5 Diet Strategies to Heal Your Gut and Balance Hormones During Menopause

In this episode of Joyful Menopause, host Lynda Enright addresses common challenges faced by women during perimenopause and menopause, such as weight gain, brain fog, restless sleep, and belly fat, and explains how these issues are often linked to gut health, hormones, and metabolism. Lynda offers five science-based dietary strategies to support gut health, balance hormones, regulate blood sugar, and reduce inflammation. Key recommendations include increasing fiber intake, diversifying plant foods, incorporating colorful polyphenol-rich foods, adding fermented foods and healthy fats, and including resistant starches. Listeners are encouraged to consistently make small dietary changes to improve overall health and well-being during menopause. 

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Transcript

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Have you ever noticed that the older you get, the harder it seems to lose weight even when you're eating great and you're exercising, or maybe you're finding other struggles like brain fog, restless sleep, or belly fat, that just feels impossible to change. If that sounds familiar, you're not alone and it's not your fault. What's happening inside your body during perimenopause and menopause has everything to do with gut health, your hormones, and your metabolism. And today we're gonna talk about five simple, powerful ways to support your gut through food. Because a healthy gut helps you balance your hormones, regulate your blood sugar, improve sleep, reduce anxiety even, and yes, make it a little bit easier to lose weight during menopause. So let's get started. Menopause doesn't have to feel like you are living in someone else's body. Your host, Linda Enright, has spent the last 25 years helping women to thrive in midlife. Here you'll find science-based practical advice that you can start using today to get real results for your health. Welcome to Joyful Menopause. Let's start with a little science, because understanding why this happens makes it so much easier to make changes that work. So when estrogen levels decline during perimenopause and menopause, it can impact a lot more than just your reproductive system. Estrogen actually supports insulin sensitivity, which helps your cells use glucose more efficiently and protects you from storing fat around your midsection. So when estrogen starts to go down, your metabolism can start to slow down because your body is becoming more insulin resistant, and then fat tends to collect a little bit more easily, especially around the abdomen. So that's one of the big reasons why a lot of times women are struggling with how to lose weight during menopause. At the same time, progesterone also decreases. Now progesterone helps keep your digestion moving, so when it drops, it can lead to slower motility and even to constipation. And then we have less movement through your gut, your microbiome, those, all those trillions of beneficial bacteria that live inside you can start to lose diversity. So we don't have as much variety in that microbiome. Now we add in stress. Elevated cortisol levels, which are super common for women during this time of life. And then high cortisol can increase gut permeability, something we call leaky gut. That can reduce the diversity of those good bacteria, so now we have more inflammation, more cravings, more bloating, and maybe even some more challenges with sleep and menopause. Now, top it off. Estrogen also directly communicates with your microbiome. So when estrogen is decreasing, that communication can get disrupted too. So what, what does all this mean for you? It means that by improving your gut health, you can directly support your hormones and make it easier to manage symptoms like brain fog, menopause, sleep problems, anxiety and weight gain. So let's talk about how to do that. Here's the good news. Every single meal you eat has the power to shift your microbiome and your hormones in the right direction. Think of it this way, every bite you eat feeds two systems. You and your microbes. So when you nourish these microbes with the right foods, they can create compounds that help to repair your gut lining, can calm inflammation, can balance blood sugar, and can even help with mood and energy. So I wanna talk about the five things that you can do with your diet to build a healthier gut, balance your hormones, and feel better from the inside out. Number one. Feed your gut with fiber. Fiber is the primary food for your gut microbes. So when those microbes digest fiber, they produce something called short chain fatty acids, which are really powerful compounds that repair the gut lining, that reduce inflammation and can help your body use insulin more effectively. So that means better blood, blood sugar balance, fewer energy crashes and support for healthier weight. So the aim is 30, even up to 40 grams of fiber per day consuming from a bunch of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains. If you're new to eating more fiber increase gradually for sure. And if you're sensitive, definitely use cooked vegetables, maybe soups, stews before adding more raw