You have not yet begun to fight!

After finally purging your home and office of Halloween candy, and perhaps cleansing your body of the excess sugar, you now have to face the biggest food fest since summer. Oh, yes...just when you thought it was safe to come out to play, you are hit with yet another food-focused holiday!  The festivities are about to begin, and with it the temptation to gobble up all of the Thanksgiving specialties, but we have not yet begun to fight!  Don't panic!  You do not have to be a sitting duck on Thanksgiving. You can protect yourself, and I'm going to give you some tips to get you through what I call round two of the holiday season!

To put it in perspective, this is only one meal.  One meal!  You have lived through many meals and done fabulously many times in the past, right?  So, what makes this one different?  Is it that you're planning, one week in advance, to overeat?  Have you already given yourself permission to do so? Have you formed your oh-so-rational excuses in preparation for the big day? Well, think about it for a moment more. If you are still in the process of losing weight, this is a critical day. If you are expecting to throw in the towel and go for the goodies with the plan of then simply pulling it all together right after the big meal, you must remember that the pulling-it-all-together part is usually done only in your head: it almost never happens in reality.  For those who are on a good maintenance path, this holiday should not prove to be a big deal because you have learned to be moderate in your eating, and you have come up with a good plan to get you through the day.  If not, allow me to offer some help.

First of all, there is still one solid week until the Big Bird Takes America.  You have seven days to prepare yourself so that on Thanksgiving day, the bird, not you, will be the only thing stuffed!  Use these days to get into peak shape for Thursday's championship round! Keep in mind that whatever might have happened in round one is already done, but now you are focused on the prize.  Dedicate yourself to a week of eating like it's your job! Plan those training days, and don't forget to work on your fight-day strategy.  Remember that you do not gain weight because you had one bad meal, just as you do not lose weight because you had a nice salad for lunch.  It is what you do consistently that counts.  The week leading up to the big day will determine who will be the last (wo)man standing. 

Okay, so let's get down to strategies. Start your day, as you would any other, with a decent breakfast.  Then, it might help to think about lunch and dinner as a combination one-two punch. In essence, today you are going to have one meal and a snack.  But first, let me remind you to be particularly careful if you are cooking, and make sure you do not pick your way to a full dinner before you sit down with your guests! All chefs should be sure to have appropriate food and drink available to keep  hands and mouth busy. Keep a cup of tea ready, or if alcohol is on the menu, stick to white wine spritzers, and start those as late as possibly.  Prepare some crudités: a little crunch-veggies and hummus, perhaps-will satisfy your taste buds and allow you to feel that you are partaking in the festivities.  Please, stay away from salty foods; these will have you down for the count faster than anything else! 

If you are a guest, everything is much easier. Offer to bring something that you can enjoy while waiting for the meal to be served. If you can, sustain yourself with  light beer, white wine spritzers, or even water or tea.  Here's the thing: no matter what, don't just rely on the fact that you made the decision to remain strong  throughout the day. Be proactive and make sure there are foods available that you can safely enjoy. If you don't, you might be sucker punched and  come to only to  find yourself halfway through a pumpkin pie-a definite TKO!

As a rule, when sitting down for a multi-course meal, remember my rule: talk more; eat less, and before you know it, the table is being cleared and nobody is offering to wrap your leftovers!  If you are chef for the day, make sure that you actually sit yourself down and eat a proper meal.  You must eat with your guests so you don't feel deprived and then overeat later on when everyone has gone home.  Also, plan your menu so that you serve plenty of your favorite veggies. Along with some turkey, the veggies will fill you up and make it a meal that you will thoroughly enjoy.

After the meal it gets a little tricky since everyone is waiting for the decadent array of desserts that will be paraded before your adoring eyes.  If you can, try to pass, although I realize this might be pie-in-the-sky thinking.  If you are the hostess, certainly plan to provide yourself and your guests with a healthy dessert. A beautiful fruit salad might get you through the dessert course.  Or, perhaps, a cup of tea will suffice?   If you are a guest, plan to bring a healthy dessert that you and others on your path might enjoy.  Try to hang in there; if necessary, excuse yourself and hide in the bathroom for a few minutes of deep breathing.  If you decide to have a small portion of dessert, be sure you can handle it! Select one item and have a small piece. Eat it slowly and enjoy every single bite and then stop. 

