Nutrient Dense Winter Salad

One thing I know for sure is, we are what we eat.

The food we put into our bodies on a daily basis will either build health, or tear our health down and the food we eat, provides us with one of the simple pleasures of life, three times a day.

I love food, but I do not love spending hours toiling in the kitchen or striding through the aisles of the supermarket looking for obscure ingredients. The recipes I love and make most often are quick, packed with flavour, simple to follow and use easy to find ingredients. How can you make eating delicious healthy food a habit if it becomes a challenging chore, day after day, after day? That would be exhausting and not delightful!

I was delighted to come across a recipe called: Jennifer Anistons’ Salad. Apparently, she ate this salad every single day she worked on the set for Friends. Here is a woman with consistency in her healthy habits!
I have never been a huge fan of Friends and the back catalogue of episodes is too overwhelming to consider watching, at this late stage in the game, but I am a fan of this easy, delicious and nutritionally dense salad!

Let’s look at why…

1. This salad is quick and easy to make! I loaded a podcast onto my phone one Tuesday evening, and assembled all of the ingredients and the dressing into a plastic container, in 20 minutes flat. I had a deeply nourishing salad to eat through the rest of the week.

2. It is forgiving. I did not have the perfect ingredients for this salad, (no cucumber in my refrigerator) but I did have additional herbs and a pomegranate. You can riff off the original recipe with what you love or what you have on hand, to make a different delicious salad each time

3. It is absolutely packed with flavour. I loaded my version with three types of herbs and added health promoting ground cumin to the lemon and olive oil dressing for a warm and spicy flavour.

4. The version I made is packed with protein. Chickpeas, pistachios, quinoa and feta cheese combine to create a dish with about 14g of protein per serving. Protein helps us to retain muscle mass and prevent weight gain in during peri-menopause and quinoa is a complete protein, containing all nine essential amino acids the body cannot create on its own.

5. This salad is packed with fibre. Fibre is the midlife womans best friend, helping to manage midlife hormones, supporting heart health and reducing the risk of weight gain around the middle. I added the seeds of a pomegranate to amp up the fibre and provide juicy jewels of flavour. in each mouthful.

6. This salad is versatile. Use as a side dish to chicken or fish, eat as a complete meal with avocado on the top or try it for breakfast as below, with boiled eggs and avocado. Nourishing and filling, this salad stores well and can be pulled out of the refrigerator throughout the week to add nutrition to a meal.

Ingredients

1 cup uncooked quinoa

2 cups water

1 bunch parsley finely chopped

1 bunch mint finely chopped

1 bunch cilantro finely chopped (Optional)

1/2 red onion finely chopped

1/2 cup pistachios

1x14oz can chickpeas drained

1x14oz can pitted black olives drained and halved

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp ground cumin

200g goat or cow feta cheese

2 lemons juiced

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 cup chopped cucumber (optional)

1 Pomegranate seeded

Instructions

1. Wash the quinoa under running water until it ceases to make soapy bubbles.

2. Cook the quinoa in the water in a pan with a lid until all the water is absorbed. Remove the lid and fluff up the quinoa with a fork.

3. Meanwhile, drain the can of chickpeas and drain and halve the olives. Add to a large bowl or container.

4. Toss in the pistachios and finely chopped red onion.

5. Finely chop the herbs and add to the bowl or container as if you are making tabbouleh.

6. Add the cooked and fully drained quinoa

7. Add the juice of two lemons to the ingredients, 1/4 cup olive oil, the salt and the cumin. Toss all the ingredients together to combine making the dressing in the salad.

8. Chop or crumble the feta cheese into the salad and add the cucumber or pomegranate seeds if using.

9. Gently stir the salad together to combine.

Menopause and your Heart

Nutrition is a new science and midlife womens health is an under studied area of medicine. This can make life confusing for any midlife woman.

Nutritional advice changes fast as research moves quickly or studies produce differing results in women as opposed to the initial studies carried out on animals or men. We are currently being flooded with research on womens health as medicine wakes up to the fact that women are not small men without penises but instead have a significant hormonal component to their health and are more greatly impacted negatively by stress - in a patriarchy…with misogyny and inequality…carrying the mental and emotional load…who would thunk it?!?

When I meet with new clients, one of their biggest hurdles in eating for vibrant health is an overwhelming amount of often conflicting information.

Cardiovascular disease in midlife women is one of those areas that is undergoing a significant download of research studies carried out on women, whilst at the same time, we are waking up to the power of healthy fats in the diet to support heart health, (even as food companies continue to lobby for low fat = heart healthy branding), the impact of stress on womens health and the fact that estrogen is a heart protective hormone. It is messy and the science based information is hard to find and navigate.