foods. The aim is even, you know, very slowly, even if you're adding maybe two or three grams of fiber a day each week, as you work yourself up to maybe that 30 to 40 grams. They say the average American diet has about 10 to 15 grams of fiber per day, so we might have a long ways to go. So absolutely going slow is important and will work great. The next step is all about diversity, because the more variety you give your microbes, the stronger and more resilient they can become. So your microbes thrive on variety, different plant foods feed different species of bacteria, and the more species you have, the more balanced and stable that your microbiome becomes. So instead of focusing on perfection, we want to focus on variety. Try new things, new vegetables add herbs and spices. They can be powerhouses for your gut microbiome as well. Mix it up with grains and legumes. Every new food can add new microbial species, and that's what helps to build resilience. And then that resilience translates to you. When your gut's balanced, you can have fewer. Pro health problems. Fewer, fewer symptoms that you might be experiencing, better digestion. You can even have improved mood and energy. And talking about variety, color is important too. So let's talk about how the rainbow on your plate can support your hormones. Different colors in your food represent different polyphenols, something these plant compounds that can help to nourish your gut microbes and can calm inflammation. Things like berries, our powerhouses, green tea, cocoa, pomegranate seeds, turmeric, um, all kinds of colorful herbs and spices can also help to strengthen your gut barrier and support microbial diversity. These same polyphenols can also help insulin sensitivity so they can support your metabolism and make it easier for your body to burn fat efficiently. And because these foods also calm inflammation in the brain, they can help to reduce brain fog and anxiety during menopause, helping you think more clearly and sleep more soundly. Now that we've talked about fiber, we've talked about variety and color, let's look at a few powerhouse foods that can give you that extra boost. Fermented foods like good quality yogurt, kefer, kimchi, tempe can add good bacteria to your gut, helping to create a better balance, improving digestion and enhancing immune health. Healthy fats, things like olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds, walnuts, almonds, Chia seeds, uh, pumpkin seeds, uh, sunflower seeds are some that I love. They can also play a big role. They help your body to absorb nutrients, support your gut lining, and promote diversity again in this microbiome. Okay. And then lastly, don't forget about things called resistant starches. These are foods that are cooked and then cooled starchy foods like potatoes, rice, lentils, and green bananas actually are pretty good resistant starches too. These act as prebiotics. They feed the good bacteria that create these short chain fatty acids. These powerhouses that we talked about earlier. Simple additions of these things can reduce inflammation, stabilize blood sugar, and even help you manage hot flashes at night, menopause insomnia, and thyroid and menopause related fatigue. And here's where it all comes together, how you build your plate every day matters more than anything else. Every meal is an opportunity to feed your microbes well. A balanced plate keeps your blood sugar steady, your energy consistent, and your hormones happy. I like to think of it this way. Fill half your plate with plants and fiber foods, one quarter with good quality protein and a quarter with healthy fats and starches. Protein and fiber together help you to feel satisfied. They keep cravings in check and pre. They prevent those blood sugar swings that can lead to fatigue, irritability, and even could be night sweats during perimenopause. So remember, you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be consistent. Small, steady changes can create big results. So let's recap during menopause and perimenopause. Lower estrogen and progesterone can slow your metabolism, disrupt your microbiome, and make symptoms like brain fog, sleep problems, anxiety, and waking feel worse. But your diet is one of the most powerful tools you have. When you nourish your gut, you're also nourishing your hormones. You're calming inflammation, you're improving insulin sensitivity and supporting better energy, sleep, mood, and metabolism. If you are ready to start feeling better in your body, again, to clear the brain fog, sleep through the night, and finally feel like yourself again, start by feeding your gut. And if you want regular tips, recipes, practical ways to make these habits part of your everyday life, I'd love for you to join my email newsletter. It's where I share the kind of simple science-based strategies that truly can make a difference for women during these years of perimenopause and menopause. You can sign up@bewellconsulting.com and start getting weekly guidance on how to feel vibrant, balanced and joyful again because you can, you absolutely can have a joyful menopause and it starts with what's on your plate. So thanks for listening today and have a great rest of your day.