Beauty and Wellness Tips Beat Menopausal Blues
related:
menopause
makeover photos
press release
related links:
A4M:
American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine
Dr. Ronald
Klatz's Web page
Prevention
Magazine
Elizabeth
Adam Salon and Day Spa
CHICAGO — “For 35 million women this year, menopause is the silent crisis,” says Susan MacCoy, author, image consultant, master haircolorist, and international hair artist. “It can be a period of roller-coaster emotions, when happiness can slip with alarming speed to anger, depression and tears, rather than an entrance to a new stage and commitment for living.” This is also a time when small adjustments to a woman's appearance can improve her self-image immensely during this transition, freeing up mental and emotional energy so that she can focus on other things. Susan MacCoy has just such a prescription in mind.
To MacCoy, who has lived through these changes herself, physical self-image is an important component of health and wellness. She is no stranger to these issues, having had a long-standing interest and involvement in health and beauty, and is a member of the American Society for Esthetic Medicine as well as a consultant for the American Longevity Research Institute (ALRI). She has also been a CPT faculty member of the National Academy of Sports Medicine.
Step 1: Nutrition and Exercise
| Take your vitamins! |
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What kind of vitamins should menopausal women take? According to anti-aging specialist Dr. Ronald Klatz, a daily dose should include the following:
• 1 - 2 grams (1,000 - 2,000 milligrams or mg.) vitamin
C; |
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1 gram (g) = 1,000 milligrams (mg) |
| Quick Spa Fixes for Menopausal Women |
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The 5 Minute Cuticle Fix: Apply cuticle oil or "9.1.1." treatment on nail bed, cuticles, and calluses, and rub away dry skin with a pumice stone or white buff bar. The 10-Minute Anti-wrinkle Fix: Apply Eyesential Under Eye Enhancer. This non-surgical eye lift works in 10 short minutes and lasts for hours The 15-Minute Hair Condition Fix: A deep conditioning treatment to add flexibility, which affects the longevity of a hairstyle and allows it to bounce and move in the shape it is cut (retail cost for home use, 6 treatments: $12). Pro Tip: buy professional conditioner from your hairstylist; after applying, wrap your hair in a hot towel for super professional results. The 20-Minute Fuzzy Fix: Wax away unwanted facial hair caused by hormonal shifts. Don't forget to have your eyebrows shaped at the same time (salon cost: eyebrows $15, lip and chin $30). The 30-Minute Make-up Fix: Re-evaluate your make-up colors and techniques with a 30-Minute Make-up Makeover. "Remember, your skin tones and facial shape have changed. We have a tendency to try the same techniques and colors we used as younger adults," even if they are no longer appropriate, warns Paula Sino, Elizabeth Adam's Day Spa's Head Make-up Artist . The 45-Minute Hairstyle Fix: Is your 'do dated? Upgrade to a wash-and-wear cut with a new "Year 2008" shape that menopausal hot flashes cannot destroy in five short minutes. A hairstyle that can be washed and blown dry is a blessing on a three-shower day. The benefit of having your hairstyle "enter the millennium" is that when you look contemporary, you'll feel contemporary, too (salon cost: $125). The 30-60 Minute Haircolor Fix: Nothing ages your appearance faster than gray hair. Wash away the cold grays to a warm blonde in a one-step blending process to bring out the natural glow of skin tones, or weave highlights in blonde and add lowlights into your natural hair color throughout your hair. This blending technique will make your gray hair totally invisible and lasts for months before needing to be recolored (salon cost: $50 and up). The 60 Minute Foot Fix: A professional aromatherapy session pedicure with Sea Salt & Papaya Enzyme exfoliates dry skin and removes calluses from toes and feet, trims toenails to flattering shape, and paints toenails in today's colors . Pro Tip: purchase your nail color from the manicurist for quick home touch ups. Include the purchase of a pumice bar (retail: $3.50) to keep that smooth, pretty-pedicure feeling twice as long. The 60 Minute Pamper Fix: An hour of professional stress-relieving massage therapy can transport you to a new relaxed and beautiful attitude adjustment. The 90-Minute
Face Fix: Make your skin radiant with a custom-blended
facial to peel away dead tissue. Exfoliate, cleanse, and hydrate
facial skin, then have a massage to recondition skin and muscle
tone. Custom skin treatments, a trademark of Elizabeth Adam Skin
Clinic, include ECHO2 Oxygenation Treatment, an oxygen cocktail
of 87 vitamins, minerals, amino acids and enzymes; vitamin/herbal
treatments, and glycolic acid + vitamin C treatments. The result:
radiant skin. |
| Go to the
Elizabeth
Adam Salon and Day Spa Web site |
A good physical self-image starts with good health, and that means balanced nutrition that is targeted to age and gender. MacCoy concurs with Ronald Klatz, M.D., D.O., the longevity institute’s medical director, about the importance of taking a daily therapeutic vitamin formula. Dr. Klatz, who is a founding physician of the medical anti-aging movement, is also president of the American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine (A4M). The academy is a 10,000-member society of physicians and scientists from 60 countries who believe that physical deterioration due to aging is not inevitable. Dr. Klatz is board certified by the American Board of Family Practice and the American Academy of Sports Medicine as well as A4M.
MacCoy emphasizes that “aerobic exercise and a body-toning weight lifting program, along with therapeutic nutritional supplementation, is a double deposit with interest that pays off in the future — a smart woman’s best bet for looking and feeling younger, both today and during her senior years.”
