4 Ways Fiber Can Save Your Perimenopause (That No One Talks About)

 In this episode, I'll explore with you why fiber deserves more attention in the wellness conversation, especially for women in perimenopause and menopause. Using a football analogy, I discuss how fiber is like the "offensive line" - not flashy, but absolutely essential for protecting your health during hormonal changes. 

 Key Topics Covered:

• Why Fiber Matters in Perimenopause/Menopause 
• Effect of Dietary Fiber Intake on Lipoprotein Cholesterol Levels 
• Fiber's Roles
• How Fiber Helps When Estrogen Levels Decline 
• Gut Microbiome Health 
• Blood Sugar & A1C Support
• Getting More Fiber in Tips
• Supplementation Discussion 

Episodes Discussed:

Protein Series - Beginning with Part 1

The Wellness Industry has Lost Its Mind with Michael Ulloa

How to Have a Healthy Gut Microbiome with Dr. Richard Harris

How to eat more fiber without eating your weight in vegetables

5 Things to Know Before You Take Supplements

Nourished Notes Bi-Weekly Newsletter

30+ Non-Gym Ways to Improve Your Health (free download)

Connect with Amy:
GracedHealth.com
Instagram: @GracedHealth
YouTube: @AmyConnell

Transcript

4 Ways Fiber Can Save Your Perimenopause (That No One Talks About)

Graced Health Podcast for Christian Women Over 40

Host: Amy Connell

Hey everybody, I’m glad you’re here today. I have a hot take for you today, and if you know me and if you’ve been with me for a while, you know that I don’t really like to rock the boat that much. But it’s gotten to the point that I can’t not say anything. So we’re going to talk about that. But first I want to talk about something that will appear totally different, and that’s football.

I live in the Houston, Texas area. It is the beginning of September, and football is in the air everywhere. Whether you have children or grandchildren in youth sports, maybe you are a collegiate football fan, maybe you are a professional football fan—you just can’t escape football in this area.

I have to admit, and don’t tell my husband this, my interest in football wanes a little more every year for a variety of reasons. I just don’t care that much about it. However, I’m married to someone who is a rabid fan for his university, and so this is just what dictates our fall.

Even with as little interest as I have in football now, I can still tell you who the starting quarterback is of the Houston Texans. I haven’t been to a Houston Texans game in forever. I support them. I have people in this community who have affiliations with them. Go Texans, I’m all about it. I’m just not that into football.

I’m so sorry, but I can tell you who the starting quarterback is, and I know these things change throughout the season, but CJ Stroud, you are an exceptional young man, an amazing human being, and I’m so happy that you are part of our team. If you were to ask me to name any of the offensive linemen, I’m so sorry I couldn’t.

What does that have to do with today’s topic? Well, this is my hot take. Protein and all of the conversations surrounding it has become the starting quarterback of your favorite football team. Everybody knows who it is. They know what they’re good at, they know their stats. I mean, well, some people do—not me, but you know, you get what I’m saying, right? The quarterback of the team gets a lot of focus. Protein has gotten a lot of focus.

I did a four-part series on protein in September of 2024. You can go back and listen to that if you want, and I did my very best to provide accurate information in a common sense sort of way. So I’m not telling you to have 200 grams of protein, but protein gets all the information. But I think we’re missing a critical area.

We are missing the offensive linemen of a football team. The offensive linemen just don’t get enough credit. They protect the quarterback, they protect the running back, they protect the ball. They are not super flashy, but they are there to do the work and they just trudge through and they do the work.

I feel like fiber is the offensive lineman of the conversation in the wellness world today. Where is the conversation about fiber? Why aren’t we talking more about this? And probably because the wellness industry, as we’ve talked about on previous episodes, has lost its mind. And there’s only one thing that the industry in general can spend its energy doing.

And just like I tried my very hardest to provide a common sense approach to protein without saying you’ve got to get all of it in all of the time, I want to talk about fiber, specifically how it impacts us in perimenopause and beyond. So if you are going to the doctor and you’re getting your lab work, and maybe your LDL has been ticking up, maybe your A1C has been ticking up, maybe your gut health just doesn’t feel like it used to and you’re having digestive issues and all of the different side effects that can come along with not having a generally healthy gut microbiome—maybe you are noticing some signs of that. Well, guess what? Fiber can actually help with all of those issues and more.

