What If Menopause Is Not Just About Your Hormones?

When we examine the natural hormonal change of peri-menopause through the lens of HRT as a solution to avoid our symptoms, we take on the patriarchal view of the conventional medical profession; An attitude of lift up the hood and top up the oil, this old girl is running dry.

In reality, as women, we are living in bodies with monthly cycles guided by the moon and our circadian rhythms; that are reset daily by the sun and our sleep schedule. Our body wide, menopausal hormonal change is natural and, like whales, we have bodies designed to compensate when our ovaries move into a state of rest.

Research tells us that the majority of us will enter our 40’s at risk of nutritional deficiency in iodine, calcium, magnesium, potassium, vitamin D, essential omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin K, vitamin E, folate, vitamin B6, protein, fibre and iron.

Over a lifetime we can eat ourselves into these deficiencies simply because the food we consume from our food system today contains less nutrition than it did in the past. Many of us are eating a nutrient depleted modern diet full of processed and fake foods. Some of us are nutritionally depleted over decades from growing and birthing our babies and think the exhaustion and weight gain are normal.

Besides easily measured nutritional markers, research tells us our experience of the severity of menopausal symptoms is exacerbated by things as nefarious as our mindset (Am I joyful? Do I feel unfulfilled or overwhelmed?), the levels of chemical pollution in the ecosystem we inhabit that is our environment and even how empowered we feel as women at midlife; in a system that pays women less, gives women more of the household tasks and wants control over womens clothes/hair/wombs.

We will feel our symptoms more severely if:
We restrict our food intake and don’t eat a healthy and balanced diet
If we over exercise and under rest,
If our sleep is disrupted
If we smoke
If our mother experienced challenges and we believe our experience will be the same
…And in societies where aging citizens are not valued but seen as a burden.

This variation in womens experiences of hormonal changes leading to menopause gives us an opportunity to influence our personal experience of peri-menopause. We are not the victims of a blanket experience of natural hormonal change. In fact we have the power in our own hands to improve our sleep and diet, adjust our exercise regime and increase our own personal self-worth to change our own personal story.

We can use this chapter in life to give up smoking, to learn to put boundaries around people, places and practices that drain us and can learn the skills to deeply nourish our bodies and build health to manifest a vision of vibrant health that we dream of and imagine for ourselves after menopause.

We have the opportunity to listen in to our bodies, learn, grow and change during menopause and we deserve to be treated as full and complete humans as we go through this process.

When we bypass our full experience of hormonal change, we miss the opportunity to:

1. Learn how to nourish our bodies deeply to support our brain and heart health to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia in the future.

2. Deal with our mindset and stress levels to reduce cortisol and improve adrenal health to allow our juicy hormones to bounce back so we can find our orgasm and libido.

3. Work on our sleep hygiene to boost energy in the short term and lay down healthy habits for our brain as we move into the next chapter of ageing.

4. Learn the nutritional knowledge to support our longevity, vaginal health, tissue health, microbiome and mood at midlife and beyond.

5. Tune back into our pleasure, desires and ambitions after raising a family and carrying the emotional load in a patriarchy or having dedicated ourselves our career.

6. Examine our most important relationships to ensure they are healthy and working to support us and make changes if they increase symptoms of menopause because they are draining and tearing us down.

7. Learn boundaries after a lifetime of over-giving and over-committing so we can move into the next chapter feeling happier, more spacious and with cortisol, our stress hormone significantly lowered. (Did you know that healthy boundaries are linked to reduced joint pain and reduced incidence of excessive bleeding in peri-menopause?)

8. Unpack what we learned at our childhood table and from a lifetime of brainwashing by the diet industry, so that we can decide what we want aging to look like for us and can better nourish our aging bodies without guilt or dysfunction. Midlife is a great time to unlearn diet and restriction.

9. Assess our exercise practice to find one that works to build strength, protect our continence and vaginal health, to reduce stress in our bodies and to maintain flexibility and range of motion whilst easing aches and pains. Peri-menopause is your reminder to start the work to get to a place where you have the strength and flexibility to get easily in and out of a chair on one leg!

