125: CSIRO Menopause Plan: Science-Backed Nutrition for Midlife

As the head of health programs at CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet, Nicole Pritchard shares how their new Menopause Plan leverages a decade of research to address the unique nutritional needs of perimenopausal and menopausal women.

At the heart of the program is a powerful yet simple nutritional philosophy: emphasise high-quality protein, choose low glycemic index carbohydrates, and prioritise fiber-rich foods. This approach directly addresses the physiological changes occurring during menopause, from declining muscle mass to increased cardiovascular risk. 

Nicole explains that spreading protein consumption throughout the day (aiming for 25-30g per main meal) helps maintain muscle mass, support metabolism, and control appetite – all crucial during a time when many women struggle with weight management.

What sets this program apart is its practical, sustainable approach. Rather than restrictive dieting, Nicole emphasises making strategic food swaps and focusing on adding beneficial foods. The plan acknowledges real-life challenges like family meal preparation and busy schedules, offering flexible solutions that work for the entire household. From meal plans with shopping lists to online tracking tools and dietitian support, the program provides comprehensive resources while recognizing that lasting change happens through small, consistent actions.

Perhaps most importantly, Nicole explains that menopause doesn't have to mean inevitable weight gain or declining health. With the right nutritional approach, women can manage symptoms, reduce long-term health risks, and even thrive during this transition. The program represents a significant shift away from one-size-fits-all dieting toward evidence-based nutrition that honors women's changing bodies and supports them through midlife and beyond.

Links:

CSIRO Total Wellbeing Menopause Plan website

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Dear Menopause
• 18:43 ] Empowerment Through Nutrition & Lifestyle

Transcript

Sonya: 0:01

Welcome to the Dear Menopause podcast. I'm Sonia Lovell, your host Now. I've been bringing you conversations with amazing menopause experts for over two years now. If you have missed any of those conversations, now's the time to go back and listen, and you can always share them with anyone you think needs to hear them. This way, more people can find these amazing conversations, needs to hear them. This way, more people can find these amazing conversations. Welcome everyone to this week's episode of Dear Menopause. I am delighted to be joined today by Nicole Pritchard. Nicole, welcome to the show Hi.

Sonya: 0:35

Sonia, thanks so much for having me my absolute pleasure. I'm really excited to talk to you today about the new CSIRO Total Wellbeing Menopause Plan.

Nicole: 0:44

Yes, can't wait to tell you a bit more about that, and also good nutrition tips as well, to help through this phase in life.

Sonya: 0:50

Fantastic, Nicole. Why don't you let everybody know a little bit more about who you actually are and how you came to be involved with this new menopause plan?

Nicole: 0:59

Yeah, sure, look. So I've always been interested in nutrition and exercise. I was quite, a very sporty child, so for me it was really natural to study nutrition and dietetics as well as exercise science at university. So I actually got a master's in dietetics and exercise rehab, so I'm an accredited practicing dietitian but an exercise physiologist as well. So I guess for me nutrition and exercise always really came hand in hand.

Nicole: 1:25

Throughout my career I've always seemed to have tapped into both the nutrition and exercise side of things, because we know as a health professional you really want to look at someone holistically. It's not just what they're eating, it's how they're moving, what's their medical history, who cooks at home, what's their mental health like, who shops all those things. I did start off running nutrition exercise programs for people with chronic disease, so with heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, overweight and obesity, and I really kind of saw how impactful a healthy diet but also resistance exercise was in people who are, you know, in their fifties plus. And so I kind of had a, you know, did some work in hospitals, did the thing where I lived in London for a while, work abroad, as most Aussies seem to do. I worked in some gastroenterology. So I really got some more fascination around gut health and fibre, which I found really interesting.

Nicole: 2:15

But throughout my career I sort of saw the most impact in helping people who had chronic disease or risk of diabetes or obesity, heart disease and often the majority of my patients were women in their menopause era. So trying to lose weight, understand their gut issues, improve their blood results it was just a very common pathway I saw. So now I work for the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet as their head of health programs and our aim is not only for people to learn how to eat healthy for life and lose weight as well, but to reduce that risk of chronic disease that comes with aging and a poor diet as well, and our average member is female and is around sort of 40, 50s plus age group. We've really shifted our focus into more menopause or perimenopause specific diet and meal plans as well.

