By Dr. Erin Thorne
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17 Aug, 2022
#1 Nutrition & Hydration: Your metabolism changes in menopause due to the declining estrogen, which also means that your nutritional needs change. Optimizing insulin and blood sugar is essential for a healthy menopausal metabolism. If your goal is to achieve a healthy weight here are some things to consider when healing your metabolism. Protein: Your body cant run on carbohydrates and sugars the way that it used to. As your estrogen and progesterone decrease your blood sugar is less stable. Protein is essential for both satiating your metabolism and also stabilizing blood sugar. I recommend 70-90 grams of protein a day as a minimum for patients that are moderately active. Foods to avoid: Dairy (this is a hormonal, inflammatory, processed food, period the end :)) Goat cheese, feta, sheep cheese in moderation are usually ok. Refined sugars and carbohydrates. This includes chips, cookies, crackers, sandwich breads, dinner rolls, pizza, pancakes, sugar filled oatmeals, and even some fruits! All of these foods contribute to high blood sugar & insulin and de-stabilize your metabolism. Beverages to avoid include: soda and diet soda (diet soda also spikes blood sugar and insulin), juices, and alcohol. (alcohol is like a T-Rex when it comes to balancing hormones, and knocks down all the efforts put forth. Food to Include: Vegetables are high in fiber and help feed your estrobalome. The estrobolome is the part of your microbiome that responds and directs estrogens in the body. The bugs and. bacteria that make up the estrobolome throve in a high fiber and pre-biotic environment. So feeding the bacteria that help your estrogen and other hormone levels with veggies, and beans is supportive of a healthy metabolism. Fruits that support metabolism are: blueberries, black berries, dark cherries, and raspberries. Timing of foods: Fasting has become such a fad, but what it really tittles down to is eating less frequently and allowing your body to have digestive rest. Digestive rest slows your body to heal metabolism and clean up inflammation. Avoiding heavy meals at dinnertime and before bed is the number one thing I can recommend for healing the metabolism. When you eat a heavy meal before bed your body spends the whole night digesting it rather than raving up your metabolism for the next day. Eating larger meals earlier in the day allows for time to store, metabolize and utilize that food that you eat. Lab Testing recommended: Stool test to evaluate inflammation, microbiome #2 Exercise and Movement: Exercises that worked well in your 30's and 40's will likely not work as well in menopause. Many women find that their bodies respond better to new movements, maybe strength training, distance walking or yoga. Every woman's body responds differently to exercise and this is related to adrenal/stress health. If your adrenals/stress response is intact your metabolism will be more responsive to many types of exercise, but if your stress response is poor certain exercises may turn down the metabolism, which can be really frustrating. Movement after meals: We've all been told to lay around and rest after we eat a big meal. However, research has show us in type II diabetes (individuals that become insulin resistant from diet/lifestyle choices) light-moderate exercise or movement after a meal actually allows the muscles to "soak up" all that extra sugar and insulin floating around. Build Muscle: Building muscle in your glutes and hamstrings! These are the largest muscle groups in your body and these are a free ticket to soaking up that extra sugar in your body. Moderate weight lifting that strengthens your core, upper legs, and butt and key to revving up that metabolism in menopause. *Bonus: Building muscle also strengthens your bones and protects from osteoporosis. Movement Everyday: There is no more "working out" a few times a week. Healing your metabolism requires movement everyday. Movement gets the lymphatic system working to strengthen immune system and remove toxins. 10k step walks, 60 minutes of yoga or pilates, dancing, swimming, cycling, stair walking or weight lifting are all options that can take anywhere from 15-60 minutes a day. So just like you pick the exercise routine that works best for your lifestyle, but do pick one and stick to it! #3 Sleep and Restoration: Sleep and restoration are two different ways to support menopause and metabolism. Sleeping an average of 8 hours a night is required for cleaning up inflammation, removing toxins, healing damaged tissues and storing energy for the next day. Sleep deprivation and lack of sleep has been linked to obesity and shown that people eat 300-600 extra calories the next day to make up for the experienced lack of energy. You will have less sugar and carb cravings if you are well rested, end of story. :) You can make up for a poor nights sleep by resting during the day. I recommend 30-60 minutes of guided meditation or a 15 minute power nap where you allow your mind to rest. Here are a few things to note about rest in menopause: To bed before 10pm. (Most nights, at least) More research is starting to appear that its not only the number of hours you sleep but the timing in which you do it. Getting to bed before or by 10pm most nights of the week allows your metabolism to heal. When you stay up late you are spiking cortisol and lowering melatonin levels which do not promote deep reparative sleep. Avoid large meals and snacks before bed: Eating your largest meal midday or at breakfast tends to work best with a de-stabilized metabolism. As I mentioned above your body is trying to heal at night time, and instead it's forced to spend the night digesting food. Research has shown that avoiding large meals before bed improves insulin resistance and most importantly improves quality of sleep. Phew! Lab Testing: fasting blood sugar & insulin after a large meal the night before, fasting blood sugar & insulin after a smaller meal or fast in the evening. Libre 14-day glucose monitor can also let you test out the way you respond to eating at different times of day. #4 Address your Stress: Stress is ubiquitous and a necessary and unavoidable part of being human. That being said most of us were not taught how to transform our stress. (get that extra cortisol and adrenaline out of the body!) When we experience an acute trauma, hostile family or work environments, or an endless list of daily tasks we have the choice to stuff that stress in the body somewhere (which contributes