To be honest, the majority of my clients make it through Thanksgiving pretty well. It's the week after, with all the leftovers, that tends to feel like another ten rounds in the ring.  So, let's talk about the leftovers!  Here is what you need to do:  purchase a lot of plastic containers that you will fill with food and distribute as door prizes. Pick up enough disposable plastic to make sure you can give everyone leaving your home some sort of care package. Be especially vigilant about getting rid of anything you have been eyeing all day long: that stuff goes first.  You can keep some veggies and a little bit of turkey, but all the desserts need to go along with anything else that is heavier and tempting-especially whatever your mind is starting to focus on as you sit reading these words-I know how you think, people! Whatever you're thinking about right now really must go!

If you are a guest, you will obviously step away from the Tupperware!  I know it might look rude, but you can easily say, "Oh, thank you so much, but that was so good I would be too tempted!" This will usually take care of the problem.  Obviously, if you don't have any unhealthy leftovers in the fridge, you can't binge later on that evening, or any other time in the near future! 

Try to remember that nothing you will be offered on Thanksgiving day will  taste as good as  victory.  Nothing!  If you need more encouragement, go to  The Morning After and really think about what you read there. 

So, best of luck, and have a great Thanksgiving!!  At the risk of sounding terribly corny, I hope that when Friday rolls around you can be thankful that Thanksgiving didn't cook your goose!

that it is far harder to lose weight during your menopausal years? I am sad to announce this very true fact, but...there is some hope.  There is a lot you can do to stop menopausal symptoms and help yourself work your way down to a comfortable weight.  It doesn't have to be that bad; in fact, it can be pretty good if you can turn some things around, or even better yet, if you can catch it before it really gets going.   For years I have worked with women in their 40s and early 50s who were dealing with weight loss while going through menopause and perimenopause. It can make an already difficult weight loss process even more challenging, mentally, emotionally and physically.

Now, here is a secret-please just keep it between us-I am also very perimenopausal! At first I thought, "Oh no!"  But now after dealing with hot flashes and night sweats and emotional ups and downs and cycle changes and the worst symptom of all...water retention, I have decided that this is a good thing. It means the end of a very long period (!) of time that I no longer have to deal think about.   But then come the myths and fears of growing older, hairier, thicker, drying up, and just becoming so much less becoming!  It's all so bittersweet, to say the least, unless you know what to do. For that reason I am proud to be counted as one of the many fine women who have lived through thirty to forty years of menstruation and bloating and birthing children!  The challenge now is to be able to look at myself as a full grown and mature (not matronly) woman. 

Any of you men reading this might find that it will help you help your gal, or at the very least understand in a distant kind of way that this is not a scary thing at all; it is, in actuality, a blessing. "Ha!" you say?  Well, read on!

First of all, let's talk turkey: menopause is not a disease. I know you know this, but many of you keep it a secret, as if it is something worse than death.  It isn't; and you should be proud of what you have lived through and elated about what is yet to come. 

First of all, you might like to learn that there are no menopausal symptoms. Yes, I have had the stereotypical hot flashes, among many other lovely symptoms, and I have lived through my mother's symptoms. In fact, let me tell you a story that scared me for most of my adult life, thinking that as her daughter, I might be doomed to the same plight!

My mother moved in with me when I was in my early 20's, and her Great Dane, Dustin, came with the package.  Dustin was a little off, so the oddity of this tale is not entirely my mother's doing.  My mother was 45, and menopause hit her like most of us wished it would: one day she was menstruating and the next she wasn't.  She did not believe in hormone replacement, thankfully, so after first making sure she was not pregnant, she realized that she must have crossed over into the land of the lost, since it is a place we all go but few actually talk about. I knew that she was suffering from night sweats, day sweats, water retention, and bone achiness.  But one night something happened that I had not heard discussed anywhere, and the event haunted me for years as I wondered if I might be next. 

One evening in the middle of the winter, after we were well off to sleep, I woke to a very curious sound.  It was a growling, ripping, kind of noise.  I thought, "Hmm, that's odd." I slowly got out of bed and tiptoed to my door and listened some more. Yep...growling and ripping.  Opening my door, it was clear that the sounds were coming from my mother's bedroom.  I very slowly opened the door and peeked in.  It took me a moment to fully understand what I was looking at.  My mother, suffering from night sweats, had left the window open and the winter storm was blowing a horizontal wall of snow into the room! I then scanned to the bed where my mother was lying in a red negligee that happened to be soaked through. The covers were completely kicked off and she was lying on her back, splayed, hair soaking and oblivious!  Odd as this was, there was still that growling, ripping sound to explain.  That, I saw was Dustin. He had taken hold of the mattress corner and had pulled it halfway across the box spring, tearing the corner of the mattress in the process.  This image of my mother, drenched in her own sweat, cooling off on a precariously balanced mattress with measurable drifting snow accumulating around her was surreal, to say the least.  What to do?  Knowing my mother and how deeply she sleeps, and knowing Dustin as well, I decided to very slowly close the door and try very hard never to reflect upon that evening again!  To no avail!  It has loomed in my consciousness for over 20 years that one day I might be sublimely unconscious as my night-sweat ravaged body is assailed by a Nor'easter while my neurotic dog mauls the very mattress on which I am splayed to the horror of one-or all-of my sons! 

