterone and the Craving for Sweet Relief

Mexico Honey feels warm, golden, soft, and a little bit intoxicating—which is exactly the energy many of us are trying to recreate when progesterone is tanking.

Progesterone is our calming, grounding hormone. It supports sleep, stress resilience, mood stability, and that general sense of “I’m emotionally stable, bring it on.”

When progesterone declines, many women feel more anxious, wired, irritable, sleepless, and less able to access softness.

So Mexico Honey becomes the fantasy.

Warmth. Ease. Sweetness. A little escape hatch from the edge.

This is also where cravings can come in. When your nervous system is depleted and your hormones are shifting, your body may start reaching for fast comfort: sugar, wine, scrolling, shopping, overcommitting, under-eating, whatever gets you through the moment.

No shame.

But also, maybe information.

From a functional perspective, low progesterone symptoms are a sign to support what little ovulation your body is still game for, bring down the stress load, keep blood sugar stable, bring in adaptogens to mellow adrenal function, eat more nutrient-dense foods, bring in Brazil nuts and nori sheets to support thyroid health, and make sure your body feels safe enough to produce hormones in the first place. (BTW, I cover all of this in Make Menopause Sexy!)

Because sometimes you don’t need more discipline.

Sometimes you need more nourishment, more rest, more minerals, more protein, more boundaries, and fewer people asking you “what’s wrong?” when the answer is, “I am 40-something and under-resourced.”

Final Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Perimenopause is weird because it can make you feel like a stranger inside your own body.

One day you’re fine.

The next day you’re dry, foggy, anxious, bloated, moody, exhausted, and Googling whether it’s normal to hate everyone after 4 p.m.

But I also think there is something oddly clarifying about this phase.

The things that used to “work” stop working.
The consequences get louder.
The body stops tolerating neglect and starts sending invoices.

And yes, that can be deeply annoying.

But it can also be an invitation.

To pay attention.
To learn your body.
To stop outsourcing your intuition to ChatGPT.
To build a lifestyle that actually supports the woman you are now, not the woman you were at 28.

So thank you, Kacey, for giving us the soundtrack.

And thank you, perimenopause, for making me emotionally unstable enough to turn it into content.

Welcome to the middle of nowhere.

Bring electrolytes (and progesterone).

Chelsea’s (seemingly) got it all.

Money. Real estate. A cute new boyfriend—or fuck buddy, I don’t know, I’m just surmising from her Instagram posts. A personal trainer. A propensity to smoke weed, ski topless, sip vodka, and give zero fucks. No kids.

The actual dream.

I, myself, am a childless, married cat lady of LA who also loves a good hybrid mini joint on occasion, so honestly…life doesn’t suck.

I take reformer Pilates classes. I know about pretty much all of the secret stairs in the city when I want a good booty-burner weekend coffee-walk. I have a husband I love, girlfriends I cherish, and a life I’m genuinely grateful for.

More money would be nice—ahem, real nice—but I’m not complaining.

Okay, fine. I do complain to my husband. But I’m trying to rein it in.

And let me be clear: this is not me sitting around waiting for my husband to make more money so I can live out my Chelsea Handler-adjacent fantasy. Working 1:1 with my functional nutrition clients is work. Writing online courses, weekly newsletters and posting to Instagram to market my business is work. Writing this Substack is work. All work I love, yes, but work nonetheless. The dream is that someday enough of you love reading this enough to become paid subscribers and contribute to my lofty, Chelsea-like goals.

LOL.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Mostly, I’m just grateful you’re here reading at all.

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But back to Chelsea.

The difference between how she seemingly lives her life and, well, how the other half lives really hit me last week when I had a friend visit who is also perimenopausal. She has two smallish children, a challenging relationship, and works as a school teacher.

We’ve been friends for so long that we love each other dearly, but the similarities between our lives keep getting narrower and narrower as we move through this life thing.

She leaves her job at the end of the day and goes home to parent.

I leave my job and decide what I want to binge-watch on TV.

She spends her money on kid things and concerts.

I spend mine on concerts, clothes, and shoes, which is a bad habit, but hey, I freaking love clothes.

I listen to podcasts while I weight-vest coffee walk in the morning.

She listens to music her kids also like on her way to school.

My husband and I cherish our time together and are still goofy about each other after almost 17 years of marriage.

She is…well, I’ll let her tell that story someday.

