Are you noticing meat isn't sitting well with you anymore? Perhaps you’re feeling bloated or nauseous after eating it. In this episode, we look into the reasons behind new meat (and other food) intolerances that many women encounter as they navigate perimenopause. If you've been baffled by bloating, discomfort, or a sudden distaste for red meat, you're in the right place.
Why Listen? • Discover why your body might be rebelling against meat. • Understand the link between digestive changes and perimenopause – it's more common than you think. • Gain insights into the hidden factors contributing to your digestive discomfort. It's not just about what you eat! • The role of stress in digestive health – it's bigger than you might expect. • Simple, actionable steps to manage these changes and improve your digestion without giving up on your favourite foods.
Remember, understanding what’s driving your symptoms is the first step towards feeling like yourself again. Join me in this episode as I talk you through the most common drivers of new food intolerances in perimenopause.
Find out more about Sarah, her services and the Freebies mentioned in this episode at https://www.ThePerimenopauseNaturopath.com.au
COMING SOON: Discover how to use food as your most powerful medicine, smoothing hormonal fluctuations and easing perimenopause symptoms naturally. (Yes, you have more options than hormone therapy!) Say goodbye to feeling out of control and hello to feeling more like your old self every day, with PerimenoGO (because who wants to pause anyway?!)
The Perimenopause Decoder is the ultimate guide to understanding if perimenopause hormone fluctuations are behind your changing mood, metabolism and energy after 40, what phase of perimenopause you're in and how much longer you may be on this roller coaster for.
Are you noticing meat isn't sitting well with you anymore? Perhaps you’re feeling bloated or nauseous after eating it. In this episode, we look into the reasons behind new meat (and other food) intolerances that many women encounter as they navigate perimenopause. If you've been baffled by bloating, discomfort, or a sudden distaste for red meat, you're in the right place.
Why Listen? • Discover why your body might be rebelling against meat. • Understand the link between digestive changes and perimenopause – it's more common than you think. • Gain insights into the hidden factors contributing to your digestive discomfort. It's not just about what you eat! • The role of stress in digestive health – it's bigger than you might expect. • Simple, actionable steps to manage these changes and improve your digestion without giving up on your favourite foods.
Remember, understanding what’s driving your symptoms is the first step towards feeling like yourself again. Join me in this episode as I talk you through the most common drivers of new food intolerances in perimenopause.
Find out more about Sarah, her services and the Freebies mentioned in this episode at https://www.ThePerimenopauseNaturopath.com.au
COMING SOON: Discover how to use food as your most powerful medicine, smoothing hormonal fluctuations and easing perimenopause symptoms naturally. (Yes, you have more options than hormone therapy!) Say goodbye to feeling out of control and hello to feeling more like your old self every day, with PerimenoGO (because who wants to pause anyway?!)
The Perimenopause Decoder is the ultimate guide to understanding if perimenopause hormone fluctuations are behind your changing mood, metabolism and energy after 40, what phase of perimenopause you're in and how much longer you may be on this roller coaster for.
Hey there, I'm Sarah McLachlan. Thanks for joining me on the Chaos to Calm podcast, a podcast designed for women over 40 who think that changing hormones might be messing with their mood, metabolism and energy and want to change that in a healthy, sustainable and permanent way. Each episode will explore topics related to health and wellness for women in their 40s, like what the heck is happening to your hormones, what to do about it with nutrition, lifestyle and stress management, and inspiring conversations with guests sharing their insights and tips on how to live your best life in your 40s and beyond. So if you're feeling like you're in the midst of a hormonal storm and don't want perimenopause to be horrific, then join me on Chaos to Calm as I share with you how to make it to menopause without it wrecking your relationships and life. Hello, wonderful woman, and welcome back to another episode of Chaos to Calm podcast. You're with me, Sarah, the perimenopause naturopath, and I'm here to guide you through the twists and turns of perimenopause so that you can master the chaos of those changing hormones, those hormone fluctuations that can knock you sideways and help you feel more calm and in control, less stressed and, you know, comfortable in your body again.