Let’s work through this matrix of information to find out what is best for our heart.

The number one cause of death in women is heart disease. This fact has been obscured for decades as the focus of medical research since the 70’s has been on mens heart health and the prevention of heart attacks in men. Since the mid-1980s, cardiovascular disease has killed more women than men each year. In 2011 alone, cardiovascular disease caused about 10,000 more deaths in women than men. Did you know this? Or are you still worried about your mans heart health?

We now know that estrogen is protective for our heart health and as estrogen declines and we shift into menopause, this is a risk factor for our heart health. To be clear, menopause does not cause cardiovascular disease but menopause is an additional risk factor for cardiovascular disease in women.

There is also the factor of timing when it comes to womens heart health and menopause. Multiple studies carried out over the last couple of years are equating hot flashes with an increase in cardiovascular risk, dependent on the age of the woman. If you are woman who experiences numerous hot flashes very early on in peri-menopause, in your forties, you are more at risk of a serious cardiac event in later life.

Timing is also important when we look at the fact that a woman in her forties who is in full menopause and has not experienced a period for a year has a the same risk of a cardiac event as a woman aged 55 who enters full menopause. It is not our age that is the risk factor but the decrease in estrogen.

This might require us to do some rethinking to change our mindset towards our periods. Periods are annoying, unpredictable and messy in peri-menopause but your period is a significant indicator of vitality, wellbeing and heart protective estrogen in the body. My heart breaks when I see women in online bemoaning and being done with their period in their forties, Your body is talking to you all of the time and your period is a positive affirming message of health.

Mamma Bears Breakfast

Midlife women are under tremendous pressure to maintain their youthfulness, thinness and sex appeal in our current society. This new research into womens heart health and hormones is telling us, our focus should lie not on our appearance but firmly on our wellbeing and cardiovascular health.

As we move through hormonal change, the greatest tools for ensuring cardiovascular health over the longer term are food and exercise.

When we get empowered around our food and exercise we are putting control over the outcomes for our health back into our own hands and on our plate.

Let’s look at the foods that help us to move the dial on our cardiovascular health.

Drink your water lady! Our cardiovascular system relies on the smooth running of blood around the system. HYDRATE!

Eat your fibre! Fibre is the midlife womans best friend. It helps to manage excess hormone, maintains the health of our microbiome…an important part of hormone regulation in peri-menopause and supports heart health. Fibre with each meal will help you to maintain your ideal weight and supports metabolic health. Our metabolic health…how we handle sugar, will either support your best cardiac health or tear it down. Eat vegetables, nuts seeds, fruits, berries, beans and lentils. You can also include some whole grains into your diet for fibre but the grain and dairy based diet that is the Standard American Diet is destroying our health, no matter how much we are subsidizing farms to produce these foods in distorted food policies.

Eat your healthy fats. If you are fat phobic because skinny is your ‘health’ goal, you are eating to undermine your heart health. Include olive oil, avocados, walnuts, flax oil, wild salmon, sardines, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sea bass, whole eggs, chia seeds, anchovies, coconut oil, avocado oil, hemp seeds, almond butter, olives, tahini, butter and mackerel. Supplementing with 1000mg of high quality omega 3 fatty acids each morning is also a wise choice.
Avoid sugar, trans fats and processed seed oils such as canola, corn, sunflower and soya oil that drive inflammation in the body. Avoid highly processed fat free foods that are full of fillers and chemicals designed to have the ‘mouth feel’ of fats.

Enjoy foods rich in vitamin E! Vitamin E changes the surface of our red blood cells to decrease the viscosity of our blood. Red blood cells become more slippery and blood flow is improved. Vitamin E can be found in avocados, sunflower seeds, almonds, hazelnut oil, almond oil, pine nuts, wild salmon and Rainbow trout, pistachios, kiwi fruit, Brazil nuts and peanuts. Interestingly supplementation with vitamin E capsules has been shown to reduce the incidence of hot flashes during peri-menopause. Taking 400iu of vitamin E containing mixed tocopherols (vitamin E is made up of different methylated phenols) will support your heart health and reduced hot flashes.

Eat a diet rich in the relaxation mineral magnesium. Magnesium relaxes our vasculature and musculature and supports a lower blood pressure. It is found in leafy greens, avocados, nuts and seeds, beans and lentils, wheat bran and dark chocolate or cacao. Magnesium is a co-factor in over 300 tiny biochemical reactions inside the body but it is estimated by the World Health Organization, less than 60% of the US population get sufficient magnesium in their diet. You know you are short on magnesium if you are constipated, have an annoying eye twitch or restless leg syndrome. Magnesium is fantastic for supporting heart health and aiding sleep. A supplement of 250mg of magnesium citrate, if you are constipated, or magnesium biglycinate, if you are not, taken at bedtime will support heart health and help you to sleep.