Sonya: 3:08

What drove that shift? Was it a recognition of where your most average client was sitting and recognizing that there was a correlation there between what was happening to her physiologically, as well as the physical things that she's coming to you to address? What really drove?

Nicole: 3:30

that shift into creating a plan that is menopause specific.

Nicole: 3:31

Yeah, we know that around 30% of the Australian population is currently navigating this life stage and, as you know, there's so much limited understanding of how powerful nutrition can actually be in managing symptoms, and I guess the main thing is reducing those lifelong, long-term health risks that come with it.

Nicole: 3:48

And so we know that you know a few changes can help with dramatically reduce those health risks, and nutrition is actually one of the most effective non-pharmaceutical tools for managing perimenopause and menopause. So we work with CSIRO, which is Australia's national science agency. We currently have a meal plan that is very much focused on high protein, low GI, high fiber, but then we're making sure we support that menopausal weight gain that tends to happen, trying to stabilize mood and energy through those low GI carbohydrates, and also that focus on bone health and muscle health as well. Sort of often we know that we lose muscle as we get through this age thanks to a lovely drop of estrogen. So we've used 10 years of research into tailoring this program and we're focusing on very much that high protein, low GI, high fiber diet that seems to work best for not just appetite control as well, because high protein can really be great to help with your appetite, which can then in turn help with weight control as well. The main thing is trying to keep those energy levels up too.

Sonya: 4:54

The CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet has been around, for I think you just said you've got 10 years worth of evidence, so does that mean that that side of the program has been around for over 10 years? Actually, it would have to be over 10 years, I'm thinking, wouldn't it?

Nicole: 5:06

Yeah, yeah, so we've actually run the digital side of the program for just over 10 years. So before that, you know if you've seen all the cookbooks the Total Wellbeing Diet cookbooks that were around yeah, oh, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, so we've used the research all that time, but mainly now that we've the past 10 years or so, we've had the digital platform where we can use the data that we have from all our members to look at not only what's effective for weight loss, but also what helped with goal setting, what helps with mindset, what helps with long-term weight loss and weight maintenance as well.

Sonya: 5:49

So we kind of use all that information that we've got to then work on our friends. Yeah, so you were in a really good position to be able to, as you say, tweak what was currently in existence into making it more high protein, high fiber, based on all that evidence that you had been able to gather and source from your data sets already and I'm assuming you mentioned that it's an online program that you run now, but there would be information in there on how much support people needed. Who did people that got more support have more success, those sorts of things. So you've been able to build all of that into this as well.

Nicole: 6:15

Yeah, definitely so. The diet itself and along with the menopause plan that comes to, we have sort of multiple support structures. That includes having the meal plan there that's available to people, the educational tutorials that people can access as well from CSIRO experts navigate through this phase of life. We find the tracking tools are really helpful because often you know we think we're eating healthy or we think we're in a calorie deficit, we're trying to lose weight and we might do really well during the week and then the weekend we have blowouts so often with tracking that's often really effective to lose weight. We might do really well during the week and then the weekend we have blowouts so often with tracking. That's often really effective with weight loss, just to really be kind of honest with yourself. And also we do group health coaching, group coaching sessions with our dietitians, where there's a group webinar but people can also ask questions. And we have a very active Facebook community as well. People can get support off each other, help get them motivated as well.

Sonya: 7:06

Okay, that's awesome. I think you're right that all the pillars that need to be in place for a successful weight loss plan if that's what somebody is going towards, the tracking is huge the support pillars being in place and that's the support from peers, the community, of everybody that's going through it with you at the same time, as well as that expert-led support as well. So that's really awesome that that's all offered within the program.

