5 Foods To Eat During Perimenopause
So, here is what I have learned so far on my perimenopause journey.
Food is medicine!
The foods we eat affect all areas and functions of our body. Our food choices either feed us energy, nutrients, balance our hormones & help us battle disease or the wrong choices make you sick, depressed and cause you to develop some serious illness/diseases.
Our body is a very complex system, however the solution to perimenopause hormonal changes and its lovely side effects are actually pretty simple.
Eat healthy foods! Now I said “simple” not easy. It may be simple to say to you “eat healthy foods”, but I am not disillusioned as to how challenging that can be for many of us.
My recent mood swings caused by perimenopause have been on many, many occasions soothed with junk & convenience foods.
An apple isn’t necessarily a soothing comfort food, unless baked in a pie with loads of sugar ha ha, but making the change of healthy choices breaks the cycle of the cravings and mood swings.
We are all capable of making better nutrition choices and drastically improving our health, especially once we have the right tools in our pockets.
Be clear as to the reasons YOU want to feel better.
Understand what is happening in YOUR body and what the results are of each choice you make.
Will this require work and be hard at times? Of course it will be!
But, do you want to live in pain and discomfort for the rest of your life or start eating a cleaner diet that feeds your body what it is meant to be fed?
When you hit rock bottom, like I had, the choice becomes a little easier to make.
When you look at your grandmother, aunts and mother in their later years and see where your trajectory is headed…it becomes a little easier to change.
When you look at your kids who you want to be healthy, strong and alive for…it gets easier to change.
When you look at all your dreams & goals that have yet to be accomplished…it becomes easier to make the right choices.
There is way more on the line in your 40’s with your nutrition & health than there was in your 20’s and 30’s. There is more of a sense of urgency to repair and thrive in your body during this new season of Midlife. So get to work ladies! I know I am!
Step one is easy. Just add a few healthy food choices to your existing diet.
Here are 5 foods that will help combat hormonal changes in your body during perimenopause.
Sometimes all it takes is a few baby steps to get us going in the right direction. Once you see and feel the improvements, more changes will become a lot easier for you.
Soy Beans
Soy is high in phytoestrogens, which are plant based estrogens with a similar function as human estrogen.
Eating soy helps increase your bodies estrogen levels when they drop and helps reduce some of the symptoms that come along, such as hot flashes, irritability, low sex drive, head aches etc. You know, all the fun stuff.
You may be familiar with soy products already. Soy milk, soy sauce, tofu, but my favourite way to consume soy, which seems the most natural to me, is Edamame.
Edamame is just soy beans in their most natural form. The soy plant grows pods and you eat the beans inside and discard the tough exterior.
Edamame is easily available at most super markets in the frozen food aisle and is relatively inexpensive to buy.
Having it in frozen form ensures you can have a fresh supply all year round. If you are a home gardener you can also grow your own and eat it fresh or freeze it.
My favourite way to eat it, along with my children’s, is to place the frozen pods in a bowl of water in the microwave for a few minutes to thaw & warm and then add a little butter, salt & sometimes a squirt of lemon juice.
Then just snack away biting the beans out of the pods. You can also add the beans to a salad or pasta dish as well.
Broccoli Sprouts
Ok, this food is a power house of nutrition and is known for its cancer fighting and anti-inflammatory elements.
But, broccoli sprouts also regulate estrogen and progesterone levels in the body helping alleviate some of the symptoms of perimenopause.
These little sprouts are nutrient dense containing Sulforaphane (cancer fighter), Vitamin K and Calcium, just to name a few benefits.
Interesting fact…broccoli is sprouted with all the Sulforaphane it will ever have (cancer fighting agent). So you can either eat a little sprout or an entire broccoli plant -stalk, leaves, crowns and all…just to get the same benefit. If you have never seen a broccoli plant in the garden in its full form…it is BIG. That is a lot to eat! So nibble on some sprouts to get your dose.
There are two sources for you to provide broccoli sprouts into your diet.
The first is buying them at the supermarket. This option is more expensive and in my opinion not optimal, but you are still getting all the benefits.
My way…is by sprouting the seeds yourself at home, year round, fresh.
Sounds like work but hear me out.
You take some seeds that you can easily order online, put them in a mason jar, water & drain them daily for about 4-5 days and you will have an ample supply of fresh sprouts at a fraction of the cost.
