How to become "Menopause Perfect"

- the dark side of the Menopause gold rush…

Disclaimer: I am 100% grateful for the conversations & major advances in Menopause care, finally,… but hear me out.

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I am suddenly back in high school, with my Seventeen & Sassy magazines on the floor, my favorite mixtape of the moment playing on my white, aqua and pink stereo, flipping through the pages…

beating the shit out of myself.

AI generated photo- but wow it brought me back!

I would look at the perfect faces, hair and bodies while doing side leg lifts and writing down everything I ate.

I wanted to be Teenager Perfect and I was definitely doing it wrong.

I had disordered eating, body dysmorphia and a continuous, deep feeling of inadequacy.

I wasn’t good enough.

And in the past 18 months, all of that has come rushing back.

Instead of flipping through the magazines, it is a quick scroll on a social media platform of choice.

The rise of Menopause influencers, teaming up with the new longevity influencers, and my feeds are filled (everywhere but Substack 🙏🏻) with all the do’s, the don’ts.

The gold rush of opportunity in supplements, products & services is incredible.

And just like Seventeen’s articles on “the 5 questions you should never ask a boy” it is now “how to be Menopause Perfect.”

It seems every stage of a woman’s life is an opportunity to feel inadequate and question herself, why should Menopause be any different?

Is this ever a thing for men?

Every day I see that I am doing menopause and aging wrong.

• I am not lifting enough heavy weights

• I am not eating enough protein (this might as well be a full time job in and of itself.)

• I drink wine at a lovely dinner out with my husband

• I forget to use my red light mask most of the time

• Will I or won’t I get a deep plane face lift?

Just like the teen models of Seventeen showed us how to be cool and dress for back to school…

While this is an AI generated magazine cover, my podcast, Instagram and Facebook feeds are just flooded with sensationalist headlines that put fear, shame and worry into our minds - and heart, bones, and muscles.

The best content creators on Instagram are showing us how to do menopause right. How to be “Menopause Perfect” and most of us are failing the new standards.

At least that is. how I began to feel.

When the symptoms of menopause started to hit, it was rough.

I would wake on the dot of 3 am in a panic, heart racing, a heavy sense of doom I couldn’t shake. I would pray for it to pass, often wondering if I should wake up my husband to go to the emergency room. Was I going to have a heart attack and die? It was awful, terrifying.

Heart palpitations, night sweats, ringing in the ears, joint, muscle and bone aches came out of nowhere. I am fortunate to be pain free most of my life, this was new and came on fast and furious.

These symptoms came on with a vengeance when estrogen decided to make a grand exit from my body after 50 years.

With the new advances in menopause care and Gen X celebrities all hitting menopause at the same time… I now had lots of options to address these debilitating symptoms.

FOREVER GRATEFUL FOR THAT.

My mom has osteoporosis and a flawed study in the early 2000s robbed women like my mom from bone saving treatments such as HRT. When my DEXA scan showed osteopenia - bone loss most often caused by the hormone depletion of menopause - I knew I needed to do all the things.

And all the things I did.

The Instagram algorithm sent me into the deep end of the ocean, FAST.

I started to listen to every podcast out there on the topic, read the books, buy the supplements, the weighted vest, the red light everything (even the baseball hat because I swear my hair was falling out like they said it would.)

Creatine, collagen, electrolytes, amino acids, peptides oh my.

My pantry has a shelf dedicated to my supplements. My husband constantly asking, “What on earth are you wearing? What is THIS supplement now?” My kids think I am crazy.

The new breakthroughs in peri-menopause and menopause have created an entire economy.

It is the gold rush phase for this emerging market and it is Gen X gold being mined. I can’t even tell you how much money I have contributed to this growing industry!

(Side note: when big private equity investors like Alex Hormozi are running ads saying “if you have a company selling something to women in menopause, I want to invest in you” you know it is gold rush phase.)

My hyper focus on what I needed to do and what I was doing wrong - felt like those teenage years of flipping through Seventeen. It all came back.

It started to affect my health negatively.

Panic attacks hit due to anxiety, a hyper focus on what I was eating, what I couldn’t eat. Obsessing over how to enter this next chapter and survive. I lost 15 pounds (not good for the osteopenia).

Here I was at age 51 being transported back to 15 with those same feelings of inadequacy as a teenager - seeing all the cool girls doing menopause right while I am sipping a glass of pinot noir.

I am not “doing menopause good enough.”

I heard someone on a podcast share that there is a name for this hyper focus on health. Orthorexia is an unhealthy obsession with eating “right” and being healthy, where food choices become rigid, anxiety-driven, and tied to self-worth rather than nourishment or well-being.

I realized I had gone way too deep, and then I said ENOUGH.