Today I want to talk about four areas that fiber can specifically help you if you are in perimenopause and menopause.

And just like in a team environment where you have 11 men on the field, every single position is important. And we can’t neglect some of the positions just because they’re not as flashy, just because their names aren’t showing up as much. Let’s talk about fiber today as one of these underappreciated team members, and my hope is you walk away from today’s episode understanding how fiber can specifically help you in this phase and maybe just give you a reason to pay a bit more attention to it.

You know me, I’m never going to ask you to go all in on anything, but if we can start being a little more aware, then that can help the—let’s just call it the offensive line—perform better, and that will help the entire team perform better.

Okay, I’m going to try and put this analogy to bed because I’m just going to take this too far and it’s not going to make sense. But let’s talk about why fiber is helpful in perimenopause and menopause.

One phrase you’re going to hear a lot today is “well, because of your reduced estrogen” or “because you’re not making estrogen,” so wherever you are, just kind of insert whatever phase you are in. I’m in perimenopause, which means my estrogen is a bit more all over the place, but I am still making it. If you are postmenopausal, then obviously you are not producing any on your own. And even if you are taking estrogen in the form of estradiol patch or any other way, this is still important information for you to have because our levels are not going to be like they were when we were 20.

The first way fiber can help in this stage of life is by helping you manage your LDL cholesterol. LDL cholesterol is the one that we want low, and I always remember it by HDL—we want high. So if you have high HDL or if your labs are indicating that you have high HDL, then clap, clap, clap, good for you. I’m working so hard. I finally got a little uptick in my HDL and I’m so happy. But the LDL—L stands for low, H stands for high, so that’s how I remember it. You want to keep that LDL cholesterol low.

Estrogen helps promote your cholesterol by promoting more LDL receptors in the liver. And the way that works is the LDL receptors are the proteins that are located on the surface of a lot of your cells, especially your liver cells. And then they take in those LDL particles—the cholesterol that’s running around in your bloodstream—and they will clear out that LDL from your system. So without the receptors, then you’re going to have more and more LDL circulating through your system, which can lead to buildup in your bloodstream.

So this is all great. But what happens when our estrogen decreases? Well, when that estrogen drops, then we have fewer LDL receptors, which means we’ve got more of that LDL—you know, bad cholesterol—going through our system.

When we increase our dietary fiber, then that has a direct effect in lowering the total and LDL cholesterol levels, so that soluble fiber will bind to your LDL cholesterol and help remove that before the body absorbs it. So because we have fewer receptors in the liver, then we need to kind of do the work on the front end, and fiber will help do that work on the front end and take the LDL cholesterol away with it as it’s going through the body and being processed and eliminated.

There was an interesting study I found, and this is the title of it: “Effect of Dietary Fiber Intake on Lipoprotein Cholesterol Levels”—so like your LDL—“Independent of Estradiol in Healthy Premenopausal Women.” So whether or not they were taking estradiol, they did this study. Now the study was relatively small—it was about 259 women. So it’s not this huge study, but it was interesting enough for me to talk about here.

But basically, they followed and assessed these women over the course of two menstrual cycles, and they also monitored their fiber intake. The line of fiber was 22 grams a day—either equal to or higher than 22 grams a day, or less than 22 grams a day. The RDA for women, by the way, is 25 grams per day. The result was there were reductions observed in total and low-density lipoprotein—that’s LDL—in women with higher fiber intakes.

All of that to say, if your LDL levels are ticking up and you have not significantly increased your saturated fat, which is one contributor to higher LDL, then it may be that adding in that fiber can help start to manage that LDL and possibly bring it down.

Another way fiber can help in perimenopause and beyond is by supporting your A1C and your blood sugar. One of the many things that estrogen does is it supports insulin sensitivity. So it helps the body be able to process glucose efficiently.

When we have something that’s really high sugar and we don’t have that balance and that variety to balance that out, or when we eat a meal with what’s called a higher glycemic index and it’s a high glycemic load—which means it’s just incoming and it’s just all of that food that can elevate our glucose levels—and when we had estrogen and when we had reliable estrogen, then it would help manage the insulin that was released to deal with that. Without the estrogen or the reliable estrogen, then we become less responsive to that insulin and that can result in a higher blood sugar and increased A1C.

