Menopause Bootcamp

Book excerpt: The doctor known for her “Menopause Bootcamp” gatherings, shares her 360-degree holistic approach to this natural life stage in this empowering and joyful guide to help women not just survive this physiological and psychological transition, but thrive. Over the course of her twenty-year medical career, Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz noticed a shocking dearth of information and support for women beginning and experiencing menopause. For too long, this crucial stage in women’s lives has been given perfunctory notice in medical schools and is often either a hidden secret or the punchline to a joke—denying women the information and support they need. This disregard, coupled with the unconscious misogyny and ageism that run rampant in our culture, portrays menopause as something to be afraid of, and worse, adds a patina of shame around the blessing of aging and the beginnings of a new, normal, and enriching phase in a woman’s life. Known across Los Angeles for her Menopause Bootcamp retreats, Dr. Suzanne, as her patients call her, believes that the 27 million women entering menopause each year deserve thoughtful, candid, modern, holistic information about the physical and psychological issues that arise in this transitional stage, including changes in libido, metabolism, body image, and fears over genetic age-related illnesses. She contends that menopause is a whole life condition and deserves a wide-ranging approach that combines meditation, yoga, therapy, herbal supplements, along with the most-up-to-date science and conventional medical solutions. Packed with answers to common questions and helpful insights, infused with Dr. Suzanne’s expert, but warm, and sometimes, laugh-out-loud honesty, Menopause Bootcamp is a welcome invitation to embrace and even celebrate this remarkable developmental phase in the lives of women. It’s a welcome reminder that life doesn’t end at menopause—it’s the start of something new and wonderful.