Why Knowing How to Cook Might Be the Most Underrated Hormone Therapy

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Transcript

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If you have ever thought,"I know what I'm supposed to eat, so why does this feel so hard?" You are not alone. Most of the women I work with in perimenopause and menopause are not really confused about nutrition. They know vegetables are good. They know protein matters. They know sugar doesn't make them feel great, and yet they feel stuck, tired, inflamed, bloated, and frustrated with food. So here's what I want you to hear right away. This is not a motivation problem. This is not a willpower problem, and it's definitely not a you're doing it wrong problem. What I see over and over again is something much more subtle. We've been taught what to eat, but we were never taught how to turn food into something that actually supports our hormones, our gut, and our nervous system. And during menopause, that gap matters more than ever. Today I want to introduce a powerful reframe. Cooking is not about being gourmet. It's not about perfection. It's a health skill- one that can calm inflammation, stabilize blood sugar, support gut health, and make eating feel easier again. And by the end of this episode, I want you thinking,"Oh, this is what's been missing." And stay with me because at the end of this episode, I'll share the simplest shift you can make this week that doesn't involve changing what you eat at all. So let's get started. Menopause doesn't have to feel like you are living in someone else's body. Your host, Lynda 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. One of the most important mindset shifts I teach inside my Joyful Menopause framework is this: food is not just calories or macros; food is information. Every meal sends signals to your body, to your gut, your hormones, your nervous system, and your blood sugar regulation. And in midlife, your bo- body becomes less tolerant of mixed messages. When estrogen starts to decline, your system is already getting more sensitive to all these things, to blood sugar swings, to inflammation, to stress, to disruption to your digestive system. So when meals then are rushed or unsatisfying, they're heavily processed or just not very pleasurable, your body responds not with balance, but with symptoms. So this is why women often tell me I'm eating less, but I'm gaining weight. I'm craving sugar more than I ever used to. My digestion is all over the place. I have no idea what tomorrow's going to be like, and I don't really, I'm just not enjoying food anymore. It's not really because your body's broken. It is because your body is asking for clarity. It's asking for some clearer signals. And those signals don't come from nutrition rules. They come from how food is prepared, how it tastes, how it feels in your body, and this is where cooking skills quietly become a very powerful tool for hormone balance. Let me tell you about Susan, not a real name, but a real story. Susan came to me. She was in her early fifties. She was in peri- perimenopause. She was doing everything, quote unquote right. She was having a big salad for lunch. For dinner she'd have chicken or fish with vegetables. She didn't eat a lot of sugar. She really tried to avoid processed foods, but she still felt terrible. She was crashing in the afternoon. She was craving, having cravings all the time. She felt bloated. Her labs weren't great either. Her cholesterol was going up and she just, again, food wasn't giving her any joy or pleasure anymore. What she told me was, I feel like I'm being punished for trying to eat well because even her labs were not agreeing with her. When we looked a little bit closer, the issue really wasn't what she was eating. It was really, she was disconnected from her meals, from satisfaction from regulation, and that was creating a lot of imbalances in her system. Her meals didn't have a lot of flavor. They didn't have a lot of healthy fats. They were the same thing all the time. They were creating stress in her life, so her nervous system was never relaxed. Her blood sugar was never stable. Her gut didn't get the variety that it needed. We didn't need to just like overhaul her diet. Instead, we worked on just a few specific things, making her meals more satisfying, adding flavor, which also adds nutrition often, using simple cooking techniques that she could do again and again to keep it easy and reduce some of the decision fatigue around food. That's, I know one of the most challenging things is having to come up with what to eat every day for the rest of our lives. So within a few weeks, her craving started to improve, her digestion got better, her energy was better, and she started saying,"I, I'm actually enjoying food again." And that's the moment I want for you because satisfaction is not optional in menopause: it's absolutely therapeutic. So here's the truth that rarely gets talked about: as women age, we lose tolerance for meals that don't support us. We honestly lose tolerance for a lot of things that don't support us any anymore. Our body is a time in life where our body's saying you need to take care of yourself. Ultra processed foods, rushed meals, and flavorless, sort of like healthy plates aren't working anymore. You're seeing spikes in blood sugar, increased inflammation, disruption to the gut microbiome and activation of stress hormones. Cooking, even simple cooking, can change that, not because you're making everything from scratch, but because you have control- control over what goes into the food, the ingredients that you're eating. You can control the fiber, increase the fiber naturally in food. You can improve the absorption of nutrients. You can improve the quality of nutrients in your diet. And you can create meals that are actually calming and nourishing for your body. This is especially important for menopause weight gain, for insulin resistance, gut health, sleep, and even mood regulation. So here's the key: it's not about, cooking is not about time, it's about confidence. It's, it's about skill a little bit, but it doesn't mean you have to be a gourmet chef. It's getting some basics so you can feel confident. When women start to feel confident in the kitchen, they rely less on packaged foods. They have less stress around eating. They eat more consistently, and they stop swinging between restrictions and craving. But there's one piece that makes all of this stick and most nutrition advice actually ignores this. The next piece is flavor. Flavor is not indulgence. Flavor is regulation. Flavor is nourishment. Your body is actually wired to respond to sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. When meals lack balance, your brain goes looking for it- usually in sugar or snacks. This is why I hear a lot of women saying, I have a healthy dinner, but I'm just dying to have something for dessert. Or, I'm not hungry, but I just, I need something. That's not hunger: that's unsatisfied physiology. That's your body telling you I need something else because I didn't get what I needed in that meal. So adding flavor can improve satiety, can reduce cravings, can support your digestion, and can help your nervous system to feel safe. This is one of the reasons why bland diets do not work in menopause. Your body isn't asking for less food: it's asking for better food, for better signals. And the best part, you don't need to change what you eat so much to change those signals. There's one simple shift that I want to give you this week. Here's one gentle, doable thing you can do right away. This week, I don't want you to change what you eat so much. I, I want you to change how it tastes. I want you to just add one thing. Maybe it's a squeeze of lemon. Maybe it's a drizzle of olive oil, a good quality olive oil. Maybe it's putting a fresh herb in your food like cilantro or rosemary, or parsley or basil. Maybe it's a spice, turmeric, a cinnamon, maybe it's a vinegar, um, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, or a sauce that you enjoy. Watch what starts to happen. Increased satisfaction, decreased cravings, possibly even improved digestion. So this is how we start to build sustainable health, not with rules, not restriction, but with skills that just start to support your body where it is at now. In the next episode, I'm going to take this a little bit further. I'm going to talk about how gut health fits into this, why fiber, fermented foods and variety make a big difference, and how cooking can support your second brain during menopause. Because menopause isn't asking you to eat perfectly: it's asking you to care for yourself differently. And food prepared with some skill, pleasure and intention is a powerful way to do that. Before you go, I want to give you one small invitation. This week, choose one meal and make it more satisfying, not perfect, just more satisfying. Add flavor. Add some nourishing fats. Add something that makes you enjoy eating. And if you want to help building these skills in a way that supports your hormones, your gut, and your nervous system, I'd love to work with you. You can learn more about my Joyful Menopause Coaching Program at my website. Click on the link below. Here I help women create sustainable health without food stress or restriction. And if you've found some value in this episode, please subscribe, leave a review or send it to someone who needs to hear this message. Thanks for being here today and have a great rest of your day.