Are you struggling with menopause symptoms like hot flashes, sweats, sleeplessness, brain fog, and weight gain? You are not alone. Take back control of your body and make menopause the best years of your life!

I share how I got rid of the uncomfortable symptoms, lost over 30 pounds, and am thriving so you can do it, too!

You can sleep through the night, have tons of energy, feel vibrant, and lose weight without dieting or starving yourself.  

It’s all about better digestion. The Gut-Brain connection controls your hormones, blood sugar, and metabolism. I’ll cover how to eat strategically, the main trigger foods to watch out for, and why managing stress is the key to rocking menopause!  

Join me to get the strategies my dietitians and I have used to help thousands of women reclaim their health, and transition with confidence and ease.   

Tess’s Takeaways: 

• The Gut-Brain Connection Controls Your Hormones and Metabolism. 
• You Can Manage Menopause With Strategic Food Choices.  
• Dieting Causes The Downregulation Of Key Hormones.   
• Balancing Hormones Goes Beyond Estrogen and Progesterone.  
• Why Blood Sugar Is Critical During Menopause. 
• The Key To Controlling Sugar Cravings.  
• How Stress and Cortisol Increase Belly Fat. 
• The Foods That Trigger Hot Flashes and Sweats. 

Meet Tess Masters:  

Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of The Decadent Detox® and Skinny60® health programs.     

Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape, Glamour, Real Simple, Yoga Journal, Yahoo Health, Hallmark Channel, The Today Show, and many others.   

Tess’s magnetic personality, infectious enthusiasm, and down-to-earth approach have made her a go-to personality for people of all dietary stripes who share her conviction that healthy living can be easy and fun. Get delicious recipes at TheBlenderGirl.com.  

Connect With Tess: 

Website: https://tessmasters.com/  

Podcast Website: https://ithastobeme.com/   

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theblendergirl/  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblendergirl/  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/theblendergirl  

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/theblendergirl  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessmasters/  

Get Healthy With Tess 

Free Menopause Nutrition Guide: http://ItHasToBeMe.com/MenopauseGuide

Skinny60®: https://www.skinny60.com/  

Join the 60-Day Menopause Reset: https://www.skinny60.com/menopause-60-day-reset/

The Decadent Detox®: https://www.thedecadentdetox.com/  

Join the 14-Day Cleanse: https://www.thedecadentdetox.com/14-day-guided-cleanses/ 

The Blender Girl: https://www.theblendergirl.com/  

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Mentioned in this episode:

Menopause Masterclass

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Today I want to talk about menopause. And I am so grateful that we are now in an era where that is not a dirty word. Women are using the word menopause and sharing their stories openly about their struggles during menopause, what they're doing to thrive during menopause. And so I want to talk about that today. I feel like we are in the era of celebrating older women. Is it just me because I'm an older woman, or I feel like we're really celebrating the value of older women and what we bring to the world. Our strength, resilience, intelligence, our beauty, the life experience that we contribute to the world. And so if you are a woman over 40, going through perimenopause, or menopause, post menopause in your 60s 70s 80s and 90s. This is the episode for you. I shared a little bit about my menopause story in episode one, where I talked about how I used the power of strategic eating and better nutrition to support my dad with his healing journey from cancer. And it coincided with me struggling with menopause. And I've received a ton of emails and messages from listeners asking specifically what I did to feel so incredible during menopause. So I want to share this with you today. So if you are struggling with stubborn belly fat, weight gain, inability to lose weight, you're not sleeping through the night you've got low energy and fatigue, you've got horrible hot flashes and night sweats. You're you've got hair thinning and balding or incredibly dry here. You've got low libido, pain during intercourse. Anxiety, depression, high stress, feeling like you're going crazy. And you just feel completely out of control through this menopause journey and you feel like you're going crazy. I hear this all the time from women, please know that there is hope. You have the power to control how you feel. And you absolutely can thrive during menopause. I have done it. And I have helped 1000s of women do it now. So I want to help you as well. Alright, so the sex hormones get all of the press with regards to the menopause story all the menopause madness press right. It's all about you know, optimizing or balancing your primary sex hormones, your estrogen, progesterone, testosterone DHEA. That is absolutely part of the story. And it absolutely has to happen for you to feel good, but it's only part of the story. So there are over 150 different hormones in the body. And they control how we think and how we feel. And so here's the great news. You can optimize all of these hormones with strategic eating and lifestyle choices, right? So when you optimize some of the other hormones like insulin, cortisol, oxytocin, GLP, one, all these different hormones and some key neurotransmitters. The sex hormones start to come into balance more easily. It is magical. The human body is an incredible machine when we are strategic about our food and lifestyle choices. All right. So I'm going to share some of these things with you today. So my personal journey started in my early to mid 40s. So I talked in episode one about how when I was a teenager, I really learned the value of and the power of better nutrition through my Epstein Barr Virus journey and my recovery and healing from that. So from a very early age, I learned that nutrition really matters and I felt it in my body with my healing. So in my 20s, my 30s and my early 40s I was really thriving because I was very, very attentive to my food and nutrition. I was eating very well I was exercising, I was flying. I just enjoyed good health in my 20s 30s and early 40s. And then, in my sort of around 4445 I went through a breakup and it was really you know, breakups are hard. So I was really sad. It was a beautiful relationship, but we just knew that it wasn't right and it needed to end but it's still a huge loss. So I did a lot of crying under the covers and comfort eating watching rom coms and you know, wondering what my next move was going to be, you know, feeling pretty lost and, and upset about it all. So to be honest, when some of these menopause symptoms started cropping up, I kind of just put it down to the fact that I was a little bit depressed and was really sad about my breakup. And so I ignored it for a little bit. So I started to not sleep through the night, I put on over 30 pounds, almost 40 pounds, I started to not really care care about my appearance, I started moving through the world in sweatpants and kind of hiding, really, and not really paying attention. So I was sort of, I just put that down to the fact that I was eating potato chips and french fries and cake and you know, soothing my aching heart kind of thing. And I said, I know what to do to take the weight off, that'll it'll be fine. You know, no big deal. I got the nutrition thing down, right, I exercise, it's going to be fine. But then, it just wasn't as easy. Nothing was staying where it used to stay. I used to just be able to eat whatever I wanted to eat, and I'll just exercise off and it would be fine. Well, once I hit my mid 40s, that wasn't the case anymore. What I used to do all the time that was working wasn't working anymore. And so that was the first red flag I kind of went okay, well I can I'm getting older. This is aging, I guess this is how it's going to be even I succumb to that myth. Even I bought into the myth that its aging. And then I just have to put up with it. Even though I teach this stuff that is emotionally what I still bought into. And so then I started to get a few other symptoms. You know, I was feeling pretty heavy. And you know, I put the sleeplessness and waking up multiple times throughout the night. Oh, this is what all the women talk about. I guess this is how it's gonna be seriously. And then it just started to really start impacting my life. I was really, really tired throughout the day, I didn't feel like working out I was sort of feeling disconnected. I didn't really care anymore, but I still put it down to the to the breakup. But then the hot flashes started coming and the night sweats and and again, in the beginning I went oh gosh, is it hot in here is gosh, you know, I put it down to central air conditioning or heating or something, you know. Then I went the penny dropped. And I went, Ah, this is menopause. This is perimenopause. This is what all these women are talking about. Oh, this is awful. I can't live like this. I felt really withdrawn. My hair got dry like straw.

