Learn How You Can head off Depression and Mood Swings, Weight Shifts, Erratic Sleep, Memory Loss, and Other Changes Leading to Menopause Take charge of your perimenopause simply, safely, and naturally! This breakthrough book details a gentle incremental program for understanding your own changes and offers a wide range of options for taking care of yourself. By following the author's proven techniques for controlling the symptoms of perimenopause, you can continue to feel great through this vital phase of your life. With this essential do-it-yourself program, you can say good-bye to hormone havoc and sail through your perimenopause, the period of about ten years leading up to menopause, by understanding and controlling its symptoms. Before the Change ... clearly explains the symptoms of perimenopause and offers a self-diagnosis quiz; details safe and natural alternatives to hormone therapy, including healing vitamins, minerals, herbs and natural hormones gives you a powerful Changing Diet, with tips and recipes for foods that prevent and alleviate symptoms This revised and updated edition includes: an expanded section on the pros and cons of soy as a natural phytoestrogen; an expanded discussion of hypothyroidism and how this is connected to hormonal imbalances as well as the best natural treatments; a full discussion on the ramifications of the halted Women's Health Initiative HRT study in July of 2002, i.e., how to wean yourself off of the synethetic hormones and what other herbal, lifestyle, and diet options and modifications there are for women who have had a hysterectomy, have risk factors or a history of breast cancer, osteoporosis, or heart disease