Contemporary Authors

• The Hot Topic: A Life-changing Look at the Change of Life Atria Books (New York, NY), 2016

• The Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/good-news/2016/06/02/why-im-fitter-than-ever-at-50-something1/

  QUOTE:
  Menopause, like death and taxes, is something that will happen to everyone. Everyone, that is, except me. Sure, I was getting hot flushes and felt anxious It's amazing how dim smart women can be about this--I'd honestly kidded myself that I would carry on menstruating until I died. … And now I've been through it? Well, the good news is there is a world beyond it--a rather wonderful world. … And so it came to be that I wrote a book about it called The Hot Topic--not because there wasn't anything out there already … but because none of them chimed with my experience

  Why I'm fitter than ever at 50-something
  Christa D'Souza
  Christa D'Souza, whose book The Hot Topic is about the menopause CREDIT: ANDREW CROWLEY
  Christa D'Souza
  2 JUNE 2016 • 1:26PM
  Menopause, like death and taxes, is something that will happen to everyone.

  Everyone, that is, except me. Sure, I was getting hot flushes and felt anxious and kept putting my keys in the fridge and couldn't sleep, but what did that have to do with anything? It's amazing how dim smart women can be about this - I'd honestly kidded myself that I would carry on menstruating until I died.

  While menopause is inevitable, being out of shape, as I've happily found out, doesn't need to be
  Then, aged 54 and three months, the menopause happened. (Weirdly, menopause "proper" lasts a day and can be measured only retrospectively, 12 months after you've had your last period.) And so it came to be that I wrote a book about it called The Hot Topic - not because there wasn't anything out there already (5,857 books on Amazon at last count), but because none of them chimed with my experience.

  Before I had the menopause, I treated it like a bad smell. While I had it, I pretended it wasn't happening. And now I've been through it? Well, the good news is there is a world beyond it - a rather wonderful world. In many ways, now I'm off that hormonal roller coaster, I feel better than I have done in decades.

  Celebrities have dealt with the menopause in their own ways. Sex and the City actress Kim Cattrall said she finally came to accept that the change was "part of being human"; while Emma Thompson joked that she saw the benefit of hot flushes before an awards ceremony in New York on a cold night.

  "It's the only time I've been grateful for the menopause," she said. "I've been entirely comfortable."

  Christa D'Souza
  D'Souza does Bikram yoga for 90 minutes at least twice a week CREDIT: ANDREW CROWLEY
  Part of the reason why I feel so great is because I am looking after myself better now than ever. It's as though it took the menopause for the "I'll Take It Easy When I'm Dead" message to kick in properly for me and in this, apparently, I am not alone.

  As new research finds, us babyboomers, far from looking at this time of our lives as a chance to put our feet up and eat and drink whatever we want, are doing the opposite - hitting the gym, taking part in Ironman contests and taking up horse riding in far greater numbers than our 20-something counterparts. And it's not a phase.

  According to the Nuffield Health chain, 60-somethings work out on average seven or eight times a month, while millennials go, on average, only five times a month.

  I was at my least fit in my 20s, living in New York, mostly on junk food, and immune to the Eighties craze for aerobics.

  Flobelly, insecure, hungry, that was me in those not very great days. Everything changed when I hit my early 40s and discovered hot yoga. It doesn't suit everyone, practising in sauna conditions, but for me, it was a Damascene moment, discovering it, and I've kept it up ever since.

  There's little scientific evidence to back this up, but I'm convinced it helped with the hot flashes (inducing a sweat, getting your heart beating fast without being out of breath, that is) and I believe it helped on the weight front, too.

  They say you can burn 600 calories a class. I'm not sure about that, but it has to be one reason why I feel slimmer, taller and leaner than I did 30 years ago. And why I suffered fewer menopausal symptoms than my mother and sister.

  Kim Cattrall
  Actress Kim Cattrall, who said she accepted the menopause as "part of being human" CREDIT: MARTIN POPE
  Now I'm nearly 56, hot yoga plays a slightly different role from the one it did in my 40s. Then it was all about keeping my weight in check. Now it's more of a head thing. Because I know what posture is going to come next, I go into a bit of a trance. It's a form of meditation and, as mounting evidence proves, meditation is the key to a better, longer, happier life.