You know, I mean, everything dries up, doesn't it? You know what I mean? Right? Hermia hair all the way down to you and other bits, right? It is just awful. And I started getting some food cravings and I just felt really withdrawn and starting to feel pretty hopeless to be honest with you. And really, I was rescued by my dad's cancer diagnosis because I really had to help him pay attention to his food. And by extension, it really put a mirror up to me going wait a second tears, you've got some of these some of these symptoms and you're ignoring and and just putting it down to this or this or this. So you know, and just not paying attention. I was so busy with other things. I was stressed through the roof, you know. And so, so busy with work. And then I had to pay attention. Right. And I was so grateful that I did because I really really learned some stuff that I needed to learn about the relationship between gut health and menopause between blood sugar and menopause and, and metabolism and menopause. And in all the things right and stuff that I really needed to drill down on. Even though I knew some of the science, I wasn't connecting the dots the way that I needed to. And we don't get taught this is women. This is the other thing, right? It's like, well, you know, if I have $1 for every woman that comes into one of my programs and says Oh, my doctor just said yes, men are just gonna have to ride it out. This is just how it is. Well scuze me but screw that. I'm not doing that. I want to be proactive with my health. I did not want to keep living like that. So I just started going into massive research mode, excuse me, massive research mode. And I researched with my doctors with dieticians with hormone specialists, I thought I want to figure out how to feel better with nutrition and and changing some lifestyle things and I just want to see how this is going to go for me. And one thing I'll say about menopause is your journey is unique to you. Every Woman's Journey is unique and there is no right or wrong way to navigate your menopause journey. It's whatever feels right for you and what you decide in consultation with your doctor and practitioners right? For me, I decided that I didn't need hormone replacement therapy because I was able to optimize my blood sugar, my hormones, my metabolism, all with diet and lifestyle strategies. But you may decide you want to do a mixture of both right it's completely up to you but what I will say and what I have learned with my team of doctors and dieticians and through our programs is that any successful approach to thriving during menopause needs to be rooted in better gut health. Because your gut, controls your hormones, controls the way you think and feel controls absolutely everything. So if your gut is in trouble, your hormones are in trouble. If your gut is in trouble, the rest of your health is in trouble. Right. And so this, again, is why all the work that I do leads back to better gut health, it just is the key to everything and all of the other markers of better health stem from that. So your gut health, your blood sugar, your hormones, and your metabolism are all connected. All right. So when I learned that and realize the way to harness the power of that biological connection, and that science, every everything opened up for me, I lost over 35 pounds, and I have been able to keep it off, I do not worry about menopausal weight, or whether or not I can maintain a weight. I don't it's not, it's not even a factor anymore, because it's just become so easy to take it off and then maintain it. And I've helped 1000s of women do the same since that I started to sleep through the night. And I sleep like a baby now, like literally like I did in my 20s I wake up with so much energy. I don't have any hot flashes or sweats. My moods are stable, I feel positive, energized, vibrant, my hair has changed. I mean, just everything has changed my sex drive everything. And I'll talk about all of this. And the answers were actually very, very simple. And so a lot of it I was doing prior to this, but I didn't have my protein dialed in. And I wasn't eating really strategically for my body at this time. So I really encourage you to keep a food diary. And notice how different foods are affecting your body at this time, right? And it changes as your hormones change, right? So I talked about how the sex hormones are only part of the story and how there's there's all of these other hormones over 150 hormones and all these neurotransmitters, right? So the thing about the gut health piece that's so important to understand is that your nervous system has two main parts, right, so you have your central nervous system, which is your brain in your spinal cord. And then there's this other thing called the peripheral nervous system. And the largest part of the peripheral nervous system is what's called the enteric nervous system. And that's what's known as that gut brain connection that gut brain access that you might have heard about. That is not some diet fad, or some weird thing. It is a real physiological thing in the body. And we are learning more and more scientists and doctors how powerful it really is and how it controls everything. It's like an information superhighway. Your gut sends messages to your brain and your brain sends messages to your gut and it controls absolutely every single thing in your body. Right. So the gut brain connection physiologically It stretches from your your the lower third of your esophagus, all the way through to your rectum right to the vagus nerve is the largest one of the biggest nerves that connects your gut and your brain, right? But there's all of these other different different nerves, right? And your gut also controls all these neurotransmitters right? So the main ones you would have heard about a dopamine serotonin and GABA, right? It's all these like, love connection, feel good peace and calm, you know, neurotransmitters, right? Really, really important during menopause, right? The other piece of the puzzle you might have heard about, you might have heard someone say, or a doctor might have said to you, well, you really need to be watching your probiotics during menopause, right? I mean, we all need to be looking at this at any age. But during menopause, it is absolutely paramount. Right? So I call them the three P's. Right? We don't just need probiotics. We need prebiotics and post biotics the three P's. Right? So probiotics, the beneficial good gut bacteria, the beneficial microbes, right? So there's a war raging inside our body all the time between there's billions of micro organisms and some are beneficial and some are hostile. Right? So the beneficial microbes are the ones that are going to support better health, right and then there's all these other micro organisms that are the bad army basically, you got the good army and the bad army. And there's just an A war raging between the good and the bad. And in a balanced healthy body. We want the beneficial microbes to outnumber the good army to outnumber the bad army. Right? But the bummer is that every single thing that we do feel feeds the bad gut bacteria except for eating well, right? environmental pollutants, stress, drugs, prescription and non prescription, you know, sedentary lifestyle, poor food choices, all this stuff pushes it out of our favor. So we have to mindfully top it back up again, right? So that we can stay in balance. All right. So really, really important stuff in terms of this better gut health piece, right?

