Loose Women’s Andrea McLean reveals menopause left her with sweat pouring down her back on live TV… but she still feels like a ‘minx’
ANDREA McLean has revealed she presented Loose Women with sweat “running down her back” and “brain fog” as she battled the symptoms of menopause.
But the 48-year-old presenter – who wed businessman Nick Feeney in November – said she still feels like a “minx”.
Andrea started going through the menopause after having a hysterectomy in 2016, and says she had all the symptoms on the check list – including hot flushes, night sweats, mood changes and rages.
She told Fabulous: “You can be a really dynamic forward-thrusting woman and suddenly you get this brain fog and you can’t remember where you’ve put things, you walk into a room and forget why you walked in there.
“You get rages, and get really angry and you can’t understand why everything gets on your nerves. You can also get very depressed. I had all of those things.
“On air you just have to force your brain to click in and work. I’d be talking to someone and literally saying in my head, ‘Come on. Focus. Think.’
“In terms of the physical side of it, it was awful. I had sweat running down my back, down my neck.
“In every break, the air conditioning was on, it was off, I was fanning myself, doing the Birdie Dance, I was going through bags of tissues and mopping myself down and I was having to do that in the break while nobody was looking.”
As well as trying to stay cool on camera Andrea – mum to Finley, 16, and 11-year-old Amy - was in a new relationship with Nick.
Speaking as she fronted a new range of underwear for menopausal women, she said: “I’m like a really expensive mason jar. I can screw the lid shut really tightly and keep everything inside so I just kept a lid on everything.
“When I first started going through it we weren’t living together and we were only seeing each other once a week, and you can be at your shiny lovely best once a week.
“It only becomes more apparent when you properly move in and people see not only your ‘on stage’ self but behind the scenes and what you really look like in the dressing room.
“But Nick’s been really brilliant. It took him a while to get his head round what is happening – he’s a normal guy and not experienced anything like this before, but he was great.
“He was really patient and understanding and even now, I recognise his pacifying face. He’ll look at me and smile and he’ll go ‘OK’, and I get so angry and say, ‘You’re just pacifying me.’
“We still have moments but he’s an incredibly laid back person which is exactly what you need when you are going through this.”
Andrea says it’s “100 per cent” possible to stay sexy during the menopause, despite the changes in your body.
She said: “You get hot in all the wrong ways! But you can look and feel sexy during the menopause.
“You need to talk about it and stop pretending everything is OK when it’s not, and that takes 50 per cent of the stress away.
“But you can feel great, you can feel normal, you can feel like a little minx like you did in your twenties, but you just do everything a bit differently.
“Nothing is the same, your whole body has changed but different doesn’t mean it can’t be great.”
Mum-of-two Andrea revealed that she was “embarrassed” to be walking down the aisle for the third time and admitted to an attack of pre-wedding wobbles.
She said: “I was nervous beforehand because everything was so lovely. I knew he was the right man for me but I was really scared it would all go wrong.
“I was so surprised and bowled over, when he asked me I had no hesitation saying yes but as it got closer, I thought, ‘What if it all goes wrong?’
“I was embarrassed I’d been married twice before – it makes me sound like a very different person than I am.
“I am not Liz Taylor, I’m very dull, but on paper it doesn’t look like it.
“Nick was very sensible, he just said, ‘You might have been married before but you weren’t married to me.’ Something clicked in my head and I thought, ‘You’re basing your fears on the wrong information. Of course it is going to be different.’
“But what was lovely is that on the day, all those worries went away. I woke up and felt really positive and when we got married it felt 100 per cent right.”
Andrea’s children and Nick’s two daughters – Tia-Lily, 15, and Sienna, 13 – are also happy their parents have tied the knot.
“Nick came along really slowly and just became part of our lives and when we said we were getting married, I could feel a change in my kids.
“They were so pleased because they love him. Since we got married, it’s as if they have exhaled. It’s like it’s OK, we’re all together, we’re a team, and nobody is going anywhere.
“They are really chilled and really happy.”
Thanks to her experiences, Andrea has teamed up with Become, a range of intelligent clothing to keep hot flushed at bay.
She said: “You need clothes that keep you cool which is why Become is so good.
“It like a very soft vest that you can wear under blouses and you wouldn’t even know. It draws all the heat out of our body in the same way as some exercise clothing does.”
The brand’s pants and vest uses “Anti-flush” technology which is designed to moderate the temperature and draw moisture away from the body.
Andrea says she wears the vest with natural fabrics, such as cotton and silk, to let her skin breathe. She has also ditched heavy anti-aging cream after suffering appalling acne all over her face, neck, back and chest, and regularly swims and works out at the gym.
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She has one top tip for women when it comes to keeping the weight down during the menopause.
She said: “It sounds mad but I got myself a little bowl like the ones you get in a Chinese restaurant, and that became my portion bowl.
“I put my food in that and then tip it on to a plate, and I know that’s the right portion size. Otherwise I pile up my plate and, like a good girl, I’ll eat it all.”
“Now I eat exactly the same but I just don’t eat the big portions I used to because your metabolism changes, and then you’re running to stand still. All the things you used to do to lose weight don’t work.”
Become tanks cost £39.00 and the pants £19.00. Available on the .