Sarah McLachlan:
Today, we're going to dive deep into a topic that you know. When I'm talking to women, when we're talking about whether you know, on a clarity call, whether they're a good candidate for my program, whether it's going to be beneficial for them or not, that's the Chaos to Calm method. They tell me all about their perimenopause symptoms and you know we go into the ones that they think about, the ones they're aware of. But then when we're talking a bit more and I start, you know, mentioning that, along with lots of other things, their digestion gets a boot camp in the chaos to calm method, and then they're like oh yeah, I have this new bloating. So annoying, so uncomfortable. I get really full quickly. Or, you know, I barely eat anything. Then I'm hungry again an hour later. Or the real biggie that I get a lot is oh yeah, you know I might be asking them more about their food and food preferences. If they have any dietary preferences, I say oh yeah, I don't eat meat anymore. It just doesn't sit well with me. It hasn't been for a few years. I just don't tolerate it. Now I wonder if you can relate to that and if you've ever wondered why meat, especially red meat, suddenly feels like it's not sitting well with you, so you're not alone. I just told you, I hear it all the time and there's a lot more to it than you know.
Sarah McLachlan:
A passing sensitivity, or just remove it and you know that's it. Move on with your life. It's a really common occurrence and, you know, maybe you've always enjoyed a nice juicy steak, without a second thought, you know, or a roast beef or something you know lovely like that. But lately, every time you try to eat meat, it's like your body's rejecting it. You might have noticed some discomfort, like a sense of fullness, maybe even nausea and bloating after eating meat. Perhaps you, you know, maybe you thought, oh, it's just a one-off. Maybe, just you know, something's not right tonight but the issues persisted and maybe now you avoid meat altogether. Maybe you don't mind that and that's okay, but maybe you're feeling limited in your dining options. Maybe you just really miss it. Maybe you're worried about missing out on essential nutrients. So, like I said, this experience isn't unique. I hear it so frequently and I know it's a big issue because I wrote a blog about why you don't tolerate meat anymore and it is, hands down, my most popular blog. It is the one that is most looked at on my blog with thousands of views per month, way more than my other blogs.
Sarah McLachlan:
So why does this happen? You know why does this happen. In perimenopause, it can feel like a mystery, especially if you've had no food problems before. This can be really like what if you're not used to food sensitivities and allergies and stuff, and it's quite confronting when you start developing them for sure. But you know it's okay. I'm here to help you. I hope you understand a bit more about what's going on and why it's happening and, of course, I want you to know you don't have to put up with it and you don't have to put up with feeling rubbish after eating generally speaking, not just in this scenario.
Sarah McLachlan:
I know I say it a lot, but I think I feel like I need to shout out from the rooftop often because still there are lots of people putting up with stuff just because they're getting old. So getting older isn't a reason to put up with feeling rubbish or, you know, not being able to eat things or do things. Any of that, you'll hear, all of that is normal, but it's really common, not normal. So you know, maybe meat is not the thing that you're not tolerating anymore, but maybe there are other foods. Maybe you've noticed some food sensitivities. I did a poll on my socials and in my stories and one of the main things that people had were commenting women were commenting that they'd developed was actually food sensitivities. So what I'm going to talk about today is still relevant too. There may be other reasons that you're developing food sensitivities but, you know not tolerating meat and developing food sensitivities but not tolerating meat and having other food sensitivities can share some similar root causes. So it is really important to find that cause.
Sarah McLachlan:
We don't want to just suppress the symptom or avoid the trigger. So, yes, you don't want to be triggered constantly by that particular food, whether it's meat or something else but just avoiding the trigger is not a solution. I was just saying this to a client the other day who's been on low FOODMAPs for years, years and years. Low FODMAP diet was never designed to be a way of life. It wasn't meant to be something that you stayed on forever. It was actually just meant to be a short-term solution. So you took those foods out that were a trigger, you did the gut healing and repair and then you add those foods back in. But for so many people, they just take the FODMAP-y foods out, find relief from their IBS or their tummy issues and leave them out, don't do the gut healing and then don't reintroduce them, and so the issue is not resolved. And it's really important that we do resolve this issue because you need to enjoy a wide variety of foods to get the nutrients that your body needs to thrive and for your hormones to be balanced.
