The Happy Menopause – Details, episodes & analysis

You know when it’s coming don’t you? That time of the month, when people start to tiptoe around you and discretion is definitely the better part of valour amongst your loved ones. Woe betide the fool that dares to suggest you’re a little hormonal – especially if it’s a man! Yep, I’m talking about PMS, premenstrual syndrome, which is the focus of this month’s episode 

PMS can make life miserable, and it can affect different women in different ways, because the symptoms can include irritability, low mood, sheer rage, headaches, bloating, back pain, sore breasts, skin breakouts, anxiety, IBS and poor sleep. We women really lucked out, didn’t we?

 This episode explores:

-       What PMS is and why it happens

-       What’s going on with your cycle

-       The role of progesterone in PMS

-       PMS or PMDD?

-       Factors that influence hormone balance

-       The role of nutrition in managing PMS

-       Specific foods to focus on, and what to avoid

It’s time to stop putting up and shutting up! This is your opportunity to make a material difference to something that might have been affecting you for years. 

If you enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause.

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Do you ever wonder what you came upstairs for, forget where you’ve parked the car or find yourself grappling for the right word that just won’t come? These are all common concerns for women in midlife because brain fog is one of the classic symptoms of perimenopause and menopause.

In my latest Best Bit to celebrate half a million downloads for The Happy Menopause podcast, I’m focusing on brain fog because all that hormonal turmoil plays havoc with the oestrogen receptors in your brain. 

The resulting forgetfulness, poor concentration and focus, plus a general sense of your brain not firing on all cylinders can be incredibly disconcerting. I’ve come across many women in my nutrition clinic who were genuinely worried about early onset Alzheimer’s when it was actually all about the hormones. 

 So I’m diving back to Season 2, where we get to the bottom of brain fog with the delightful Dr Sabina Brennan. She’s a chartered health psychologist, neuroscientist and host of the Super Brain podcast, so brains are very much her business! Her book Beating Brain Fog is a wonderful read, with lots of practical strategies to support and tune up your brain. 

Tune in to hear just some of what she’s got to say about this tricky subject and for the full episode scoot back to Season 2, Episode 16, where there’s a whole load more advice for you that I couldn’t squeeze into this taster. Enjoy!

If you’re a fan of The Happy Menopause, please tell your friends and family, and do give it a 5-star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on. It makes a huge difference to the algorithms which influence the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. Because every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

This is the first of a series of Best Bits to celebrate the amazing milestone of 500,000 downloads. Huge thanks to all of you for making this possible by listening!

Looking back over the past 5 seasons, there are so many great moments of advice, insight and inspiration from my brilliant guests that it’s hard to choose, but I’ve decided to start with some fascinating extracts from my interview with Dr Catherine Walter. 

Catherine is an Emeritus Fellow in Applied Linguistics at Oxford University, but she’s also a world-record-holding powerlifter, who took up the sport at the age of 65 and hasn’t looked back since. As you’ll see from these extracts, her story is incredibly inspiring and it’s a real example to any woman who wants to take control of her own health and wellbeing.

Tune in to find out about the ins and outs of powerlifting:- what it actually is; how to get started; how it can help your bones; and why it can make such a difference to your health in ways that reach far beyond strength and stamina, helping you become a whole new woman. 

If you’re inspired by these Best Bits, you can find the full episode in Season 3, Episode 6 where you can hear Catherine’s fascinating story and her excellent advice on strength training. 

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

In this episode, we talk about vaginas, vulvas, sex and sex toys, because we can! As young people we all tend to assume that older people don’t have sex, but we midlife women know better, don’t we? It may be more complicated for us, for a variety of reasons, but women in mid and later life are still sexual beings and we have every right to enjoy our intimate life just as much as we did when we were younger. 

But we all know that there can be obstacles to this, such as dryness, pain, recurrent infections and loss of libido, so my guest today is here to help with all that, because there’s nothing she doesn’t know about how to manage all these pesky issues that get in the way of a happy and fulfilling sex life. 

My guest in this episode is the brilliant Samantha Evans.  She has a background in nursing, so she knows all the nitty gritty about our intimate areas and she’s the founder of Jo Divine, an online sex toy company designed to support people to enjoy sexual intimacy and pleasure by using skin-safe products and irritant-free lubricants and moisturisers. We discuss everything from how to manage UTIs and thrush to why and how to use a sex toy to maximise your pleasure. 