to disease) or we can transform, allow, and release it. I recommend the book Burnout: The secret of unlocking the stress cycle. This book contains the necessary recommendations for shaking that stress out of the body. In addition to transforming stress sometimes we need to minimize stress by changing our current lifestyle choices, however when this isn't an option I have patients learn how to maximize dissolving stress chemicals with some of the tools below and in the Burnout book.. Here are a few things to note about stress in menopause: Honor your adrenal glands: Your adrenal glands make cortisol and adrenaline in response to stress. They also make cortisol every single day because we need it to move through the day, without it we have no gas in the tank. A normal cortisol response is a large spike in the morning and then it slowly declines until bedtime. Stressors throughout the day may keep cortisol higher or require your adrenal glands to work extra hard. High cortisol levels will keep blood sugar and insulin high, in this way stressful lifestyles hijack your metabolic healing efforts by cranking up the sugar. Talk Therapy & Exercise: Talk therapy supports cortisol through managing the thoughts and emotions, and mil or moderate exercise after stressors can help support cortisol response in the physical body. Light Therapy: If you are having the opposite problem than described above, and your cortisol response is low and slow, you will still experience a sticky metabolism. Using light therapy in the morning can help support a healthy cortisol response. Sitting in front of a happy like for 15-30 minutes right when you wake up or going for a walk if it's light out stimulates signals in your eyes and brain to respond with healthy cortisol levels. Healthy cortisol allows for healthy hormones, metabolism and reduce menopausal symptoms like hot flashes. Yoga: Yoga gets you out of your mind and into your body, you may become aware of parts of your body that need attention. The mind tends to lead us around all day long tugging at us like a leash. The body communicates without words, it communicates with sensations of pain, warmth, cold, bloating, dizziness, fatigue, these are all clues to underlying health concerns your body would like you to support. Lab testing recommended: 4-point saliva cortisol & DHEA test to measure adrenal health. #5 Community & Connection: (Social Media Break?) We are the loneliest human generation. We think we are connected with all this technology but research is showing that we are feeling more lonely than ever. Anxiety and depression are at all time highs in the U.S and continue to increase each year. Are anxiety and depression medications solutions to our depression and anxiety or are they bandaides. Depression is linked to inflammation, trauma, immune activation and hormone imbalance. In menopause a fluctuation and decrease in hormones can cause moods shift. Creating or belonging to a community is essential for nervous system health and longevity as you enter menopause and post-menopausal years. This is the time to explore the things you have always been interested in learning, dancing, painting, book clubs, exercise classes, university classes, or whatever brings you joy and connection. Join a group exercise program: join a group and then attend the classes regularly so you can get to know the other members! Group exercise is effective for motivation during and after the work-out. Take a break from social media: "Eyes on your own paper, stay in your own lane." I found that staying away from social media drama, targeted ads, and friends posting only the happy parts of their lives to be distracting from my goal of peace, pleasure and metabolic fitness. Research is linking Facebook, Instagram, twitter, TikTok more and more to our rise in depression and anxiety. The fact is that our brains were never designed to process the amount of information that we are bombarded with in a single swipe of the thumb or click of the mouse. Social media is also "Selection bias" meaning it only shows us what people want to share, and people are only posting the happiest parts of their lives, which makes us feel like our lives pale in comparison. The huger problem is the algorithm that puts ads I from t of your face reminding you of you desire to lose weight, write a book, join a program eat better or whatever and it makes you feel over loaded with what to do in a matter of seconds. A few minutes turns into an hour and you may find that a break from social media is just the spark you need to keep your motivation up while healing your body. Volunteer: Try connecting to the people in your Community with the extra time not spent ton social media. We need more humans improving the space and people they live near rather than connecting and worrying about what everyone else on the Internet in Australia are doing. #6 Spirituality and Purpose: Finding purpose and meaning in this world is why we are here. If there is no purpose there is no direction and nothing to live for. In menopause if youve had children they've often grown up and moved on. You may be experiencing changes with your elderly parents. You may be seeing life through a new lens. Find a spiritual practice that includes mediation, prayer, journaling and self-reflection is power during this part of your journey. Different forms of Meditation: guided mediations, silent mediation, cloud watching, star gazing, forest bathing, sound baths, lying in the grass, feet in the water and sand are all forms of meditation for connecting to your soul and deeper purpose. Journaling: Writing out all of your thoughts and seeing them on paper is much different than managing them in your mind. "Morning pages" is something my patients enjoy where they journal on gratitude and thought or worries that are on their hearts. Journaling is a purge of unprocessed emotions and opens the body up for more intuitive solutions to problems and purpose. Spirituality: Connecting to a higher power whether it's God or your spiritual being that is connected to source energy or the universe. I tend to connect to nature. I believe in the healing power of nature and feel most alive when Im near the ocean or in the forest. In menopause the veil has dropped or the rose colored glasses have come off and you see the world for what it is and you may not feel afraid or timid any longer. Menopausal women are forces to be second with so watch out and spend sometime connecting with the women that you are and the woman you are becoming in this new stage of life!