There are many ways you can consume them, but I prefer raw & fresh. Just grab a bunch and eat them. Or, you can add them to a salad, sandwich or in a smoothie.
FYI - they taste just like broccoli “smells” when steamed and have a bit of spicy bite to them if you ask my weak palette.
Salmon
Salmon is high in Omega 3 Fatty Acids and Vitamin D & Calcium.
Vitamin D is vital during perimenopause because it helps the body absorb Calcium and as you may have learned in school Calcium builds bone mass and helps the body repair bone injuries.
Osteoporosis affects women in midlife at a much higher percentage and eating salmon is one great way to help combat that risk and build up your bone health.
Omega 3 Fatty Acids are an additional benefit of eating salmon. Omega 3 has been linked to reducing your chance of getting breast cancer, night sweats and helps fight inflammation in the body which causes aches, pains and other chronic illness. It even helps with PMS pain!
Salmon can be bought fresh or frozen at almost any grocery store. You can eat it raw in sushi, cooked with some herbs & lemon or even cooked & served cold in a salad or on a sandwich.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Extra Virgin Olive Oil has many health benefits, such as improving the health of your gut, cardiovascular system, boosting estrogen levels, cancer fighting properties and joint health.
EVOO helps your body fight inflammation, which is a leading culprit in most chronic diseases we face today.
EVOO is also a great source of Polyphenols (cancer fighters) and the health boosting oil also helps your gut microbiome stay in check. When your microbiome is out of whack your perimenopause symptoms will be greatly aggravated, such as brain fog, depression, anxiety and hot flashes.
Fun fact - Blue zones. Areas of the world where its citizens are healthier and live longer…some even into their hundreds. The Mediterranean has a few of the blue zones and a huge staple in their diet is? You guessed it…Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
EVOO is great used in salad dressings, poured over roasted veggies or used to make dips like hummus.
FYI - EVOO has a smoke point when cooking of 200 degrees. So try and keep the temperature under that as to not deteriorate its nutrients and add toxins from the smoke into your food. Cook at lower temperatures and for shorter periods by adding the oil near the end of cooking a dish.
Fermented Foods - Sauerkraut
What is fermentation? Simple/basic explanation : fermentation is a food preservation technique that has been around since humans have roamed the earth.
During the fermenting process healthy microorganisms are introduced to the food and begin working on making the nutrients more available for you to absorb.
Once consumed, you are adding the more digestible foods and the microorganisms to your microbiome improving your overall gut health.
As mentioned before having an unhealthy microbiome can be linked to increased risks of many debilitating diseases.
Perimenopause side effects are also affected by an unhealthy gut, such as being tired more often, upset stomach, sleep issues, intolerance to some foods, extreme food cravings (i.e. sugar), weight gain, migraines, mood changes, autoimmune disorders, thyroid issues, arthritis, MS, Type 2 Diabetes and the list could go on.
Fermented foods can aid in digestion, reduce bloating, help you absorb more nutrients from the foods that you are eating, build up a stronger immune system and even improve your moods.
80% of your immune system is located in your gut. So gut health is very important.
My favourite fermented foods are kombucha and sauerkraut. I like to ferment my own at home which is relatively easy to do, not too long of a process and saves you a tonne of money. For example a bottle of kombucha at the store can cost you $10 or you can make it at home for literal pennies.
Fermenting foods is also a fun experiment to watch and you get to know 100% what is in your food.
FYI - Some fermented foods are very sour, can have odd odours and if fermenting on your own weird little growths called scobys, which are all part of the process but may be alien to you ha ha. Look at one and you will see what I mean.
There are many fermented foods out there and not all of them will appeal to everyone, so it is important to try out many before you through the towel in.
For instance maybe yogurt is more tolerable for you than say kombucha. Or eating sauerkraut on its own may be too sour for you, but some on a sandwich such as a Reuben you would enjoy.
As I mentioned kombucha is one of my preferred ways to take advantage of fermented foods and specifically lemon ginger flavour. A little fizz in the fermentation process and its like having a glass of ginger ale.
Here are a few types of fermented foods: sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, yogurt, tempeh, wine, pickles, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar or tofu.
I hope this list helped you maybe learn a few new foods to add to your diet to help start improving your perimenopause symptoms or even just for better general health.
Pick one or try them all.
Thanks for reading and be sure to leave a comment below about any perimenopause tips you may have.