Getting older can be brutal—women gain weight, lose their sex drive, experience hot flashes, suffer memory loss, become short-tempered, find it difficult to sleep, and on and on. It’s not so easy for men, either—they start to lose energy and stamina as they age, too (and they have to live with women going through menopause). After years of being thin and fit and full of energy, Suzanne herself encountered the “Seven Dwarfs of Menopause”—Itchy, Bitchy, Sweaty, Sleepy, Bloated, Forgetful, and All-Dried-Up. Instead of living out the rest of her life cranky, sleep-deprived, and libido-less, Suzanne set out to discover how she could get her mind, body, and life back and banish those pesky dwarfs for good.

The result is The Sexy Years: Discover the Hormone Connection—The Secret to Fabulous Sex, Great Health, and Vitality, for Women and Men. In this passionately argued and enormously practical book, Suzanne supports her own research and experiences with the expertise of leading doctors in the field of women’s and men’s health and sexuality to create an inspiring, accessible call-to-arms to women to radically rethink how they approach life after fifty, and give them the tools to turn their lives around.

Suzanne has discovered that the second half of life has been more rewarding, fun, and purposeful than her younger years. The key to her happiness? Taking natural bioidentical hormones. Natural hormones, which mimic the hormones produced in our own bodies that are almost completely lost with aging, are the answer to the symptoms of menopause that plague women. Recent findings from the medical community show that synthetic hormone replacement therapy
(HRT) may be harmful to women—thus, thousands of women are looking for what else they can do to alleviate their symptoms. In The Sexy Years, Suzanne comes to the rescue with a step-by-step plan and detailed information about how women can take control of their health, for themselves and for their men, including:

• What the differences are between synthetic and bioidentical hormones, and why bioidentical hormones help women lose weight, reinvigorate their sex lives, and fight the symptoms of aging
• How doctors do not receive adequate training about hormones and are slaves to the pharmaceutical industry, and what questions every woman must ask her physician about hormone replacement therapy and her health
• How Suzanne turned her life around, with information about how often she visits her doctor, blood work, what hormones she takes, how to get these hormones, and more
• What male menopause, or andropause, is and how men can also take bioidentical hormones and regain the energy they had in their youth
• What a variety of specialists think about natural hormones, health, and sexuality—Suzanne shares the best advice from these doctors and provides a resource list of physicians and pharmacies

With bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, Suzanne has found the fountain of youth, the elixir that has made her feel thirty years old again. In combination with her Somersize diet and fitness plan, which she also writes about here, Suzanne has never felt better. The beauty of growing older, she maintains, is that you can combine the wisdom of age with the vitality of youth. Suzanne makes it perfectly clear how women and men can regain their zest for life at any age. These really are the sexy years!


From the Hardcover edition.