The Midlife Feast
The Midlife Feast
#163 - Story Session: From Scientist to Menopause Advocate: Dr. Béatrice Séguin's Unexpected Journey
“How could I, an educated scientist married to a doctor, not know this was happening to me?” At 45, Béatrice Séguin was floored to realize she was already in menopause, after years of missing the signs.
In this honest and energetic story session, Béatrice shares how that wake-up call turned her into a menopause advocate and led to her podcast This Time of the Month (TTOM). We talk about why so many women are caught off guard, how old research still shapes today’s care, and the new pressure to “do menopause right” with the perfect diet, supplements, or hormones.
But there’s good news. We encourage trying what works for you! From hormone therapy and vaginal estrogen to lifestyle shifts and antidepressants, this episode opens up the full menu of options.
Most importantly, it’s a reminder you don’t have to figure this out alone. Whether you’re in perimenopause, menopause, or supporting a friend, this conversation brings validation, real talk, and community to the midlife transition.
Connect with Dr. Béatrice:
Website: www.thistimeofthemonth.com
Instagram: @ttomcommunity
Watch This Time of the Month on YouTube: @TTOMcommunity
Like what you learned? Check out these other episodes!
- How to Appreciate Your Changing Midlife Body
- Cooking for Pleasure Not Perfection with Chef Andrea Buckett
- Beating the Brain Fog of Menopause
- Story Session: How Early Menopause Led to Food Freedom with Sarah Dosanjh
- Q&A Episode: Food Tracking, Plant Proteins, and Collagen
What did you think of this episode? Click here and let me know!
📚 I wrote a book! Eat To Thrive During Menopause will be out on October 21st, 2025. Pre-order your copy today and help get the word out!
Looking for more about midlife, menopause nutrition, and intuitive eating? Click here to grab one of my free guides and learn what I've got "on the menu" including my 1:1 and group programs. https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/links
Hi and welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr Jenn Salib Huber. I'm an intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor and I help women manage menopause without dieting and food rules. Come to my table, listen and learn from me trusted guest experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you. Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. And if you're looking for more information about menopause, nutrition and intuitive eating, check out the Midlife Feast Community, my monthly membership that combines my no-nonsense approach that you all love to nutrition with community, so that you can learn from me and others who can relate to the cheers and challenges of midlife. Hello, beatrice, how are you?
Béatrice Séguin:I'm great, Jen. I'm having a fabulous day.
Jenn Salib Huber:Yes, it's a beautiful day. It looks like where you are. I'm very excited to be joining and to have you joining me from across the pond. So I'm across the pond, I guess, technically, but now I think of everybody in North America as across the pond from me. But it's always nice when we can connect this way and I'm really looking forward to hearing a little bit about your story. But before we dive into that, I would like to invite you to introduce yourself to my audience.
Béatrice Séguin:Right, my name is Beatrice Seguin. I am the host and creator of a podcast on YouTube called this Time of the Month, and you and I got connected through social media, which you know we can criticize social media, but there's also amazing things like making friends across the pond because of shared interests, shared values.
Jenn Salib Huber:So, yeah, yeah, you know, and it's really interesting because this menopause space has grown so much and, you know, with growth comes growing pains sometimes.
Jenn Salib Huber:But you know, one of the things that it has really done, I think, is open doors for people to share their stories. Yes, and there is no one way to menopause which we might talk about in a little bit. And you know, everybody that I talk to and I've talked to probably thousands of people over the last, you know, five to 10 years about their experience of perimenopause and menopause and menopause and postmenopause, and everybody has a story and it's always a little bit different and you, I think, have an interesting story.
Jenn Salib Huber:So I would love to hear kind of your story of what brought you to being in this space, of also working in this midlife space.