Sarah McLachlan:
And also, the third one, life gets really boring when you're stuck with the same small number of foods. So let's talk about what's going on. So you might feel nauseous after you eat meat when you're not tolerating it, or you might feel like it sits like a brick in your chest or in your stomach, like it's really solidly just stuck there. You might get bloated or gassy. You might be windier than your resident teens or dogs, and you know how many times can you blame it on the dog. I don't even have a dog, so I can't do that.
Sarah McLachlan:
Now, the medical term there for food feeling like a brick in your chest is dyspepsia or indigestion. So the signs and symptoms how are you going to know when you're not tolerating meat? Well, you're probably going to feel uncomfortable when you eat it. You might feel pressure or heaviness after eating, a sense of fullness. So, what I was saying before? You feel full really quickly when you're eating, maybe having eaten very much, but you feel like you're full and that can last for a really long time after you eat. And or, you know, sometimes you'll get full really quickly when you eat, but then you might be hungry again soon after. But most of the time it's that sense of fullness that lasts for hours. There as well, you might get nauseous, some people even vomit. You might get abdominal pains or cramps and you know, you might be a burper. You might burp a lot too. Maybe you feel sick after you take supplements. If you're that kind of person, then, yeah, you're probably not digesting or tolerating your meat very well.
Sarah McLachlan:
So there are a few different reasons why you might not tolerate meat, and some of those could be functional. So functional means there's something not functioning adequately in your gastrointestinal system, your digestive system. So there are lots of muscles around the tube that is your intestines, if we imagine it like a pipe or a tube, and there are also lots of muscles around your stomach and they're designed to move food, like smash the food around in your stomach and break it down and mix it with the acid and then it moves into the intestines and the muscles around that tube, that's your intestines contract and relax and they kind of squeeze the food through. That movement's called peristalsis, and so you might have an issue, a functional issue around, meaning the stomach and intestines aren't moving food through as they should be, so your transit time might be really slow. Other functional issues might include things like decreased digestive secretions. So your hydrochloric acid, your stomach acid, the enzymes that break down your fats, proteins and carbohydrates and the enzymes that break down your fats, proteins and carbohydrates and your digestive secretion production naturally decreases with age, that's true, but usually not like in our 40s or 50s when we're going through perimenopause. So maybe you notice a change in your food tolerance as you age. But you know, like moving into your 70s and 80s and perhaps your tooth and jaw function isn't as strong there to be able to grind up and start breaking down meat and foods like that. But that's not, you know. Really that shouldn't be an issue for us in our 40s and 50s.
Sarah McLachlan:
Do you want to know my two biggest things about what I think? Is that? Well, what I see is the problem for many of my clients is stress. You knew I was going to say it and diet, so I'll talk about that. When I say diet, I mean like, as in the foods we're consuming, not diet like oh, I'm on the lemon detox diet this week. Who remembers the lemon detox diet? You must surely Gosh. I remember that in my teens. That was like the fad at that time. Where is the lemon detox diet now? Send me a message if you've seen it in the shops. Does it even still exist? All right, I've gone sideways. I'm coming back here.
Sarah McLachlan:
We're talking about stress and diet. So when there are reduced secretions in your gastrointestinal system, it's harder for your body to break down your food and so you can't absorb and assimilate the nutrients. So it does make for a bit of a vicious cycle because with fewer nutrients available, there are fewer secretions available. You can't build stuff out of nothing. So when you take some bites of protein- rich foods like meats, it stimulates the secretion of the enzymes needed for protein digestion. Well, that makes sense. There's another cycle that you can get stuck in when you have reduced digestive secretions, perhaps from stress or another reason. We'll talk more about stress in a minute, don't you worry about that. You are less capable of breaking that protein down. So over time, what tends to happen what I see happening is that you eat less of the food that doesn't sit well with you and then that feeds back to your body that you don't need as much of that enzyme. So the fewer animal protein foods that you eat protein- rich foods in particular the fewer enzymes you're going to produce over time. Eating animal protein stimulates digestive enzyme secretion. If you pause it or you eat less of it or not very much or none at all, over time you go back to it. You might notice some discomfort at the start. You're going to need to work up to it and I'm going to talk some more about some tips on how to support your digestion and your digestive enzymes production and secretion.
