'At 50, I’m just getting started!' – Lisa Snowdon talks menopause, Celebrity Masterchef and being ‘very unsociable’ at Capital FM

Lisa Snowdon has never been one to shy away from ‘awkward’ topics – and when it comes to women’s health, she’s proud to be loud.

The English TV and radio presenter started getting perimenopause symptoms at 44 and has spent the last six years learning how to best manage them, after admittedly knowing very little about the female hormonal change.

She's now set herself on a mission to democratize this knowledge, in the hope of breaking the stigma about menopause and empowering other women to take control of their own health.

Lisa's Midweek Menopause Madness on Instagram has been the successful outcome of this vision, with each upload gaining tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments since the series first launched in 2021. 

Co-hosted by Menopause Care founder Dr. Naomi Potter, the relaxed web chats aim to debunk myths about menopause, offer reputable advice, and most importantly, provide a safe space for people to support each other through the life-changing journey.

“I do my Midweek Menopause Madness because I don’t want other women to go down the same road I did,” Lisa tells woman&home. “It can be a really confusing time and a hard path to navigate.

"There’s an industry now where people see that women are vulnerable and desperate to get help. It’s outrageous to me. I want women to have an educated decision on the route they need and want to go down." 

It's also a place where Lisa is open about her own menopause symptoms, with the 50-year-old regularly sharing her experiences with night sweats, mood swings, and HRT on the digital platform. Her tools for achieving optimal health in menopause – many of which center around her diet and exercise regime – are another recurring theme in the series.

Still buzzed from winning Celebrity Masterchef 2022, Lisa speaks candidly to woman&home on how she's finally taken control of her own menopause with a combination of lifestyle and HRT – as well as the tumultuous journey it took to get there. 

The start of Lisa’s wellness journey predates her menopause, with the former fashion model looking seriously into her health for the first time when she was in her late thirties. 

After enduring repeated bouts of 'extreme bloating' and 'excruciating' gas, she decided to seek professional advice. It was only then that Lisa discovered that she was intolerant to certain foods – with dairy being the chief aggressor in her digestive chaos. 

"I was having these huge lattes to keep me going on the breakfast show because it was super early," she tells woman&home. "That was my first experience of my tummy playing up. I know firsthand how uncomfortable it can be." 

Lisa’s next step was to visit a nutritionist, who recommended that she complete a 12-week program of Symprove. The water-based formula, to be ingested once a day on an empty stomach, is designed to maintain the gut's healthy bacteria balance by feeding it live, active bacteria.

Converted to the magic of Symprove, Lisa has since partnered with the gut supplement brand to model The Gut Couture Collection. The eccentric fashion line represents some of the most common issues experienced by those with gut issues. 

Lisa knows well, however, that supplements aren’t enough to bulletproof her gut from flare-ups. The Strictly Come Dancing 2008 finalist has significantly altered her diet over the years, having learned the 'hard way' how crucial variety is.

"I was having boiled eggs all the time, and it turns out I’m intolerant to the white of the egg," she says. "I was eating them every day out of convenience and I was bombarding my system with the same kind of food and not having that gut diversity."

Her 'high-protein, low-fat' lunch also had unwanted side effects on Lisa’s popularity at Capital FM. The eggs’ odor was hard to ignore inside the radio station’s soundproof walls, leading her to earn the nickname ‘Eggy’ on shift. 

“[I was] very unsociable in the studio,” she laughs.

Having taken control of her gut health, Lisa was already well-attuned to her body’s needs when she entered perimenopause. The mental adjustment to this new phase of life, however, proved more difficult to grasp. 

"It felt like a bit of a shock to the system," she recalls. "It just signified that I was getting older. The future felt and looked different.” 

Lisa adds that the discovery she was perimenopausal ‘threw her’, admitting she believed that the process only happened to 'much older women.' Her continued menstruation, an absence of which is typically associated with the onset of menopause, was also confusing. 

"At the time I was having almost too regular a period," she says. "But your periods stopping is such a small part of this journey.

"You could still have your periods [in perimenopause and menopause]. It’s all the other things. It’s the crippling anxiety. It’s the panic attacks. It’s the night sweats. It’s the lack of sleep. It’s the low mood. It’s the depression. It’s the over-emotion. It’s the brain fog. It’s the tummy issues, the dry vagina, the lack of libido.” 

One of the topics regularly discussed Lisa's Midweek Menopause Madness is HRT (hormone replacement therapy) – a treatment Lisa was first prescribed at the age of 44. 

"I’ve been on a learning curve since then," she said, admitting her initial attempts to tackle her symptoms resulted in her "making a lot of mistakes and spending a lot of money."

Lisa is also sure to emphasize that HRT, while hugely beneficial to many women, needs to coincide with a healthy lifestyle. 

“HRT isn’t a silver bullet, you need to look at your health as a 360,” she explains. 

Sleep is another staple in Lisa’s self-care routine, with midweek nights out in London no longer a fixture in her social calendar. 

"I don’t want to make it sound all doom and gloom, because you still can have fun," she insists. "You just need to reassess and listen to your body."

Despite having just finished filming Celebrity Masterchef, the beloved media personality has no plans to take a break any time soon. Her triumph in the BBC One culinary series has inspired her to 'go more into the food world' in future projects, with hopes of traveling abroad to explore new cuisines further afield. 

"I’m 50 and I’m just getting started," she says. "All of the worries and fears and silly insecurities that plagued me when I was younger, I just want to park them and do things that I’ve been too afraid to do. And say yes to all the opportunities that come my way." 

Lisa Snowdon has partnered with gut supplement brand Symprove to model ‘The Gut Couture Collection’; a fashion line representing some of the most common issues experienced by those with gut issues.