Women’s Health Check: Know Your Body, Protect Your Health

Introduction

You try to look after yourself and stay on top of your health, but sometimes a women’s health check is what’s really needed. You just don’t feel as good as you used to. Maybe it’s your energy, your sleep, your digestion, or that creeping weight gain that won’t budge.

Yet when you go to the GP, you’re told everything is ‘normal’. No real answers. No plan.

That’s where the women’s health check comes in.

It’s a one-off assessment and consultation designed especially for women who want a personalised diet and lifestyle plan, without having to commit to ongoing sessions. It’s for when you know something’s off… even if standard tests say otherwise.

What is a Women’s Health Check?

A Women’s Health Check with New Dawn Health starts with my comprehensive health assessment using a functional medicine approach. This simply means looking at how well the body is ‘functioning”, based on any symptoms.

For example, if you are tired in the afternoons, have food cravings, become irritable if you miss meal, experience dizziness, are stressed, have put on weight around your middle, I would focus my recommendations on improving both your diet and lifestyle so that your body can make energy more efficiently.

The health questionniare assessment is followed by body measurements, like blood pressure, waist:hip ratio and body composition analysis to give a clearer picture of what’s going on inside.

You can also choose to add an advanced blood test for even deeper insight. All of this is used to create a personalised set of diet and lifestyle recommendations tailored to your needs.

The 90-minute session is best done in person, but online is also possible.

A women’s health check is designed to give you professional insight into what’s going on in your body, with clear, evidence-based recommendations you can act on right away, or chip away at gradually as you upgrade your diet and lifestyle habits gradually.

This isn’t a generic one-size-fits-all set of recommendations. It’s a thoughtful, in-depth review of your past medical history, your family medical history, your risk factors, your current symptoms and how you are feeling now – all of which guide my analysis of what the best diet and lifestyle recommendations are for you.

Why might you need a Women’s Health Check?

• You’ve always thought of yourself as healthy, but those coughs & colds seem to last so much longer, or your energy isn’t what it used to be, or you have stubborn digestive symptoms.
• You’ve been told everything is “normal”… but you know something isn’t
• You’re tired of self-managing symptoms and trying to work it out for yourself
• You’re frustrated by all the conflicting advice out there
• You want peace of mind that you’re doing all you can to keep yourself healthy and protecting your future health
• You can’t get the time, advanced testing, or personalised advice you want from the NHS.
• You know you have greater risk of certain conditions because of your family medical history, and now is the right time for you to focus on your risk factors.
• You don’t need coaching or support, you just want a check-up and a clear direction.

If this sounds like you, then a New Dawn Health Women’s Health Check could be exactly what you need. Take a look at the details here.

The science behind proactive health checks

What makes many health issues tricky is that they don’t always shout, they whisper.

Conditions like rising blood sugars, insulin resistance, prediabetes, osteopenia (early bone loss), high cholesterol, or rising blood pressure often develop slowly, without any obvious symptoms.

You might feel a bit more tired, notice subtle changes in your digestion, or put down niggles to ageing or stress. But beneath the surface, your body could be shifting in ways that increase your risk of illness.

That’s why testing early is so important. It gives us a chance to spot small imbalances before they turn into bigger problems.

A large UK study in 2023 looked at over 48,000 people who had just one NHS Health Check. Over the next nine years, those who took part were 23% less likely to die and had much lower chances of developing serious problems like heart attacks, dementia, kidney or liver disease.

It shows how powerful it can be to check in on your health before something goes wrong.
I truly believe it’s better to prevent illness than to try and fix it later.

What we measure in clinic

I’ve taken my women’s health check to the next level – thorough, detailed, and genuinely personalised.

1. Body Composition Scales

One of the things clients love most about my women’s health check is the body composition analysis. The scales give us detailed body readings, not just BMI and weight. It includes body fat percentage, visceral fat, muscle mass, body water %, metabolic age, basal metabolic rate.

For example, if your muscle mass is low, I’ll prioritise protein, strength training, and key nutrients to help build it back – because more muscle mass improves blood sugar control, energy and long-term mobility.

If visceral fat (the dangerous fat around the organs) is high, I’ll help you focus on reducing inflammation, triglycerides and cholesterol by eating less refined sugars & starches, trying calorie reduction through intermittent fasting and/or reducing alcohol intake.

And if your metabolic age is older than your actual age, we’ll look at targeted strategies to support your metabolism and improve how your body uses energy.

2. Clinical testing

I also take your blood pressure, resting pulse, waist-to-hip ratio and calculate your QRisk score.

3. Advanced blood test

The advanced blood test I offer is one of the most comprehensive private panels available, and it includes a level of detail you won’t usually get through NHS testing.

It looks at cholesterol status, clotting risk, blood sugar control, thyroid and sex hormones, inflammation, liver and kidney health, iron and vitamin levels, red and white blood cells, and more.

This test often reveals subtle imbalances that explain why you’re feeling low in energy, not sleeping well, or struggling to lose weight. For example, low ferritin might be behind your fatigue, raised CRP could signal inflammation linked to joint pain or metabolic issues, and a borderline thyroid result might explain brain fog or sluggish digestion. You’ll receive a full doctor’s report with your results – and together, we’ll use that insight to create a targeted nutrition and supplement plan to support your long-term health.

From a motivation point of view, seeing those statistics shift over time is one of the most powerful ways to stay consistent and committed.

What happens during a Women’s Health Check?

Your purchase includes:

• My pre-consultation functional-medicine analysis of your past medical history, family medical history, current symptoms and your food & lifestyle diary.
• 90-minute, 1:1 consultation with Dawn (ideally, in-person in Corsham)
• In-person body measurements, as listed previously
• Optional: Advanced Well Woman blood test (covers thyroid, hormones, liver, nutrients, inflammation, and more. Doctors recommendations included)
• A personalised nutrition and lifestyle plan

Early detection in action: what testing can reveal

Rising blood sugars are incredibly common, and often go unnoticed. Let me explain.

As we get older, our bodies become less sensitive to insulin – the hormone that helps move sugar out of the blood and into our cells. This means blood sugar stays higher for longer after meals. At the same time, we often lose muscle (which burns off blood sugar) and become less active, both of which make it harder to keep sugar levels stable.

Hormonal changes after menopause can also play a role. On top of that, diets high in refined carbs, sugary snacks, and processed foods can push blood sugar even higher, especially when eaten regularly over time.

If rising blood sugar is left unchecked, it increases the risk of visceral fat, abdominal weight gain, fatigue, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, rising triglycerides & cholesterol and eventually type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

So early detection is very important.

A comprehensive review in PMC detailed how prediabetes – a stage where blood sugar is higher than normal but not yet diabetes – often begins years before symptoms appear. When individuals are screened during this early stage, risk of progressing to full-blown type 2 diabetes drops dramatically, by up to 60%, just through diet and lifestyle adjustments. 

A recent study published 2023 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reported that regardless of weight, all adults between 35 and 70 should be screened regularly for prediabetes.

Metabolism Testing

You may also like to download my Metabolism Testing Guide to find out a little more for yourself.