We'll focus on three systems to support the most while in peri-menopause.
1. Balance Your Blood Sugar
This tip is HUGE for peri-menopause, so pay close attention. When you were younger, you could maybe get away with late-night pizza or drinking binges. You body is much less forgiving at this age, which you probably already realized.
You don’t want to gain weight, feel cloudy, or sleep poorly, but, if your like most of us, you want to have you cake and eat it too.
It’s super important to keep your blood sugar balanced to prevent the symptoms of peri-menopause. Spikes and dips in your blood sugar create an additional stress on your body, and your body is already going through the stress of changing hormones.
These spikes and dips in your blood sugar also make you cranky, craving carbs and gaining weight. Sugars also feed the unhealthy bacteria in your gut, and you need a healthy gut to clear old hormones and to make chemicals that make you feel good.
Here’s my best tip for blood sugar: start the day with low sugar and high protein and fiber. When you start you day this way, you will have less cravings and make better choices.
Some options:
2. Love Your Adrenals
Your adrenals are two glands in your lower back that make hormones for energy and stress. They also make some female hormones (sex hormones) and you rely on them more as your ovarian function declines.
Your adrenals make hormones for stress, energy and sex. You probably want lots of energy and great sex, but less stress. So create less stress in your life.
Now, you probably think of stress as being stuck in traffic and late for an important appointment. That is stressful. But stress to your body comes in lots of other forms too, like:
The blood sugar spikes and dips we discussed
The late nights of work
The stress of caring for kids or elderly parents
Chronic pain
Eating low-quality foods or inflammatory foods
This list could be longer, but I’ll stop here and give you tip #2 to love your adrenals. Get to bed by 10 PM, take rest breaks during the day, and have fun!
3. Support Detox Pathways
To have hormone balance, you need to clear toxins. Excess hormones re-circulating in your blood stream, or toxins that mimic hormones can lead to peri-menopause symptoms.
Today we’ll talk about two mechanisms that clear toxins and how to support them: the liver and the digestive tract.
The liver is the best known detox organ, for good reason. It breaks down toxins and used hormones into a form that can be eliminated. To support the liver, eat foods that contain the nutrients your liver needs to do its tasks.
Some liver-loving foods include: pasture-raised eggs, beets, carrots, lemon, broccoli, chard, dandelion, cabbage, onions and garlic.
Once toxins and used hormones are broken down, they need to be eliminated from the body. The main exit route is the digestive tract. If you are constipated or have an inflamed digestive tract, these waste products may not be eliminated.
Natural sources of fat, such as coconut oil, olive oil, nuts, seeds, avocados, unprocessed meats and fish, are needed by the gallbladder to make the bile that the toxins travel with from the liver to the digestive tract.
Once in the digestive tract, keep your bowels moving with regular exercise and drinking plenty of water. Reduce inflammation by avoiding inflammatory foods such as sugar, alcohol, gluten and processed dairy products.
Please take one tip from above and get started!
Love these tips? Want to learn more?
Learn more about peri-menopause from experts like Ann Louise Gittleman, Dr. Anna Cabeca and Tana Amen at my online Hormone Balance After 40 Summit!
The summit happened live June 5-11, 2017, but recordings will live on after the live summit.