And while we both spend lots of time with girlfriends — thank gawd for girlfriends — the other commonalities of our lives feel fewer and farther between.

Which is not to say my life is better. Or easier in every single way. Or that I made the “right” choices and she made the “hard” ones.

It’s just to say: I am deeply grateful for the decisions I’ve made up until now.

And if I could go back and do it again, I would make the same decisions.

No kids. The same husband. The same fun little LA life. The same desire to build something of my own, even if it takes longer than I want and currently does not pay the electric bill (oof, the struggle is real).

I would still choose this life again.

But I also want to honor the fact that for many women, moving into perimenopause is not happening in some clean, spacious, soft-lit chapter of life where they can simply “prioritize themselves” and start taking magnesium.

For the majority of working women in their 40s, their mental health is being stretched beyond the breaking point by the unholy trinity of raising young children, caring for aging parents, and approaching perimenopause (aka “the sandwich years”)—all while still being expected to carry the majority of the household chores, the emotional labor, the family logistics, and their actual paid work.

It is the perfect storm for burnout.

And then, just for funsies, their hormones take them for a midlife rollercoaster-ride.

So while I can joke about Chelsea Handler being my new perimenopause role model, I also know that “give fewer fucks” hits very differently depending on what your life currently requires of you.

A lot women are kinda obligated to “give a fuck” because everyone around them depends on them.

Again, back to Chelsea, the current goddess of midlife in my eyes.

I don’t know if she experiences perimenopausal symptoms. I don’t know where she is in this transition, or if she’s in it at all. But I do know she probably has access to the best of the best when it comes to health guidance, hormone therapy, trainers, assistants, managers, and general life support.

I’m sure she has stressors. Of course she does.

But I also feel fairly confident that Chelsea and I would agree on one thing: that’s what cannabis is great for.

Wait, two things: not having kids makes midlife much easier.

More than anything, it’s her attitude that feels like the ideal way to sail through this weird-ass transition.

Giving fewer fucks.

Living life the way you actually want to live it.

Laughing more.

Making your own rules.

Not apologizing for your choices.

Letting midlife become less of a crisis and more of a permission slip.

So that’s my new perimenopause plan: channel Chelsea Handler.

Manifesting her vibes and sending them on out to you.

And if your life currently looks less like Chelsea’s and more like school drop-offs, aging parents, a job that drains you, a partner who doesn’t get it, and hormones that have suddenly gone feral—I’m sending you something too.

Permission to ask for more support.

Permission to lay on the couch.

Permission to set boundaries.

Permission to take the easy way out when you want to.

And, whenever possible, permission to give fewer fucks.

Perimenopause has been such a strange season…

Brain fog & forgetfulness. Anxiety & depression. Irritability that sometimes borders on rage. Crying over random shit. Sleep that always feels…like a total crapshoot.

PMS was hitting harder than it used to—but now I’ve got these really long cycles that are just plain weird to go through as someone who loves to track her period.

On paper, it’s just the normal, inevitable hormonal fluctuations and declines of perimenopause. And I know what’s happening…

..but when progesterone starts to drop relative to estrogen—as it does in perimenopause and beyond—your nervous system feels it. Your brain feels it. Your resilience feels it. And it feels strange.

Women are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression during this time, partly because of how sensitive our hormone control system (the HPA axis) is to stress.

Now layer in grief.

The day my dad died: 11/14/2023

It was one of those offensively beautiful Los Angeles mornings.

Sun out. Larchmont Village doing its thing.

I check my phone because my dad was in late-stage hospice due to him catching Valley Fever that eventually crossed the blood-brain barrier and turned into Fungal Meningitis. A voicemail from my Aunt Paula at 3:40am.

I listen.

“My dad died.” I say it out loud to Nate. Just like that.

And then…you move. Because what else is there to do?

I go for a ‘cry walk’ around my neighborhood.

Texting. Calling. Receiving love. Allowing all of the emotions to flow.

I spot an old Ford truck like the one he taught me to drive in. I had Hall & Oates radio playing in my headphones, because…well, my dad loved them when I was growing up.

A Batesville casket company truck randomly drives by. Of course it does.

My neighbor—wearing a sweatshirt that says “Sunrise”—also noticed it so we stop for a moment.

“Strange world, isn’t it?” he says.

“What about today is strange for you?” I ask.

“The war, politics…everything.” He pauses. “How about you?”

“My dad died today.”

And just like that, the conversation shifts. Human to human.

