Nourishing Menopause:

Understanding the Cycle of Learning

We must unlearn dietary habits that cause menopause symptom triggers, inflammation or weight gain and rewire our approach to food. By doing so, we can sail through our later years
in good health. And hopefully pain-free.

Starting a new way of eating does require your continuous commitment to learning and understanding your nutritional needs in Menopause and which additional nutrients may help Menopause.

Our bodies have changed due to the shift in hormones. Therefore, we respond slowly to nutritional changes compared to how easy it was in the past!

Hormonal shifts slow down our response to dietary changes, making it crucial to learn & recognise and embrace the subtle shifts within us.

Stay updated with the latest science-backed resources online, seek wisdom from seasoned
nutrition experts, and join online support groups – Your Menopausal Toolkit!

Our lives are busy, right?
Do you prioritise your nutrition?
Do you study how to combat your symptoms by changing your food choices?
Do you keep a food diary?
Let’s face it: most of us will not make time. Not because we don’t want to, but because we need to rest, take precious moments out of our busy, hectic schedules, and squeeze in seeing our friends and loved ones regularly. I call this our “midlife time crunch.’

The cycle of learning isn’t just about theory! It’s hands-on! Meaning meal planning, grocery shopping and meal prepping. Again, we are taking even more time out of our day!

Adherence to a New Way of Eating

Imagine you have started the “new regime”. You are sticking to the new eating pattern. You are committed and willing to adapt.

After a few days, the challenges begin: cravings, emotional eating, pressures at home, and well-meaning friends nudging you towards old habits. Adherence isn’t a straight line; it’s a rollercoaster!

Your initial enthusiasm may wane as the realities of daily life set in. Hormonal fluctuations can influence mood and energy levels, impacting the motivation to stick to your new plan.
This phase requires not only personal determination but also a robust toolkit!

The Menopause Tool Kit:

Social support: For your plan to succeed, reaching out to your spouse, family and friends is essential.
Online communities: Full of like-minded women who can offer encouragement and share experiences. They will encourage you to keep on track.
Meal Prep: Accept that meal preparation and planning will be necessary to help mitigate the temptation of convenient but less nutritious food options.
Regular check-ins with your coach or healthcare professional will allow you to assess progress, adjust, and address emerging concerns.
Support & Guide books work well with a personalised plan as a reference and help maintain adherence through reading and knowledge. When you feel complacent & demoralised, reading through the pages can give you a sense of purpose. The Nutratonin Diet eBook is a guidebook that encourages The Nutratonin Diet method of eating and provides a structured framework for creating and maintaining healthy habits. It includes a timetable of meal planning for seven days a week, recipes, and strategies fostering a sustainable and balanced way of managing food.

Common barriers to nutritional success:

1. Frustration: The battle against weight gain is the most common frustration I address with my clients. Metabolic changes during Menopause and beyond can increase fat storage, especially around the abdomen. This shift impacts physical appearance and poses health risks, including a higher likelihood of cardiovascular issues. The inability to see rapid change makes adherence to anything new harder. The key here is to keep a diary of all your statistics, not just your body weight.

2. Emotions: Add another layer of complexity. Stress, anxiety, and mood swings may trigger emotional eating. The quest for comfort through food becomes a hurdle in maintaining a balanced diet for Menopause. It would be best if you adopted alternative coping mechanisms before starting a nutrition plan. I always suggest that women throw out processed meals immediately. Be sure to have your freezer full of prepped meals, as this will stop your ordering takeaways or buying supermarket meals on your way home. Ask your family to help you prepare your evening meals if you need more time. Always have a fridge full of ingredients to help your Menopause. Keep the sweet stuff under lock and key or out of the house altogether. Replace them with bowls of fruit. If your partner insists they still eat cookies and cups of tea every evening, foster your emotional resilience and have your strategies in place. Fresh mint tea is excellent for digestion after dinner; no cookies are necessary!