10. Get a chiropractic or osteopathic assessment, visit a podiatrist and make an appointment with a pelvic health specialist. When symptoms pf peri-menopause start, take it as motivation to ask for help and to address ongoing aches, pains and irregularities. We deserve to age in comfort and peri-menopause is the reminder to prioritize yourself.

11. Book an appointment with a pelvic floor PT and make friends with your pelvic floor, vagina, vulva and labia! Love on your body and prioritize meaningful self-care at midlife. She is waiting for you!

12. Find a mindset practice, therapy or somatic support that helps us to deal with the small t trauma we have experienced in childbirth and in our relationships; from misogyny and feeling unsafe in society or when unheard or bypassed by medical professionals. We get to put our big girl pants on and calm our nervous systems as menopause reminds us to take great care of our mental health.

13. Notice and shut down the mean voice in our heads that checks on what we eat and doesn’t like what it sees in the mirror. Our bodies hear everything our minds say and midlife is the chapter to notice how we talk to ourselves, free ourselves from self-hate and work on building self-love and healing for ourselves. Separating from this mean voice dramatically reduces stress and shame and is supportive of reduced menopausal symptoms.

14. Rest, learn to say NO and lean in to to asking for help. Women who inhabit a supportive environment and feel seen and heard pass more easily through hormonal change and into the calm seas of the next chapter.

As women, our hormones impact every aspect of our health. Estrogen receptors are found throughout our bodies and excess cortisol, our stress hormone can crash our juicy hormones to zero, creating a whirlwind of uncomfortable symptoms. We have the ability to tune in, to listen to our bodies and respond with rest, better boundaries and nurturing food and nutrition to massively change our personal experience of menopause.

We have a phenomenal number of levers to pull and tools to use when it comes to taking empowered steps around our personal health at midlife. You know your body best and you know what you need.

Pick one positive step you can make for your health, research and make changes; then pick the next easiest step. Incrementally, the changes you make to your diet and lifestyle will radically change your overall health. For example: One green smoothie on a (fairly consistent) daily basis provides fibre to manage midlife hormones and reduce symptoms. Feed a healthy microbiome to increase immunity and boost mood. Offers the body easily absorbed calcium and magnesium to build great bone health and antioxidants and fibres to help prevent breast and colon cancer.

Replacing hormones reduces symptoms but nutrition and lifestyle changes reduce symptoms and build health and as you move through this process of making baby steps to better health, your confidence, self-trust and voice of self-advocacy will grow. This is the gift offered by listening to the body in a natural menopause.

As the conversation about menopause and midlife womens health grows, it is important that we advocate for our full experience of empowerment through the process rather than being satisfied with the ‘top her up and keep her running’ attitude of the patriarchy.

Let me be clear: This does not mean we should not or cannot choose HRT as part of our tool kit but as the mothers of the future generation and because we shoulder the world of unseen and unpaid emotional and caring work for society; we deserve to be treated as full and complete humans in our journey to menopause as opposed to machines society needs to keep running.

Mama Bears Breakfast

At midlife, when we nourish our bodies with dense nutrition using whole foods, we have the power to reduce and sometimes eradicate uncomfortable symptoms.

We truly are what we eat and when we shift from an inflammatory Standard American Diet, full of processed foods and empty of nutrition, our body stops sending us the messages that it is struggling and starts to do its job.

Menopause is a process of natural hormonal change. It requires us to pull on our big girl panties to start fuelling our bodies right, take rest and prioritize pleasure! This is how we support our bodies to stay symptom free as we shift from fertility to a new chapter with the choice of a different kind of creativity.

I decided to experiment with my food and build a breakfast bowl with ALL of the foods that have the most impact on our beautiful midlife body with their dense hormone balancing nutrition.

Let’s look at what we have got!

Raspberries (fresh or frozen) - Rich in phytoestrogen to top up your depleting juicy hormone and packed with fibre to support your liver health and help your body to detox symptom inducing excess hormones. Anti-oxidant rich and cancer preventative…also juicy and delicious!

Ground Flax - The queen of fibres for midlife women because of its high phytoestrogen content, because it is rich in anti-inflammatory omega 3 fatty acids and because it is just the right balance of soluble and insoluble fibre to help you with your daily detox (read poop!) You need to be pooping daily in perimenopause to excrete excess hormone from the body. You cannot sweat or pee out hormones and circulation of excess hormone in your body is going to drive your uncomfortable symptoms. Constipation is going to increase hot flashes. Let’s keep all our detox pathways open at midlife!