  And, anyway, it's not so much about being thin - who wants to be a birdlike older lady? - it's about posture; about not shrinking in height, not hunching one's shoulders, not thinking that because you are older, you need to take up less space. While menopause is inevitable, being out of shape, as I've happily found out, doesn't need to be. It shouldn't be, in fact. At all.

  Five easy anti-ageing tips that won't require you to overhaul your life

  Exercise at least twice a week
  Make sure you like it and that it is convenient to get to, otherwise you'll never commit
  Always use the left side of the escalator - walk, don't stand
  Drink less - or preferably give up drinking completely. Alcohol can exacerbate hot flushes. Haven't you done enough drinking in your life?
  Eat less - once you hit the menopause, you need 65 per cent of the calories you needed when you were in your 20s
  Bikram to Botox: Christa's health and beauty regime

  I do Bikram (hot) yoga or Fierce Grace (an offshoot of Bikram created by Michelle Pernetta) for 90 mins at least twice a week.
  Every night I write a gratitude list. It's amazing how finding things to be thankful for positively affects your life.
  I try to have lights out by midnight and never sleep past 9am.
  Leftovers or second helpings are forbidden.
  I have regular tooth check-ups (tooth decay has been linked to Alzheimer's). Fiona, my dentist at Dawood & Tanner, is on speed dial.
  I've eaten home-made cashew butter with raw organic cashews, Maldon salt and coconut oil on Poilane toast for breakfast every day for the past four years. Us 50-somethings need fat.
  Christa D'Souza
  D'Souza at the Chiswick Bikram Yoga Centre CREDIT: ANDREW CROWLEY
  I have medical pedicures from Margaret Dabbs once a month. £130 with the principal podiatrist; £85 with a director; 45 mins.
  I have LED (light) therapy at Teresa Tarmey, west London. £70, 30 mins.
  I get Botox in my jawline from Dr Michael Prager every six months. £795.
  I have facial massages from Alexandra Soveral. If I could afford it, I'd have one a week. £250 with Alexandra; from £95 with other facialists there.
  I never stint on blow dries (I have mine tonged by Roi, the best tonger in the world, at George Northwood: once a week (£75). Elliot there charges £45).
  Never stint on colour (Josh Wood at Ateliers, west London;). Josh charges £1,000 for a new client. His associate, Billy, charges £75 for a tint. I should go every three weeks, but it ends up being every five or six weeks instead.

• Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_D%27Souza

  Christa D'Souza
  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Christa Claire D'Souza (born 1960) is a British journalist who contributes to British Vogue, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and other publications.

  Career[edit]
  D'Souza has written for publications such as The Guardian, Daily Mail, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, Vanity Fair, the Evening Standard, and W, in addition to her current role as contributing editor of British Vogue.[1][2][3] D'Souza was previously Editor-at-large of Tatler. D'Souza is currently a contributing writer to Get the Gloss.

  In her articles, D'Souza often probes body issues such as ageing,[1][4] weight-control, anorexia,[5] food and diet, cosmetic surgery, and her own battle with cancer.[6] D'Souza's articles have been praised for their humour and honesty[7] and are often autobiographical and controversial in their subject matter – taking Vogue "where it's never been before" by publishing a three page article entitled Poo, the Last Taboo.[8][9]

  D'Souza also specialises in interviews, and often does the cover interview for British Vogue.[10][11][12] D'Souza has interviewed celebrities such as Rihanna, Adele, Cheryl Cole, Kristen Stewart, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry,[13] Catherine Zeta-Jones, Nicole Kidman and Kanye West, as well as designers such as Alexander McQueen, Tom Ford, Stella McCartney, Christopher Kane and Donatella Versace for various publications.[14][15]

  Personal life[edit]
  D'Souza is the daughter of the ex House of Lords Speaker Baroness D'Souza. She lives in West London with long-term partner Nicholas Allott and their two sons.[16]

  D'Souza is a keen supporter of the school that her mother co-founded, the Marefat High School in West Kabul, Afghanistan. D'Souza visited the school with her mother in 2010,[2] and has hosted fundraising events for Marefat – most recently at The Connaught hotel with Oxford University's Aloysius Society.[17]

