Menopause Diet Info

Every woman experiences menopause in a different way. You can, by choosing a wise menopause diet and increasing your fitness level, lessen the severity of your symptoms. This will help you to avoid the weight gain that often accompanies menopause.

Menopause symptoms vary, but the most common ones are hot flashes, headaches, irritability, mood swings, night sweat, and weight gain. Weight gain is one of the most upsetting to face. Often, as a woman’s body nears menopause, her body begins to change the way that it processes food and someone who has never had a weight problem may be facing weight gain. As the body’s production of estrogen and progesterone begins to decline, the protection that these two key hormones have offered against heart disease, weight gain, and bone loss begins to dwindle.

This is where a menopause diet specifically geared to the deficiencies you are facing can be most beneficial. There are many factors working against you and your efforts to control your weight. During menopause, a woman’s body has greater difficulty with insulin regulation and this can encourage weight gain. Cortisol and other stress hormones that signal your body to retain fat are increasingly released into your system.

Exercise Strengthens a Menopause Diet

In addition to a menopause diet, exercise is important to help combat the fact that a woman’s body loses muscle mass as she ages and naturally begins moving less on an everyday basis. This is when it is important to focus both on a strong, healthy menopause diet and a regular exercise regimen. Keeping your weight in check will help reduce your risk of common diseases women face as they age, especially:

• Heart disease
• Osteoarthritis
• Cancer
• Diabetes

Some of the best menopause diet foods are foods containing large amounts of calcium. Getting approximately 1,200 mg of calcium every day will help keep your bones strong and helps you maintain a healthy weight. Beside milk, yogurt, soy milk, cottage cheese, broccoli, cheese, and green, leafy vegetables are all valuable sources of calcium. In addition, there are many products available today, including orange juice that includes added calcium.

Trying to change the way you eat can also help with weight control. Eating several small meals throughout the day rather than a few large meals will help you eat less and make better choices. A menopause diet filled with foods that have a high fiber content such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, beans, and whole grains will keep your internal organs functioning well and will help your body more efficiently regulate insulin.

Menopause Diet Should Center around Vegetables

Because they stay in your body longer, these foods will help you to eat less. Eating more vegetables can help your body deal with decreased levels of estrogen because they contain phytoestrogens, which are very similar to estrogen and may be able to convince your body that estrogen levels are not decreasing. In addition to phytoestrogens, vegetables also contain a mineral called boron that helps the body maintain the estrogen that it produces. It also helps reduce the level of calcium that a woman’s body loses, so it can help keep bones strong, addressing the menopause symptom of bone loss. Because they trick your body into believing that its estrogen levels have not dropped dramatically, they may help to reduce the instance of hot flashes.

The following fruits and vegetables are good sources of boron and should be included in a menopause diet:

• Apples
• Asparagus
• Red raspberries
• Lettuce
• Oranges
• Cucumbers
• Soybeans
• Strawberries
• Plums
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Grapes
• Sweet potatoes
• Tomatoes

Ideally, your diet should include between 3 and 5 vegetable servings and between 2 and 4 fruit servings each day.

Fat and Sugar Should Be Limited in Menopause Diet

While focusing on what you should add to your menopause diet is important, you need to learn which foods you should definitely decrease or eliminate all together in order to keep menopause symptoms under control. These foods include:

• Salt
• Saturated fat
• High-sugar foods
• Soft drinks
• Ice cream
• Pastry
• Bakery products
• Syrups
• White sugar

Menopause Diet Should Include Flaxseed and Tofu

Adding flaxseed to your diet gives you a good source of the phytoestrogen called lignans, which helps lower your risk of cancer and is a source of omega-3 fatty acids, which can help prevent the type of blood clots that can lead to heart attacks. In addition to flaxseed, adding tofu or soy to your menopause diet can help keep hot flashes under control while also helping lower bad cholesterol. This can be easily achieved by adding smoothies that include silken tofu or soy protein powder to your diet.

You can replace cow’s milk with soy milk, which is available in plain, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry flavors. Tofu comes in three forms which makes it easy to substitute for meat in a variety of meals, including spaghetti sauce, stews, and stir-frys.

While it is not part of a menopause diet, exercise is an important addition to a healthy diet and it will help to keep you slim and can keep menopause symptoms under control. Adopting a fitness routine will help to improve heart functioning, decrease stress, and improve circulation. Combining a strong exercise routine with a healthy menopause diet will help lessen the symptoms of menopause.