As we turn the corner and head full speed at the holiday season, many menopausal women have an additional burden to carry along with their never-ending quest to make the season bright and cheery. They have to fight their own body’s attempt at sabotage.

The dreaded scale

By now some of you have already surmised where I’m going with this. As a fairly typical menopausal woman I recently had a saliva test to measure my cortisol level and the function of my adrenal glands. Guess what? They were through the floorboards and I was told I needed to start taking steroids to jump start them.

The problem was I’d been trying to lose some weight. It had been a slow process but it had been working. Once I started the steroids, the weight loss stopped.

Then I went to my GP and he decided it was imperative I drop a few pounds. He wants to see me in January. This is NOT a recipe for success! I think he does it on purpose so it will ruin my entire holiday season – which for me includes my birthday and my anniversary.

Unfortunately for menopausal women everywhere – I don’t think my story is rare. I am left with a choice: ruin my entire holiday season and shun holiday festivities in order to diet drastically or sacrifice my health. Is there no happy medium?