• Daily Mail - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3570367/Want-survive-menopause-Sorry-s-goodbye-Wine-O-Clock-CHRISTA-D-SOUZA-says-no-longer-enjoy-alcohol-without-making-symptoms-worse.html

  Want to survive the menopause? Sorry, it's goodbye Wine O'Clock: CHRISTA D'SOUZA says she could no longer enjoy alcohol without making her symptoms worse
  Author Christa d’Souza says she was appalled by the onset of menopause
  She could not enjoy a glass of wine without making her symptoms worse
  Here, in an extract from her new book, she tells how she regained control
  By Christa D'souza For The Daily Mail
  PUBLISHED: 20:24 EDT, 2 May 2016 | UPDATED: 04:44 EDT, 3 May 2016
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  Mood swings, hot flushes and an extra layer of fat, Christa d’Souza was appalled by the onset of menopause. And the final insult? She could no longer enjoy a glass or two of wine without making her symptoms worse.

  Here, in the final extract from her brilliant new book, she tells how she regained control over her body and her life...

  An alcoholic? Moi? Well, maybe not quite. But something wasn’t right if the kids hardly ever saw me past 7.30pm without a glass of wine in my hand.

  Something wasn’t right if there was never a situation where I drank less than my other half. Or if the idea of going out and not having a drink had become so appalling that I’d end up not going out. And then opening a bottle at home anyway.

  What had happened to that basic rule of thumb? That a woman in her 20s slurring her words and swaying a bit can be quite sweet? That a woman in her 30s can just about get away with it, too? That a woman in her 40s needs to watch out — and that in her 50s it becomes, frankly, grotesque? How come I could so easily see it in others, but not myself?

  Christa d’Souza was appalled by the onset of menopause. The final insult? She could no longer enjoy a glass or two of wine without making her symptoms worse (stock image) +2
  Christa d’Souza was appalled by the onset of menopause. The final insult? She could no longer enjoy a glass or two of wine without making her symptoms worse (stock image)

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  The sad truth is that for many women, at around the time they hit the menopause their tolerance for alcohol decreases. You hear it all the time. ‘My one pleasure left in the world,’ a friend will moan, ‘and I can’t even enjoy it any more.’

  Well, lucky them, I say. Because my tolerance seemed to go up And even after I went on HRT in 2014, it didn’t — unlike for a lot of women I know — go back down again. On the contrary, where two glasses of wine used to be perfectly sufficient for an evening, now it was more like half a bottle, and quite often more.

  To make matters worse, my hangovers were dreadful. And the drinking definitely exacerbated the hot flushes. I could feel my temperature rising with every sip. And my sleep, frankly, was as fragmented as hell.

  In retrospect, I think what I was doing was drinking to keep myself feeling young. Alcohol was my link to the hurly-burly of my 30s and 40s — a reminder that I could still be, as it were, fun and vivacious. It gave a sense of occasion to an otherwise humdrum day.

  And being a feast-or-famine sort of person, the idea of cutting down to one small glass a day seemed almost more depressing than actually giving up.

  So I continued apace, desperately trying to recreate the effect drink used to have on me when I drank moderately. And all the time feeling more and more bloated and oyster-eyed and menopausal than ever.

  To try to make myself feel a bit better, I started drinking lots of water and experimenting on the wine front. For a while I drank only organic. Then came the sugar-free champagne — until the ludicrous expense of it hit home.

  Then there was a phase of drinking anything I wanted as long as it was 11.5 per cent or under, followed by my long love affair with rosé. Preferably pale French rosé, chilled within an inch of its life and enjoyed all year round — partly because it seemed more festive and sporty and outdoorsy than white, but mostly because it slipped down so easily.

  (Rosé, it turns out, has a higher sugar content than either white or red, and is the reason why so many of us come home from a lovely Mediterranean holiday feeling terrible.)

  And all the while I’d be desperately trawling the internet for studies linking moderate alcohol consumption to a reduced risk of heart problems, better bone density, etc. There’s always one around somewhere if you look hard enough.

  But what I always came unstuck on was the word ‘moderate’ — the word that means one measly glass a day.

  In my case, there was no getting round that. Nor, more importantly, was there any way round the increasing evidence of alcohol’s almost incontrovertible link with breast cancer.