Béatrice Séguin:Yes, I would have never predicted that this is the space I would end up with. I am a scientist by training and I worked in pharmaceutical sciences, understanding how medications make us sick, how we have unexpected adverse events from the medications we take. I always had an interest in equity, however, even when I was in the lab in the depth of researching. I'm a child of an immigrant parent from Central America and from birth I was told how lucky I was to be born in Canada. That sacrifice my family made to come here put me one step up already. So these things have always bubbled in my mind and I've always been problem focused rather than discipline focused, and that makes me a bit strange. I think people can't always figure me out, because some people devote their lives to you know, one topic and that's what they are, and they're a deep expert, and we certainly need we need that in the world. In my case, I've woven in and out of problems I like to solve, and menopause, obviously, or perimenopause, although I did not know that word. It hit me like a truck While I was in the midst of starting a company, with partners raising young children, and I married to a physician, and yet I never recognized the symptoms I was feeling. To me they were just the storm of life. But you know, typical symptoms we hear about, like why am I can't rid of? You know, is it because I had children later in my life that I can't get rid of the belly fat? You know, why is it here? Why am I angry? Why am I all of a sudden anxious? What is going on with me? But that's a retrospective look. It was a storm.
Béatrice Séguin:I just wasn't realizing it until until and I was on the earlier side of perimenopause or menopause, because in my specific case, my period ended. There was not the chaotic bleeding that happens for some people, and so I missed a period. And the only logical conclusion because I was young was that I was pregnant. So I rushed to take a pregnancy test and the test was negative, to which my husband turns around and is like well, honey, have you considered menopause? And I'm like I'm too young, what are you talking about? And that sent me down the rabbit hole. Because how could I, an educated scientist married to a physician, how did this? Never even even? Why didn't he bring it up before?
Béatrice Séguin:yeah, if he was noticing things in me.
Jenn Salib Huber:I was um 45 yeah, so not young by to 2025 standards, you know, I mean not young for menopause, still very young, obviously.
Béatrice Séguin:But I just yeah not like now.
Jenn Salib Huber:I think most people would come to that conclusion on their own because of all the advocacy. But I 100% understand, because 11 years ago was when I entered perimenopause at 37. And honestly, I fought it like internally and was like no, there must be another reason. Until I was faced with the evidence of like, oh my gosh, this actually is what it is, you know, but it is um. It must have been really challenging to realize.
Béatrice Séguin:It was Um and, to be clear, like I was menopausal at 45. So the perimenopause was the seven to whatever years before. But again, I'm 52 now. I'm 52 now and so I missed perimenopause. I didn't miss experiencing it, I missed it, the vocabulary, the recognition of symptoms. As I said earlier, it was confounded by the fact that I had my children in my mid 30s because I went to school for so long and a postdoc and this and that, and a husband and fellowships and all of these things. So we were later. So there's things that are happening that you're not sure. But truly, and we are going back in time, I agree with you, thank goodness, in 2025, a woman would be like is this perimenopause or menopause? But in my case it didn't. It was a sudden realization and realizing that you're not only menopausal but that you'd been suffering from things that you could have gotten support for. But now it became mission critical to me because it was a lot of emotions that hit me at once, like how can I be fully menopausal? What happened? Wait, oh, I feel a sudden sense of loss. I didn't want more children, but it's over. I have to process that Loss of femininity Not rational, but these are the emotions I felt Because, yes, I thought of menopause as something that happens in your 60s. Again, embarrassed, because I should have known that.
Béatrice Séguin:I studied in health sciences. We studied the reproductive life cycle of a woman, but clearly not, clearly not well enough, and so there were a lot of emotions that hit me and it sent me down a rabbit hole of okay, okay, so this is what I'm experiencing. Now I understand symptoms. Okay, I'm medically literate, so I'm gonna go on PubMed and look at my symptoms and see what I can do in hormone therapy. In my case, I was like I'm a candidate for hormone therapy. Now I understand everything that's happening to me, and so I first told my husband, given who he is as a professional, his reaction he is an oncologist I must tell your listener that. So he's hypers, sensitive to risks of cancer, and he was educated in med school.
