If you’re not thinking about your musculoskeletal system, Vonda Wright, M.D., has a bone to pick with you. Or, rather, a new book you might want to read.
As an orthopedic surgeon with more than 25 years of experience, Wright knows good bones and what it takes to keep them strong as we age.
This is especially important for women because bone loss accelerates during perimenopause and menopause. And many women don’t realize they’re at risk for life-altering bone problems.
Wright’s latest book, Unbreakable: A Woman’s Guide to Aging with Power, offers a plan for healthy aging and bone health through nutrition, lifestyle and exercise during perimenopause and after menopause.
“But it’s not just about exercise. We go deep on mental resilience, and we teach you techniques for being able to be more mentally resilient in this time. We teach you about the science — the new science of aging — because women are smart. They don’t want to just be told what to do. They want to know the why,” Wright said.
We asked Wright for the why and her secrets for living a long, healthy life.
Our interview follows, edited for clarity and length.
HealthyWomen: Congratulations on your new book. Can you expand a bit on what aging with power means?
Vonda Wright: There is an expectation and myth in this country that aging is an inevitable decline from vitality to frailty and that there’s not much we can do about it. There’s also the thought that, for women, the suffering we go through in our last two decades is normal aging. But the reality is my research and the research of other people in my field have found that when we invest in the types of — I call them “shields” — against the time bombs of aging, that we can be healthy, vital, active and joyful.
So, the real narrative change I’m trying to pivot is that becoming weak, frail women is not inevitable — but it is likely if we don’t step in front of it. So, Unbreakable is built on that whole premise. How do we build mental resilience and physical resilience because, frankly, aging is not for sissies.
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HW: Tell us why women need this book right now.
Wright: We’re in a beautiful place, or we’re getting to a beautiful place, and I say this knowing that I live in a vacuum, thinking that more and more women are understanding midlife and menopause. There have been myriad books really giving us the information we need, but Unbreakable is the next step. Unbreakable is the first female book on longevity written by a woman who happens to be a female doctor for women. We all do naturally age; however, the cataclysmic changes that happen when estrogen walks out the door make us physiologically, socially and psychologically very different people.
That’s why I call this period the “meno-lescense,” the transitional period. Unbreakable picks up where the understanding of, “Oh my God, we’re all going to go through menopause,” ends.
Watch: The 3 Stages of Menopause >>
HW: Women experience bone loss during peri- and postmenopause, or as you call it, “musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause.” What can women do for their bone health during perimenopause?
Wright: Bone health begins far before perimenopause, and there are time periods where we have to be critically interested in bone health.
For instance, I have a 17-year-old and a 30-year-old, and now is the time when they need to be building bone because we build our peak bone density by the time we’re 30. When we hit the critical decade, which is 35 to 45, where, for many of us, we still have estrogen, that is the critical time to develop the health habits that are going to take us into our old age, such as anti-inflammatory nutrition, impact exercise, lifting weights and not having an attitude of being dependent on what we stored up in our 20s. Many women come to me and say, “I don’t want to age like my mother or my grandmother.” Well, if we don’t want to, then we have to step in front of it by taking these actions.
So, if we have not developed these standards of behavior in our critical decade, we’ve got to do it when we’re in perimenopause, even during the zone of chaos — during the time when our hormones are all over the place. We must establish these lifestyle standards because postmenopause — at 55 — it’s harder. At 65, even harder.
HW: So, it’s not too late to establish good bone health in midlife?
Wright: Can it be done? Absolutely. Is it harder? Absolutely. So the time to get in front of it — if we haven’t before — is perimenopause.
HW: What’s one of the most important things that you want postmenopausal women to know about their bone health?
Wright: I would like all postmenopausal women to get a DEXA scan or a REMS ultrasound and actually know the status of their bones. We shouldn’t be guessing.
Bones are not only structural — bones are critical communicators with our whole bodies. Healthy bones communicate with our brains to make new brain cells, communicate with our fat and our muscles. So, I want women to actually know their bones by getting them screened like you would have a mammogram or a colonoscopy. And then I want them to understand the full breadth of what bones do for us because it’s not just holding up our muscles.
Read: Women and Bone Health Basics >>
HW: How important is exercise to bone health, and what’s your go to move for strong bones?
Wright: Exercise is critical. Jumping, impact exercise and lifting weights.
HW: Is it possible to rebuild bone density if you have osteoporosis?
Wright: Yes, you can change osteoporosis. It’s lifestyle plus menopause hormone therapy decisions — sometimes plus medication. It’s not one thing. It’s the full complement of influencers that matter.
HW: You’re a longevity specialist. Tell us one of your top tips for living a long and healthy life?
Wright: Changing our mindset from the place where we worship our youth to realizing that today, tomorrow and the days in the future will be the best of your life when you pivot your mindset toward living the most authentically — living with hope, looking at the future — because I can tell you every little blueprint detail for building unbreakable future. But until you believe that you can change the future and that you are worth the daily investment in your health — nothing else matters.
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