I stopped consuming the content. I unsubscribed from podcasts, I cancelled supplement subscriptions and started to trust myself.

I still:

• Wear the weighted vest when I go for my walks

• Lift some weights - but not to look like I am in the WWE

• On all the hormones

• Being aware of protein but chilling the F out as well

• Take a core set of supplements

• Use my Osteoboost vibration belt for my bones

• Limiting wine, but having a couple of glasses on a weekend

But, I will no longer allow myself to think I am doing this wrong.

I will no longer beat myself up for not being Menopause Perfect.

Because the truth is NO ONE knows how to do it right yet.

This is NEW territory and there are no experts yet.

Really let that sink in.

If we take the 10,000 hours to mastery concept, and one of these experts focused on Menopause for 40 hours a week, every week, it would still be 5 years to master it, and this is not a 5 year old sensation.

Most of the experts are:

• OB Gyns who now at 50 realize they failed their patients as they face their own symptoms

• Fitness trainers who now at 50 see the need for protein and lifting heavier over cardio

• Health influencers who now at 50 are going through their own Menopause trying all the things

• Celebrities who now at 50 realize they are nowhere finished and want to do Menopause differently.

This is not a knock - this is wonderful! This is how change happens and I am so very grateful for it. But let’s all be honest.

That this is still NEW.

Are there really experts in something so new? Menopause and the new treatments, supplements etc are new. Menopause treatment options are so new that there is a fight for evidence based treatment vs the lengthy FDA clinical trials route.

In my own journey, I have met with countless doctors who just don’t know how often bloodwork should be done when on HRT, should you cycle progesterone or not, can HRT be taken with a history of cancer, what hormone levels “should” be post Menopause… it is the wild wild west.

The menopause-influencer posse and celebrities hosting summits to tell you everything you need to do and buy to be Menopause perfect, doesn’t know either. They do not.

This is all an absolute experiment.

So you need to do you. Be your own authority. Trust your instincts.

Join me on my Menopause content diet and remember that many of these menopause influencers and supplement companies are not actual authorities.

They are influencers, repping brands with brand deals, selling their own supplements.

(I mean doesn’t Mel Robbins now have a protein shake line???).

This is a land grab moment of opportunity.

And that is capitalism, which I am for. It creates progress, options, and breakthroughs. And this is about awareness and being discerning.

Be your own authority. Trust yourself. Don’t fall for all the hype.

At least that is what I am self-coaching myself on and taking a step away from Meta’s monetization-based algorithm.

I am opting to be here, on Substack, where none of that is filling my feed. (yet)

When I look at women who make it past 100, most of them did none of the things on my Instagram feed. My Grandmother is about to turn 94 and my Nana lived to 93. They never wore a weighted vest.

I am going to do my best because I want to be as healthy as I can be, live as long as I can, but not to be Menopause Perfect, but to be able to show up and do my legacy work on this planet.

To make a difference. To enjoy my adult children and someday grandchildren with optimal health and also actually living life.

You may not be an extremist like me, and the Menopause Perfect craze isn’t affecting you, like it did me. But I am writing this for wherever you are on this journey.

I am going to be much more discerning. Be my own authority.

I am taking a-pause on menopause.

I do know this, when I focus on my purpose, my legacy work in this next chapter, my health and wellness become a means to that end. When I focus on being the mom to my adult children I want to be, my health and wellness are a means to that end.

I have big goals and dreams for my second act -for turning 50 and really stepping into my legacy work through my company IGNITE Her® and my new book 50 Not Finished.

I came over to Substack because I want to have better conversations.

I came over to Substack because the minds of women near and over 50 are incredible. I want to have those conversations.

I want to have conversations about legacy, joy, being new at aging in the second half, having adult children…

I am here for those conversations.

I am here to learn from the woman near or over 50 who has the most phenomenal relationship with her adult kids and wants to share her wisdom.

I am here to learn from the woman near or over 50 who is new at caring for her dad with dementia and wants to share her wisdom.

I am here to learn from the woman near or over 50 who left that big corner office to start her own business and wants to share her wisdom.

I am here to learn from the woman near or over 50 who lost her husband in their 50s and is rebuilding her life and wants to share her wisdom.

I am here for all of us near or over 50 to share our wisdom of lives well lived.

And I don’t see a better platform to do it on than Substack.

We are all about to go through some exciting and some hard shit ladies - we need our collective wisdom to come together beyond what we look like and the physical aspects of aging.

I have never aged before. I don’t want to do it alone.

If this article spoke to you - you are who I want to do this with.

Julie Ciardi is a former IBM executive turned author of 50 Not Finished and CEO/Founder of IGNITE Her® - community and mentorship for women near or over 50 wanting to do their legacy work in the world.

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