Béatrice Séguin:He was in med school in 2002, when the Women's Health Initiative came out and people were told to just throw hormone therapy out the door cancer, cancer, cancer. So here I am telling my biggest ally hey, I think I'm a candidate, you know, to address all my symptoms. And he's like no, no, no. And I'm like oh, I'm going to talk to my family doctor about it. I tell her about it and she's like cancer, cancer, no, no, no, oh, and, by the way, wait 12 months. Now, in that moment where I missed my period period and I went down the rabbit hole I had not reached, it was the beginning of the 12 months, but I believed her that I had to wait 12 months. So for 12 months I was in a rabbit hole of research rage outrage, because I had two allies telling me something that was contradicting what I was reading about.
Béatrice Séguin:Yeah, and that's why I created this podcast.
Jenn Salib Huber:That was literally my next question. Was that kind of the moment that really made you realize that women were being underserved? Yes, that you needed to have an advocate more, you know, needed to have an ally. An advocate that was, you know, could help them figure all this stuff out, you know could help them figure all this stuff out.
Béatrice Séguin:And the podcast came later. But that moment of realization is what you just said. It was a aha, holy crap. If I am going through this, if I have to quote unquote fight my husband quote unquote fight my doctor, what does a woman who doesn't have the scientific literacy, the confidence to advocate, the stubbornness to not take no for an answer, what does she do? And so I started telling anyone and everyone about it, what I was feeling, what I was going through, what I was finding out, and that started coinciding with what I would call the swell or the beginnings of the menopause moment. And I think it's because all these women were all the same age and we're all having these aha moments together.
Jenn Salib Huber:Yeah, and so many of us. Because I'm how old am I? I'm 48. Think about it for a minute. But I was also menopausal at 44, like three months shy of my 45th birthday was when I hit full menopause. But our whole generation was impacted directly or indirectly by that study in 2002. Either we had mothers who were on hormone therapy who dropped it like a hot potato yes or we had mothers who suffered, or family members who suffered through menopause because they were afraid. But that narrative became such a common default narrative that, you know, I think our generation has really been impacted by it in a way that others haven't.
Jenn Salib Huber:It's really interesting that you had that memory about your husband being in med school. One of the things that I share in the book Eat to Thrive that comes out in October is that my dad was an OBGYN in a small town and so I was in naturopathic school in 2002. And I very specifically remember him calling me in the middle of the day one day saying, jen, are you learning anything about how to help women with hot flashes? Because you know everyone is stopping their hormone therapy and what can I tell them? Because it was such a panic in the medical world and, of course, when medical professionals are panicked about it, patients are panicked about it and that panic, you know, unfortunately still lives on for too many people, and they're healthy.
Béatrice Séguin:It really does Both. Yes, things are better, but it still persists Absolutely. And so we, you know the conversation isn't over, we have to, and there are guidelines and much more awareness on social media. I find it interesting that some of my community members will tell me I finally went to the doctor. I do qualify, you know, for hormone therapy. I want to give it a try.
Béatrice Séguin:I brought it home, but I read the insert, I'm scared. Oh, my God, I'm not going to do it. No, it, no, it's too much. Oh, and what if I gain weight instead of losing weight, which, to be clear to our listeners, it's not indicated for weight loss? But these are the types of conversations happening in women's minds, so they're like, they're scared still. So, imagine even having the evidence-based tool that has been, you know, clarified in terms of its risks and its benefits, and still some women, they just can't take that last step to actually try something. That's incredible to me, and that's if you're lucky to get it. And in the case of you know, there's other women who tell me they still are told to know that. You know, that's too, it's too risky, or I'm not comfortable, and they're not offered alternatives because I don't want listeners to think hormone therapy is the only right tool to support symptoms, but you know what are the alternates, what are additives to it, like vaginal estrogen? To me again is incredible that most women are not offered that.
Jenn Salib Huber:And are not explained how safe it is really like you know, vaginal estrogen, you know. I use the example of. We can buy over the counter hydro. You know steroid cream. We should be able to buy over the counter vaginal estrogen cream.