Nicole: 7:31

Yeah, and we also want to make sure that it is very much an evidence-based program, science-backed program, because there is so much information out there around what is a healthy diet. We're influenced by Instagram and there's just so much information to dig through and even as a health professional, as a dietitian, I'm trying to dig through all this information and figure out what's actually evidence-based and not, and what is the research behind it. So I think that's where all health professionals and dietitians focus on is providing information that is evidence-based and has research behind it to be really effective long-term.

Sonya: 8:07

So what was the thing that surprised you the most when you did start looking into creating a menopause plan within the total wellbeing diet? Was there one thing that jumped out at you that you were kind of like, if we can do this, this is going to be really helpful to this cohort?

Nicole: 8:22

I think really kind of breaking down for people what some of those key nutrients are to really focus on during menopause. So, when we're digging into the research and finding out what is the most effective, there are a few key nutrients that you do really need to focus on and just a few little tweaks to your diet can really make a difference to your long-term health and just managing the phase that you're in, because, with all the symptoms that come with the perimenopause phase and menopause, some simple diet changes and lifestyle changes can really make it less of a bumpy road and there's definitely no need for any crazy or fad diets at this stage in your life. Definitely you're thinking of nothing complex. We don't need to keep taking food away. It's more around swapping things over or adding things in, rather than being in that deprived mindset that we kind of get into when we're trying to lose weight, yeah, and I think, from a generational perspective, we are definitely a generation that have come from that very restrictive, diet-based, society-driven belief system.

Sonya: 9:25

I think most women that I know, my age or even in the five or so years either side, have dieted in the extreme sense at some point in time, and it's actually a really good time to try and shift that mindset and take it away from having to be restrictive, but more about adding in more of what's right and making swaps. If you're used to having this, how about swapping to this? I know things for me that have made huge differences are things like if I want to have pasta, I just make it a high protein pasta. If I want to have feta in my salad, I make it a low fat feta. There's just so many little tweaks that you can make that mean you're not restricting things but you are still enjoying all that food that you get satisfaction from.

Nicole: 10:08

Yeah, exactly, think of it as more of a life edit, a sort of re-evaluation of what you're doing, and kind of think right, what can I do now? Not to sort of support me now, but into the future, into the next phase of life where, when the estrogen drops, we're going to have muscle loss, we're going to start to get bone loss more, increased risk of osteoporosis, we're going to have a high risk of cardiovascular disease. So we know we're higher risk of during this phase in life. It's kind of thinking of what can we do now to make sure we're protecting ourselves in this phase too I agree, it's such a great time to do stock takers.

Sonya: 10:39

I like, yes, of all aspects of your life. You know not just what am what am I eating, but how am I exercising. Who are the toxic people in my life, that it'd be a really good opportunity to detox them as well? Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about lifestyle Mm-hmm things. Obviously, you've got the exercise background as well. Is there information and support around making some of those lifestyle changes as well?

Nicole: 11:03

Yeah, definitely. So we do include an exercise plan as part of it as well, from beginner to intermediate to advanced, because we know very much with the muscle loss that happens during this phase of life that we really need to not only increase our protein intake but also to increase our resistance exercise as well. So even a couple of days a week trying to encourage that sort of resistance type exercise. And then, of course, with support, we have access to a team of health coaches who are all accredited practising dietitians that if people want that sort of more individualised advice, they can then ask them questions, have a consultation with a health professional that is very much across how our program works, but also obviously experienced in general weight loss, general lifestyle and healthy living advice too.

Sonya: 11:53

One of the things that I find when I speak to women and I know from my own experience as well in this stage of life we're doing still lots of family meal cooking, so it's really hard sometimes when you are trying to make some changes to your meals and your diet. If we use that as an overarching term, is your plan easily integrated into different family dynamics? And the other thing that I know I suffer from this so badly and I love cooking, but it's just meal decision fatigue.

Sonya: 12:26

It's like I am so sick of being the person that decides what's for dinner every single night.

Nicole: 12:31

Yeah. So you get to Friday and you're like I'm not making any more decisions, I can't do this anymore. We're having eggs on toast.