He hugs me. A stranger.

And it’s exactly what I needed.

Grief doesn’t look how you think it will

There’s this expectation that grief is loud with lots of crying and wearing black. Obvious. Debilitating to the person experiencing it.

But mine had (has?) been…quiet. Almost confusingly so.

I always feel calm on the outside. Functional. Productive. Happy.

And yet—I still experience bouts of sadness.

At first, it made me question myself:

Am I doing this whole ‘death of a parent’ thing wrong?

Am I missing something?

But we all know grief isn’t linear. And mine…it’s not performative. It’s just ever-present.

How I endured the “how are you holding up?” phase

We all know this one.

“I’m good.”

“I’m okay.”

“I’m…fine?”

Because what are you supposed to say?

My dad has moved on to another realm.

And I’m still here. Those are the facts.

So I always keep going. But I do feel “softer.”

And lately…it feels like it keeps happening

More people around me are crossing over lately.

Friends losing friends. Friends losing parents.

Unexpected—and expected—deaths.

And while it’s always sad—there’s also something undeniably beautiful about it:

It means I’ve known & loved a lot of people. And I’m surrounded by people who have, too.

That’s not nothing. That’s a life well-lived—and it’s that the whole point?

Some tools that held me together

I didn’t white-knuckle my way through this. I supported myself—intentionally.

Because grief + hormone shifts is not something you just “push through.”

Here’s what actually helped:

1. Meditation – Not perfectly. Not for an hour. But enough to come back to my body when my mind wanted to spiral.

2. St. John’s Wort – One of the most researched botanical options for mild to moderate depression. It works on neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine—similar pathways as antidepressants, but often with fewer side effects. It didn’t numb me. It steadied me (it still does). (Important: not to be combined with antidepressants! Also, this is not medical advice.)

   

3. Progesterone – This one is probably more helpful than most midlife women realize. Progesterone is our calming hormone. It supports GABA—the neurotransmitter that helps you feel safe, relaxed, able to sleep. When it begins to decline in our late 30s? Anxiety rises. Sleep suffers. Emotional resilience takes a hit. Replenishing progesterone helped me feel…held. From the inside out. [THIS is the bioidentical cream I personally use]

4. Boundaries – This was non-negotiable. Who I talked to. What I consumed. Where my energy went. Grief is not the time to overextend yourself. It’s the time to protect your nervous system like it’s your job.

A note on mood, minerals, and the body

There’s also a physiological side to all of this that gets overlooked.

Magnesium deficiency alone has been linked to depression, anxiety, irritability, sleep issues—even brain fog.

Add in stress, grief, hormone shifts…and your body burns through nutrients faster than you can replace them.

So yes—your mood is emotional. But it’s also biochemical.

And supporting both matters.

We still went to Mexico

Before my dad died, Nate had asked: “If something happens…are we still going to Troy and Marla’s wedding?”

“Yes,” I said.

And we did.

Two weeks later, I’m on a plane to Mexico City, then Puerto Vallarta.

There’s something about leaving—physically—that creates space.

Not to escape grief, but to move through it.

I did think about my dad constantly there.

The food. The culture. The pace.

He would’ve loved it.

And maybe that’s the point.

Final thought

Loss doesn’t stop.

If anything, it becomes more frequent as you move through life.

But so does your capacity to hold it.

To support yourself.

To stay open.

To not let it harden you.

I didn’t let this break me—even during this unpredictable hormonal phase.

Not because I’m strong in some superhuman way—but because I gave myself the tools, the space, and the permission to move through it…without losing myself in the process.

And if you’re in it right now—you don’t have to fall apart to prove that you care. I mean, fall apart if that’s what you’re feeling—but at some point…you also have to keep going.

After my last post, I got messages like “just another 297 days to go…” (thank you for the optimism, Aunt Leslie) and “I’m on day 100, I’m so ready for it to be over.”

And just when I thought I had cracked some kind of perimenopause code—like my lucky-ass friend Beth who casually shared her experience, “my period just stopped and never came back”—my body reset the clock.

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How I knew it was coming

I was feeling a little more…let’s call it intolerant for a couple days.

But honestly, it’s still so hard to tell what’s hormones and what’s just…the state of everything.

Then came the subtle cues:

• that twingey, almost twisting feeling around my ovaries

• the brownish spotting

• and then—confirmation

When I told my mom, she said, “yep, I remember that. Mine were always super light though. Also…use protection. You don’t want a change-of-life baby.”

