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!

Your Body is Talking to You All of the Time - It's Language is Symptoms

When it comes to peri-menopause, each womans experience is unique.

It is very difficult to come to a conclusion about what is normal. We are in a period of hormonal change and our hormones impact every aspect of our health and every area of our body. The body is holistic (its all joined up!) and not compartmentalized as has been decided by, male dominated, Western medicine. When we feel our hormones changing, it crashes both our energy and sleep, we find our brains futzing and our bodies changing shape, our menstrual cycle is all over the place, we are hot and we just do not feel like ourselves anymore. Hormones do not recognize the boundaries of medical specialists. Peri-menopause is a whole body experience!

It is hard to maintain equanimity. We go into this process with very little information about exactly what is happening inside our bodies, the topic has been taboo for the last few generations and there are horror stories of vaginal atrophy, 30 day long periods and osteopenia…ALL of which are true!

It is horrifying; and yet we struggle through; often feeling quite alone, as the patriarchal specter of womens hysteria and the judgements of women being unstable and overly emotional are still with us.

One way to manage this challenging transition is to fall into helplessness. You are the victim and your body is against you. It is a legitimate place to be. This was the place I found myself aged 46, exhausted and depressed. I did not know what was happening to my body - no clue! I was told I should expect to feel this way at my age and I was given no information or advice to help me feel empowered or which I could implement to make positive change.

Eat less and exercise more - the worst advice for a woman in hormonal change.

In reality we need to zoom our lens out big time and start questioning our whole situation, its history and the science of what works for woman at midlife.

Is it right that the body is compartmentalized? Hormones travel around the body and impact our psychology, our sexuality and our metabolic, bone and cardiovascular health.

Is it right that we live in a world where the majority of clinical studies have been carried out on men and it is assumed this knowledge will apply to women? Midlife womens health is only now getting the attention that it deserves when it comes to research; we are living in a void of information.

Is it normal that we are living with polluted air, polluted water, and so many chemicals in our homes and in our foods? We know that plastics disrupt our female hormones and that estrogen mimicking chemicals in our food, cleaning and personal care items can worsen our symptoms of peri-menopause.

Is it right that we are medicalizing what is a natural hormonal transition for women instead of changing the nutrition and environment for a woman?

”When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment the flower grows in and not the flower” Alexander Den Heijer

When start to question and turn normalized beliefs on their head, we realize that the 34 symptoms of peri-menopause are actually our bodies crying out to be heard.

Your body is talking to you all of the time and the language it uses is symptoms.

We are not victims of our bodies at midlife. We are in relationship with our bodies through the process of hormonal change that is midlife. Our symptoms are a call for change in the way that we care for our bodies and a call to action to get informed, become empowered around our personal health and start putting our health and wellbeing first. Are you ready to step up for yourself?