A health(y) investment

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“Menopause: when the fire inside you matches your ambition.”

Keeping a healthy weight in a Mediterranean culture meant keeping a well-rounded body. When I stayed at my grandparents for the holidays, they would think a good set of chubby cheeks meant good health; it meant we were well-nourished. All a reflex of their life experience, of the poverty most of their generation went through. So they were amazing feeders, but feeders in times when the food we were eating was whole and fully organic, as they should naturally come. 🥰😛

I still remember male friends of mine saying they wouldn’t like to have sex with a woman so thin that you could feel her bones…😆 Being well-rounded didn’t mean overweight, it meant full-bodied. My parents were a little more ahead of their generation, considering they were not wealthy and had no access to additional information (no internet at the time, remember?), but they have always had a very grounded common sense, so they always compelled me to exercise – I’ve been naturally inclined to it too, myself – to use the calories of what I was eating, especially during my teenage years… My dad then enrolled me to this maintenance gymnastics class when I was 13. Later I took it just a step further and joined the club’s acrobatics competition gymnastics class. And I never stopped exercising since (no competition never really happened, studies and work got in the way.

Then, as I got into the adult life and my foodie culture haunted me, I joined lunch break maintenance classes, joined the gym, jogged a lot when I became a mother (actually pushed the chair!). I had to keep the balance…

As I reached perimenopause, my energy levels decreased, so I had to adapt the exercises to suit. In fact, when it was my brain fog that prompted me to find where I actually was in this journey. I Googled it up, read through a bunch of menopause-related articles and found this 12-week menopause meal & exercise plan that helped (and is still helping other women) since 2008, with well-researched and proven results. This was the end of 2021.

I learned a lot, been on and off the programme, but some rules stuck and I continue following them:

• Exercises – targeting my situation
• Meditation & Yoga
• Staple foods (whole only) – no white products like: white pasta, white bread, white rice
• Supplements – the nutrients my body is missing or produces in insufficient amounts

The main one was: if you are good 80% of the time, it’s ok to be naughty the other 20%.

The truth is we all want our lives to be long and happy, but that can only happen if we’re healthy mentally and physically. But that requires some effort and self-dedication, and sometimes it may mean making hard choices, like not drinking a glass of wine every night 😁. But it does mean that when we do get to have it, it will be enjoyed in full, feeling like a reward for good behaviour 🍷