Sarah McLachlan:
So let's talk about the foods you're eating, so diet from there. Meals that are high in simple sugars and low in fibre cause peristalsis to slow down. Think of sugar as just like stunning your intestine, smacking it in the face and leaving it like that deer in the Peter Rabbit movie looking at the headlights. Our bodies are really amazing machines. You've heard me say that before. Nothing has changed in that. I still firmly believe that it is designed to protect itself and maintain balance by slowing the peristalsis down when you eat the high sugar foods and highly refined carbohydrates, highly processed foods, white flour, biscuits, and cookies, those kinds of things fall into that category. There your body's actually working to protect your blood glucose levels, so it's stopping your blood glucose, trying to stop your blood glucose levels from skyrocketing and then crashing later on. So it slows peristalsis and slows the absorption of that glucose. How clever our bodies are, so clever.
Sarah McLachlan:
Now let's talk about stress. It's a biggie, it's always a biggie. And there are two arms to your nervous system your autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic nervous system makes sure you're ready to fight, flee or freeze in the situation. Whenever your brain, your primal brain, perceives danger, it will put you into your sympathetic nervous system, become dominant, and put you in fight or flight mode. The parasympathetic nervous system is focused on resting and digesting. Only one of them is dominant at a time. So modern life, so many stressors, and so many women I speak to are in fight or flight mode most of their lives. Remembering, I did a podcast on stress and it was not very long ago. You can go back and have a listen to it, where I dive a bit deeper into this and what the stressors of modern life are. But whenever your brain, your primal brain so it's not your conscious or logical part of your brain is feeling like, perceives, danger, or sees a stressor, your sympathetic nervous system is in charge. Your body is ready to run away quickly.
Sarah McLachlan:
Blood is focused on your limbs, your muscles, brain and heart, less on your digestive system. So stress hormones delay motility, the movement of your stomach, so the smashing around of things in your stomach helps break apart the proteins and start the digestive process. And they also delay the emptying of the stomach. So your food sits in there in your stomach for too long and you know this can lead it to ferment and then you get lots of burping and sort of feel like things are repeating on you. So stress delays that motility, that action in your stomach and intestines, upper intestines but it also accelerates emptying of the larger intestine.
Sarah McLachlan:
If you ever felt yourself under pressure and you're like got to go to the toilet really quick, everything's coming out, the fight or flight mode would do that for you. It's just like just get rid of this stuff. We have no time to digest that or deal with that. We don't need it to come out later. Let's get rid of it now and then we'll go fight that bear, right? So when your body's reacting to stressors, it's in fight or flight mode and it's not at all focused on rest and digest mode. And the more stressed that we are, our brain gets rewired and we're more hypervigilant and hyperreactive to stress as well. So you know, you can see why I think it's the biggest blocker to health and happiness and weight loss. And you know, just generally, it's really toxic and it's really damaging. So we're in fight or flight mode.
Sarah McLachlan:
There are fewer digestive secretions, there's reduced peristalsis, food sitting around too long in the stomach, and the small intestines, it's fermenting. It causes symptoms like bloating, burping, a sense of fullness, and early satiety. So you feel full really quickly. It's not surprising that you don't want to eat that meat because you're feeling pretty gross after eating it. So I want to say too eating on the run or in a rush or just picking at bits and pieces while you make other people food or you're emptying out lunch boxes, please don't do it. You're going to have less digestive secretions at that time too. It's not really, you know, it's not very nourishing for you either. Another thing I see lots of people doing is eating a case.
Sarah McLachlan:
To do this all the time I was like, oh, multitask, multitasking is so stressful. We are designed to single- task, not multitask. And yeah, trying to eat and drive someone cuts you off. Oh, you know, you react, you're in fight or flight mode. You know you don't want to drop stuff on your shirt because you've got to wear it to work or whatever. You're rushing to get to the meeting to the time on time or get kids to an activity. Whatever the reason, you are going to be in fight or flight mode and you are not going to be getting the most out of your food, okay, so yeah, I mentioned, stress is the biggest blocker, I think, to health and happiness, and part of this is because I think it's the busiest phase of life for most women, and the other part is because your inbuilt stress resilience hormone progesterone, is starting to decline.