Sonya: 12:43

I had to make it a rule in my house that I was not allowed to be asked before breakfast what was for dinner this evening. So does your plan allow the flexibility to work in with family life, to take away that decision making fatigue, but in a way that works for everyone?

Nicole: 12:56

within the household? Yeah, of course. So the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet is very much designed for women with busy lives and you know, we know what it's like. We want to take into account the up and downs and busy times in our lifestyle. So as part of the program there is meal plans with really easy-to-follow recipes, and we also recognise the need for flexibility. You know, in case you can't eat nuts, you can swap it for avocado in the healthy fats group or there's certain things you don't like.

Nicole: 13:24

We definitely take into account swapping so that would suit more your whole family. And we also include indulgences as well, because we all need to have that ice cream, we all need to have the chocolate or whatever our thing is. Because we want to make it as easy and sustainable as possible. You want it to be something you can eat for long-term factor in those fun social occasions. You've got those treats and things as well, and all the recipes. We really designed them to be really quick and easy and just prepare for the entire family and, like I said, you can swap foods in and out depending on your family preferences, or certain things can't be eaten in the family, so the program can be used just for one person but then, for example, for dinners. If you wanted to then be doing dinner for four, you can change the shopping list to be able to then cater for the whole family that can still eat. Yeah, because I mean, who wants to be doing multiple different meals?

Sonya: 14:18

It's so hard? Yeah, because I mean, who wants to be doing multiple different meals? It's so hard. And if you're struggling with cognitive function, memory issues or brain fog, or you've been in the office all day and you come home and your anxiety levels are high, the last thing you want to be doing is prepping many meals. And I think that's when when it's easy to slip out of any type of structured plan if it doesn't work in with the rest of the family, because you get home from work and you just want to take the easy option.

Nicole: 14:42

And it's like you know what, if you all want mac and cheese, let's just eat mac and cheese yeah, yeah, and we kind of go on the philosophy of you know the healthy plate, where half your meal should be veggies or salad. A quarter is around your protein foods, so your meat, meat, chicken fish, your eggs, your lentils, legumes, and then a quarter is your low GI carbohydrates. So you've got some brown rice, you've got some sweet potato, some of your pasta, those sorts of things. So we very much stick to and I think everyone should really stick to. I mean, we all don't eat enough veggies and salad, let's be honest. So, trying to get that half a plate veggies or salad, and then there's less room for the other bits and it's fine to be frozen too. Frozen veggies are perfectly fine to add, and leftovers are great. There's nothing wrong with leftovers too.

Nicole: 15:29

So, always try to make sure that when you are preparing some meals, to prepare a bit extra, prepare it in bulk, freeze some extra for those days where you know you're going to get home late, you're late coming home from kids' sport and everyone's just going to be starving. You want to have some quick options there, kind of in your bank of ideas, to kind of throw together and still be healthy.

Sonya: 15:52

I'm a big fan of meal prepping, so I do on a Sunday, I make my lunches for the week, so that that were at least four of them. I tend to make four because then at least I know Monday through Thursday because lunch is my downfall I'll eat a great breakfast, I'll plan a great dinner, because that's when we all sit down and eat together. But lunches I tend to find that I go, I know I'm running from one thing to the other and I'm busy and I just I forget to eat. If I'm at home and I'm working, I literally will be three o'clock and I'll go. Oh, I haven't eaten anything. And then by then you've fallen into that trap of you're super hungry and so you just rush to the fridge and grab the first thing that's, you know, there when you open it, which might be cheese on toast, which is like literally the, for me, the worst thing that I could possibly eat. Like you say, no fiber in there.

