Dr. Christiane Northrup — the physician behind Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause, and for years the hormone expert audiences met on The Oprah Winfrey Show — invited me to take part in her PBS special on women's health and hormones.
I flew to Vermont to film with her, and we shot an entire program together on The Belly Fat Cure that was included in the special. It remains one of the most educational stretches of my professional life.
Most of the people I coach are women moving through perimenopause and menopause. Dr. Northrup taught me — patiently, and with a clinician's precision — how profoundly different a woman's body is from a man's: how estrogen and progesterone shift, why sleep and cortisol matter more than any calorie count, and why belly fat becomes so much harder to release in midlife without time-restricted eating and hormone-aware timing.
That education is baked into everything I do now. Women in midlife are not men with different hormones; they need special care, a gentler ramp, and a protocol that respects their cycle of life rather than fighting it.
Her words about my work — "I'm eternally grateful to Jorge for creating a simple lifestyle plan" — mean more coming from her than from almost anyone, because she has spent a career refusing to oversimplify women's health. I am grateful she has always included me in her work.
Photo: Jorge Cruise with Dr. Christiane Northrup. More on Dr. Northrup's work and her PBS specials →