The Midlife Feast
Welcome to The Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I’m your host, Jenn Salib Huber, dietitian, naturopathic doctor , intuitive eating counsellor and author of Eat to Thrive During Menopause. Each episode “brings to the table” a different perspective, conversation, or experience about life after 40, designed to help you find the "missing ingredient" you need to thrive, not just survive.
The Midlife Feast
Day 4: Add, Don't Subtract - A Better Way to Think About Menopause Nutrition
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Welcome back to Day 4 of my Midlife and Menopause Un-Dieting series. Yesterday I asked you to sit with one question: what do I want? It's sometimes easier to outsource "what should I eat?" than to honestly ask what you want. Today we add the other half: what do I need? And that's where gentle nutrition comes in.
Un-dieting doesn't mean throwing nutrition out the window. It means bringing it in as information, not another set of rules. The trap is that diet culture has made weight loss a proxy for everything, and I firmly believe that your health should not become a full-time job!
So we come back to the question of this series: what would taking care of myself look like if I didn't require my body to get smaller in return? That widens the lens. That's what I love about gentle nutrition: instead of asking what to cut out, you get to ask what you can add.
Your practice for today: ask what do I want, then add what do I need, and see what happens when you let both into the conversation.
Tomorrow is Day 5, where we bring all four pillars together so food and eating feel easier. Because menopause is hard enough. Food shouldn't be!
Free support to get you started:
- Un-Diet Your Mindset → https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/undietyourmindset
- Food Guilt Decoder → https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/FoodGuiltDecoder
Want more support?
- Try the Midlife Feast Community free for 7 days → https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/7daytrial
- Book a no-strings connection call (virtual coffee with me) → https://p.bttr.to/3DQX9SF
Related episodes:
- Day 1 → https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851576/episodes/19715276
- Day 2 → https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851576/episodes/19720938
- Day 3 →https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851576/episodes/19721372
What did you think of this episode? Click here and let me know!
📚 I wrote a book! Eat To Thrive During Menopause is out now! Order your copy today and start thriving in midlife.
Looking for more about midlife, menopause nutrition, and intuitive eating? Click here to grab one of my free guides and learn what I've got "on the menu" including my 1:1 and group programs. https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/links
Welcome To Midlife Feast
Jenn Salib HuberWelcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast that helps you make sense of your body, your health, and menopause in the messy middle of midlife. I'm Dr. Jen Salib Huber, intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor, and author of Eat to Thrive During Menopause. Around here, we don't see midlife and menopause as problems to solve, but as invitations to live with more freedom, trust, and joy. Each week you'll hear real conversations and practical strategies to help you feel like yourself again, eat without guilt, and turn midlife from a season of survival into a season of thriving. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dig in.
From What I Want To Need
Jenn Salib HuberWelcome back to day four of the Midlife and Menopause Undieting series. So yesterday we talked about attunement, about getting curious instead of immediately looking for a rule or outsourcing to tell you how much or what you should have. And I asked you to spend a little bit of time with one question. What do I want? Not what should I eat, not what's the healthiest option, not what am I allowed to have, just what do I want? And I've already heard from some of you that that was actually a really challenging question. And I'm not surprised because it's actually a lot easier to outsource in many ways what should I eat, than to ask yourself honestly, what do I want? Because that requires you to not only listen, but as we talked about yesterday, to trust yourself. So what we want is only one piece of the puzzle, right? And today we're going to talk about the other question, which is what do I need? And this is where nutrition and gentle nutrition comes into the conversation. Because I think this is where a lot of people get nervous about intuitive eating and undieting. They're like, okay, Jen, I get it, diets don't work. But I still care about my health. I still want to eat well. I still want to know that I'm doing the right thing. And that's great. You are allowed to care about your health. Undieting doesn't mean throwing nutrition out the window. It doesn't mean that what you eat doesn't matter or doesn't have an impact on your health. And it doesn't mean that you always say yes to every thought about food or craving. It means learning how to bring nutrition into the conversation without it becoming a rule. So maybe yesterday you asked yourself, what do I want? And maybe the answer was pasta or a sandwich or a cookie with your afternoon coffee. Today, I want you to ask that same question, but I add, what do I need? Because maybe you need something that's going to keep you full until dinner. Maybe you need more energy because you're really tired. Maybe you need something quick because you only have 15 minutes before your next meeting. Maybe what you need includes some nutrition. And maybe you know that adding protein to your plate is going to help you to feel full and satisfied so that you're not thinking about food all the time. Maybe you know all those things. And nutrition can be and is information as long as it doesn't become these barriers or these rules, right?
