Informationen zum Autor Mary Claire Haver, MD Klappentext "A patient-proven eating and lifestyle program to balance nutrition and sustain weight loss--including more than 40 delicious recipes and 6 weeks of meal plans--tailored to women in midlife."--]cPublisher's description. Leseprobe Introduction From our first day of life until the last, our bodies are always changing. This is a part of aginga natural process no one can escape. But the changes that happen to women in midlife are unique and are often unsettling. Suddenly we're having odd symptoms like hot flashes and an accumulation of strange, new weight gain around our midsections. Our skin can be very dry or wrinkling more. We may have joint pain, hair loss, headaches, bloating, and worsening anxiety or depression. Sleep becomes elusive. Sexual intercourse can hurt. Little things set us off. A lot of this may be happening to you right now. Trust me, you are not alone. Let me introduce you to someone who knows exactly what you're going through: me. I was a busy physician, a mom, and a wife in my late forties. My main health challenge at the time was polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a condition caused by insulin resistance, in which insulin can't do its job of ushering glucose into cells for energy. PCOS leads to erratic periods, acne, infertility, ovarian cysts, and unwanted hair growth. About 1 in 10 women of childbearing age has PCOS. The majority (about 70 percent) are overweight or even obese, but I was among the 30 percent of normal weight. Fortunately, PCOS is treatable, and in my case, taking hormones greatly helped. Then came a death in my family; I lost my brother, Bob, to liver failure. I was despondent. He was my daughters' favorite uncle, a creative fun spirit with whom I had a special bond. We were dance partners when I was younger, winning dance competitions all over Louisiana. When he died, I was heartbroken, and losing him brought crushing pain. Grief does strange things to each of us. For me, I coped by bingeing. Night after night after long clinic shifts, I stood in front of my pantry, gobbling handfuls of Goldfish crackers. I'd wash them down with glasses of wine. Pretty quickly I gained nearly 20 pounds. I looked like a different person, and I felt miserable. With my medical background, I knew that at my age it might be time to come off the hormones for a while. So, I talked to my own doctor, and we agreed that I should. But taking the hormones had masked the perimenopausal symptoms that occur during midlife, so within two weeks of being off them, everything abruptly changedand not for the better. I had hot flashes and I felt like I was burning from the inside out. Along came sleepless nights and, most troubling of all, the fuzzy and forgetful feeling called brain fog. My long, thick hair started falling out by the brushful. My skin felt parched from head to toe, and I had to completely change my skincare routine to keep my skin moisturized. My body ached so much that I kidded with a friend that I'd give up my firstborn to get relief. My sleep became a recurring nightmare of multiple awakenings through the nightat first drenched in sweat, and then freezing once the hot flash passed. I knew I was going through a period of hormonal changeperimenopausebut the symptoms it produced were so profoundly intense that I was really alarmed. All this on top of the weight gain? I was a mess. Then I heard my brother Bob's voice in my head. Girl, you don't have to wallow in this anymore. You got yourself into this; you can get yourself out. I went to work on my weight first. I did exactly what I and other doctors had always counseled patients to do: eat less, exercise more. My efforts paid off, sort of. I'd lose a pound or two, but that was it. Then the weight would come right back on. I was starving myself and wo...

Autorentext

Mary Claire Haver, MD

Klappentext

"A patient-proven eating and lifestyle program to balance nutrition and sustain weight loss--including more than 40 delicious recipes and 6 weeks of meal plans--tailored to women in midlife."--]cPublisher's description.

Zusammenfassung
WALL STREET JOURNAL AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER • A patient-proven eating and lifestyle program to balance nutrition, help manage middle age weight “creep,” and reduce uncomfortable symptoms during menopause and perimenopause—including more than 40 delicious recipes and 6 weeks of meal plans—tailored to women in midlife.****

“The validation of common hormonal symptoms and commiseration with weight gain challenges, especially from a physician with similar struggles, is likely a rare and comforting experience for many women.”—Forbes Health

Why is the scale moving in the wrong direction even though I haven’t changed my diet or exercise habits? Time and again, this is the question Dr. Mary Claire Haver’s patients asked. At first, a practicing OB/GYN, she’d dutifully advise what she’d been taught in medical school: eat less and work out more. But that standard advice didn’t solve the problems caused by perimenopause and menopause because back then she—and so many other doctors—hadn’t taken into account the physiological factors affecting women. They tend to store fat, they can have a hard time accessing that stored fat as active fuel, and their hormonal fluctuations in midlife exacerbate the situation.

Then, Dr. Haver found herself in this exact predicament with the added issues of low energy, hot flashes, and brain fog. So she set out to develop a nutrition program that would meet her own and her patients’ needs once and for all. Now, more than 100,000 women have found success in Dr. Haver’s unique plan for losing dangerous belly fat and reducing menopausal symptoms by following her three interconnected strategies:

• Fuel Refocus: Starting in their thirties, women need a specific ratio of healthy fats, lean protein, and quality carbohydrates to optimize their overall health and efficiently burn fat as fuel.
• Intermittent Fasting: 16 hours of fasting with a flexible 8-hour eating window coaxes the body to draw energy from stored fat and decreases inflammation.
• Anti-inflammatory Nutrition: Limit added sugars, processed carbs, chemical additives and preservatives and layer in anti-inflammatory foods like leafy greens, olive oil, berries, nuts, and tomatoes.

With these three principles working together, women can lose the weight they tend to gain in middle age as well as enjoy newfound energy, better sleep, less brain fog, and fewer hot flashes. Featuring forty delicious recipes, six weeks of easy-to-follow meal plans, shopping lists, and success stories of women who have changed their lives on this lifestyle plan, The Galveston Diet—named for Dr. Haver’s hometown—will revolutionize the conversation around health and empowerment during menopause and perimenopause, with health benefits that last a lifetime.