Nicole: 16:38

yeah, so I find meal prepping works, really, really well, for me, exactly that's why we do a shopping list that's for the week, so then you can shop for the week, prepare anything ahead of time that you, if you want to I mean if it's certain for people who like doing a bit more cooking and maybe sort of prepping some snacks or doing a bit more food prep there but if you want something quick and easy, yeah, there's definitely a great idea to food prep and I think, um, that's why I find the leftovers coming great for lunchtime, so cooking that bit extra for dinner. So then I find for me, leftovers are like the thing for for lunchtimes. It's yeah, I don't have to. If I'm between meetings, you can just duck out, heat it up. I'll add a bag of those frozen microwave vegetables if I need to up the veggie content, and then, yeah, perfect.

Sonya: 17:21

So, kind of always think veggies, got your protein, got your carbs, tick those three and then you sort it so, for anybody that wants to know more about the plan, where can they go to learn about everything we've just spoken about?

Nicole: 17:38

yeah, yeah. So if you just go to totalwellbeingdietcom, you'll be able to access the menopause plan as part of your total well-being diet membership. So they're available on. You can go monthly or yearly plan options and also on our website. We do have a lot of educational webinars that people can access as well. So recently Div 1 on menopause posted by myself and some other nutrition experts, and there's plenty of information on there where people can access around you know, menopause around our Total Wellbeing Diet blog as well.

Sonya: 18:09

Fantastic, and I will add a link to that through in the show notes as well, so that that makes it super easy for anybody that wants to go and find the link and they can click through to the website to find out. Nicole, with all of the research that you've done to put this plan together with your extensive background in working in nutrition and dietetics and in the exercise world as well, what is the one message that you would like anybody transitioning through perimenopause menopause right now to hear?

Nicole: 18:43

I mean, I think one of the main things to really you know the overarching is being empowered. So menopause doesn't need to mean inevitable weight gain and or declining health and I think with the right nutritional approach women can really thrive through this transition and beyond. And I think it's just having all those informed choices and that really positive mindset where you can help you manage the symptoms and all those health risks associated with it. But the other thing I like to focus on is overall diet is what is the most important, not what we do. You know, here and there it's really kind of stick to what we do. Most of the time, 80% of the time is really important and it's not just what we do for a few weeks, is what we're doing for weeks, months, years is really important and I really think women going through this phase need to make sure you do focus on a few key nutrients, whether that's protein, your calcium and vitamin D, your fiber, of course, and also those omega-3 fats as well, are all really important nutrients to focus on.

Sonya: 19:46

Fantastic, and I'm going to assume that within the menopause plan there's information on how women can improve, bringing some of those macros and the micros into their yeah, very much so.

Nicole: 19:57

So we focus on spreading out protein evenly throughout the day, because we know that having that sort of adequate protein consumption can help maintain muscle mass. It can support your metabolism and assist with managing your weight and appetite as well. So getting that protein evenly spread out throughout the day is what we focus on. Science does show around 25 to 30 grams of protein per main meal is really beneficial. So that's why we do really focus on the protein and, I guess, making sure that you're getting those omega-3, that oily fish in there too, so that the salmon, the mackerel sardines, all those sorts of things to get all those really healthy fats in there too, so that you know the salmon, the mackerel sardines, all those sorts of things to get all those really healthy fats in there. So we include those as part of the plan and also as part of omega-3s along with healthy fats. You've also got all your plant omega-3s as well. So you know your nuts, flaxseed, linseeds, things like tofu, your walnuts, avocado all those sorts of things are really important to add in. At least four or five days a week, add some chia seeds into your porridge in the morning or sprinkle a bit of ground flaxseed in the yogurt, those sorts of things. Kind of give you those really good healthy fats are really important to not only manage our hormones but also keep us feeling full. But give us those really good heart protective fats as well. And then we also make sure you are getting enough calcium, which is really important for the bone health, as we know. So plenty of dairy. But also we know that, along with with the calcium, we need that vitamin d too. So getting that, make sure we're getting enough of that sunlight to help make sure that our body can absorb all that calcium that we get through food too.