Hemp seeds - packed with omega 3 fatty acids and antioxidants this fibre rich (think daily poop plus) , this plant based protein helps you to boost your protein intake to support your ideal weight and prevent muscle loss at midlife. We need to be taking action and eating to prevent bingo wings and increasing our protein intake in a healthy way is a part of that process.

Pumpkin seeds - Fibre rich (POOP) and packed with minerals such as thyroid supporting zinc and magnesium our relaxation mineral, pumpkin seeds provide us with the micronutrients we need for hormonal change. (More coming on the thyroid gland in a minute)

Walnuts - FIBRE! Full of healthy fats to balance blood sugar levels and curb appetite, walnuts are brain and heart supportive as they are rich in vitamin E. Vitamin E has been shown in clinical trials to reduce hot flashes in menopausal women. Your food IS your medicine at this point and there is a clinical trial backing up the science.

Brazil nuts - Listen, as you move through perimenopause, your thyroid gland is going to need the utmost TLC. Responsible for your metabolism, menstrual cycle, circadian rhythm and bone health, our thyroid gland STRUGGLES when everything starts changing with our hormones. Why do you think so many of us midlife women take thyroid medication? We need to be reducing our stress, finding our voice and eating anti-inflammatory foods at midlife to protect this master gland during the rough seas of perimenopause. The thyroid gland also loves minerals and needs sufficient zinc, iron, magnesium and selenium to effectively convert our thyroid hormone T4 into active T3. It is a process and we need to support our beautiful bodies in that process with nutrition you do not find in processed foods. Brazil nuts are the highest source of selenium, (a mineral depleted from our soils by chelating chemicals such as Round-Up, but don’t get me started!) so we only need 3-4 a day to support our best thyroid health. Let’s eat that at breakfast!

I topped this nutrient dense mix of nuts, berries and seeds with goat milk kefir, a fermented milk product similar to yoghurt, because I am wanting to support my microbiome.

Your microbiome is your unique constellation of gut bacteria that support your gut health , positive mood (these friendly bacteria are busy making your serotonin sister so help them out!) and immunity. During perimenopause, our gut bacteria changes and it has implications for our metabolic and heart health. Eating fermented foods is another nutritional baby step to reducing your perimenopausal symptoms and creating your most vibrant midlife health. Hello kefiir, sauerkraut, kimchee, kombucha and naturally fermented pickles! You can read more in this clinical trial here.

Look at all of this beauty and deliciousness.

I talk often about nutritional switches for midlife women and here is one right here.

Switch your muffin, toast, box cereal and skipped breakfast for this bowl of dense nutrition to feed your body the nutrients it needs for it to pass through hormonal change with minimum symptoms and zero medication and in the process, know that you are building your best vibrant health for MORE active yers in the next chapter.

Ingredients

1 cup fresh or frozen berries

2 tbsp hemp seeds

1 tbsp ground flax

1/4 cup pumpkin seeds

1/4 cup walnuts

3-4 Brazil nuts

1/4 cup yoghurt or kefir

Instructions

Pile all of this goodness into a bowl and enjoy! Expect to feel full until lunchtime with no carb cravings because you gave your body the nutrition it needs!

My three baby-steps to better midlife health

Boy is life ever complicated, conflicting and dramatic in 2022. The roll call for the first three months of this year looks like a visitation from the four horsemen of the apocalypse and includes flood, fire, war and plague. (Does inflation and rising food/gas prices substitute for famine? Inquiring minds need to know!)

There is so much going on in the world that is violent and scary, it is easy to fall into feelings of powerlessness and fear. Understandable we feel distracted as global events change swiftly and thinking about your joy, your needs and even your personal health can feel self-indulgent, lacking in empathy and insignificant in the grander scheme of pressing issues such as the climate crisis and the horror of war.

Bringing your focus back to how you feel inside your body is mindset work and can be hard for women especially after a lifetime of over giving and extending empathy to others. It requires you to tune into your body, to listen to your symptoms (without feeling broken) and commit to meeting your midlife needs for more; think more nutrient dense food, more rest and more relaxation.