Chocolate Avocado Mousse

It is challenging to learn that midlife hormonal change is a risk factor and can have a negative impact on our health.

I prefer to see this stage of life as a healthy wake up call to what is really important in life - our health, happiness and well-being. A fully informed menopause gives us all of the information we need to step into our power and begin to make changes to eat to improve our overall health so that natural hormonal change does not derail our next chapter.

You got this! one plate at a time.

If you want options for another seriously heart-healing, gluten-free breakfast try my Heart Healthy Buckwheat Bowl

'What If...?

Towards the end of each year, before the holidays take over, I spend some time with the question ‘What If…?’

I started asking ‘what if?’ in the summer of 2012 when my health and energy entirely collapsed and all the joy was sucked out of my life due to my permanent tiredness and overwhelm. I asked myself these questions…

What if my doctor doesn’t understand that something is really wrong with my health?
What if I don’t want to ‘feel my age’, exhausted and shitty in peri-menopause?
What if losing weight was not the only answer to all the symptoms I felt in my body?
I think I am eating healthy with salads and no-fat skinny lattes. I read health magazines! What if I don’t know as much as I think I do?
What if I get a full nights sleep, lose my anxiety, get my energy back and start exercising more?
What if I felt happy in my body? Mind blown! I had not felt this feeling from age 15years old.
What if I make my health my priority in life?

I moved through life on autopilot in the summer of 2012. Taxied kids between summer camps, planned day trips, booked kids haircuts, made visits to the dentist, cleaned out the kids closets and donated clothes, packed the bags for swimming at the pool, bought the snacks and taxied to the mall. My world revolved around the health and happiness of my family.

The whole time, I ruminated on my what ifs and honestly, I felt guilty and sick to my stomach at the thought of making radical change.

One day while driving, I heard the ad for The Canadian School of Natural Nutrition on the radio. What if I enrol in Nutrition School and commit to taking action on my health and wellbeing?

1 week before the school year started, I took a leap of faith, filled out the application and booked an interview, sight unseen.

My world changed completely from this one commitment to myself.

As soon as I reached out to claim the thing I wanted, I entered a world of learning, enrichment and fulfillment, I gained the skills I needed to understand and manage my personal health and wellbeing and the future health of my family and I began to feel empowered and more like myself again.
It goes so much further than this…I made new friends in a new community, I tasted foods I had never eaten before, I cut through the mixed nutritional messages to learn the science, I got my sleep back, I challenged my previously held beliefs around healthcare, food and my body, I began to prioritize my needs and gently began to accept my bodies messages of fullness and hunger, I started to nap when I felt tired for the first time in my life and began to value and build healthy daily habits.

I fell in love with my body and my body sighed a huge sigh of relief, started to release the stress keeping me awake at 3am every night and the weight accumulating around my middle. I began to feel at home and comfortable in my body and woke each morning with a bubbling feeling of happiness inside instead of the dread I was used to.

As I poured all of my knowledge into the curriculum for my year long program, Menopause U I held all of these ‘what if’s’ in my mind and the ‘what if’s’ I collected over the years from all of the women I have worked with.

What if we talk about the power of food and nutrition to reduce menopausal symptoms?
What if we talk about our sexuality, our vaginas and how we can get empowered by opening the Pandoras Box that is all the taboo symptoms of menopause!?!
What if we smash through the shame around menopause?
What if we actively unlearn diet culture and instead work on nourishing our bodies for health?
What if we learn the language of symptoms that is our body talking to us all of the time?
What if we reframe Menopause as powerful opportunity for positive change?
What if we step out of being a victim of our ‘lady parts’ and recognize the pleasure and creation that comes from being in a womans body and care for our bodies appropriately?
What if we think about building health in our beautiful bodies for the next chapter instead of bypassing menopause and seeing aging as being all downhill?

As we approach the holiday season, I am sat with my what ifs for 2023.

What if I renew my PADI diving certification and get to dive in the kelp forest in the ocean where I live? (Just like Nutrition School, this is a big yes! from my body and I am going to claim this!)
What if I find a dance class and have all the pleasure of meeting new people and moving with rhythm and sensuality in my body? (This is a big yes! too! I am going to be busy!)
What if I get to support and hold space for a like minded group of women in Menopause U and they get to fulfil the ‘what ifs?’ they have for their own lives and bodies? This desire I am building into reality and it brings me such joy and excitement!

What are your ‘What ifs?’ for you, right now?
Grab a piece of paper and feel into your greatest desires for your health and life. It may feel challenging to put your needs first but take that leap of faith and grab what you desire!