Eating more fiber will help slow that food absorption. It just kind of slows down the process. It’ll help control your blood sugar and kind of deliver that steady energy rather than spiking up and then having too much glucose that we’re not sensitive to the insulin that’s being released, and that’s whacking out our glucose levels. “Whacking out” maybe not such a technical term, but you get what I’m saying.

And I will say this: no matter if you are in menopause, this is true of fiber no matter what. So if you are having A1C issues, if you are having glucose issues—and A1C is really just like a three-month back look at your glucose levels. So glucose is that point in time, A1C takes a larger window. That’s kind of the big picture difference between the two of those—but fiber can help both of those, whether or not you are in perimenopause or beyond, or if you are a male or a female. This is just a blanket statement that fiber can help manage your glucose levels.

For my women out there who get those hot flashes—mine typically come first thing in the morning. I used to call them my coffee hot flashes until I realized it was hormonally related. I was like, “Why does coffee make me so hot? Why does coffee make me sweat through my pajamas? What? Like, what is this? Why?” And then I’m like, “Oh, this is hormones. This is hormones.”

What I have found is as soon as I get up, if I can have just something small with a little protein, a little fiber, a little fat, it steadies my blood sugar and those hot flashes—or coffee hot flashes, if you want to call them that—are substantially reduced. So helping your blood sugar stabilize right off the bat can help reduce those hot flashes as well. And this can be true of any time in the day. If your blood sugar is going up and down, then your body’s going to have a harder time dealing with that. And of course, hot flashes—hot flushes, if you want to call them that—those are caused by a multitude of things, but inconsistent blood sugar is one thing that can contribute to it. So if that’s something that I can manage, then absolutely I am managing that.

But if your lab work is coming back and that glucose is getting a little high, that A1C is getting a little high, try to add some more fiber into your diet, and we’re going to talk more practical applications here toward the end.

The third way fiber can help—let’s just call it symptoms in perimenopause and beyond—is by helping your gut microbiome. I had an exceptional conversation with Dr. Richard Harris about the gut microbiome a long time ago. I will put that in the show notes, and if you’re watching on YouTube, that one is not on YouTube because it was early on and I didn’t do video. But you can go listen to it in any podcast player and I will definitely put that in the description, in the show notes. If you’re wanting some practical ways of helping your gut microbiome, then that’s a great episode to listen to.

In general, our gut—and look, you guys, you probably know this, right? A variety of fiber will help support a healthy gut microbiome, and my guess is if you are listening to a podcast for women in perimenopause and beyond and it is a health-focused podcast, then this is probably not news to you, so I won’t get into this too much. But in general, a diverse variety of plants in your diet, in what you eat will help support a healthy gut microbiome. You can be having a lot of the same plants and vegetables, but if you’re having the exact same ones all the time, then you’re not getting that variety that your gut needs to really flourish.

The fiber will feed that beneficial bacteria in your gut, and that’s what helps support your immune function. That’s what helps support your mood, your inflammation. In general, eating a variety of plants that include a lot of fiber will help that gut microbiome because here’s the kicker: as our estrogen levels decline—I told you I’d be saying that a lot—as that estrogen declines, then that also declines that beneficial bacteria in our gut. So the fiber will help restore that balance.

And finally, the fourth element of why fiber can be so helpful in this phase is fiber can actually help with your hormone balancing and your estrogen metabolism. Now, I’m going to tell you right off the bat, this is something that I learned in the Menopause 2.0 course that Dr. Stacy Sims does. I’m still not fully understanding this, and I will be the first to tell you that. Sometimes I hear things and I hear all this stuff around it, and the only thing that my brain can do is just like, “What’s the takeaway? What’s the takeaway? What’s the takeaway?”

So here’s the takeaway of what was in that course module: We want to add cruciferous vegetables as much as we can. Cruciferous vegetables are things like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage—anything that, you know, could make your newborn babies gassy if you were breastfeeding them. I do remember that. They’re like, “Don’t have broccoli. It’ll make your baby gassy.” Well, guess what? That’s not my phase anymore, so I don’t have to worry about that.

But cruciferous vegetables have specific benefits as it relates to our hormones. It can actually help support that estrogen metabolism through the liver detox pathway. I so wish I could explain this even more, and I’m sorry I can’t. And if it makes you mad that I can’t, then that’s understandable. But I will tell you, like I said, my takeaway is the cruciferous vegetables do contain compounds that support that estrogen metabolism. So if you can add some sort of cruciferous vegetable in your day—I mean, I try for once a day. I don’t really get there all the time. But if you can start adding that in a little bit more, then that can absolutely help this phase of life.

