Although the decline in oestrogen levels after menopause is well known, what is less well known is the importance of progesterone, which balances oestrogen’s effects.  This is most important in your perimenopausal years – that’s the time between when your menstrual cycle is disrupted by failing ovaries; and menopause, when your periods stop completely.

I call progesterone the hormone of happiness, because it promotes a stable happy mood. This hormone has a vital role in fertility, as it’s produced by your ovaries after ovulation. Your oestrogen hormones have already promoted the growth of your uterus lining; progesterone secretion instructs your uterus to finish the job, get ready, because there may be a fertilised egg arriving within a few days. If the egg isn’t fertilised, it disintegrates, and complex feedback messaging between the egg, your uterus and your ovaries lets your uterus know that the lining won’t be required after all, and can be shed. The important aspect of this for the perimenopausal woman is that no ovulation means insufficient progesterone in relation to oestrogen.

When considering your hormones, and particularly problematic symptoms, it’s far more useful to look at the relative balance between them rather than absolute quantities. You could have the healthiest oestrogen levels in the world, but unless you have enough progesterone on hand to balance it, you could experience some very unpleasant symptoms in the last two weeks of your menstrual cycle.

After menopause, when you’re not ovulating, your progesterone levels drop – but so do your oestrogen levels, so it’s all in balance.

Let’s revisit the perimenopausal years. As your ovary function declines, you will have more months where no egg is produced, and therefore minimal progesterone, resulting in relative oestrogen dominance. Some of the first signs of this is worsening pre-menstrual tension, sleep disruption, particularly waking during the night, often with anxiety as well. Mood swings, low libido, foggy thinking, bladder urgency, headaches, weight gain…..there’s a long list of problem symptoms that emerge from this hormone imbalance.

You can have a positive impact on your hormone balance by including enough ('enough' is a careful word choice on my part - not just 'some') fibre-rich and phytoestrogen-rich foods in your diet; particularly legumes, vegetables and fruit. Fitness makes a big difference, as does optimal stress management. Natural therapists use herbs, nutrients, diet and lifestyle changes to rebalance your hormones, and may arrange salivary hormone testing first to establish whether a hormone imbalance really is the problem.

The perimenopausal time of your life is an opportunity as well: Once you enter menopause it will be much harder to maintain a toned, svelte body – so here’s your last chance to easily alter your shape and build enough muscle to help you maintain it. As you age, the effort you have put into building your fitness pre-menopause will pay off. But if you stay on the couch, you’ll feel the effects more in your old age.

This one’s not a fun piece of playground equipment. Mood swings can strike anyone: Here are some of the most common causes for them, and what you can do to get back in balance:

Poor blood glucose regulation: Whenever you’re thinking, your brain is hungry for glucose. It relies heavily on a stable blood glucose level to help you think well. Sharp rises and falls in your blood glucose level can cause big unexplainable swings in your mood; from happy, to elated, to angry, to grumpy; and you may find that the only thing that makes you feel better is a sugary snack. Unfortunately this can set you up for yet another mood swing, as the rapid rise in your blood glucose level is soon followed by a dive. The solution? Eat a protein and fibre-based breakfast, and enjoy a protein and fibre based snack every few hours. Protein and fibre take longer to digest, so your blood glucose level remains more stable.

Hormones creating havoc: Pre-menstrual tension in women can range from mild crankiness for a few days to a very angry mood that seems to last forever and makes everyone around you wish they were somewhere else. Until your period arrives, then all is well again. The cause is often an imbalance between your oestrogen and progesterone levels, where oestrogen has become dominant.  You can help reduce your pre-menstrual tension by including plenty of fibre-rich foods in your diet, especially legumes: They contain lignans, a natural substance that will help balance your hormones. Get sweaty every day with exercise too.

Too much colour (and other chemicals): Although there is still much debate about whether artificial colours and preservatives really are a problem, many parents can attest to the unfortunate effects of highly processed foods on their children’s mood – making them irritable, or difficult to reason with, or hyperactive. This may be because they have a much smaller body size than adults, with a reduced capacity to metabolise food chemicals. If you suspect that your child may be on the mood swing due to additives, try a few weeks without artificial foods of any kind and see how their moods respond.

Stress: Feeling like you’re in a pressure cooker? That can bring on a mood swing. The best remedy is to ‘run it off’ with some sweaty exercise (even though you may feel like you “don’t have time”). We’re genetically designed to get rid of excess adrenaline through physical activity.