I want to connect the dots between this gut health and estrogen conversation though, because this is really, really key for women, right? So estrogen, which is our primary sex hormone, which decreases rapidly while we're going through perimenopause, menopause, and then post menopause, right, and ends up being a fraction of what it is, during our childbearing years. Estrogen is a protective hormone, right? So but when estrogen is released, it needs to bind to a protein, right in order to work properly, and it's called an estrogen receptor. You might have heard that term, right? There's a lot of estrogen receptors in your gut. So it makes sense, right, that better gut health equals increased estrogen receptiveness, right. So the other key connection is gut health and your moods, right. So it's very common to have all kinds of mood swings, feeling pretty depressed, pretty down, teary. Like I hear this all the time with women, if I experienced this, too, like, the slightest little thing can set you off, and things that used to just ricochet off you in your 20s and 30s. All of a sudden, that the slightest little thing, and you're just bursting into tears all the time, you feel like your skin's not thick enough, and you can't handle life, right? You are not going crazy. You just need to be more in balance, right? And you you have the power to do this with food and lifestyle choices, right? I felt like I was going crazy. And I hear this from women in our 60 Day reset all the time, right? And then with some simple tweaks, you feel like you're in control again. And that is a great feeling, right? So this mood thing with gut health is really key, right? So your gut controls your moods. So there is this misconception that the majority of the serotonin gets produced in our brain that it comes from the brain. Actually, it's 5%, or less than 5% of serotonin is actually produced in your brain, over 95% of it is actually produced in your gut. Right? So the other thing about serotonin, this feel good neurotransmitter is that when our gut health is not good, we don't produce enough serotonin. Right? So it's very much dependent. The production of serotonin is very much dependent on better gut health and digestion. Right? So lower serotonin equals increased appetite and food cravings, right? I'll talk about that in just a minute. Because it's so so key. What do we feel like doing when we're going through menopause? We want to eat potato chips and candy bars. We have all these food cravings and sugar cravings. Why do we crave the sugar because that's the food that's the drug of choice for for the good for the bad microbes, I should say, right? The food of choice for the good microbes is vegetables is those prebiotics. I'll get back to that in a minute. Right? The prebiotics, the post, the probiotics and the post biotics, right? So serotonin is made from the amino acid tryptophan, you've probably heard about that with Turkey, right? We've all heard that. Everyone's tired after they eat turkey on Thanksgiving or Christmas, right? Your body can't make tryptophan you have to take it in from foods. So animal protein and plant protein right contains tryptophan. So just be mindful of that, right? You want to be eating some tryptophan so that you can stimulate the production of serotonin in addition to your gut health, right? So going back to this prebiotics, probiotics and post biotics, right? So the probiotics need food, right to thrive, the good gut bacteria, the good army needs food, right to keep to keep fighting the good fight, right. And their food of choice is the prebiotics. That's the vegetables. It's the fiber from plant foods, right? The resistant starches from starchy vegetables and grains, that sort of stuff, right? That's the food for the good gut bacteria. So the food that you put into your body, you want to be feeding the good army, not the bad army, right? We want to be feeding our good army that's protecting us, right? So when the probiotics feed on the prebiotics, when they eat and they ferment those things, and they get healthy and strong. They produce what's called post biotics. So these are, some of them are short chain fatty acids, right and one of them is this thing called butyrate. And that stimulates a hormone in your gut known as GLP one. Now you've probably heard of GLP one Because of ozempic, and trulicity, and all of these GLP, one agonist injections that so many people are on to lose weight to regulate their blood sugar in diabetes or whatever, right? Well, GLP one is a hormone that you can optimize with better food and lifestyle choices, right? It is a hormone produced in the gut. And this, this butyrate, which is the post biotic stimulates the production of GLP. One. So this is where these food choices and this better gut health becomes so important, right? So it's a naturally occurring hormone and ozempic trulicity. All that kind of mimics the action of that and puts it on steroids, basically. Right? Well, we want to have appropriate amounts, not crazy high amounts, right? We want to be what's doing what's appropriate for our body, right? So why is GLP one so important? Because GLP one speaks to other hormones in your body, right to control your appetite, your food cravings, your hunger, your satiety, how full you feel, and your blood sugar. Right? So GLP, one speaks to insulin, another hormone. So insulin is a hormone that is released by your pancreas. Right? And that that regulates your blood sugar, right? I'll talk about that in just a minute. Right? GLP one also speaks to two other really key hormones leptin and Grillon. So leptin is your satiety hormone. I've had enough I don't need to eat any more. I don't have food cravings, right? Grill and I think I remember like girls are like I'm hungry. Ghrelin is your hunger hormone. Right? So GLP one regulates how much leptin and ghrelin is released, how hungry you are, how full you are, right? That's why these GLP one agonist medications have been so successful, right? For so many people, right? So poor gut health means less GLP one hormone production. So what happens is your body can't process fats efficiently, excess fats efficiently, right? So your metabolism and your ability to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight is all controlled by your gut. Right? So metabolic dysfunction is what it's called, is very, very common during menopause. It's incredibly common. That's why so many women in menopause get diagnosed as pre diabetic, or type two diabetic or with fatty liver disease. That's a metabolic dysfunction related thing, right? This is why these things are becoming epidemics in society, right? So many women in our program come in as pre diabetic hormones out of whack, and fatty liver. Because remember, over 25, it's now estimated over 30% of people have liver disease. And I'm going to bring in