What I love about Sam is that she completely normalises what is a sensitive subject for many of us, and she’s so practical and supportive with her advice. Nothing is off the table with her and it’s a wild ride of a conversation, so get your notebooks ready, buckle in and tune in to hear what she’s got to say!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, remember to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

It’s that time of year when a fresh start seems very appealing so you’ve probably already started thinking about changes you might want to make to your life. I’m not a big fan of the radical detox, because it’s not sustainable and your body won’t really enjoy it or benefit from it in the longterm. On the other hand, simple and consistent changes can make a world of difference to your health and wellbeing and my guest for this episode is just the woman we need to help us create a beautiful midlife for ourselves. 

I’m delighted that Tania Dalton is joining me today, as she’s the most brilliantly positive person. She found herself ill-equipped to manage her own menopause transition and took action to educate herself in the different ways she could begin to thrive through midlife and beyond. She went on to found Beautiful Midlife, an expert health coaching business which empowers women to make small changes to transform their health, increase their confidence and thrive through this stage of life. She’s full of practical advice and wisdom, so let’s hear what she’s got to say. 

We discuss Tania’s MELT method – Move Beautiful, Eat Beautiful. Live Beautiful and Think Beautiful and she shares some fantastic advice on how to build these four pillars of her Beautiful Midlife approach. Chatting to Tania was a delight, as she’s just the breath of fresh air that we need to start the year feeling positive and inspired. Tune in for a real treat this January!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas isn’t it? Of course, that’s not always a good thing if you’re the one organising it and feeling a bit overwhelmed at this point. But even if you absolutely love Christmas (and I have to confess that I do!), there can be a slight sense of dread about the impact it can have on your health and wellbeing, and especially your waistline, with all those extra goodies and social events going on. 

So I’ve decided to have a bit of fun with a Christmas special episode, because I’ve devised a festive nutrition quiz to test your knowledge and to give you some handy tips and tricks to help avoid some of the health traps that line the holiday season. 

Tune in to test your knowledge and to pick up some festive foodie tips along the way: discover the best hangover relieving breakfast; which Christmas classic treat contains the least sugar; which popular snack is highest in salt; which cheese is the lowest in saturated fat, plus lots more handy yuletide info. You’ll even find out the best snack to leave out for Santa, so he completes his rounds in good time. 
 
 Give yourself a Christmas treat and see how well you can score!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. Thanks so much for listening

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Blood sugar balance seems to be very much in vogue at the moment, so I’ve decided to dedicate this episode to talking through it, because I think there’s quite a lot of confusion around it. 

As a nutritionist, I really believe it’s one of the key pillars to managing menopause symptoms and Nutrition 101 if you want to apply a dietary approach to your health and wellbeing during the menopause. 

But it’s important not to overcomplicate things – if you get the basics of your macronutrients right, everything else will pretty much fall into place and your blood sugar will sort itself out without any help from expensive constant glucose monitoring attachments.

In this episode I talk through:

- the biochemistry of blood sugar, so you understand what’s going on in the body and the internal (and quite natural) reactions that occur when you eat (or don’t eat). 

- how blood sugar balance helps to regulate menopause symptoms by supporting the body’s plan B for producing oestrogen post-menopause

- how to achieve the correct balance of macros to support blood sugar balance

- specific suggestions for breakfast, lunch and dinner, including portion advice 

- the role of blood sugar management in regulating stress hormones

- why wearing a constant glucose monitor may not be right for you

- how the body maintains a natural state of balance known as homeostasis 

The episode is packed with practical, evidence-based advice, which is also based on my clinical experience, so tune in for everything you need to know about blood sugar balance. 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause!

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

Do you ever feel invisible? Perhaps you struggle to get your voice heard. If so, you’re not alone, because this is something that most women have experienced at some point, especially as we move into midlife and menopause. But it’s not something we should put up with, because it’s not right and because, let’s face it, middle aged men don’t experience the same problem, do they? 

I’ve invited Dr Vanessa Collingridge to join me for this episode. I first met her at the Menopause Festival in Edinburgh, where were both speaking and I was intrigued by the title of her workshop  - The Revenge of the Invisible Woman. She struck me as just the woman we need to help us deal with this eternal problem!