3. Old habits: Restrictive dieting & yo-yo dieting are far too familiar. Over my years of coaching women in midlife, and even before that, I have never seen long-term restrictive eating work for anyone! It leads to bingeing, disappointment, and a lifetime habit of yo-yo dieting. Learning to recognise the return of old habits before they take over again.

 

Top Tip for menopause weight loss success:

Use smaller plates. It sounds too easy, but reducing portion size matters. Most of us eat from large dinner plates. In the U.S., a standard dinner plate is twelve inches. In Europe, the
plate sizes are around nine inches. We may see weight loss over time if we reduce our plate size by even one inch, which is 25.4 millimetres. #thesmallplaterevolution
 

The Menopause Livia secret:

The key to planning your nutrition in Menopause is to find a way to increase your leptin levels. Leptin is a hormone that helps control your appetite and prevent weight loss plateaus, which, as you know, are common in Menopause. The fat doesn’t seem to shift. The Nutratonin Diet has been designed with L.I.V. days (Leptin Increases Vitality). Meaning on certain days of the week, you ‘join the party’ and enjoy the food that you love as part of your overall strategy to develop healthy, enjoyable, acceptable, lifetime habits.

Happiness and positivity are always high on the agenda. Feeling left out when ‘dieting’ is not fun, we made The Nutratonin Diet a perfect lifestyle. A social ‘diet’.

You will make consistent progress without feeling like you are missing out. When coupled with low-intensity Resista Exercise, The Nutratonin Diet is integral to helping you lose or manage your weight in a controlled way.

Strategies for Sustainable Change

Taking a ‘whole life” approach that considers the physical, emotional, and social aspects of our lives during Menopause. Here are some strategies to help you:

• Personalised Nutrition Plans: Yes, it is worth the outlay of working with experienced nutrition experts & health professionals who understand the relationship between food types, their effect on YOUR body, when to eat them and how much of it you need. Most importantly, they develop a meal plan with you. Taking into account your health, your schedule, your likes & dislikes. It will save cost and stress in the long term. Tailoring dietary recommendations to YOU means you are more likely to stick to the plan. It’s never one size fits all.

• Mindful Eating Practices: These simple tactics may help to prevent mindless overeating

1. Encourage mindfulness during meals, promoting a deeper connection with food.
2. Sit down to eat.
3. Chew your food at a slower pace.
4. Use smaller mugs, bowls & dinner plates.

• Exercise: Make ‘moving’ a regular daily practice.

Tune it into everyday life to support metabolism, mood, and overall well-being. Personalised Fitness Plans tailored to your hectic schedule with the correct modes, frequency, intensity and duration for your body in Menopause. You are more inclined to stick with a fitness plan and see the successes by working with a menopause fitness coach individually as opposed to following a mass-market exercise protocol with no individual help when you need it the most.

• Behavioural change: Try counselling and professional support alongside your personalised plans to address emotional eating patterns and develop healthier coping mechanisms.

• Education and Empowerment: Knowledge is always your power in any walk of life. The more we understand the physiological & psychological changes during Menopause, the more we can make informed choices regarding our health.

The cycle of learning, adherence, and difficulty sustaining a healthy eating pattern during Menopause is a challenging journey. It requires us to look at all the elements involved. Social, personal and biological. We can gain a lot from self-education, reaching out for support to the right people and looking at 1-1 options. The process is a challenging task, but it is possible. It requires resilience to reach your goals and maintaining a balanced, nourishing way of eating that helps every aspect of your health, personal and social life. So, ladies, let’s tackle Menopause with a grin and a plateful of wisdom!

Control your symptoms with Menopause Livia

Menopause Livia is backed by over 30 years of experience in health and fitness. We know the best place to start to take control of your symptoms is through nutrition and exercise with The Nutratonin Diet and Livia’s Resista methods. Contact Menopause Livia for a consultation (Resista ReView 1-1 with Liv) and find out the best way to start your journey to a happier, healthier menopause.

 

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