I am happy to say, that it does not have to be that way!  You do not have to bloat and gain 20 additional pounds, and you don't have to get weak and feeble, and you don't have to dry out and  shrivel up, and the snow does not have to fall in drifts on your Posturpedic. This doesn't have to be a big deal. It might not be easy at first, but it is possible!

In all the animal kingdom, humans seem to be the only species to go through menopause. I find this odd.  Why only us?  Why don't we see our dogs suffering every three months from bloating and cramping; and why aren't they just a little bitchier than usual?  Why don't they get to a certain age and lie around drenched in their own sweat?  Why are we the only ones?  Well, I think it is totally self-induced.  Actually, if it weren't for the fact that we are exhausted, and we work too hard, consume too much fat and caffeine and don't get enough sleep, to name a few culprits, this wouldn't be a problem; it would be here one day and gone the next.  But we are driving ourselves into both early menopause and more problematic menopausal symptoms.  Our terrible eating habits and lifestyles are taxing our adrenals, and this is affecting us hormonally, thus creating an earlier onset of menopause, as well as more severe symptoms. 

Here is another thing:  sugar will increase your hot flashes and night sweats, if not create them completely!  So if you are suffering from either one, stop eating sugary foods and drinks and they will subside dramatically, if not stop all together.

And as far as the drying up thing, you need to accept that we are all drying up! From the day we are born, we begin losing our moisture and must do something to compensate for this fact.  Start drinking more water-a lot more water! And start taking flaxseed pills. Begin with two and slowly increase until you see a difference in your skin, your bowels, your hair and nails, as well.  Everything should feel smoothly lubricated.  If you are suffering from vaginal dryness, don't be embarrassed, just go out and get some lubricants; it's no big deal, we are all getting older-our partners, as well-so we all might need a little extra help; it's normal and there are easy fixes.

Now for the big one, the idea that going through menopause weakens your bones, leaving you fragile and brittle.  I don't know what has happened to us as a society, honestly!  I remember back when my great grandmother was alive, strong and powerful-my grandmother, too, and my mother today!  These women have all eaten well and worked hard.  They took care of themselves and none of them had hormone replacement therapy. Somehow they all survived, and none of them had any issues with fragile bones, ever!  If you read my "Did You Know" piece entitled "Got Osteoporosis?" you know that I believe the real cause of thinning and fragile bones is not menopause.  Women before us lived long, hardy and healthy lives, but they ate well, exercised moderately, stayed active, and didn't eat foods that depleted heir calcium!  Again, click on the link above to see what I am talking about.

Lastly...I hate to say it, but it absolutely is much harder to lose weight while going through menopause.  Not impossible, but harder.  Here is the reason: water retention! Simple, yet not so simple to rectify.  I believe that the body has to protect itself from the amount of water lost through hot flashes. What else can it do but store some additional water, just in case.  And when our body feels bloated, it will tend to gain weight faster, even if you are eating pretty well because the feeling of fullness from the bloating sends your body the signal that there is extra to be stored.  How to combat this?  Be diligent! Continue to drink a good amount of water every day, making sure to stay away from additional salt and salty foods.  Also, try to break a sweat as often as possible.  This shouldn't be that hard if you are holding onto a lot of water. A little cardio will do it. Perhaps a sauna, although the exercise would help more with feeling good and overall weight loss, but if you can't get yourself up and sweating, then try to break a sweat in some dry heat.  Whatever you choose doesn't really matter; just try to enjoy it and sweat! 

So ladies, try to remember that this is not a disease!  We are not sick!  It is not a sentence to a life of bloating and sweating! Even though it is odd that at a time when you are overall moister than ever before, you are simultaneously drying up just as quickly!  Hydrate! Lubricate! Don't be ashamed! Embrace it, and thank your lucky stars that the days of menstruating and child birthing are behind you!  Yea Menopause!