Let’s switch gears and talk about how can we get more fiber? I actually released an episode—it was my 27th episode. We are coming up on 500 episodes, so it was a little bit ago. It was entitled something like “How to Eat More Fiber Without Eating Your Body Weight in Vegetables.” Because let’s be honest, that’s the first place we go when I’m thinking about more fiber—I’m thinking about the broccoli, I’m thinking about spinach, I’m thinking about salads, like all the salads.

And the reality is fiber shows up in most plants. So if it’s a plant, which is yes, a vegetable, but also a fruit, also a grain, also a nut, a seed, a legume—all of these can have great fiber in it. So go back and listen to that episode. I am going to tell you right now, number one, it’s not on YouTube because that was in the days when I was in my closet, just speaking into my computer with my little mic. Things have changed a little bit since then, but again, you can go back and find that on any kind of podcast player.

That episode can give you some ideas on different foods that you can incorporate that maybe don’t feel overwhelming or like, “Oh my gosh, I got to make another salad.” Like sometimes we just don’t want salads. I do encourage you to try to get a little fiber with every meal. Going back up to that A1C discussion, the glucose discussion—can you get some fiber in every time you eat? And that will help stabilize that blood sugar.

Now let’s talk about supplementation. I do encourage you to eat the food—like eat the whole foods, eat the foods that God created. Maybe not the ultra-processed bars with the fiber added to it, like with that chicory root—what do they call it? I think it’s called chicory root fiber, otherwise known as inulin. I mean, that stuff, first of all, that can just be way overpowering to your system. And the bioavailability of all of that is not as great. The foods that God gave us and the way that he gave it to us—your body’s going to know what to do with it and it will have all of these different compounds that work together better than just throwing a bunch of fiber into what’s essentially like a candy bar.

I don’t have a problem with that, but I encourage you not to rely on that. Don’t let that be your only way of getting fiber. Think of that kind of thing as a supplement.

And speaking of supplements, should you take a fiber supplement? Well, first of all, that’s for you and your doctor to determine. I cannot prescribe that for you. I will tell you that I have started taking one particular supplement recently, and I like this one in particular because it is basically just a whole lot of foods that are ground up into a powder. And that is the fiber supplement that is created by the Pause Life with Dr. Mary Claire Haver. I have no affiliation. I have no—I don’t get any kind of—there’s no affiliation with them.

But I will say that kind of as a supplement and as an insurance policy, if you want to call it that, I will try and take that about once a day. And this is why: I am watching my LDL levels. They are fine right now, but I don’t want them going up. What I do is—and this is just me—but I will in my head treat that like a medicine to help with my cholesterol. Does it do the same thing as Crestor or Lipitor? Probably not. I don’t know the data on that. Common sense is telling me probably not. Otherwise they would just be saying just take one supplement and you’ll be fine. But to me, I’m like, okay, I’m going to take this.

And so this is the deal. As you know, if you listen to my episode on supplements, it is very important to me that my supplements are third-party tested. Dr. Haver says on her social media and on her website that all of her products are third-party tested. It doesn’t say who was testing it, and I don’t see a certification on there. So I did what I do and I got online and I emailed them, because I wanted to know. And before I told you that, yes, I think this is something good for you to do, I wanted to just kind of make sure that this was aligned with the things that are important to me and the things that I’m sharing with you that I think are important for us to pay attention to.

So basically, I sent them an email. I was like, “Who is your third-party tester for your product? Because I see Dr. Haver saying yes, they’re third-party tested, but the website doesn’t say who provides this third-party testing.” And I got to give them a lot of credit—they responded very quickly, I think within—I think by the end of the day. And I’m just going to read to you verbatim what the response was:

“Hi Amy. Thank you for reaching out. Each of our products are tested by independent third-party labs. Testing is done on each batch or lot before the products leave manufacturing, before they arrive to our fulfillment center. We only certify and use labs that are ISO certified and follow USP guidelines for purity, validation, microbial and contaminants testing.”

Just as a side note, that ISO certified USP—those are things that I talked about in that supplements episode. So if you want to learn more, go back and listen to it.