When Health Goals Turn Into Diets
Jenn Salib HuberAbout what you should and shouldn't have or can only have or never have. Diet culture has made weight loss a proxy for health. You want to improve your health, lose weight. Want to improve your cholesterol, lose weight. Want more energy, lose weight. Want need to manage menopause, definitely lose weight. And so even when we start with a perfectly reasonable health goal, it suddenly can feel like it's becoming another diet. And so even if you decide, hey, I want to put more protein on my plate, you might find yourself tracking every gram. Or if you decide that you want to add more fiber because you want to lower your cholesterol, you might now find yourself filtering every decision about food through the lens of how many grams of fiber does this have, and not allowing yourself to enjoy foods that maybe don't have as much as you want. So I say this with so much compassion and love when I say that your health should not become a full-time
Care Without Making Body Smaller
Jenn Salib Huberjob. Our goal is to live in our bodies, not be constantly trying to improve and optimize. And this is where we're going to come back to this question that I've been asking every day as part of this series. What would taking care of myself look like if I didn't require my body to get smaller in return? Because I think that question can really change how you think about nutrition and what you pay attention to and give your energy to? Intuitive eating asks us to look beyond the scale and to get curious about our actual experiences. What do I notice? How do I feel? What's changed? But through that observation without judgment, right? And asking, like, is this still working or do I need to do something differently? Do I want to do something differently? What if eating more fiber was worth doing because it supports your health and how you feel in your body? What if adding more protein mattered because your muscles matter to you, not because it's going to up your metabolism? What if strength training was valuable because feeling strong is valuable? What if eating regularly means that you have more consistent energy and spend less time thinking about food? All of these things matter regardless of what happens on the scale. But when we have spent years using weight or a number as a measure of whether we're doing it right, it is so easy to miss all these other things. Intuitive eating and what I'm doing in this series is inviting you to widen the lens. If you start strength training and notice that you are getting stronger and your balance is improving, and you know, carrying bags and groceries and getting up off the floor feels easier and different, that matters. That is what matters, not the number on the scale. If you start eating a balanced breakfast and notice that you have energy all morning and that lunch doesn't feel chaotic and that you're not snacking in the cupboard at four o'clock while you make dinner, that matters, regardless of what happens on the scale. What if you try and fibermax and notice that you have the best poops of your
What Counts Beyond The Scale
Jenn Salib Huberlife, but the scale doesn't move? That matters. You might start building satisfying meals, leading with satisfaction, and realize that your evening snacking has completely, you know, I'm not going to say disappeared, but that it has changed, that it doesn't feel so reactive. Those are the things that I want you to pay attention to when you are changing what you eat. Not because you're looking for the scale to tell you that you're doing it right, but that you are able to notice and trust how you feel in your body. Can those things count? And not because you've replaced weight loss with another set of like numbers, if it's blood work or whatever, but because you're learning to pay attention to what taking care of yourself feels like when you are not making the scale the boss. And that I think is one of the biggest shifts that intuitive eating offers us. Your body doesn't have to be smaller or a certain size in order for you to feel like what you're doing is working. And I know that that's hard. I know that that's
Gentle Nutrition Through Adding Options
Jenn Salib Huberhard. But instead of asking, and this is what I love about gentle nutrition so much, is because everybody that I work with wants to feel like they're doing the best that they can. And so gentle nutrition can become so freeing because instead of asking, what should I cut out or what do I need to eat, you can start asking, what's what's a possibility? What can I add? What do I want? What could I add that might make this more filling or satisfying or add the things and the nutrition pieces like around fiber or calcium or omega-3s or whatever that will support your health, but also how you live in your body every day. Because I really don't think that we need more nutrition optimization. Sometimes we need convenience. Sometimes I need pre-cut vegetables or frozen food or delivery. Maybe I need breakfast for dinner because that's all the time that I have. Taking care of yourself doesn't have to be perfect. And so I really hope that you're hearing me loud and clear on that. And so here is your practice for today.
Today’s Practice And Series Wrap
Jenn Salib HuberThe next time you're thinking about what to eat, ask yourself, what do I want? Just like yesterday, and then add, what do I need? And see what happens when you allow both of those answers to be part of the conversation. Because gentle nutrition isn't about ignoring what you need in favor of what you want all the time. It's learning how to hold space for both. And then making the best decision that you can with the information, energy, time, capacity, resources, whatever that you have available. So tomorrow's day five, the last day of the series, we're going to start bringing everything together so that you can really see how these four pillars of intuitive nutrition come together to help you maybe just feel like this is easier. Because that's my ultimate goal, is I want food to feel easy. And as I always say, menopause is hard enough. Food shouldn't be. So I'd love to know what you're loving about this series. And if you have any questions, you can always send me a message. And as always, just check the show notes if you want some support. Thanks for tuning in.
Coaching Resources And Share Request
Jenn Salib HuberThanks for joining me for this episode of the Midlife Feast. If you're ready to take the next step towards thriving in midlife, head to menopausenutritionist.ca to learn more about my one-to-one and group coaching programs, free resources, and where to get your copy of Eat to Thrive during menopause. And if you've loved today's conversation and found it helpful, please share it with a friend who needs to hear this and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps so many more people just like you find their way to food freedom and midlife confidence. Until next time, remember, midlife is not the end of the story, it's the feast. Let's savor it together.