Sarah McLachlan:
So you know we've got more stressors, more busyness and less resilience. So I think it's really important to protect your body from the negative impact of chronic stress by building your stress resilience, and I'll talk more about that in a moment. But reduced digestive secretions also mess with your microbiome or your gut bacteria, and you know. So stress alters your microbiome and I have some blogs on gut health and how stress impacts the microbiome if you're interested in that, or maybe I'll do another podcast on it in the future. But so stress, cortisol and adrenaline impact your microbiome. The food that you eat impacts not only your microbiome but also your digestive secretions.
Sarah McLachlan:
And guess what? Decreasing progesterone and estrogen also alters the function and efficiency of your gut. There's so much that estrogen and progesterone do in our body and we don't know half of it. You know, but perimenopausal and menopausal women we will probably be able to give you a good idea of what it does. It's just also interconnected and it's hard to tease out what it is. But estrogen and estrogen- like compounds that your body produces, prevent the loss of your friendly microbes, your good bacteria, and they also help them grow and proliferate. So estrogen, estrogen, like compounds, is your microbiome's best friend. One of there's quite a few like compounds that are your microbiome's best friends. Well, one of there's quite a few best friends that your microbiome has. But it's important because it helps you maintain a diverse range of friendly microbes. So research tells us that high diversity in our microbes is associated with long-term health and vitality.
Sarah McLachlan:
When there are lower numbers of the good guys, then there's more room for the baddies to take over, and you know this. You don't want that because that's where you're going to have lots of functional gut issues like constipation or diarrhea, more food sensitivities and intolerance gas. So when you get an imbalance of microbes or an overgrowth of them, it's called dysbiosis, and sometimes that can happen in your small intestines. Now, ideally, you don't have any bacteria in your small intestines there, but sometimes they come up from the large intestine. Conditions are right because digestive secretions are low and you get bacteria in there and you um, you know it's called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Sibo is what you might hear going around. It makes it difficult to eat many foods and it also makes you feel uncomfortable and have all sorts of gut issues and discomfort there.
Sarah McLachlan:
So, as I said, changes in the microbiome, and particularly those moving into the small intestine, can reduce the number of villi. They're these little finger-like projections you have on the cells that are in your intestines, that line there, and they're the ones that secrete the enzymes that break down food and support nutrient absorption there. And they're the ones that secrete the enzymes that break down food and support nutrient absorption there. So when you have dysbiosis. It alters many things in the gut and the body. It can even impact weight loss because the microbiome when there's an imbalance and there are more of the baddies in there, reduces the gastrointestinal system, the wall, integrity and function and can trigger the inflammatory response. So those bad bacteria can be really inflammatory in our body and trigger our immune system there and contribute to things like cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, rosacea conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, rosacea, allergies, asthma, eczema, hay fever, hives, itching and rashing. Now a lot of those are more likely to happen in perimenopause and menopause. So we're already at a higher. It makes our risk equivalent to men's, often because of the change in our estrogen levels.
Sarah McLachlan:
So we really want to look after our microbiome and not make it any worse. And sometimes you know, not tolerating foods, like not tolerating meat, gives you a clue that there's, you know, the start of the rumblings of something out of balance there. So what you want to know is that you want to support your digestive system's self-cleaning function and that means not snacking and eating constantly. Three meals a day, no snacks. It's really all you need and that's what your intestines are designed to support there. You want to optimize your microbiome and I'm not going to talk much about that today. That's a whole other thing we can do in ourselves. I might get my friend Carly to come on and talk to you. She is the gut guru. And, yeah, we want to enhance your digestive fire and your digestive secretions.
Sarah McLachlan:
So, first and foremost, you want to reduce your stress. You know you increase your stress resilience. To do this, you can use food as medicine, lifestyle changes, herbs and nutrients. If you're going to use herbs and nutrients, don't waste your time just trying to try all the things in the health food store or the chemist. Talk with a herbalist, a naturopath or a nutritionist and have them prescribed safely with you and your symptoms in mind.