a liver expert, right to talk to you about this because it's so important, right? So incredibly important. All right. So let's go back to this blood sugar piece, because blood sugar is, is one of the most important indicators of health at any age. But particularly during menopause, you need to be monitoring and being mindful about your blood sugar. All right, so you're taking we all take in carbohydrates, sugar, all carbohydrates get broken down into into simple sugars. Carbohydrates are the body's preferred source of energy, right? But we also take in fats, quality fats, and quality protein. And that is how we create fuel, right to produce energy, right for proper metabolic function. So we can live and our body can do everything we want to do, right. But the thing about blood sugar, we don't want the sugar to hang out in the blood for too long, right? The sugar, the blood is just a transportation mechanism for the sugar to get into the cells where it's needed to produce energy, right? So we don't want the sugar to be in the blood for too long, we needed to get into the cells. So the transportation of the sugar from the blood to the cells is dictated by hormones by these hormones, right? And some key neurotransmitters like I talked about dopamine, serotonin, GABA and all these other things, right. So you may have heard the term insulin resistance. It's very, very common during menopause, right? So when you move into perimenopause and menopause, you can become what's called insulin resistant, right? So insulin, the hormone, right. Very important during menopause, right. So, as I said, insulin is produced by your pancreas to regulate the amount of glucose Use in your blood, right? So when your hormones are out of balance, your cells can't process glucose efficiently. Right? So what happens? Your liver then converts the unprocessed carbohydrates to fat. And so where does it get stored? Where does the fat gets stored during menopause in our belly, that stubborn belly fat around our hips, around our thighs, around our chin and under our eyes, you know, that horrible kind of those fat deposits those bags under your eyes, right? So if we think about it, insulin, the hormone insulin is a fat storing hormone, right? So if you are listening, and you are really struggling to lose weight during menopause and keep it off this blood sugar piece, it's it's really important, right to listen to this bit, right? So the other key thing just to connect the dots a little bit. Insulin resistance pushes estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and other key hormones out of whack, just pull, boom. It's just completely out of balance, right? And as I said before, estrogen is a protective hormone, right? And it's a hormone that supports better blood sugar, right? So lower estrogen levels through perimenopause, menopause and post menopause. It throws your digestion out of whack. So do you see how it's all connected? Right? So when your gut health is bad is poor or is compromised, you have excess insulin in your bloodstream, right? Because you got to push more in to lower the blood sugar, right? So you just got this this spiral, right? So then what happens is, how is this blood sugar piece of further connected to your sex hormones to estrogen and some other things right? Your body starts to over produce estrogen. Right? So that's what helps to cause the brain fog, the fatigue, the mood swings, the dryness, the hot flashes, the sweats, and the weight gain, right? So menopause, these menopause symptoms. They're all symptoms of insulin resistance, right? So if you don't regulate your blood sugar, with better food and lifestyle choices, you can also develop diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and all kinds of other chronic conditions. So menopause, and aging puts you at a higher risk for all of those conditions, which is why they are so common in older women, right? So this gut health piece, this blood sugar piece, you see how it's really connected with your hormones, right, and and how you think and feel right? Your metabolism, your ability to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight. Some women, they don't need to lose weight, they need to gain weight, right. So this comes up a lot in our six year reset, we've got to help women gain weight. So you may be listening, going, like that's not my problem, right? So it's about maintaining an appropriate weight for your body. Right, whether it's losing weight, gaining weight, or just maintaining weight, right? It's all affected by this stuff, right? The other thing that happened to me and I'm sure you can relate to this is that everything dries up right from your hair, your mouth all the way down to your to your nether bits, right. So staying hydrated during menopause is so incredibly important, right? So I'll just share some of the things that I did. And some things that we help women in our community do right so drinking water, filtered water and water based beverages like herbal teas, and, and so forth regularly throughout the day is really, really important to stay hydrated so our bodies can only absorb so much water per hour. So by the time your lips and skin are dry, your mouth is dry, you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated. So you want to be drinking regularly throughout the day. So you don't get to that point and so that your body can actually absorb the water that you're taking in. Right. So herbal teas there are some strategic herbal teas that really helped me and have helped a lot of women in our community. Chamomile Tea is a beautiful herbal tea right because it's not only tastes fabulous, writes quite relaxing. But chamomile tea naturally increases oxytocin, that love connection bonding hormone, right, and I'm going to talk about stress and oxytocin a little bit later because it's so so key to this, right. It lowers cortisol levels to chamomile tea, right? Cortisol is our stress hormone, right? And we just feel stressed and kind of out of control. We can feel like that during menopause, right? There's some also some other tea blends that I really love. There's a there's some tea blends with licorice with sage, right? These teas have been shown in some studies to help reduce hot flashes or the length and severity of those hot flashes. So you may want to try just some natural things like this could also support your journey. And we've definitely had lots of women in our community experience some great results with those things. If you are an omnivore and you consume animal products, really high quality small batch or homemade bone broth can be really, really good during menopause, right? So it's Alkalyn forming, its immune boosting, it's loaded with collagen, which we need for our skin. It's also contains magnesium, which is wonderful to help you relax. But it's also a really wonderful hormone balancing mineral, I'll talk about magnesium in a little bit too. It also hydrates you, right, just for better, better digestion, skin joints, and all that sort of stuff. So depending on your dietary stripes, there are some options for you to stay hydrated. The other way that we stay hydrated is by eating raw fruits and vegetables, these mineral rich fruits and vegetables, plant foods that contain water, right. So that's the other way that we stay hydrated. So I think you know, a great strategy is to make one of your meals a Raw Meal. So a smoothie, a salad, a gazpacho, something like that. And eating just something little raw with every cooked meal. So that might be a side salad. It might be some chopped up cucumber, really, really great strategy to stay hydrated throughout the day. One of the other really, really key things and it helped me enormously and it's helped so many women in our community is this sugar piece, right? I mean, sugar is just a drug. It's the most powerful drug on Earth, right? It's just delicious. Let's be honest, right? It makes everything taste good, right? But this these debilitating, all consuming, I feel like it's controlling my life sugar cravings that that women talk about during menopause.