  In 2008, a doctor in Toronto had concluded that women who had one drink a day would see their ten-year risk of breast cancer rise from 2.8 per cent to 3.5 per cent; and for women who had two drinks a day, from 2.8 per cent to 4.1 per cent. This meant that women like me who had four drinks a day could be looking at 8.2 per cent.

  It made me think anew about the grape seed-sized tumour I’d found in my right breast that summer of 2007. Could it have been caused by my drinking? And now that I was on HRT, could I be putting myself in danger of getting it again?

  The smart thing to do, according to Dr Martin Galy, a fashionable hormone doctor I went to see about all this, would be to reduce the drink and carry on with the HRT.

  He told me that you are probably safer, as far as cancer is concerned, taking even the most sledge-hammering form of HRT than not taking HRT and continuing to drink in quantities greater than the recommended amount.

  Although it was somewhat heartening to learn that once you’ve got breast cancer, alcohol did not help the tumour to grow, it is really, really hard to find a study that did not, in some way, link alcohol to getting breast cancer in the first place.

  Which is why, in January this year, I stopped. I suddenly realised that I’d done enough drinking in my life, thanks very much, and I didn’t want any more

  Quite apart from the whole cancer issue, I didn’t want to be in that permanent, low-level state of hungoverness. I didn’t want my partner to feel that he always had to monitor me from the other end of the table.

  I didn’t want to be obsessed with how slowly everyone else drank. I didn’t want to be more interested in the wine list than the menu.

  What I did want was to wake up feeling the same way as I’d done the night before. And the only way to do that was to give up completely.

  The idea of a summer holiday in Greece without rosé is pretty unspeakable, writes CHRISTA D'SOUZA +2
  The idea of a summer holiday in Greece without rosé is pretty unspeakable, writes CHRISTA D'SOUZA

  You may not need to, and if so I envy you. The idea of a summer holiday in Greece without rosé, of going to my favourite Italian restaurant without drinking red wine, of getting through a family Christmas without any medication at all is pretty unspeakable.

  But at the same time, if I’m going to make anything of this last third of my life, I’m probably going to have to do it sober.

  Did I mention the fridge pilfering after supper? No? Well, not only was I downing the best part of a bottle of wine a night, but also packing away the food like a crazy teenager.

  I had slightly pressed the ‘so what?’ button around food in the run-up to the menopause. After years of treating the bread basket as if it had an electric fence around it, abstinence just didn’t seem worth it any more.

  Was it because I had resigned myself to being a middle-aged mother, knowing I categorically, emphatically would never be on the pull again, so I might as well indulge? I don’t know.

  But what felt extra demoralising was how all the exercise I was doing wasn’t having any effect at all. But then, as studies continue to prove, you can do all the hot yoga and treadmilling you like, but it’s not going to help you lose weight or give you back the body you have lost.

  ‘Physical activity is crucially important for improving overall health and fitness levels, but there is limited evidence to suggest it can blunt the surge in obesity,’ according to public health scientists Richard Cooper and Amy Luke.

  ‘This crucial part of the health message is not appreciated in recommendations to be more active, walk up stairs and eat more fruit and vegetables. The prescription needs to be precise. There is only one effective way to lose weight: and that is to eat fewer calories.’

  Fewer than ever. For once we women hit our 50s, we need only around 65 per cent of the calories we needed in our 20s. This is because every year over the age of 40, the rate at which we burn off calories slows down.

  Meaning that if we ingest 1,000 calories before the menopause, we will burn about 700 of them and store 300. Post-menopause, we may burn 300 while storing, gulp, 700.

  But is it all bad? It is not.

  Whether it is the HRT or my body settling into menopause, I no longer have the appetite of a pre-menstrual teenager. A modicum of control has definitely been regained now that I know exercise on its own is not going to make me thinner.

  It is true I cannot fit into the clothes I wore at my pre-menopause thinnest, and I feel a little weird these days in skinny jeans if the top I’m wearing doesn’t cover my bottom. But then, maybe skinny jeans aren’t appropriate for a woman who’s four years shy of 60?

  Believe me, the menopause is a great time to re-evaluate your wardrobe, to throw out those things you’ve let languish there in the vain hope that once you lose that pesky spare tyre, you’ll be able to wear them again.