Jenn Salib Huber:Nobody is worried about using, you know a low percentage cortisone cream and you know developing all the side effects that are related to systemic cortisone or you know systemic prednisone, and we need to make sure that women understand that vaginal estrogen it is the same thing, it is topical, it is local and it is magical folks, it is magical it saves lives truly.
Béatrice Séguin:It really does, and I love that analogy. That's a great analogy, the cortisol one. So, yeah, that's why I appreciate a conversation with you and that's why we need to keep going so that people realize there are tools.
Jenn Salib Huber:Absolutely, and as much as I am very pro-hormone therapy, I've shared before that it didn't work for me. I'm one of those hormone sensitive people. The progesterone made me feel terrible. You know I have a complicated pelvic history with lots of surgeries, so I was also not a candidate for progestin IUD so I really had no option. Estrogen therapy was just not gonna candidate for progestin IUD so I really had no option.
Jenn Salib Huber:Estrogen therapy was just not going to be an option for me and which is, you know, one of the things that made me really interested in exploring menopause, nutrition and all of the other kind of alternatives but the one really interesting thing that I have seen kind of swing in the last five to seven years we've gone from we should be a little cautious about hormone therapy to we should put it in the water and everybody should be on it. And now it feels like the message has gone in some corners of the internet will say that the only way to menopause is to be rah, rah, rah pro HRT at all costs. And to the point where I have had women say I'm kind of like ashamed to say that I'm not on hormones because everybody is. It's terrible, yeah, yeah, it's not okay.
Béatrice Séguin:It's um, I love that you're bringing that up. It's really been irking me lately, uh, because there is a growing pressure around how to menopause right that there's a right way to do it. And if you're not drinking your protein shake, wearing your weighted vest, counting your steps, popping in the right supplements, cutting out every ounce of sugar, every ounce of alcohol, and you're not doing hormone therapy, so you're going to shrivel, become demented and die. There is a corner of the internet that is implying that, and to me that is not support, but it's fear. It's fear. That is a total, it's a fake. Empowerment package is what I like to call it.
Jenn Salib Huber:I like that. Yeah, that's exactly what it is it's a fake empowerment package is what I like to call it. I like that. Yeah, that's exactly what it is it's a fake empowerment package, yeah yeah, yeah, there's.
Béatrice Séguin:There isn't just one way to menopause and you won't die if you are not a candidate or choose not to do menopause hormone therapy, and luckily, I mean. There's not enough research, but there are some advances. You know, there are some advances. There are treatments that are not hormonal old ones, but exciting new. Well, when you talk about vaginal estrogen, we're not told properly that it's not high risk. It's a little bit like that with some of the antidepressants.
Béatrice Séguin:I think there's a stigma right to use an antidepressant to manage your vasomotor symptoms. I blame the lack of proper communication. I don't blame one specific doctor for that. I just think again, bridging everyday lay language with deep medical knowledge. A doctor is busy. They have, on average, seven minutes to interact with you, at least here in Canada, if you're lucky to have a primary caregiver In their minds. They've had the convo. Oh, you're having hot flashes, you're not a candidate for hormone therapy, for whatever reason. I'm going to give you one of these antidepressants and you're like wow, wait a minute, I'm not depressed, I don't want that. It's scary. What are you talking about? This isn't a natural you know as an option. They're not explaining that. The dosage is different. It's low that some of the mechanisms of action, like the side benefits of it, are exactly that controlling vasomotor symptoms. So there's just not enough understanding and patient communication around it, in addition to all the other lifestyle things that you know we can do to help manage that as well.
Jenn Salib Huber:Yeah, and I mean it's in the same vein, as you know, when I talk about phytoestrogens. Phytoestrogens, you know there's a lot of really interesting, good research, but of course, foods are very difficult to study in the way that we study drugs, right. So we always have to understand that we cannot compare isoflavones from soy in a food state to a hormone patch, like that's a very unfair comparison to both. To be fair, right, and neither work for everyone, but both are options, and so this is really what I want women to kind of take away from this conversation, or any conversation is that hormones are an option, antidepressants are an option, the new medications on the market are an option Doing nothing is an option.