Nicole: 21:34

And it's all about those really smart swaps. How can we swap our breakfast over? If you're normally having Nutri-Grain, maybe swap it for Wheat, bix or oats. Or if you're normally having white bread, get some grainy bread or sourdough. All those kind of things that you can do. Little swaps and tweaks, rather than thinking I need to overhaul everything. I have to do everything now, and then I do it for a week or two and then, oh, I drop off and then I'll wait till Monday, till I start again. Oh, I'll wait till next month, or I'll wait till New Year's. With the way you're eating, it's just should be for life. This is how you eat for life, and you are going to fall off track. You are going to have big weekends, you're going to have blowouts, but just a matter of next meal. Have blowouts, but just a matter of next meal. This is how I eat.

Sonya: 22:15

I eat whole foods. I eat plenty of fruit and veggies and to nourish yourself, because you do notice the difference physically when you do eat a healthier diet in general and that comes back to what you said earlier and it's having more of a mindset around that 80% of the time this is how I eat for the rest of my life, and then that 20% where I am on holiday or it is my birthday. That you don't restrict yourself from those things. You still have to enjoy life.

Nicole: 22:39

Yeah, exactly, it's that long-term health reset. How can we do all these incremental little changes to our diet and our exercise and not forget about self-care as well? Think about how our mental health is too. We do know diet has such a huge impact on mental health. There's been plenty of studies around depression and anxiety and the way we eat too. So thinking about not just to nourish your body but to nourish your mental health too. But also make sure we're taking time out for ourselves and getting the yoga and the meditation or boxing. If that helps you with your stress and anxiety I don't know what it does for mine Think of what really works for you.

Nicole: 23:14

It doesn't have to be you know the slow flow type things to manage your mental health. And also, we've got to prioritize our sleep as well. Some people really struggle a lot with sleep at this time, maybe due to symptoms. But making sure that you're really focusing on sleep healthy habits when it comes to sleep but also realize that when we don't sleep well, it often affects our appetite and often then the next day we're more hungry and we often then have a poor diet the next day. Becoming more empowered in knowing all these things can happen and they're all linked together. We often don't realize how much of these things, how much of our lifestyle and nutrition is linked to so many things. And I think, just this stage just being empowered and knowing know about all these things and you're not alone in this phase, and there are definitely things to do to help it's just to, yeah, figure out what that is for you.

Sonya: 24:05

And that is so very true, isn't it that it's such a unique transition for every single woman and you've got to play around with all those pillars of your life so your exercise and your food and your stress management tools and your relationships and your sleep and tweak a little bit everything somewhere to have them all working better synergistically yes, sounds simple, doesn't it?

Nicole: 24:29

but you just haven't done. I always say whatever is kind of seems like the easiest for you is to do first. So if it's for you know your diet, if it's a matter of just switching your bread over or changing your milk or you know making sure you have leftovers for lunch instead of cheese on toast, just do that one first and then you can then just keep kind of that habit stacking where you keep stacking up a new habit as it becomes ingrained. So if you don't know where to start, whatever feels easy, whether it's exercise, sleep or nutrition, yeah, focus on that first.

Sonya: 25:03

It's a really good reminder, isn't it? Because sometimes it is so easy to think that I need to change everything all at once because that's how I'll get results, but to actually get those really long term, sustainable changes.

Nicole: 25:19

you do have to take that just one step at a time approach. Yeah, exactly, and it may even just be initially going to chat to a health professional or your GP to kind of get a baseline of where you start or track your food intake and see what's really happening in your day, when you really put it down on paper and honest with yourself. So, wherever it is you feel like starting, just kind of start where you're at and try not to worry about where everyone else is at as well, which is often hard.

Sonya: 25:44

Nicole, it has been so wonderful talking to you. I'm going to link through in the show notes to the total wellbeing diet and then within that they'll be able to access the information on the menopause plan. I'm really so happy to see that an organization like the CSIRO, who is so embedded in science and evidence, has come out with a product to support and help this huge percentage of the population 51% of the population overall will transition through perimenopause and menopause. As you said, there's about 30% currently that are actually transitioning. So it is really important that we focus on finding solutions that are evidence-based and based in science.

Nicole: 26:26

Yes, that's right. Thank you so much for having me, Sonia. It was lovely to chat to you.