Hot flashes get all the airtime. They're the symptom everyone's heard of, the one that shows up in every sitcom joke and every "signs of menopause" listicle. But hot flashes are far from the hardest part for most women —
If you've spent years intermittent fasting, doing low-calorie "clean eating," or chasing whatever restrictive approach promised to keep your weight in check — perimenopause is where that strategy tends to stop working, and start actively backfiring.
Menopause might be the most talked-about, least accurately understood life stage there is. Everyone has an opinion. Very few of those opinions are based on current research. Here's where popular belief and the actual evidence part ways.
You snap at your kid over a dropped cup. You want to drive off the road over a slow driver. If you've experienced this in your 40s and thought, "this isn't like me" — you're right.
If you've spent the last year Googling "is this perimenopause or am I losing my mind," you're not alone — and you're not imagining it. The symptoms are real. The hot flashes, the 3am wake-ups, the weight that won't budge