Jenn Salib Huber:That is always an option. Like you, you know there, but you don't have to suffer. And that is really where the you know it's natural. Menopause is a natural thing. It'll pass, you'll get over it. It'll end eventually without'll pass, you'll get over it. It'll end eventually without consideration that you know. Perimenopause can be a decade of your life and if you know, to the people who might be giving that advice, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you haven't experienced how disruptive it is to be having six, eight, 10 hot flashes a day or to be waking up three, four, five times a night, hot, sweaty, drenched, to go months without sleeping more than one or two hours at a time.
Béatrice Séguin:Right, just stop biking, because it hurts to bike or to wear your jeans. You know, and I think there's a couple of thoughts that you triggered, yeah, it's normal, not okay, to suffer in silence. Menopause, this concept that you get over it and that it ends, is, in and of itself, actually an erroneous concept. You're in menopause for the rest of your life. While you might stop experiencing, or may never experience, hot flashes and night sweats, your bone density, your muscle mass, your vaginal tissue those things, along with aging like those, are going to happen. Yeah, so why not take care of yourself in the best way possible so you can age well rather than just sit there and suffer? So that's one thought, and the other is reminds me of one of my wonderful podcast guests, dr Jessica Green, who told me things aren't a tattoo, don't know when or how. This seems to have happened in healthcare. I would say you know, not just menopause care.
Béatrice Séguin:Whenever you think of any therapeutic intervention, there is a fear, like. It's a like if you're either going to try something or not. Try something rather than a fluid, yeah, why not try something? If I understand the risks and the benefit, I may have to try something and it may not be right for me, so I'm going to try something else. It's frustrating because it's not one thing guaranteed to work for you, um, but it don't fear it. It is not a permanent tattoo. In fact, tattoos aren't permanent anymore. We have technology to remove them. But, like therapy or interventions, don't fear it.
Jenn Salib Huber:I'm here for that. So now I'd love to transition and I want to hear about how you named your podcast, because I love the name.
Béatrice Séguin:Well, thank you. This time of the month came from the idea that we refer to our menstrual cycle at least me, my generation growing up here in Canada that time. It's negative that that time of the month she's on, that time she's on the rag. Whatever negative words were used for us growing up and all the negative constructions that came with it. Yeah, I wanted to replace it. Whether you have your period or don't have it anymore, or it's chaotic, it's still that negative. I wanted it to be this time of the month that is positive.
Jenn Salib Huber:Oh my gosh, I love that so much, that's what it was.
Béatrice Séguin:It's really reclaiming that language, reclaiming it, reclaiming it all. Yes, that's the purpose.
Jenn Salib Huber:Those euphemisms were are part of the patriarchy to make other people more comfortable with our biology, and so anything that we can do to reclaim that as normal, as part of who we are and as something to celebrate. I'm here for it Exactly.
Jenn Salib Huber:Exactly. You got it Amazing, so I'd love to hear too you know, what kind of stories were you craving when you, when you realized that you were in menopause? Because you know you had a different experience of not not knowing it was coming and having to deal with all of it at once. And you mentioned about how you know you your husband is a physician, you're educated like you had all these tools, but were there stories that you wish you had heard? Yes, either from friends or from family, or what stories would have made that transition feel easier?
Béatrice Séguin:So all of the above, I think I was craving real conversations that were evidence-based but in a human or relatable way. So hearing stories of women who came before us, women who are in it with us, and the younger sisters who I don't want the train to hit them, I want them to know about it and if they have questions and they're wondering at 36, 37, what's happening, that you know, we want to hear from them now and we want to be the older sister to them. So I felt like real conversations, not just with women going through it, however, but with the evidence-based experts, and not only physicians, I mean any evidence-based expert but in an intimate setting, because when you're in a clinical setting, there is such a divide. There is such a divide and I think it's unnecessary. Doctors are humans, science is evolving, it evolves, and so part of the mistrust between the scientific establishment and the medical establishment and members of the general population is because there's a lack of dialogue that happens in a safe, intimate, human way. So that's what I felt was missing and that and women are very busy, they're trying to figure everything out on their own Where's one place, where's one place I can go, where I can talk in one sentence about my dry vagina and another where'd you get that lipstick, jen?
