Book review: Is It Me or My Hormones? The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly about PMS, Perimenopause, and all the Crazy Things that Occur with Hormone Imbalance by Marcelle Pick (Hay House, 2013)
Many women will be familiar with the common dismissals they hear from other health-care professionals in regard to their concerns. It’s ‘just a normal part of being a woman’ or ‘not that important’. Marcelle Pick validates women’s experience of hormonal issues and reassures them that with simple, natural changes, they can eliminate their cravings, depression, mood swings and weight gain, going on to feel energized, sexual, and in command of their lives.
In Is It Me or My Hormones?, Marcelle Pick, MSN, OB/GYN NP, delves into the often misunderstood world of female hormonal imbalance. Marcelle not only shares her expertise as a health-care professional, but also her personal struggles as a woman with hormonal imbalance. She explains that the right diet, exercise, supplements, herbs, and psychological support, occasionally complemented with bioidentical hormones, can free women from hormone disruption.
Is it Me or My Hormones? also provides women with a combination of engaging patient anecdotes and a concrete and accessible integrated 30-day program that can balance their hormones and make them feel like themselves again.
After reading, and appreciating, Is It Me or My Adrenals? by the same author, I ploughed on with this one, about hormones and what effect they have on our bodies. Female bodies, I should point out, because it’s a book for women. While it touches on testosterone, it’s more about oestrogen and progesterone.
The thing is, if our hormones are out of whack we’re not going to feel well. This book goes into a lot of different causes of hormone imbalances, and what you can do about it. For instance, it’s shocking to read how much we’re exposed to hormones without even trying. Plastics, for instance, there’s one. The book inspired me to throw out a lot of plastic containers and put things in glass jars instead!
Toward the end, there’s what a “typical day” could look like. While some people would certainly think you need to follow it point to point, that’s not the point – which the author is quick to point out herself. It’s a suggestion of how someone’s day is structured, not necessarily how your day works. It’s more about giving examples of how easily you can incorporate a ten-minute walk in an otherwise busy schedule.
There are a number of hormone-friendly recipes as well, but I mostly skipped those. A lot of them contain very American ingredients, but if you know what you’re doing in a kitchen (and look up things on Wikipedia that you don’t know what they are), you can find substitutes fairly easily. If something’s described as a “white fish”, there are several white fish that I’m sure would work just as well, for instance.
If you don’t want a book to suggest taking nature-identical hormones and supplements, exercise a bit more, or be careful with what you put in your mouth, then Is It Me or My Hormones? is not for you, and you’re not going to like it, even though it says you don’t actually need to take supplements, but you will feel better quicker if you do. If you don’t mind any of those things, it’s an interesting read. If I have any real criticism it would be that the book is more for perimenopausal, menopausal or post-menopausal women rather than slightly younger women in their 20s or early 30s who haven’t quite got as far as perimenopause yet, but who are still affected by hormone imbalances.
4 out of 5 creams, with thanks to Hay House for providing me with a review copy. 🙂