  What we must do now, I believe, is make our lives less complicated on the clothes front — creating a new kind of uniform for ourselves, a mixture of things we have come to know, via trial and error, will always work for us, no matter what.

  It’s a lovely feeling being sartorially true to oneself. I now know, for example, that I can never have enough of silk cashmere cardigans, cotton gauze check shirts and midi-length A--line skirts with pockets.

  I know, too, that there is no point in buying the item that will work brilliantly when it’s got different buttons/is a smidgeon looser/is dyed a different colour. Unless you’ve got a live-in seamstress, such purchases never work.

  Am I there myself? In this serene, self-accepting, super-sorted-out space? Do I practise what I preach?

  Not quite. It is probably time for me to get a grown-up haircut, for example, but I cannot quite make the leap yet. The jeans I can no longer fit into? I know I need to make a ceremonial funeral pyre for them (or give them away), but I haven’t got round to that either.

  I am, though, kind of looking forward to being in my 60s — to getting out of my neither-here-nor-there 50s, to comporting myself as an older, elegant and not completely asexual lady.

  Whether it is a function of menopause or not, I trust and like myself more these days. I’m not quite as fearful of what life might toss out. So what if I inadvertently offend someone? So what if I don’t get invited to the party?

  There’s a fine balance between being liberated and giving up, and I’m still learning how to walk it. But if there is any time in my life when the penny drops and I am going to get it, now is that time. Wish me luck.

  Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3570367/Want-survive-menopause-Sorry-s-goodbye-Wine-O-Clock-CHRISTA-D-SOUZA-says-no-longer-enjoy-alcohol-without-making-symptoms-worse.html#ixzz4iUuJnERJ
  Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

• Get The Gloss - https://www.getthegloss.com/author/christa-d-souza

  CHRISTA D'SOUZA
  get-the-gloss-columnist-christa-d-souza-1.jpg
  Christa D’Souza is a mother, contributor to British Vogue and not a very good cook. She cut her teeth at Vanity Fair in New York in the 90s and has since written for The Sunday Times, The Times, The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, W magazine, you name it...

  Fake bosoms, nudity, food neuroses, cancer, wanking, poo; there's not much she hasn’t written about in her 22 year career as a features journalist.

  For Get The Gloss she has the tough challenge of meeting her favourite brands, dragging herself to the Ritz Spa, and finding low calorie champagne in her column, How The Other Half Live.

  She lives in West London with her partner of 17 years and their two sons. The family dog sadly died but they do have, in its stead, a royal python, a ghekko and two tree frogs. Her life motto? ‘Dance like no one is watching and eat like everyone IS.’

QUOTE:
Despite her best intentions, this depiction of menopause is pretty bleak, but D'Souza's sense of humor takes the edge off. This is an accessible guide for the wine-drinking, snarky woman of a certain
age.
The Hot Topic: A Life-Changing Look at the Change of Life
Publishers Weekly.
263.38 (Sept. 19, 2016): p65.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
The Hot Topic: A Life-Changing Look at the Change of Life
Christa D'Souza. Atria, $16 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-1-5011-3634-4
Journalist D'Souza provides a firsthand account, crowdsourced opinion, and the latest in scientific and anthropological study in order to demystify the taboo of menopause, suggesting it be viewed as a "natural part of the aging process"
rather than "a disease." She reports her own symptoms humorously--"Overnight, apparently, I'd grown back fat"--as well as her struggle to wade through conflicting medical opinions regarding the use of hormones. She provides some
illuminating information on the rise of "bio-identical" organic hormones as an alternative to traditional hormone replacement therapy. Her friends candidly describe their emotional outbursts, infidelities, and feelings about changes in
their appearance. D'Souza visits a convent with a brilliant young biotech entrepreneur to discuss hot flashes with nuns and travels to Tanzania to explore a theory suggesting that older women may be the linchpin of human evolution.
There has been progress regarding the stigma, she writes, wryly noting the Victorian tradition of simply "chucking [menopausal] women in asylums." As a light at the end of the tunnel, D'Souza relates recent studies indicating the
potential for a menopause "cure." Despite her best intentions, this depiction of menopause is pretty bleak, but D'Souza's sense of humor takes the edge off. This is an accessible guide for the wine-drinking, snarky woman of a certain
age. (Dec.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Hot Topic: A Life-Changing Look at the Change of Life." Publishers Weekly, 19 Sept. 2016, p. 65. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA464352778&it=r&asid=a963f9466c85f41cb4bf5cb66e2e6af6. Accessed 29 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A464352778

