Dr. Vonda Wright

And then, yes, hormones are really a critical building block.

But as we enter the conversation, women are sentient beings.

And we get to decide.

And we get to make the changes because we have agency.

So what we're going to describe is not a one-size-fits-all.

It's all the tools.

Put the tools on the table.

So I choose, if I'm going to work my proverbial rear end off to be the best I can be for the rest of my life, I choose to use all the tools.

Not everybody does that.

But to choose one tool and think that's going to be enough, it never is.

Never.

So, when I decided to, and I've been pretty public about my journey in this, because you think I would have known after 22 years of formal education and all this, and being a musculoskeletal aging researcher, you would have thought I would have known, but I honestly, looking back, maybe thought I was never going to age because I was so healthy, right?

So I have a baby at 40.

I breastfeed till almost 41 and a half, 42.

And then I'm back at my very quickly, five weeks, my high power, high capacity to career.

But things were getting really different about 45 for me.

And I think I went right from postpartum to perimenopause with very little downtime.

So chaotic hormones to almost—and so—

I suffered for a while.

At 47, I talk about it like I went from this really high capacity to thinking I was going to die, not only because of night sweats, brain fog, the thing that lots of women have, but I started having heart palpitations.