Sarah McLachlan:
Now, self-care is your stress resilience- building tool. You know I don't just mean mani- pedis or massages Like. Self-care is your basic daily habits literally caring for yourself like you would care for a baby, that's all. Self-care is your basic daily habits Literally caring for yourself like you would care for a baby, that's all. Self-care is Honestly not lying to you. It is that simple. Make sure you get enough sleep, get some downtime or some solitude, and give your brain a break Fresh air, safe sun exposure, nourishing foods, and most of the time filtered water. I hope you get my drift. Um, in the show notes, I'll link some other relevant episodes and blogs of mine to talk a bit more about self-care. But just think of it as looking after yourself, like you would look after your baby or your best friend if they were sick. What would you do for them? Do those things every day for yourself.
Sarah McLachlan:
Now, mindful eating I briefly touched on that before. So we're not eating in the car, we're not eating on the run, wait to where you're going or allow yourself some time to sit down and eat before you go. And a challenge like see if you can sit down and take 20 minutes to eat your meal. I bet it's a struggle for you at first, but with practice, you can eat mindfully and eat in a way that supports and optimizes your digestive system. Now, bitter herbs and foods really stimulate your body to make more of what it needs, which is digestive secretions. Sometimes people will take digestive enzymes and that can be useful. But when you use enzymes, it really tells your body like our body has lots of feedback loops, and it feeds back to itself that well, you're making the right amount, it's okay. We don't need to make any more, and then you can kind of get stuck on needing the supplementation in the long term.
Sarah McLachlan:
So have some bitter foods or drinks just before or during your meal, like they used to have aperitifs, you know, those bitter alcoholic drinks that they would have before a meal. There's a reason that they did that is because it helps stimulate their digestive system. I'm not really going to tell you to have a cocktail every night before dinner, but I will tell you to use things like vinegar or lemon juice in your salad dressing or over your food and eat bitter greens like rocket or endive or mustard greens, radish, brussels sprouts and many. There are lots of different ones as well, and I know that, like our human brain is wired to try and avoid those bitter tastes and stick with the sweet ones, or you know those sorts of things. It's important to make yourself eat those kinds of foods. Treat yourself like you're a little baby. You're having food. You know you're around one and you're eating food, and mama's going to make you eat broccoli and any of the other things as well. It's part of your self-care.
Sarah McLachlan:
I do love Iberagast. It is I-B-E-R-O-G-A-S-T. You can buy it over the counter in the chemist in the health food store. It's a wonderful helper. It's a really safe herbal medicine product that's been around for a billion years and herbs are excellent because they help your body modulate. They help it increase when it needs to and decrease when it doesn't. So they will help you increase your digestive enzyme production. They come in little bottles. If it's easy in your bag, take it out with you, no problem at all. Drop doses you can barely taste it means the bottle will last for ages. So you can use that before your meal or after if you find yourself bloated or a bit uncomfortable with it.
Sarah McLachlan:
Herbal teas to support your intestinal function and peristalsis are things like chamomile, peppermint, lemon balm, fennel, cinnamon, and ginger, just make some ginger with fresh ginger in some water, steep it for 10 minutes or so while you're eating and then drink it after your meal. It for 10 minutes or so while you're eating and then drink it after your meal. So I hope maybe you can see that there's some things happening there for you or contributing to why you're not tolerating meat so much anymore, and remember that it is really important to not just suppress or avoid the trigger. We need to find out what is happening, and what's underlying. You know this is a food sensitivity or any food sensitivity or intolerance. Please don't just cut them out without talking to a practitioner like me or another naturopath or nutritionist who can help you resolve the underlying issue and make sure that you're getting all the nutrients that you need. Remember you don't just want to keep cutting foods out and foods out and foods out and ending up just eating from a really small range of foods.
Sarah McLachlan:
Thank you so much for joining me today. Remember to subscribe to Chaos to Calm wherever you find your podcasts so you never miss an episode. I do hope you'll join me next time because we are zooming out a bit to look at the big picture and I'm going to be talking about your master hormones, what they are and how they orchestrate the symphony of your hormones and your hormone health. So I hope you will not miss it and I look forward to speaking with you next time on Chaos to Calm. It's really common for women over 40 to experience the chaos of changing hormones, mood, metabolism and energy. But I hope you know now that commonly doesn't have to equal normal for you or them. You can help others understand they aren't alone in feeling this way and that perimenopause doesn't have to be horrific, by subscribing, leaving a review and sharing this podcast with other women in their 40s and beyond. Thank you so much for listening and sharing your time with me today in this Chaos to Calm conversation.