They can really feel like they're controlling your life, right? And getting them under control is just really key, right? I mean, sugar. It's one of the biggest known triggers, triggers for menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, right, and sweats and things like that. That's the first thing. But sugar at any age, it just messes with your brain chemistry, it messes with your hormones, it sends them out of whack. It feeds the bad bacteria, the bad army in your gut, it's their drug of choice, their food of choice, right? It also just causes more food cravings, and it causes fatigue, and it disrupts your sleep. Right. So one of the quickest, easiest things you can do to just feel better throughout menopause is just to really moderate your sugar consumption, natural sugars and added sugars, right? It's just to be really thinking about that. Some other things I'll say, there are a lot of known trigger foods that are well documented, you know, like gluten, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, grains, beans, corn, soy, there are all kinds of foods that can really bring on hot flashes, sweats, you know, mood swings, that kind of stuff. But again, everybody is different. So I use soy as an example. Soy is a contains phyto estrogens, right. In some women, eating a little bit of soy can actually help balance hormones. And in other women, it is a huge trigger food, massive hot sweats, night sweats, hot flashes, things like that, right? So, again, keep that food diary and just start paying attention to how different foods are affecting you right now. Keeping a food diary of food and symptom journal, that's anecdotal data, it never replaces clinical data, having you know, medical testing done with your doctor and other practitioners. But it can certainly inform the conversations that you can have with them about how you're feeling and how different foods and practices are affecting how you feel in your body, right. Another really easy thing that you can do is just to take in balanced nutrition. So I talked about why it's important to you know, to take in protein and fats and carbohydrates. Just be looking and just paying attention to the composition of your meals and snacks. Right? So do you have a few different colors of vegetables, right? I always love to have something green, you know, do you have an orange? Do you have a purple? Do you have a blue? Do you have a yellow? You know, there's just so many different wonderful fruits and vegetables getting in a variety of different different foods and different nutrients is really powerful. Is there a source of quality protein on your plate? Do you have some quality plant fats like avocado, extra virgin olive oil, things like that? Right? So having a source of protein, fats and carbs on your plate, right? The protein piece is a really big one at any time in life. Right protein is responsible for every metabolic process in the body from digestion to cell repair, but during menopause. The protein strategy is an absolute game changer. This was the missing piece for me when I went through my menopause journey. I was doing a lot of this other stuff that I'm telling you about. But I wasn't monitoring my protein. I wasn't taking in the appropriate amount of protein for my needs, right and your needs change. Right, your needs are determined by your weight, your activity levels, health status, health goals, medications you're taking, everybody's protein needs are slightly different, right, and there's different protein guestimation, we use a protein guestimation tool in our 60 Day reset to help people as a starting point. And then we add and subtract from there based on activity levels and all these other factors, right. So, you know, this is why it's helpful to have practitioners help you right, and people that really know what they're doing to help you navigate this journey, right. So just know with protein more is just more, just like what I was talking about with the water, the human body can only absorb and assimilate so much protein at a time. So it's around about, I'm gonna say on an average of about 20 grams of protein, maybe 25 Max. There are some exceptions to this, of course, but as a general rule, right, what I have found in my personal life, just with my family and friends, but definitely as a coach and in our program in our 60 Day reset our dieticians all the time, over half of the people in our program are taking in not even half the protein that they need to be taking it mostly women are not taking in enough protein, right? And so this protein piece is so key, right? Because Protein helps control your appetite, right? It helps to regulate your blood sugar, protein communicates energy status to your brain, right? So Protein helps decrease that. That hunger hormone, the ghrelin, right? It stimulates the production of GLP one, right? That that hormone in the gut, right, that controls your appetite and your blood sugar, right, and your hunger and satiety, all that kind of stuff. So protein is really, really key. It also stimulates collagen production, right? And we know that our skin takes a beating during menopause, right? So just be mindful of your protein right? So if you're an omnivore quality sources of animal protein, right, so we my doctors and dieticians we love wild caught fish like salmon and wild caught sardines, wild caught cod that contains all of those omega threes, right those anti inflammatory Omega fatty acids that are so incredible for brain health and and appropriate inflammatory responses and better better body function. Bone broth again really, really good for that for additional protein. If you're a vegan or vegetarian or you're an omnivore nuts and seeds are incredible and we like the alkaline forming nuts and seeds. We're talking about walnuts, almonds, chia, hemp, and flax seeds, right? Beans if you're a vegetarian, really, really great but beans can be a trigger food so just be be noticing you know which beans your body tolerates and which ones they don't. And vegetables while they're not a reliable source of protein. They do contain amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, right? So really, really important to be looking at your protein. I cannot stress this enough. It has been an absolute game changer for 1000s of women in our community like has completely changed the game for them. All right, so I can't stress it enough truly, quality fats are also really important. So this high old idea of fat makes you fat. That is a myth. All right, there is no one macronutrient that makes you put on weight when you're eating quality fats quality plant fats like avocado, nuts and seeds, extra virgin olive oil, stuff like that. Right? quality fats are actually the building blocks of hormones right they're essential during menopause absolutely essential. So again, I'm talking about the wild caught fatty fish like salmon and sardines, eggs, extra virgin olive oil, avocado, walnuts, and almonds. For those of you that are vegan and vegetarian, chia, hemp and flax, they all contain omega threes, right? Nuts and seeds also contain phyto estrogens right to help regulate, you know, estrogen levels, right. Nuts and seeds also contain magnesium right to support healthy progesterone levels. They also contain phenyl alanine, right which helps to boost dopamine production in your brain, right so nuts and seeds. The bomb diggity, right. In terms of strategic vegetables to consume leafy greens, you know, kale, baby bok choy, spinach, chard, all those things. I mean, they're amazing foods. Cruciferous vegetables are also just the bomb diggity, right so we're talking about cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, kale, all that sort of thing. Clean pathways, your hormones that hormone superhighway messaging system around your body needs clean pathways, right? And nothing cleans things up better than leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables, right? They've got all these amazing detox compounds that like shoot a ballistic missile to the bad army, right? alliums are also great unless you're intolerant so garlic, onions, leeks, et cetera, right? So all these foods are alkaline forming, they combat the acids. They combat the inflammation and the stress, environmental pollutants, processed foods, animal foods, right? They hydrate your body. They're loaded with vitamins, minerals and fiber. Remember, the fiber is the food, the prebiotics for the good gut bacteria for our good army, right. The other thing to note about these foods and why vegetables are so incredible is that these high fiber carbohydrates, they really facilitate the binding and removal of unbound active estrogens. Right. Really important, right? Remember I talked about that overproduction of estrogen, right. So these foods or these foods also help regulate melatonin, right, which helps us relax and go to sleep, right? help regulate cortisol, that stress hormone, right. It's also really powerful for cholesterol, right? And it's very common to get those that that bloodwork back, when you're going through menopause, that your cholesterol is through the roof, your blood pressure is through the roof, you your agency levels are really high. This is very, very common during menopause, right.

