How we’re loving
THEY are middle-aged and menopausal – but these woman are laughing their way through the change of life.
Fed up with perfect pictures of beautiful young women on Love Island, the fabulous five decided to stage a rival swimsuit shoot.
And their inspiring pictures will appear in a Menopausal Love Island calendar to raise cash for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Calendar girl Emma Skeates said: “We might not be young or skinny but we are still beautiful and classy.”
Here the friends, from the Horsham area of West Sussex, share the secrets of their battle against “the change”. Lucy said: “When I put on a stone I started the Couch to 5k NHS programme and really enjoyed it.
I then got an ankle injury so started swimming while I recovered, then a friend suggested I did a triathlon – and I’m now in training for an
Olympic one.”
Lucy, who now weighs 10st
12lb, developed the skin condition rosacea when she started the menopause.
She said, “Just when you start getting all wrinkly, you get rosacea.” Fiona Smithers-Green, 52, is using food to combat menopause symptoms. As a vegan, HRT goes against her ethics because some older types are made from urine taken from specially impregnated horses. She has ditched sugar and processed food to boost her energy levels, which can slump during the change.
Fiona, a mum of one, said:
“I can’t get to sleep easily at night any more and my memory is awful. Sometimes
I write myself lists but can’t even recall why I wrote them!
“I’ve always been a bit of a skinny minny but my waist has thickened. I went up to a size 12 from an eight or 10, and had terrible sugar cravings, so I went cold turkey and cut it out. It’s definitely helped me feel less sluggish and I felt better within a week of giving it up.”