Dr. Klatz recommends that menopausal women avoid coffee, chocolate, and caffeinated teas “because these can block trace minerals [from] being absorbed in the digestive process.” Caffeine, for example, can block the absorption of calcium — which means that taking that calcium supplement with your morning coffee or eating dairy products with a caffeinated soda does your bones no good, whether you're 25, 35, or 65.
Step 2: Rethinking how you eat
Yet even this prohibition is not so straightforward: it may merely mean changing which foods you eat together. Green tea, for instance, does contain some caffeine — as does chocolate, though the latter has more theobromine than caffeine — but in both cases, the caffeine is in much smaller amounts than in coffee or most caffeinated colas. However, both green tea and chocolate also contain beneficial substances: strong antioxidants and helpful bioflavonoids in the case of green tea, phenylethylamine and apparent cavity inhibitors in pure chocolate (these are less present when the chocolate is “adulterated” with other ingredients such as milk, sugar, and butter). Thus, you may want to take calcium in the morning with juice rather than coffee, and your green tea or small piece of semi-sweet or dark chocolate in the evening or between meals.
Similarly, spinach is good for you primarily because of the iron in it. However, the oxalic acid in spinach also blocks calcium absorption — which means that pairing it with, say, a marinara sauce or olive-oil vinaigrette is more beneficial than eating it creamed or with cheese dishes. Matching foods to get the most out of the nutrients in them is the answer.
Because of estrogen depletion during and after menopause, women in this age group also lose estrogen's protective effect on the heart. To counter this, it’s a good idea to take enough antioxidant vitamins such as C, E, and A or beta carotene. However, other nutrients such as fish oil capsules and garlic can help protect the heart as well. Fish oil, particularly from salmon and mackerel, contains beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, as does canola oil — which is why canola sometimes has that fishy smell. Moreover, when fish oil and garlic are taken together, their cardiac effects are synergistic: that is, they provide a greater benefit in combination than when taken separately. In addition, some studies indicate that people who frequently eat fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids tend to have a lower incidence of depression. Thus, fish oil is yet another “blues chaser.”
Dr. Klatz also suggests that women add to their diets fermented foods such as sauerkraut, sourdough bread, 100‰ whole-grain rye bread, dill pickles, and yogurt or Kefir, all of which optimize absorption of nutrients by both the large and small intestines. Like men, women are also advised to drink eight glasses of water per day, four of them with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice added.
Step 3: Estrogen and supplements
MacCoy sees enormous value in physician prescribed and monitored estrogen replacement, combined with exercise. She strongly advises women to act before menopause begins.
Nutritionist Dr. Steven Novil, Ph.D., agrees. “Reversal of the effects of menopause through nutritional and hormonal therapy can be evidenced in 90 days to a year, depending on individual body chemistry.” Dr. Novil is a research consultant to ALRI and is in private practice in Evanston, IL.
“Use natural herbs and teas, and follow a nutritional program low in fat and sugar but high in protein and carbohydrates,” MacCoy recommends, to offset hot flashes and other physical and emotional side-effects of menopause. She notes that natural herbs, raspberry leaf, and black current tea were used by the American Indians to balance the female hormonal system.
Dr. Novil adds that Chinese and other Asian women have taken peony, rehamannia, cnidium, and angelica or tang-kuei ever since these were first published in 1151 A.D. in Chen Shi-wen’s Professional and Popular Prescriptions. “Formulas that contain tang-kuei, a herb traditionally administered for menopausal and monthly menstrual cycles, have been used for much longer — about three thousand years.”
Of course, to avoid any drug/herb or drug/food/herb interactions, women who take any prescription or over-the-counter medication regularly should discuss which herbs they are taking with their physicians and/or pharmacists. This is very important, because although the active substances in herbs may be completely natural, they are still drugs and can have unfortunate side-effects when combined with other substances.
Step 4: Rethink your style
After spending months dealing with her own menopause, MacCoy has a very positive attitude toward it and recommends an aggressive approach. “Take charge of your future and act today by starting your own Spa Quick Fix program (see sidebar), exercise, and nutritional supplementation, and see your doctor about hormone replacement to bring about dramatic immediate change coupled with long-term results. This will create a beauty baseline that breeds a youthful, radiant confidence and a positive mental attitude. For me, this is the heart of what longevity management is about. Menopause can be [just] a marker along the road of life that says, ‘Get Gas Now — 60 More Years to Go!’”
Hair artist Susan MacCoy is based at Elizabeth Adam Salon and Day Spa,
located in Chicago’s Water Tower Place. She has taught in venues
as diverse as the Goodman Theater of the Art Institute of Chicago; the
Clairol Summer Sessions at Northwestern University; classes offered by
Helene Curtis in the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, and Africa; Clairol,
Inc.’s Famous Haircolorists’ Educator Program; and sessions
for Glemby International, as well as in training videos for beauty professionals
and students. Formerly manager of the Glemby International Salon at the
Drake Hotel and long established on Michigan Avenue, MacCoy has served
many famous clients, including Barbara Walters, Princess Diane
Von Furstenburg, Lucille Ball, and Lady Bird Johnson.
Estelle Shanley, a freelance writer based in Chicago and Boston, contributed to this article.
M.R. Traska is an independent journalist contributed to this article
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