The other key thing like I talked about with the gut health thing is just fermented foods, right, eating fermented foods every day that contain all those beneficial microbes that beneficial probiotics, we've got to constantly be replenishing and topping up our stores of beneficial microbes, right. So the sauerkraut, fermented sauerkraut, fermented kimchi, kefir, beet, kovarsky, all these different things, right. And there's yogurts, there's just so many beautiful things that you can consume that contain beneficial microorganisms that are going to help win the war every day, right between the good army and the bad army, right. Some other foods that I want to mention are fresh herbs and spices and dried herbs and spices, right really powerful foods, right? So Tumeric really stimulates the production of some of those key neurotransmitters also combats inflammation in the body. Ginger is also a really powerful anti inflammatory agent that can easily be added to smoothies introduces into salad dressings, and to soups and stews and all kinds of food, right grains, all sorts of things. Parsley and cilantro are a natural key leaders, right. So they help to draw toxins out of the body. So really great things to add to salads and stir through things and smoothies and all kinds of stuff. Mint is a beautiful her because it's got a natural cooling property to it right if you're going through hot flashes, and things like that. So just a few little tips and tricks there. Berries are another one I want to mention because not only are they just delicious, I mean strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, I mean, they're just yummy, yummy. But they also contain phyto estrogens, and they're also low in natural sugar, right? So they can really help to boost levels to optimize your hormones, you know, to support better body function. Alright. So hopefully, you're getting the idea that you can eat lots of really incredible foods that can support optimizing your blood sugar and your hormones and your metabolism and also supporting better gut health. Right? So I talked in episodes 123 and four, probably like a broken record about how much I hate diets, right? First of all, I love food more than oxygen, right? I want to eat when I want to eat and I want to eat, how much I want to eat. And I do not want to starve and deprive myself and limit my experience of life. Right. And to me diets play into that deprivation mentality. They are miserable. They're not sustainable. They're just not fun. And food should be fun. We're doing it all day, every day, right? And I don't want to limit and restrict myself and I we don't in our programs, we don't support anybody doing that, right. So if you're listening, and you're thinking about staying on a diet ongoing or going on another diet, I really encourage you to really rethink that. Because science now shows us that dieting is one of the worst things you can do when you're going through menopause. And I'll tell you why. I mean, starving yourselves not going to be the answer long term at any age. But during menopause science and the studies show us that starvation causes the down regulation of key hormones of the downregulation of estrogen and progesterone and testosterone, your primary sex hormones that are already in decline. As you're going through menopause, we don't want them to decline anymore, right? We want to keep what we've got and we want to optimize, right? So when you are not eating regularly throughout the day, it's not going to help with your hormone balancing. Right. So we see this all the time in our 60 Day reset when we get the we everybody has a a member questionnaire and any new evaluation you get personally evaluated by our team of dieticians. It is I'm gonna say over half I'm gonna say probably three quarters of the women in our community I Under nourishing themselves, they're not eating regularly throughout the day, they're only eating one meal or two meals a day. It's not enough. So it doesn't mean that you, you force feed yourself when you're not hungry. But we're just advocating eating smaller meals and snacks, even just a couple of bites of something, right? Because it helps regulate your blood sugar. We don't want those huge spikes in blood sugar and then crashes, right? We want to have these lovely little rolling hills, they call them right just regulated, beautiful, even blood sugar throughout the day and throughout the night, right? That's what we're aiming for. Because every time it spikes and crashes, those are blasts of inflammation. That's what it is, right? And how does inflammation manifest in the body as stress? How does stress manifest in the body as inflammation, right? So that's why a lot of women during menopause have chronic inflammation, right? So there's also this thing called the Fed status factor, right? So it helps to regulate your thyroid function. So it's not a coincidence that a lot of people going through menopause and post menopause, develop thyroid conditions develop autoimmune conditions like Hashimotos and Graves disease. It's all connected, right? So there's also a thing called the cortisol factor, right? Overeating and starvation interferes with your stress responses, right? So the thyroid is inextricably connected to your metabolism, right? Your ability to maintain a healthy weight, right to lose weight, gain weight, maintain it, right. So really, really important. Right? So I talked about cortisol. And I promised earlier that I was going to talk about this stress, cortisol oxytocin piece, right? So cortisol is our is one of the primary stress hormones, right? So why do we feel so stressed during menopause? Why do we feel exhausted and things are spinning out of control? And right? Well, it's because of these hormone changes, right? So progesterone has a calming effect on the body, right? So it makes sense that during menopause, when it's in decline, we're gonna feel more stressed and anxious, right? That makes complete sense. estrogen levels are also dropping an estrogen is a protective hormone, like I talked about, right? So when estrogen levels drop, cortisol levels rise, right, which causes the higher blood pressure, the higher blood sugar, and then in turn that causes you to release more adrenaline, one of the other stress hormones, right, that also raises your blood sugar. So you just see how this insulin resistance that I was talking about this high blood sugar, this elevated a onesie happens, right? So the more stress that's in your body, that's going to lead to the anxiety to the depression to the mood swings, their headaches, I started getting those headaches. So many women in our community have debilitating headaches during menopause. Migraines. I didn't get that. But a lot of my friends have got it right now, right? The sleep problems not sleeping through the night, the low energy, the fatigue, the crippling brain fog. Oh, man, did I have the brain fog? I don't anymore, but I had it. And so many women in the program, but here's what's really cool, it goes away really quickly. All right, when you start being strategic about what you're doing, that inability to concentrate, you start to get laser focused again, right? I don't know if you if you've got muscle tension. I didn't have as much of that. But quite a few of my friends are reporting that right now. And people in our program come in with that and then they don't have it anymore, right? Hair loss, the thinning the balding really, really dry here, right? And of course the weight, right? The stubborn belly fat. This is all connected to stress, right? And man, am I gonna give you the gold right now? Because let me tell you some stuff that I learned about stress and metabolism, right? And stress. Ah, and how we can kind of harness these these reality in our bodies, right? So I talked about cortisol being the stress hormone, right? So it's produced, produced and released by your adrenal glands in response to stress, right, your adrenals sit right above your kidneys, right. So we need cortisol because it's protective. It helps us go into fight or flight it helps us protect ourselves from a threat, right? Cortisol also affects your metabolism. So how your body uses fats, proteins and carbohydrates, right? Cortisol also regulates your blood sugar, your blood pressure controls your sleep your energy, right? So when your hormones are all out of balance, your cortisol levels actually stay elevated longer than they need to right in it. What happens is when it stays elevated, it means that your blood sugar, the insulin and the sugar in your blood stays there for too long, right? So it's all connected, right? Here's the kicker cortisol also triggers a fat storing enzyme in the fat cells around your organs and around your belly. Right? So, elevated cortisol levels lead to insulin resistance and belly fat, right? So when your cells can't process glucose efficiently, it gets stored as fat, right? So, here's this, this just blew my mind. Belly fat cells, your belly fat cells have four times as many cortisol receptors as regular fat cells, they just like a stress magnet, right? So we actually want to get rid of that belly fat, right? Because it's just a big stress magnet. So the more belly fat, the more stressed you're going to be, right? But here's the really cool thing about the human body about your beautiful body

