Perimenopause

I love creating content for live webinars. There's something about walking a room full of women through the "why" behind their symptoms in real time, watching the moment things click, that I never get tired of. So many women come to me after years of being told their labs are "normal." Fatigue that won't lift. Cycles that stopped making sense. Weight that won't budge no matter what they change. Mood swings that feel like they came out of nowhere. They leave appointment after appointment with a shrug and a "everything looks fine" while they know, in their gut, that something is asking for their attention. Here's what most traditional blood panels miss: a single snapshot of estrogen or progesterone on one day tells you almost nothing about the rhythm and pattern of a woman's hormones across a full cycle, or how those hormones are actually being metabolized and cleared. Two women can have the exact same lab number and completely different underlying pictures. That gap is where so many women get stuck for years, cycling through appointments without ever getting real answers. This is exactly why I get so energized about functional medicine lab testing. Advanced hormone testing looks at patterns over time, at metabolites, at the full picture of how a woman's body is actually functioning, not just a single number compared to a wide "normal" range. It's the difference between a snapshot and a story. On September 21, I'm hosting a webinar on advanced hormone testing for women, and I could not be more excited to teach this one. We'll walk through why standard blood tests so often leave women without answers, what advanced testing actually reveals, and how to finally understand what your body has been trying to tell you. If you've ever left a doctor's appointment feeling dismissed, unheard, or like the numbers didn't match how you actually feel, this one is for you. Registration link and full details are in the comments below. 👇 …more

Last week I had the honor of representing Bondi Blyss at @Newtopia Now in Denver — and it left me thinking about something I don't say often enough: bringing a product to life is one of the hardest things a founder can do. I watched this Australian company move from an idea to a shelf-ready product, and every step took real grit. Sourcing quality ingredients. Testing formulations. Navigating regulatory hurdles. Building something that actually works — not just something that sounds good on a label. That kind of rigor deserves more recognition than it usually gets. Bondi Blyss builds around functional mushroom blends, including lion's mane, shiitake, and maitake. As a functional medicine practitioner, this is exactly the kind of ingredient thinking I get excited about, because the mechanisms are specific: Lion's mane has research behind it for supporting cognitive function and nerve growth factor production — which matters enormously to me given how many of my perimenopausal clients name brain fog as their most frustrating symptom. Shiitake contains beta-glucans studied for immune function, with compounds researched for their role in gut and cardiovascular health — both central to the digestive work I do. Maitake is another beta-glucan-rich mushroom studied for immune modulation and blood sugar balance, which ties directly into the metabolic and longevity work I focus on. None of these mushrooms are a cure for anything. And ingredients like these are never a replacement for real clinical care. But as part of a broader approach to supporting the body's own resilience, this is the kind of formulation I want to see more companies invest in — because the body is intelligent, and it responds to the quality of what we give it. Congratulations to the Bondi Blyss team on bringing something this thoughtful into the world. You can learn more about them - link in the comments. If you care about the science behind midlife energy, cognition, and hormonal health, follow along here — I share this kind of thinking every week. …more

A few years ago, no one I asked for help explained what was actually happening in the body during perimenopause — it was a mystery even though I had been working in the medical system for 25 years. That's exactly the conversation I wanted to create. I'm joined Stephanie Doty, my nutrition partner, for a free webinar on navigating perimenopause and menopause: real strategies on hormone balance, nutrition, stress, and longevity. This is the conversation I wish someone had had with me. I've reversed all of my symptoms through diligent attention to what my body was asking for. The link is in the comments …more

