The Oprah Podcast
Oprah & Dr. Sharon Malone: Menopause Solutions for Millennials, Your Weight, Sleep, Mood & Intimacy
Tue, 27 May 2025
BUY THE BOOK! “Grown Woman Talk” by Dr. Sharon Malone, published by Crown Publishing, is now available wherever books are sold. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/722319/grown-woman-talk-by-sharon-malone-md/ Dr. Sharon Malone, OB-GYN menopause expert and author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, Grown Woman Talk, joins “The Oprah Podcast” to talk about why life only gets better after 50 and to remind women that although menopause is inevitable, suffering is not. Kim and Penn Holderness - the popular internet influencers with over 9 million followers - join to talk about Kim’s experience with perimenopause and how it has affected her sleep, anxiety and mood. Dr. Malone answer questions from women in their 30s about the menopause timeline, how endometriosis impacts menopause and the role of fibroids in both fertility and menopause. Oprah and Dr. Malone talk with women who have questions about weight gain, preventing symptoms before they begin and how to cope with the lack of libido and vaginal dryness that often accompanies all stages of menopause. Alloy Women's Health is a direct to consumer digital healthcare company revolutionizing the way women age by offering education, expertise, and safe, science-backed solutions for perimenopause & menopause symptoms, skincare, sexual health, gut health and more. Treatment plans are customized and everything is delivered with free shipping. Alloy customers receive unlimited follow-up care with their menopause-trained physician through the duration of their active prescription and access to community through member support groups and more all from the convenience of their home. Alloy offers a fast, easy, and 100% digital solution to help women find guidance and treatments wherever they are. Being with Alloy is like having a menopause doctor in one's pocket. https://www.myalloy.com. Head to https://www.myalloy.com and use code: OPRAH for $20 off your first order. Kim and Penn Holderness are award-winning content creators known for their original music, song parodies, comedy sketches, and weekly podcasts. Their videos have resulted in over 2 billion views and over 9 million followers since 2013. Kim and Penn are also authors of the New York Times Bestselling Book, ADHD Is Awesome: A Guide To (Mostly) Thriving With ADHD and winners of The Amazing Race (Season 33) on CBS. They host a weekly podcast called Laugh Lines with Kim & Penn Holderness every Tuesday. Kim and Penn have been featured by TODAY, People, TIME, NPR, Good Morning America, and now The Oprah Podcast! They live in Raleigh, North Carolina with their two kids and dog, Sunny. Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprah/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 4: How does menopause impact weight and mood?
I hear you're dealing with a lot of fatigue too, Kim, right?
Oh, my goodness. I think there was a time in my life where I could just go to bed and sleep. But that was so long ago. Sometimes I'll look over at him in the middle of the night and he's just sleeping, just uninterrupted. And I'm filled with rage. I cannot sleep unless I finally found a doctor who has given me some wonderful medication. The real stuff. The real stuff.
But without it, I cannot sleep. And so that means during the day, I'm so tired. And then that just compounds every other symptom. So that has been that honestly has been my biggest struggle.
Yeah, I know. That was it for me, too. I didn't sleep for two years during the Oprah show. And I thought I was going to lose my mind. Do you have a question for Dr. Malone? Either of you?
Okay, here's my question. I found a great doctor. I'm on some progesterone now. I found medication to sleep. I finally got on some medication for anxiety because that was just out of control. I'm still in perimenopause. Can you give me a glimmer of hope? Like once I hit menopause, like that full 12 months, does any of this get better? Or is this just my life now?
Oh my, where to begin with that one? You're on at least three different medications, right? You've got progesterone, you've got something for anxiety, something for sleep. If we know that it's all perimenopause, then why don't we treat the perimenopause, which is with hormones? Estrogen is the common denominator of all the symptoms that you have there.
And this is not uncommon during perimenopause where women will say, okay, well, I need something for sleep and then I'm depressed and I need something for this. And by the time you look at it, you're on five different medications for your five different symptoms and still haven't adequately solved the problem. And I think that the first go-to ought to be able to say, it's perimenopause.
Let's go to the most effective treatment for the symptoms of menopause and perimenopause, which is estrogen therapy. And don't be afraid of that unless there is a reason that I don't know why you should not.
Yeah, I have PCOS and my estrogen levels are actually wildly high. And I had them tested throughout the month just to confirm. But I think that is more rare. But I went to the doctor begging for estrogen. I'm not opposed to it at all.
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Chapter 8: Why is it important to talk about menopause openly?
Well, okay, a couple of weeks ago, you said that we all need a 101 on menopause. Yeah, yeah. Men need, I guess, whatever's below that, like a 000. We need to learn, right? Yeah. And I got to give Dr. Malone credit.
One of the first times I really started to learn about perimenopause, we were at South by Southwest, and we went to a symposium where Dr. Malone was with Dr. Haver and 100 other women who were all very outspoken. They were very frustrated with the way that healthcare has let them down. Yeah. And the fact that they were being marginalized by doctors sometimes, but they were not mad at me.
They were thrilled that I was there. I was the only dude there. And almost every single one of them came up to me and thanked me. So guys, if you show a little curiosity and a little bit of empathy, your wives are going to be grateful. And it's great when your wives are grateful.
Thank you so much for joining us, Kim and Pin. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. Trisha joins us from Woodland Hills, California, and her daughter Layla is Zooming in from her college campus in New Orleans. Trisha and Layla, tell us what's going on with you guys.
Sure. So hi. I turned 50 last year. And right before I turned 50 in August, I started getting a lot of different perimenopausal symptoms like hot flashes. Many of my friends had gotten them long before me and I thought I'd escaped, but not so much. And the hot flashes kind of take hold sometimes. In addition to that, the last year I've put on 30 pounds and I have no idea how to stop it.
I've gone up two sizes and the counting, and I feel like I really need to understand all of these symptoms, the impact it's having on me, in particular, the weight gain and what I can do about it. I do walk. I do a little bit of exercise, but it seems like nothing is enough to curb some of the issues.
that I'm having including constant need to go and go use the restroom and I just went and I'm in the car with my family I'm like I've got to go again and they're looking at me like what's wrong with you and my answer is always I have no idea so I would love to get a sense of why all of this is happening and in particular the weight gain and what I could do about it if anything.
Why the weight gain? You know, that is one of the most common complaints that women come in with when the perimenopausal phase, when they start gaining the weight. And they're like, what is going on? I'm eating the same thing. I'm exercising the same way. And I've gained 10 pounds just for breathing. And I believe you because, you know, I've been through that myself.
I, too, no longer weigh what I weighed 20 years ago. But the key to this is to understand what is happening to your metabolism and what is happening as your estrogen levels fall. Well, whether you have symptoms or not, and now you're having hot flashes, but let me just sort of walk you through the cascade of events that happens. Your estrogen levels fall.
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