One of the most common ways to increase your symptoms of menopause at midlife is through increased stress.
When cortisol our stress hormone dominates our hormone profile and our juicy hormones are depleting we crash into hot flashes, sugar cravings, anxiety, sleepless nights and weight gain around the middle. Know that this is not inevitable!

Cortisol domination in the hormonal change of midlife damages our sleep, brain health, heart health and bone health. It trashes our digestion giving us gassiness and bloat, depresses our mood and increases our appetite.

In a very real way, stress is actively generating and exacerbating our symptoms of menopause. It is your hormones but it is your stress hormone in particular that is making you uncomfortable.

Menopause is a process of natural hormonal change where our ovaries finally get to rest after years of continual ovulation. We can approach this chapter of our life with a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. When we adopt a growth mindset, we are not victims of the process but have the ability to make choices that support our bodies to optimal health through the process and lessen uncomfortable symptoms. Our growth mindset allows space to understand that symptoms of menopause are not inevitable, but are simply information from our bodies, in the language our body uses; symptoms. Once we understand this language and seek out education on the midlife hormonal change process called menopause, we can start taking action and make changes to our diet and lifestyle to better support our bodies and reduce our symptoms. From this place we can take baby steps to better midlife health.

Here are the first three baby steps I recommend to EVERY woman in her forties who is ready to embrace her power at midlife wants to take action and is ready to make changes to manage her symptoms of hormonal change.

1. Reduce your stress level across multiple areas of your life eg. Turn off the news. Go to bed 1 hour earlier. Take a daily walk in the sunshine. Delegate household and volunteer tasks making the word ‘no’ your new best friend. Ditch caffeine from your day - especially your early morning. Reduce the amount of processed food and sugar that you eat. Carve out ‘me time’ for 1 hour each day, even if you just do nothing and rest. Listen to relaxing music through headphones. Journal for 10 minutes each morning detailing three things that make you feel grateful. All of these actions have one thing in common: Boundaries. Midlife is the chapter where we learn to honour our time, our body and our self-worth. We get to put our big girl pants on and create the boundaries that help us to put our self first. It is our time!

2. Make it your new habit to drink a green smoothie daily. A green smoothie will increase the amount of fibre, anti-oxidants, minerals and vitamins in your daily diet. A green smoothie is going to support your liver health to better manage excess hormones in the body and will ensure your daily detox (read poop) so that you are eliminating hormone and toxins daily to reduce your symptoms of peri-menopause. You are going to feel your REAL energy increase (I am not talking caffeine jitters), your skin glow and your mood lift as you increase the nutrition ad fibre in your daily diet one glass at a time.
   You can find a great Green Smoothie recipe here. Making your smoothie each week and storing in your refrigerator to drink daily will help you to form this healthy habit.

3. Eat more healthy fat in your diet. Think about snacking on nuts and seeds rather than chips and candy, add into your diet raw ground flax, chia seeds and hemp hearts. Introduce oily fish such as salmon, sardines and mackerel to your diet (try this dip!). Put an avocado on your salad, spread grass-fed butter on sourdough toast, put coconut oil into your matcha latte and use cold pressed oils from avocado and olive for cooking. Remove inflammatory, highly processed seed oils such a canola, cottonseed and sunflower. Rule of thumb; if it comes in an oversize plastic bottle, it should not be in your kitchen.
   Healthy fats and oils are so supportive to our midlife bodies because the back bone of all of our hormones is cholesterol, our brains are made up of 60% fat and each one of the cells of our body is encapsulated in a phospholipid membrane. As humans we are built and function with fat! The quality of fat that we put in our body directly effects the quality of our health and the quality of our brain health, cellular activity and hormonal balance. Healthy fats help to reduce anxiety, reduce our appetite and sugar cravings and support the function of our thyroid gland, supporting thyroid function by helping to fire up our metabolism, our internal furnace. Midlife is the opportunity to ditch all repressive thoughts of diet and restriction fed to us by a billion dollar diet industry. Midlife is the time to drop low fat/no fat as a dieting strategy and to lean into that growth mindset to learn how to fuel your body with deep nutrition so you can pass with ease through hormonal change.
   
   Email me and let me know how you get on with these first three baby steps. I would love to hear how they impact your menopausal symptoms.