Thanks, mom.

Wait—do I even have tampons?

With almost no warning…we’re back.

Perimenopause is random like that.

But it’s starting to feel less shocking and more like…

…ebb and flow.

…bob and weave.

You experience something that feels bizarre—and then the next time, you adjust.

Symptoms don’t rotate politely—they layer

Sleep gets hard. Then your stress tolerance drops. Your digestion slows. Your waistline thickens. Your mood...well, that stays moody.

Suddenly you’re bloated, tired, fluffy, and deeply annoyed by something objectively insignificant.

I’m still consistently supporting the unsexy things.

Magnesium at night—because my nervous system needs more help powering down than it used to.

Something adaptogenic for stress during the day, so I’m not running on edge.

Extra sleep support on the nights I feel wired but exhausted.

Probiotics + digestive support when my gut starts lagging (which…it does).

And blood sugar support—because…who wants to get fluffy? Couldn’t be me.

Nothing extreme.

Nothing dramatic.

Just reinforcing the systems that are now…more sensitive.

Again. And again.

Because perimenopause isn’t about control.

It’s about staying in conversation with your body—even when it changes the subject.

FYI, one of my fave high-quality supplement brands, BIOptimizers, has discounted most things I’m currently using when they’re bundled together (up to 20% off this week, if you’re timing it right—otherwise use code: SIDEBENEFITS to save)

→ Support Your Systems

I’m feeling pretty good, actually.

Suspiciously good.

Aside from the mini bout of rage I felt on Wednesday—which, in hindsight, could’ve just been the heat here in Los Angeles, the traffic, the President, and just…other people existing—you know, normal stuff.

Perimenopause or just being alive in 2026? Hard to say.

Oh, and one other thing that I know is perimenopause-related: nipple sensitivity. I’ve had breast soreness before my periods—I mean, we probably all have—but this is specific to the nipple.

No one really prepares you for the niche symptoms, so they kind of surprise you.

Here’s the non-sciency reality: my body is discovering a new normal as my ovaries have seemingly given up.

Or…let’s say they’ve quiet quit.

It hasn’t been long enough to know if they’ve fully called it for the entire 12-month stretch that qualifies as menopause—but for now, they’re resting. Hormones are still floating around, just nowhere near the levels or rhythms my body has known throughout my reproductive years.

So, this is my current baseline.

Not dramatic. Just…different.

As for how I’m taking care of myself, here’s where I’m at:

Worshipping my sleep — this starts in the morning with getting early sunlight in my eyes (no, I’m not staring at the sun), dimming lights in the evening, sipping herbal tea with glycine + taurine + magnesium glycinate, myo-inositol, oral progesterone, and then tucking myself in by 10 pm.

Because at this stage, sleep isn’t optional—it’s strategy.

Moving my body, daily — I do reformer Pilates 5x per week and hike or do stairs on the weekends.

Nothing extreme. Just consistent.

Eating clean, balanced meals — I prepare the majority of my food at home.

Boring? Maybe. Effective? Always.

I’ve also added more complex carbs — don’t get me wrong, 80% of the time I eat lower-carb meals because that’s what helps me stay lean—but lately, I’ve been adding in things like jasmine rice and sweet potatoes with dinner to help my body feel safe while I sleep.

Because apparently, my metabolism now requires emotional support.

Let me get sciency for a second — those hot flashes I wrote about in my last post are closely tied to cortisol. When the body feels hungry overnight, cortisol gets released to signal the liver to release glucose into the bloodstream. Then insulin comes in to “unlock” the cells so they can use that glucose. [BTW, if you’re into the science of it all, you’d love the course I created, Make Menopause Sexy.]

Insulin is also our primary fat storage hormone—and we really don’t want a surge of it while we’re sleeping, because it signals the body to store fat.

So by eating a bit more complex carbs—especially at night—I’m helping my body feel safe and reducing the likelihood of that overnight cortisol + insulin cascade.

Translation: fewer 3 a.m. wake-ups, fewer hot flashes, less metabolic chaos.

Wanna know what else is helping me feel safe and stay chill?

200 mg of oral progesterone.

Game. Changer.

LONG STORY SHORT

Adding in those complex carbs is helping me stay lean and avoid hot flashes overnight…

Will this change again next month?

Maybe.

That’s the whole game right now—adjust, observe, repeat.

Stay tuned.

Amen.