One thing your doctor will not tell you is just how much power you have on your plate to influence and supplement your hormones in menopause, using food and nutrition. There are multiple reasons why we do not have easy access to this information but the two biggest are…
We live in a profit driven, capitalist society and like it or not, the role of doctors has become to drive pharmaceutical sales. This is why we are becoming both more medicated and sicker as a society and also why much of the research carried out into women’s health is funded by the pharmaceutical industry, with a view to pharmaceutical sales and not necessarily so we know more about our own bodies.
Many of our medical professionals are not trained in nutrition to promote health. They just do not have the knowledge or skills to advise.
Nutrition is seen as a complementary medicine. It is here to offer you complementary tools and information so you can make educated decisions about how you manage your health. It offers options you can safely use alongside or with the health care you are offered in midlife.
So let’s talk about fennel, a delicious vegetable, packed with fibre and also, importantly a food that is a powerful source of phytoestrogen.
There are numerous studies showing that babies whose mothers drink fennel tea to promote the production of breast-milk after their birth, can prematurely grow budding breasts, both boys and girls, such is the effectiveness and absorption of the phytoestrogen found in the fennel bulb.
When we are in peri-menopause we can use the estrogenic power of foods like fennel to drip-feed ourselves gentle phytoestrogens and reduce our uncomfortable symptoms whilst protecting our bone, brain and heart health.
Let’s first talk about what it feels like in our body when we are short on estrogen in peri-menopause and full menopause because our body is talking to us all of the time and the symptoms we feel, whilst tough to read, are really useful guidance and information about our bodies. Tune in to your body and put a check-mark by each of the symptoms you are experiencing.
Irregular periods
Vaginal dryness and painful sex
Tender and painful breasts
Trouble concentrating
Low libido
Mood swings and irritability
Osteopenia
Hot flashes and night sweats
Dry and itchy skin
Aching hips and shoulders
Weight gain around the middle as cortisol our stress homone starts to dominate
Difficulty getting to sleep or sleeping through the night, again as cortsiol our stress hormone takes over and dominates in the absence of estrogen.
When we understand our symptoms, it becomes easier to know where we are and what we are experiencing in peri-menopause. Are we in an estrogen spike or crash and what foods can we eat to support our bodies where we are at.
The women in my online course, Menopause U are learning the language of their symptoms, the nutritional knowledge they need and the science behind what is happening to their bodies so they can step into their power and manage their menopause experience using nutrition and lifestyle as their first line of defence.
So, why is this simple Fennel Salad recipe such a powerful support to our midlife bodies? Let’s take a deeper look.
We have just learned that fennel is packed with gentle and easily absorbed phytoestrogen that can drip feed our bodies a top up for the hormones we are naturally missing at this stage of life.
Fresh mint has been found to increase natural levels of estrodial in the body, making it a valuable food to eat in peri-menopause and a recommended food for tackling PCOS. It is also refreshing and delicious in this salad and helps to push the pleasure buttons in our taste buds!
Peri-menopause is a fluid stage of our lives where we experience both spikes and crashes in our hormone levels as our ovaries work their way to a resting state. This changeability in hormone levels is why you can take HRT and find it is a miracle cure for your symptoms for a while, until it is not, because something has changed in your body. The clue is in the name…it is hormonal CHANGE!
When you use food and nutrition to manage your menopause experience, you can also add balance to the phytoestrogens you are adding into your diet that help you better cope with fluctuations and changes occurring in your body.
The pectin fibre in apples is perfect for dragging excess hormone out of the body via your daily detox or poop. We excrete most of our excess hormone in our poop and it is important in peri-menopause to avoid constipation so as to avoid the recirculation of excess estrogen. The pectin in apples is perfect for the job and remember that beautiful phytoestrogen we are feeding our body in fennel? It comes wrapped up in fibre so if we experience a fluctuation to excess estrogen, it is easily removed from the body and our uncomfortable symptoms are reduced and blunted.
This salad also contains radish and lemon juice and both are deeply supportive of your liver health. It is your liver that takes on the role of de-conjugating or breaking-down excess hormones in the body. A healthy liver helps you to reduce your symptoms and remove excess hormone more easily in your daily poop.
Again, with the nutrition in this delicious salad, we are are offering the body the phytoestrogen it craves in an estrogen crash, alongside the fibre our bodies need to handle an estrogen spike. In this way we can climb off the debilitating and stressful hormone roller-coaster and dramatically reduce and manage our uncomfortable symptoms.
Nutrition is holistic. It impacts all areas of our joined-up bodies. The fibre in this easy to prepare salad is going to protect your heart health and help to reduce your risk of colon and breast cancer. The whole dish is anti-inflammatory, helping again to reduce your menopausal symptoms as well as reducing hip and shoulder pain and helping with inflammation in the digestive tract.
Above all else, this pretty little, pink and green salad is going to spark joy every time you load it onto your plate; and I am all about midlife women’s joy and pleasure, in all of it’s shapes and forms.
