I am starting to look portly. I am starting to resemble Mrs K., the mother of a friend of mind in highschool. Mrs K. was a woman whose bosom (they were definitely not breasts) could only be controlled within the whalebone walls of the full fledged corset that she wore. When I tug my way into my Spanx midriff slimmer, the accompaniment to my underwire bra, I might as well be wearing that whalebone for all that I am (a) comfortable and (b) can breathe easily.

Such is the stuff of the menopausal woman’s life. Drat it!

But need it be? Must the meno-pot be the midlife version of the baby bump (and if so, why is that that so much of being female gets focused on the belly)?

Estroven thinks not. Their Estroven® Weight Management dietary supplement contains natural ingredients like Soy Isoflavones and Black Cohosh to limit hot flashes and night sweats. However, it’s their proprietary Synetrim® CQ that provides the weight management feature of the supplement. It is not, I hasten to add, a diet pill as we normally know it, that is, an upper of some sort. Rather, Synetrim CQ works on weight management by affecting the brain’s serotonin output. If I remember correctly from my MA in Psych (and the textbook, The Psychotherapist’s Guide to Psychopharmacology), serotonin is believed to mediate a range of psychobiological brain functions including mood, sleep-wake cycles, and, yes, appetite.

So I popped my first of two daily Estroven Weight Management capsules the other day. I also started Week One of the accompanying “Changing Ways Workout Plan”. The Workout Plan is contained in a easy-to-handle, large print book with an eight-week Workout Calendar that features clear explanations which are neither cloying nor cute. I need that kind of structure to keep me on the straight and narrow. A major plus is that the model who is demonstrating the various exercises looks just like someone I’d know. That is–she’s middle-sized and middle-aged. Kudos to the people who created the book for not using some slim chicky to show us oldsters how it should be done. Which is, of course, how we used to do it when we were the slim chickys.

Check back with me in eight weeks to see the results. Will I be breathing easier in my Spanx? Will I be going down a size or, oh joy!, abandoning them outright? Now wouldn’t that be the miracle of midlife!

Estroven sent me a one month sample of their Weight Management supplement as well as the “Changing Ways Workout Plan” book for the purposes of this review. I am also being compensated for this sponsored post. That said, I’m responsible for the contents of this post.