• My Second Spring
  https://mysecondspring.ie/blog/the-hot-topic-how-a-vogue-editor-does-menopause
  Word count: 842

  QUOTE:
  Christa D’Souza has a knack of nailing it. She has made a career out of pithy journalism. So when D’Souza decides to write a book about her recent adventures in menopause, you know it will be frank and wryly funny.
  The Hot Topic: How a Vogue Editor does menopause

  by
  Anna Mooney.
  Ignorance is bliss but knowledge is power. If you know what is happening to you, or what is going to happen to you, it might make menopause less of an affront. That's Christa D'Souza's advice in her brilliant new book on menopause. We've captured our favourite bits below....

  Christa D’Souza has a knack of nailing it. Like when she first used “1661” – coining the modern phenomenon of a woman who, thanks to modern grooming advances, religious exercise and ageless fashion taste, looks 16 from behind and 61 from front. She has made a career out of pithy journalism that manages, among other subjects, to capture the 1st world plight of middle-aged girls who refuse to grow up with grace.

  So when D’Souza decides to write a book about her recent adventures in menopause, you know it will be frank and wryly funny.

  Her gripes with menopause are many: having to say goodbye to wine o’clock and her waist, the simultaneous sprouting of back fat and nose hair, the arrival of hardcore insomnia and hot flushes and the sudden departure of sexual desire.

  Debilitating

  D’Souza’s no pushover – she had her own bout with breast cancer Grade 1 around 8 years ago, and was treated with radiotherapy “a mere verruca compared to the experiences of so many of my poor friends have had with the disease”. So she seems genuinely puzzled at the ferocity of her symptoms, and her reaction to them. She looks to her mother's and sister’s experience of menopause for answers. Both capable, no-fuss, adventurous women, they found themselves unraveled by menopause, both summarizing their symptoms in one word: debilitating.

  D’Souza explores all options, consulting best in field menopause specialists in the USA and Europe, about the pros and cons of HRT versus just taking care of oneself better. Even in medical minds, there’s a wide range of opinion as to what’s best for women and plenty of dissent about whether HRT and breast cancer history can ever be compatible.

  The Hot Topic: A Life Changing Look at the Change of Life is choc-full of anecdotes from women from all walks – those who embrace crone-hood to those who want to sip forever at the fountain of youth, those who opt for HRT and those who take the natural route, those who have an easy time with menopause and those who are almost derailed by it. There’s something in there for everyone.

  On weight gain:

  “My pants felt like they had somehow become “friendlier” (as we used to call it at school when they crawled up your behind). So, weirdly, did all my shoes. Though I was basically the same size, my upper body felt, what’s the word: moosier? And I found myself having to unhook my bras a notch, tucking fewer things in, wearing baggier tops, without realizing it. I was beginning to dress like my mother.” My body, after years of toeing the line when I told it to, obediently shrinking when I put myself on the paleo diet or 5:2 or whatever, suddenly had a mind of its own, almost like when I was pregnant.”

  (She confirms, that indeed, when we hit our 50s we need around 65% of the calories we needed in our twenties, thanks to our basal metabolic rate slowing down with age.)

  On younger women

  "There is a part of me which rather resents younger women, women in their thirties and forties, who have reached that sweet spot in their lives (and, like me at that age) couldn’t be less interested in the subject of menopause. I want to shake my fist at them and tell them “It’ll come to you soon enough”. But then there is another part of me that is excited for them, excited for me, for what is to come. “

  On the wisdom of hindsight

  “ What are the take home messages? Someone asked me recently: If I had my druthers, would I have “done” menopause differently? Well maybe I would have stuck my head in the sand less and prepped more. Given up drink earlier. Bought the bigger sized jeans. Gotten the grown up hair cut. Approached it like my friend and yoga teacher, Nadia, who at 43 doesn’t feel really there yet, but who is determined not to get “ caught short” when it happens. I admire her prophylactic strategy and her steadfast refusal to see menopause in a negative light.”

  And finally, on acceptance: “True Bliss is to get over ourselves.”