is that we have a natural recalibration mechanism in the hormone oxytocin. I love oxytocin, right. So oxytocin is a hormone that works in opposition to cortisol, it helps to balance cortisol. So when we raise our oxytocin levels, it brings our cortisol levels down, right? So oxytocin is the love hormone, the anti aging hormone, that connection hormone, right. So oxytocin floods your body during childbirth. So it helps you bond with the baby, right? It also floods your body during orgasm, it floods your body during physical touch, holding hands, kissing, cuddling, embracing you can even do it to yourself if you live alone, by by brushing your hands and hugging yourself and squeezing bits of your body. And you know, there's absolutely ways that you can flood your body with oxytocin right to kiss and cuddle it out, have sex stay connected, all this stuff right? Now, you might be listening, going more thanks, tests, but my libido is so short, and I've got pain during intercourse because of menopause, that I don't feel like having sex, right? That is a real thing, too. And, you know, I will do an episode about that, because there are some things you can do about that to Brian, and I'm going to bring in an expert about that, because it's so so powerful, right? You can absolutely change that too. Alright, so oxytocin also helps to regulate your blood sugar, right? It also helps to regulate your appetite, right? So the more love you feel for yourself, and as good as you feel, right, it's going to help with all of these things. All right. The other really key part is sleep. Right? Often as women we're juggling so many different things and looking after children and grandchildren and elderly relatives and our partner or whatever it is, right? That we're just running around like a blue fly right and trying to do all the things and we don't value sleep and rest and they're not the same thing right. So resting has real value. Right? So reading a book you know, lying there just staring at the ceiling and thinking about your life I mean, whatever right? Right watching TV lying out in the grass under a tree in the sunshine, whatever it is right listening to music, listening to a podcast, right? That's all resting and then sleeping is really really important right so sleep at any age is important. It helps us to restore and recover we have to sleep or we die. Sleep also helps balance Insulin helps to balance cortisol the stress hormone helps to balance oxytocin the love connection hormone and all the other hormones it is absolutely essential right so poor quality sleep equals poor gut health, poor quality sleep equals more belly fat, poor quality sleep equals bad moods, right? So you go to sleep right so I mean, there are some simple things you can do to improve your sleep right it's with the balanced nutrition that I'm talking about. Meeting your protein needs really really key I can't even tell you what a game changer protein is for sleep it's it blew my mind like literally blew my mind turning off your devices and not being stimulated you know an hour before bed keeping your room really dark right helps to stimulate melatonin and all these things right. Not eating late at night late night snacking is the kiss of death for better sleep. Alcohol is the kiss of death for better sleep long term. It might short term people think it helps them sleep but long term it doesn't. Science absolutely tells us that right? Not eating within three to four hours before bed is another really powerful strategy that we give everyone in our program and it works right and then in consultation with your doctor you may want to consider taking a magnesium supplement right is a natural, relaxing many women deficient in magnesium, right? You can get magnesium from foods right. But you can also take a supplement and there's different kinds we my dietitians and doctors like magnesium glycinate, because it's easier to digest, magnesium citrate can cause have a laxative effect in some people. So a lot of magnesium supplements are a hybrid, they're, they're a mixture of different kinds of magnesium. So discuss that with your doctor and practitioner about what is appropriate for you. Right. In addition to sleep and stress and the food piece, the other piece is exercise. Exercise is important for cardiovascular health, better digestive health, better respiratory health, better body function, sleeping energy at any age, but during menopause, it is critical to keep your body moving and whatever floats your boat, right whatever you feel great about walking, running, cycling, rowing, you know doing an exercise class at the gym, rock climbing, I mean, whatever swimming, whatever, whatever dancing, whatever, right, but some kind of movement every day, right? It helps with metabolic flexibility. It helps your hormone receptor sensitivity really important. Resistance training and cardiovascular activity really important for better bone health, right, we know that our bones take a beating as we age. Really important for better blood sugar regulation helps to combat you know, fatigue helps you sleep better. It helps with brain fog and concentration helps with mood stability, right helps with the production of serotonin, so serotonin, dopamine and GABA. And it helps to improve your libido. I mean, so incredibly important, right? So I really encourage you to get outside in the sunshine as much as possible and exercise outdoors right to get as much vitamin D as possible. Vitamin D is the conductor of our immune system, right? It's just so important for better immune responses. But our ability to synthesize vitamin D from the sun decreases with age, right decreases with age. And so it's even more important, right, just like I talked about earlier about eating raw foods to hydrate the body. We also eat raw foods for enzymes, right? So we produce we produce enzymes, but we produce less enzymes as we age, right. So these these things are more important as we age, right? So get outside exercise outdoors, get in the sunshine as much as possible so that you can be taking in as much vitamin D as possible. The other thing about vitamin D is oxytocin and serotonin. So that hormone oxytocin, feeling good, the love connection, and that serotonin feel good neurotransmitter, are both activated by vitamin D. Right? So really important, you know, you may want to discuss taking a vitamin D supplement with your doctor, right? But nothing's going to replace the sunshine, right? So supplements are wonderful, but you may not want to take supplements, right? So there are natural ways that you can do this, right. So just really, really important. So to recap, in closing, we've got four core principles in the skinny 60 system in the 60. Day reset, number one is prime. Number two is, is nourish. Number three is pace, and number four is restore. So number one prime is we're priming where gut our gut health and digestion, right? To regulate your blood sugar and your hormones and your metabolism. Remember, those four things are all connected, right? If your gut health is in trouble, your hormones are in trouble, right. Number two is nourish nourish your body strategically and effectively with quality foods to help your body run better, right to help you balance your blood sugar, optimize your metabolism, your hormones, and support better gut health, right? So quality protein, quality fats, and quality carbohydrates, right and all of those micronutrients as well, which are going to get with all those all the vegetables and all the wonderful foods right. Number three is pace. So that's what I was talking about about regularly, you know, fueling your body throughout the day, right? Right, eating regularly, smaller meals and snacks more regularly throughout the day, even just a couple of bites of something of a balanced meal or snack with protein, fats and carbohydrates, right? Eating regularly to regulate your blood sugar, right to have just that regulated blood sugar throughout the day, not those huge spikes and crashes, which in turn helps to optimize your hormones and your metabolism. Right and it's also it also supports better digestion. So you've got the quadruple whammy right? That this paste strategy helps with better digestion. Also better metabolism helps with better hormones and helps with with better gut health right? And then number four, is what I was talking about just with this sleep and rest Just an energy exercise, restoring better circadian rhythms in the body, restoring appropriate stress responses, restoring appropriate inflammatory responses, right? Just restoring your body and bringing it back into balance. All right. So