Your biological age and your hormonal health are not separate issues. They are connected at the most fundamental level of your biology. When we measure biological age using DNA methylation testing, we are looking at how your cells are actually aging compared to your chronological years. And one of the most powerful drivers of accelerated biological aging in women over 40 is dysregulated hormones. Estrogen is not just about your menstrual cycle or hot flashes. It is neuroprotective. It supports mitochondrial function. It influences how your DNA is methylated and repaired. Progesterone is not just a reproductive hormone. It calms the nervous system. It affects sleep architecture. It modulates inflammation. When these hormones decline or become imbalanced during perimenopause, the downstream effects show up everywhere. Brain fog. Poor sleep. Fatigue that doesn't resolve with rest. Weight that shifts despite doing everything right. Mood changes that feel disproportionate to your stress level. And if we measure biological age during this window, we often see acceleration. This is not inevitable. It is reversible. But it requires more than symptom management. It requires understanding what is actually driving the hormonal dysregulation in the first place. Cortisol patterns. Nutrient deficiencies. Gut dysfunction. Sleep disruption. Toxin exposure. All of these influence how your hormones function and how your cells age. The women I work with are not just optimizing hormones. They are reversing biological age. Because when we address the root causes and restore hormonal balance within the context of the whole system, the epigenetic markers change. We can measure that change. We can track it over time. And it changes the trajectory of the second half of life. If you are in your 40s or 50s and feel like something is off despite doing everything right, this is the work that matters. Your chronological age is fixed. Your biological age is not. Book a discovery call to learn your biological age and what it means for your health trajectory. https://lizgreenfield.kartra.com/calendar/book-with-liz #longevityscience #biologicalage …more

You run through your mental checklist before the meeting. Notes are on your desktop. Coffee is fresh. You rehearsed your talking points this morning. And yet — halfway through, you lose your thread. A colleague asks you a question and you blank. You know the answer, but the retrieval is slow. Labored. Like trying to pull a file from a server that keeps timing out. This is not imposter syndrome. This is not burnout. This is not you needing to get more sleep or manage your stress better. This is your brain sending a very clear signal that something in your biology has shifted — and the signal is often loudest in professional women in their 40s and 50s who have been running at full capacity for years. The brain fog that shows up during perimenopause is not a character flaw. It is a physiological response to fluctuating estrogen, declining mitochondrial efficiency, cortisol dysregulation, and nutrient depletions that standard lab panels are not designed to catch. Your clinician may tell you your labs are normal. They may tell you this is just stress. They may tell you this is what aging looks like. But what they are not telling you is that there are functional labs that tell a completely different story — labs that measure your biological age, your mitochondrial function, your cortisol rhythm, your nutrient status, and your hormonal patterns with precision that goes far beyond what a standard panel can see. And when you run the right tests, you stop guessing. You stop wondering if this is just in your head. You stop accepting that this is simply what midlife looks like. You start seeing exactly what is driving your symptoms — and what is possible when you address the root cause instead of managing the surface. If you are a high-achieving professional woman who has been told your labs are normal but you know something is off, I want you to know that you are not imagining this. Your body is not broken. It is asking for something it has not yet received. And there is a way to find out what that is. Book a discovery call. We will look at what is actually driving your symptoms and find out if my approach is the right fit for you. https://lizgreenfield.kartra.com/calendar/book-with-liz …more

You are doing everything you are supposed to do. You are eating well. You are exercising. You are managing your workload and trying to keep your stress in check. And yet your body is changing in ways that feel beyond your control. Your energy is not what it was. Your clothes fit differently. Your recovery takes longer. Your brain feels slower, and the cognitive sharpness you have always counted on is just not there the way it used to be. When you ask your doctor, the answer is usually the same. Your labs are normal. This is just what happens in midlife. Maybe try cutting calories. Maybe add more cardio. Maybe accept that this is just aging. But here is what that conversation is missing: your body composition in midlife is not about willpower or calories. It is about hormones, stress physiology, mitochondrial function, and metabolic signaling. And the standard labs most clinicians run do not tell that story. Body composition science looks at what is actually happening beneath the surface. It measures lean mass, fat mass distribution, visceral adiposity, and metabolic health markers that reveal how your body is responding to the hormonal shifts of perimenopause and early menopause. It shows whether cortisol dysregulation is driving muscle loss. Whether insulin resistance is quietly building. Whether inflammation is changing how your body stores and uses energy. This is not vanity. This is metabolic health. This is biological age. This is the difference between operating at your best and spending the next decade managing symptoms. On April 23 at 6 PM Pacific, I am hosting a free webinar on women's body composition in midlife. I will walk through what is actually happening in your body during this transition, what the right data can reveal, and what becomes possible when you address the root cause instead of chasing symptoms. This is for women who want answers, not platitudes. Who want to understand their own biology at a deeper level. Who are ready to see what the data actually says and build a plan around it. Reserve your spot here: https://lizgreenfield.kartra.com/page/Womens-Body-Composition-Webinar-2026 …more