Vanessa is a woman with a fascinating history and I really needed a lot longer to talk to her! She’s a broadcaster, author and impact coach, who has researched and presented award-winning history documentaries; is the author of several books and she’s a communications expert too. As an impact coach, she has a passion for developing female talent and helping women find their voice and shares loads of practical advice. 

We discuss the reasons why women feel invisible and why it can be so hard to get your voice heard at any age, but especially during midlife and menopause. Vanessa is full of practical advice about how to get yourself noticed and make your mark in work or social situations, and how to help your loved ones remember that you’re there, so that you’re not taken for granted. 

This episode is a mini masterclass in how to regain your confidence and get the recognition and appreciation you deserve!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now. 

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

On World Menopause day it seems very fitting to look at the menopause from a historical angle and link it to women’s experience today. It hasn’t been an easy ride for middle-aged women over the centuries.  We’ve proven to be quite a mystery to the medical community, which has led to some unusual, hilarious and often very distressing assumptions about what’s going on with the female body. 

To help us unravel all this, I’m joined by oral historian Dr Helen Foster of the East Midlands Oral History Archive at the University of Leicester. As well as being an expert around menopausal themes throughout history, she’s also developed the Silent Archive, working with a group of volunteers to record women’s stories of menopause through interviews, personal audio diaries and conversations. I first heard her give a talk about The Bloody History of Menopause last year at The Old Operating Theatre Museum in London, and I was fascinated so I just had to snap her up for the podcast!

Helen takes us through the history of menopause, explaining the confusion and superstition about menstrual blood that built up over the centuries – did you know that we could turn milk sour and cause all manner of other domestic upheaval during our period? 

We talk about vilification of post-menopausal women who didn’t fit into the norm, which led to many of the witchcraft trials in the 16th century and women being shut up in asylums in later centuries. She also explains the utterly bizarre medical theory of the “wandering womb” which could apparently cause a whole host of mental and physical health issues! 

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.

The theme for this year’s World Menopause Day is cardiovascular disease. You may wonder what that’s got to do with the menopause, so here’s the thing: once you come through the menopause, your body will adjust to the new hormonal version of you and for the most part your symptoms will settle down, just like they did after puberty. But there are one or two key areas that you need to continue to focus on in the long-term – bone health is one, as I’m sure you’re aware. Heart health is another, which is why we’re shining a spotlight on it this year. 

It may surprise you to know that cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death amongst women, so it’s much more common than you might think, and your heart definitely deserves your full attention. I come across cardiovascular conditions quite a lot in my menopause nutrition clinic, so I’ve decided to dedicate this episode to sharing a range of diet and lifestyle approaches to support a healthy heart. 

I explain blood pressure and cholesterol, so you know what role they play in the body and how they can impact your cardiovascular health, and I talk you through the different parameters, so that you can understand the basics of any test results. 

Tune in to find out which foods to focus on to maintain a healthy blood pressure and to regulate your cholesterol levels and what you need to avoid or limit to keep on track. I also talk you through the heart healthy diets with the most research, so you can start to tweak your shopping list and meal planning to keep yourself on track. 

This episode is full of all my best foodie tips to help you show your heart some love!

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode and please give it 5 star rating and a short review on Apple podcasts, or whichever platform you listen on, I’d be so grateful. And do tell your friends and family about it too. It really does make a huge difference to the visibility of the podcast, so that more women can find the show. After all, every woman deserves to have a happy menopause. 

🎉 Win a free 1-hour menopause nutrition consultation with Jackie!
Pre-order The Happy Menopause Guide to Energy and enter the prize draw.
👉 Click here to choose your retailer and upload your proof of purchase or visit my Instagram @wellwellwelluk for the link.

Check out the full Show Notes for this episode on my website www.well-well-well.co.uk/podcast, where you'll find all the relevant links and references for each guest.

For ad-free listening, bonus episodes, a monthly live nutrition Q&A and a whole host of other exclusive content, join The Happy Menopause Club at TheHappyMenopause.com for just £6 per month.

Learn how to build your own menopause diet to manage your symptoms with my latest book The Happy Menopause: Smart Nutrition to Help You Flourish. It's available in all the usual places.