Alise Greenfield

I struggled with my health for a long time.
It didn’t come naturally to me to choose myself or to decide I was worthy of feeling good.

I practiced it. I made my health part of my values. I put habits into play that supported this.

For me and my family, one of the ways we do this is through meal prepping on Sundays so we have nourishing food ready for the week.

It’s a habit that is now routine and largely protected.

What’s one thing you do — or want to do to set yourself up for the week?

Functional medicine is brilliant. It changed my life and so many of my patients.

It connects systems, uncovers root causes, looks at the whole picture.

And it still largely misses women’s hormones.

Not because it isn’t trying. But because functional medicine operates from the belief that fixing everything else will fix the hormones.

Sometimes that’s true. Often it isn’t — especially in perimenopause.

So women do all the work. The gut protocols, the adrenal support, the nervous system regulation. They might feel better. But not always.

And their hormones are still in the toilet while we gate-keep things like HRT because it “should be a last resort.” (Insert big sigh here).

That’s not a failure of the woman or not “functional medicining hard enough.”

That’s a gap in the model and a misunderstanding of women’s hormonal symphony.

Your functional medicine provider may be excellent. And they may not be a hormone expert. Those two things can both be true.

If I had a dollar for every time a woman told me she was offered birth control instead of HRT because “HRT is dangerous,” I think I could retire. I don’t have enough eyes to roll anymore.

The hormones in birth control are multiple times stronger than the hormones in standard HRT. Yet we’re scared of HRT like Captain Hook is afraid of the croc.

HRT’s benefits and safety have been shown time and again. Birth control has side effects most women never get told about.

We’re conflating old data, holding onto dogma and women are getting stuck in the crossfire.

Perimenopause has over 30 recognized symptoms, and counting.

Most symptoms don’t register as hormone related because our medical system largely ignores 50% of the population. 🫠

What’s one symptom you had that nobody told you was hormonal?

When I stopped thinking of my female body and menstrual cycle as something to fix but rather to celebrate, my whole world changed.

It’s part of why I do this work — so other women can feel that shift too. 💜

The Hormone Clarity Consult isn’t just a first appointment. It’s the map that tells us where to look next.

Comment CLARITY and I’ll send you the link to get started.

Just checking you know since we don’t even get taught this in NP school.

Every woman needs to understand their body. Let’s start here.

What one is most surprising?