Béatrice Séguin:It is so cute, I'm going to order it on Sephora. Mother, where'd you get that lipstick, jen? It is so cute, I'm going to order it on Sephora. You know, it's that realness, because that's how women are.
Jenn Salib Huber:We're complex, we're 360, and we weave in and out of our realities and our symptoms. Yes, yeah, and I really think that it's the sharing you know, the story sharing, because we learn so much when somebody says, oh, that happened to me and this is what helped, or I know someone you know. And if we think about you know we. Anybody who's had children has heard you know about. You know. It takes a village. When did we stop needing that village? We didn't.
Béatrice Séguin:We didn't.
Jenn Salib Huber:Every, every stage of our life, we need a village. We were never meant to do it alone. Credit to. Brene Brown for that quote, by the way. But, really, that's what it comes back to in the community that I create and in all the communities that I try to be a part of, is what can I give and also what can I get, what can I learn? Because that's the beauty of stories is the learning that we, that we experience, and the validation of validation, feeling seen.
Béatrice Séguin:feeling seen, feeling less afraid, feeling less hopeless too, because if I hear your story, you hear mine, you hear our vulnerabilities. But you also hear that there are different things that work for different people because we are different. So you need to hear that, you need to hear it to believe that this you can feel whole, surrounded by a community.
Jenn Salib Huber:Yeah, so here here's a question for you, crystal Ball. What do you think is on the horizon for menopause in the next few years? What do you think is going to happen in this world?
Béatrice Séguin:Well, right now I feel like we're a little bit it. You know, the pendulum has swung a little bit far in terms of it's almost over information and a mixed bag of grifting with true evidence base, which, you know, evidence is evidence, but sometimes also things are nuanced. Right, it's not one size fits all. You know there's something might still work for you but not for another. So it's really hard for women right now. I think it will settle. I hope. I hope that it will settle. I believe that we are the last generation I'm really putting it out there that we'll have to um, fight or demand menopause care. I'm putting it out in the universe. I believe that everything that we are doing collectively in the menopause community means that I want to see menopause care just become another standard of practice in health. I really want that for my younger sisters and certainly for my daughter, just like neonatal and pregnancy. You know there's a whole set of things you talk about. Do test for. That is my hope and vision for the future of menopause.
Jenn Salib Huber:I'm here for it. I love it. This has been such an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for spending this time with us.
Béatrice Séguin:And now I would love to hear your answer to what do you think is the missing ingredient in midlife and dream for the future? The missing ingredient is not enough research and not enough funding, and I mean that both for actual let's call them tools, but access. Access is so important to me Any level of women's healthcare or healthcare period. It's an equity issue and we should access it. And there's just definitely not enough real world support to create a holistic woman centered menopause care we actually need. That's what I think is missing.
Béatrice Séguin:We're still kind of patchworking and we don't have what I would call a patient centered with a team around her, and that team isn't just your gynecologist, isn't just your primary caregiver, it's your psychotherapist, it's your nutritionist. Where is that model? Where is it? Can we have it? Can we have more drugs like the new neurokinin inhib, you know, inhibitors for hot flashes and every what have what? What have the other issues that and symptoms that women suffer from? Where's the research for that? So I think that's what's missing. But I remain optimistic that if we use our voice, our advocacy, our voting power, we can. We can have a future where that exists.
Jenn Salib Huber:I love it. I'm here for it. Thank you so much. We will put the link in the show notes for people to learn more about you and find you, and I'm sure this is the first of many conversations that we will have, so thank you so much, absolutely.
Béatrice Séguin:I hope you'll come on my podcast soon and I really enjoyed our conversation, thanks.
Jenn Salib Huber:Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the midlife feast. For more non diet, health, hormone and general midlife support, click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me. And if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review or subscribing, because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife.
