Nutrition Foundations: Getting the essentials right

Over the next few blogs we're chatting about aligning our nutrition and lifestyle habits to ensure they are supporting our wonderful and beautiful post menopausal bodies. 

It's not an overhaul, even the mention of that would have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. I'm more focused, as the new year begins, on doing a gentle reset. To focus on pillars of wellness based around nutrition and lifestyle such as, nourishment, movement, sleep, more stress resilience. In order to help future-proof us as we age and thrive. There are no guarantees in life but I'd prefer we work staying vivacious and vital as we age than not.

I'm also not into dieting, nor draconian rules, fad diets or anything else that causes stress around eating. Now, if you are under medical care and they have a specific diet you must take, for health reasons, then follow their instruction. 

This series is aimed at helping us to check in with ourselves and take steps to support our bodies and their changes as we age. A lot of you may have indulged over the Christmas. No recriminations here, it's the holidays. Now it's time to get back into your groove. If, like me, you've been through the mill with illnesses, then you're goal could be to build your body back up. 

Be curious about building a base -it's a tool to help you optimise your health.                                                                                        

First Step: The Review of nutrition

Lets begin with a simple nutrition review. By knowing where we are at, enables us to take agency over our nutrition and lifestyle habits. This ensures they are working for us and not hampering our desire to thrive. It becomes a solid foundation to come during the year. Important, if we fall off the rails as life unfolds during the year ahead.

Post Menopause is the new chapter of our lives and it deserves the right nourishment, not eating less food. (caveat: if you are instructed by your doctor to decrease your food intake do so, I'm assuming here you don't). 

Grab a sheet of paper and for five days record the:

1. Timings of every food you ate 
2. What you ate
   
3. What your drank, that includes alcohol and fizzy drinks
4. If you feel food is causing gut issues or other ailments then, write down the symptoms after each meal
   
5. Optional: Use an app e.g. Chronometer or MyFitnessPal to record it all. Once completed, this gives you an idea of proteins, carbohydrates, mineral and fats

The goal of this is to give you a basis to work from and know what to reset. If the tracking app feels to much, just concentrate on taking note of your meals and hydration in a notepad or sheet of paper to start. I can easily spot gaps for you if needed.

It's about awareness that matters. By having what you eat and your hydration staring you from a piece of paper can be enough to initiate change. Starting small and at your pace is more important than precision. 

As no doubt you've found out the hard way, our bodies are so less forgiving if we are under-nourishing ourselves. We are also more sensitive to stress and blood sugar cravings. 

When the basics are off, we feel it through low energy, poor sleep, aches, brain fog, low resilience, to name a few.

Getting the basics right creates:

• Stability
• Better mood and focus
• A foundation for everything else in the series

Eating Regularly

Skipping meals increases stress hormones

Regular meals help:

• Energy
• Mood
• Concentration
• Aim for: Breakfast, lunch, dinner (snacks if needed)

We aren't looking for perfection—just consistency. We can build from that. Start simply and then enhance if needed as you go forward, that's what we're aiming for.

Hydration counts as nutrition 

Mild dehydration may lead to dips in energy, headaches, appetite cues (you feel hunger but what you really need is to hydrate yourself).

Ensure regular water and other fluid intake across the day. How much you need is dependent on many variables. One easy sign is the check your pee. If it is light straw yellow coloured, there's a good chance you're drinking enough. 

Be Gentle to You Reminder:

We chatted about the food and hydration tracking apps already. I have a downloadable pdf if you want to record on my one.

With all this it's not about controlling every morsel and fluid drop that you're consuming. It's finding your base level of nutrition now, notice gaps and then taking steps to remedy that, if necessary. Writing down your food and intake is just information. It's to help you notice the patterns you've fallen into so you can create more supporting habits that you find easy to maintain. 

Be curious, see it a tool to help you optimise your health, to support your overall wellness. It helps you to notice patterns and if you're nourishing yourself enough to thrive. 

Remember: if there are a lot of changes or things that used to work no longer do, that's not a failure on your part, it's physiology. 

If you're reading this and thinking "I'd like help to make sense of this', or I'd like help to try this, that's exactly what I support post menopausal women with.

Starting the Reset

After your tracking work above and noticing gaps and avenues for enhancing your eating and fluid intake, it's time to set a realistic goal to achieve this week. 

My preference is go at your pace and set an achievable goal you can focus on for the week ahead. Examples are;

• Eat regularly and avoid under-fuelling i.e 3 meals a day, with snacks if needed. 
• Add protein, both animal and plant varieties. It's a tough call to eat a lot of one protein especially a meat protein. Mix it up with plant proteins  
• Ensure sufficient fibre, 20-30g fibre is a great starting point, start very slowly
• Aim for a rainbow colour of fruit and vegetables 
• Stop being afraid of healthy fats, and start including a small amount of a healthy fat
• Keep hydrated for your needs, notice how that feels, do you have more energy can be a quick win?

Ready to begin? Start with one change at a time

Start by changing one thing, not everything.

• If you are starting with more fibre, begin slowly. Fibre can cause stomach upset if you eat too much, until your body is used to it. You're looking for balance, not picking one food group and overdoing it. Fibre matters for gut health, blood sugar balancing, helps with satiety, hormone health, heart health, maintains regularity. If you're increasing fibre, ensure you drink plenty of water.  
  
  Slowly does it, one step at a time. You're still moving forward. It could even be adding a small amount broccoli to your vegetable intake. Go at your pace. 

• If you're choosing protein, it's worth varying it by including plants sources e.g. seeds, beans, tofu, nuts, legumes along with animal proteins. It doesn't have to be an overload of meat products. It's a more colourful way to increase protein levels. Makes it more interesting and easily adds in more phytonutrients (plant nutrients) at the same time. Animal proteins is found in; eggs, meat, fish, poultry, dairy products. Proteins are essential for muscle repair and growth, brain function and mood regulation, hormone and enzyme production, energy, recovery and feeling sated. 
  
  
• Creating a rainbow of colour: Plant foods are your answer. Just by adding in plant proteins, you are increasing colour. Adding nuts, seeds, tofu, greens, beans are some of the ways to increase proteins and valuable plant nutrients, whilst adding a rainbow of colour to your plate. Think spices, herbs, hummus, greens, beets, sweet potato. Creating a rainbow of colour and nutrients. Your plate looks appetising and you want to dive in.
  
  
• Wanting to stay more hydrated? I find one of the easiest ways is to habit stack. If I'm at home, I use meal times, or doing the washing up as triggers for my filtered intake intake. When I'm exercising, I'll sip water after most exercises. It's also a chance to add in more rest. This way I'm stacking my water intake on to activities that I will be doing anyhow. At night I always have water on my dressing table, ready if I need it during the night.

Whatever your goal, aim for one change and only add another when that habit is settled or built in. It's slow but at this stage it's about building consistency and confidence. 

"Good health is not something you can buy. However, it can be an extremely valuable savings account (by Anne Wilson Schaefer)"

Nutrition is the base layer to build on. Once it is in place sleep improves more easily. No matter whether you're taking progesterone or not. If you're hungry, you'll be stressed, then you may lose sleep that night.

As you gain confidence with one change, make another based on your feedback from your tracking. Over time you'll have to review again to move forward on your wellness journey. 

These essentials aren't about today or next week, they're about protecting strength, independence and vitality in the years ahead. 

If as you’re reading to this and thinking, ‘I’d like help making sense of this,’ that’s exactly what I support women with. Check out how you can work with me with Essentials: a power hour (1:1), or Nurture: a 4 week programme (1:1). 

Til next time in wellness

Marian