myFM: Menopause and Diet

Menopause seems to be a rather taboo subject and yet, all women go through it. Perimenopause is the time before menstruation completely stops, and stops for a year. Keeping hormones in balance is like being on a see-saw. 

Along with that comes  weight gain, sleepless nights, mood swings, and oh the hot flashes.  None of it is the most fun time of life. I’ve suffered with headaches and now migraines that knock me out. And apparently it’s ‘normal’. 

What we can do is to clean up the diet - as usual. Less refined foods, more whole foods. Following aPaleo way of eating has helped many of my clients and evenintermittent fasting, where you’re eating for 8 hours out of 24 hours.  

• Eat more fish and take fish oils - it can help decrease your hot flashes and is good for your skin. 
• Include superfoods like blueberries, cherries, greens and avocado in your morning smoothie. 
• Take Sunshine D3+K2 for bone strength and health (and immunity). 
• Ditch the white stuff.Whole-grain foods include brown rice, whole-wheat bread, barley, quinoa, kamut and rye for all the B vitamins needed for balancing hormones and detoxification. 

Hot Flashes

Those hot flashes can be helped by supporting your liver - lemon water first thing, caster oil over your abdomen at night, NAC and Glutathione supplements and even Dong Quai has helped me a lot. I found acupuncture the best for nailing the hot flashes too.In a one-year intervention study in over 17,000 menopausal women, those eating more  vegetables, fruit, fiber and soy experienced a 19% reduction in hot flashes compared to the control group (must be organic soy).

There is so much more to this so tune into episode 60 of EAT THIS with Lianne - All About Menopause, but please know you’re not alone in this.