remember, you have the power to control how you feel with food and lifestyle choices, right. And again, it doesn't matter what else you're doing with your doctor and practitioners to optimize your hormones, whether you're on hormone replacement therapy, or something or not. Any successful approach to menopause and thriving like I am, and 1000s of women in my community are. It's got to be rooted in better gut health. So what is your gut tell you about your life? Right? So, so important, you know, over 70% of women are constipated, they're not moving their bowels every day. And if you are not moving your bowels everyday, there is a problem, right? So that is indicative of poor gut health and digestion, right? But here's the cool thing. You can turn this around really quickly, right? You don't have to live with these uncomfortable, horrible symptoms of menopause. And some people go through and it lasts for 15 years. I don't want to feel like I was feeling all those years ago for 15 years, I've got stuff to do in my life. I've got dreams I've got traveling to do I want to have energy. I never want my physical health to be the reason why I say no to anything. I want it to be my no and my Yes. So take control of your health decide it has to be me. It has to be me to figure this out, and to do what needs to be done in consultation with my doctors. But I don't think we're meant to do this thing called life on our own. Right. So if you want support, definitely join my 60 Day reset with my team of doctors and dieticians. And we'll help you figure it out. That's what we do. i It's like a puzzle for me, I love it. And I'm on a mission, I want every woman to thrive during you know, through menopause like I am, you know, and I intend to keep thriving, right? I just want every woman to feel incredible and empowered. So just know that you've got the power, all right. And I made a little nutrition menopause nutrition guide for you for free. So you can go to it has to be me.com forward slash menopause guide to get a little bit of a written summary of everything I've been talking about in this episode. Alright, and honestly, just start implementing some of these small strategies. It's just step by step, right? We've got a saying in our community good, better or best not perfect, right? Perfection doesn't exist, just aim to make the next better choice. So if all you did today, was just drink a little bit more water and stay hydrated throughout the day, when that's already gonna make you feel better. And then just keep layering on something else, right? Think about the probiotics, maybe start eating some sauerkraut or some coffee or add some coffee or to your to your smoothie or something, right? That's another better choice, right? And then what happens is they all these choices are cumulative. And you become the sum of your choices. And when you become the sum of better choices, everything just keeps getting better. It is so magical. And when you start to feel really great in your body, and you start to feel strong and powerful and beautiful again, right? That's one of the other beautiful things about this. People will say you look 10 years younger. How do you look like this? I mean, I get this from women in my program all the time, people start to notice and you start to feel really good about yourself. You know that thing is women. I hear this a lot. I feel invisible. I feel invisible. Like I don't matter. I feel drab. I feel old, I feel fat, I feel. I just feel like I don't matter. While you do matter, you do matter. And you're beautiful just as you are right now. But I'm sure you want to be more physically beautiful, right and be the way that you want to be have your skin glowing, have your hair and your nails lustrous and beautiful and shiny and fit into your favorite jeans and your favorite dress and just feel good about yourself. But more importantly, sleep through the night. Have energy be able to play with your children and grandchildren or go for that bike ride or go on that hike to Nepal or go on that cruise and walk around the Ching Butera or whatever your dreams are. Don't let your physical health be the reason why you say no to anything, say a big yes and go it has to be me. And you know what I'm going to do next week. I am going to invite some women who have done this. I don't want you to hear just for me. I want you to hear from some other women. If I can do it, and they can do it. You can do it. So join me next week. I'm going to have lunch with them and we'll have a little conversation about empowering our selves through menopause