And then going on, she says, “Summit Labs is one of the labs we use for most of our testing. Our products are not NSF as that is a long and lengthy process in and of itself. We strive to achieve a certification by the end of the year”—and that was, I sent this email probably in July of 2025, so by the end of, I assume 2025. We can give them a little grace though if it’s not by then.

Going on, she says, “We are working through this process now. We also adhere to good manufacturing practices, which are the standards that all manufacturers are held to by the FDA. I hope that information is helpful. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.”

So to that end, I feel pretty confident that the third-party testing is legit and that we will soon see an NSF stamp of approval on the products, which makes me really happy.

This is the deal with that particular supplement: It is like real food ground up. It’s psyllium husk powder, buckwheat, millet, quinoa, amaranth, chia seed, apple fiber, citrus pectin. I mean, there’s a few other things, but that’s the main thing. It’s about $40 for a packet that will get you about a month. But this is key: If you decide that you want to add this as a supplement, and number one, if you haven’t been getting a lot of fiber, I want you to slowly add it in. Start with like a quarter of a scoop, and then you can do a half a scoop a few days later and work yourself up to a full scoop because we don’t want digestive overload.

This is the second, in my opinion, more important thing: This is a drink that you need to chug. Because if you don’t chug it—because the fiber does what it’s supposed to do—it will turn almost gelatinous, and then you’re going to basically be chewing it. So if you don’t want to chug your drink, which I don’t, then chug it. And that to me is the one thing that keeps me from being like, “All right, I’m just going to take this.” Because sometimes I’m like, “I don’t want to chug it.” I don’t chug. Even when I was in college, I didn’t chug beer. I just, I can’t do it. I drink a lot of water and, you know, I drink high volumes of it, but I don’t chug. So that’s the one hurdle for me. Every time I take this I’m like, “Okay, all right, come on Amy, you can do this.”

But I do think that that is a helpful supplement if you need a little boost and if you are not getting enough fiber, because I think it’s better to have a little bit more from a supplement than not having anything at all. Ideally, we get that all from our plants, but you know what, this just doesn’t happen all the time.

Which leads me to my final message about this topic. You are not going to get 25 grams every day. Well, you might, but if you are striving for that and you’re like, “Okay, I want to get to the RDA of 25 grams a day,” you may or may not get there every day. I don’t get there every day. That is one reason why I take that supplement.

But it can still be hard, especially going back up to the top of this, when I’m focused on all the protein that I’m supposed to have. You know, if I’m having eggs and Canadian bacon and scrambling that up for breakfast, sometimes I throw that in a tortilla and that’s my lunch. And then a couple hours later I’m like, “Ah, I forgot the fiber.” It’s hard to remember all of this.

And so I want you to, before we do anything, and before you make any decisions or make any changes, give yourself some grace. This does not have to be perfect every time. Just like you don’t need to hit your protein goals every day. If you can make it, that’s great, but you’re not a failure. It’s okay if you’re not getting your 25 grams or more a day. Just strive for it, slowly work up. If you haven’t been having enough and now you’re convinced that, okay, I need to have some, then just know that we’re looking—I’ve said this before—it’s a trend, not a tenet. It is not something that we are sticking in the ground, and this is where it is. We’re just, what’s the trend? Are you having enough fiber in general? Is that your trend? Yes. Okay, good. And then go on and enjoy life and don’t be so obsessed about it all.

I hope this episode helps you understand how fiber can help us in this stage of life. Fiber in general is always good, but specifically, let’s just do a really quick recap. It can help you manage your LDL cholesterol. It can help support your glucose and your A1C. It can help your gut microbiome, and then it can help with that estrogen metabolism, if you are having the cruciferous vegetables.

Don’t forget to go back and listen to the episode that I created on how to consume more fiber without eating your weight in vegetables. I will put that in the show notes if you’re interested and if you want some more specific ways on increasing fiber in your diet.

And hey, if this episode was helpful to you, would you do me a huge favor and do one of two things? One, share it with a friend. When you share something one-on-one, send it to a friend that you’ve been talking about fiber with and be like, “Hey, we were just talking about this. Thought you might be interested in hearing it.” Or providing a review on Apple Podcasts in particular is really helpful. If you’re on YouTube, hit that like button. These little things—they seem so silly, but they actually are really helpful.

Okay, that’s all for today. Go out there and have a Graced Day.

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