I have to congratulate the dairy industry on the spectacular marketing job they’ve done about consumption of milk and other dairy products. Most of the population is now convinced that they must eat dairy every day or their bones will crumble. I wish I could achieve the same level of population-wide compliance with legume consumption for healthy gut and hormones. Sigh.

Sometimes, when assessing a client’s symptoms, I can see that their diet contains way too much dairy, and could be contributing to their hormone imbalances, digestive problems or skin rashes. So I may request that they drop dairy from their diet for a while, to assess how their body reacts. Nine times out of 10 the reaction is shock: But I HAVE to eat dairy!  Or…..or……

Well, you don’t – and I’m going to explain why.

Before you reach for your keyboard to write some outraged comments on this blog post, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that dairy is ‘bad’ for you; I’m suggesting that it’s time to review our love affair with this bovine food. Just hear me out (then please reach for the keyboard and add your comments to the discussion!)

WHAT WE DID BEFORE WE MILKED COWS

First, a trip back in time. Before we began gathering in small villages, our ancestors roamed the countryside as hunter-gatherers, living primarily on seafood, meat, eggs, vegetables, fruit and nuts. Some remote hunter-gatherer societies still live this way. We didn’t eat dairy because no wild cow would stand still long enough to be ‘milked’. Although our lifespan as hunter-gatherers wasn’t as long as it is now, it was a life free of many of the chronic diseases that afflict us with our modern diet. Our species managed to successfully evolve without the assistance of dairy food.

It was only once we learnt to tame and farm animals that our diet evolved to include dairy. And that was only 10,000 years ago, a mere blink of the eye in terms of human evolution.

Many cultures have healthy diets that doesn’t include dairy, and their populations are sometimes renowned for their long lives (like some Asian cultures)

HOW YOU CAN (OR CAN’T) ABSORB THAT CALCIUM IN YOUR FOOD

To be fair, the dairy industry has it right on one point – the calcium in dairy food is bundled with a phosphate molecule, making it very easy to absorb. Calcium in other foods, like fibre-rich vegetables, can sometimes be harder to absorb because the phytates, oxalates and fibre can get in the way. Fortunately your body has in-built mechanisms to help overcome this obstacle.

Once that calcium-rich food is in your gut (whether dairy based or not) there’s more potential hurdles to absorption:

• -          Only 10-30% of the calcium you eat is absorbed.
• -          If there’s a high concentration of calcium present (like in a calcium supplement), your body will automatically down-regulate calcium absorption to prevent too much getting in at once.
• -          If there’s a low concentration of calcium present, your body will automatically up-regulate calcium absorption to ensure more gets absorbed.
• -          Calcium is absorbed best in your upper duodenum, an area with an acidic pH, as food lands here right after it leaves your stomach. If your stomach wasn’t acidic enough (and that’s likely if you’ve been taking antacids or proton pump inhibitors to relieve heartburn), the pH in your duodenum won’t be acidic enough for the calcium to be absorbed. Alkaline gut contents will cause the calcium to precipitate into an insoluble form.
• -          Vitamin D is needed to stimulate the production of calcium binding protein by your bowel lining. This handy protein ‘escorts’ calcium through your bowel wall into your bloodstream. Deficient in vitamin D? It’s affecting your calcium absorption.

THE FAT DILEMMA

Prior to the agricultural era, our intake of healthy omega-3 oils and omega-6 oils was roughly equal.  A higher intake of omega-3 oils has an anti-inflammatory effect in your body, and promotes more flexible cell membranes – including brain cells. But once we started farming, the omega ratio in our diets began to change. Now, a person eating a modern western diet will ingest up to 10 times more omega 6 than omega 3. The result is a tendency to develop inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, and many skin disorders.

Full-fat dairy products are high in omega-6 oils. You could eat no-fat dairy, but that brings me to my next point –

IMMUNE INTOLERANCE

Some people have immune systems that react negatively to milk protein. Often they develop eczema as a result, and have to severely reduce or eliminate their exposure to dairy products to keep their skin healthy.

LACTOSE INTOLERANCE

Some people don’t have adequate amounts of the enzyme required (lactase) to break down the natural sugars in milk. Like the people suffering from immune reactions to the milk protein, they’re required to severely limit their intake of dairy, or switch to lactose-free milk products.

HORMONE HAVOC

My clinical experience is that women who eat large amounts of dairy often have hormone imbalances too, particularly oestrogen dominance, which can  bring on PMT, mood swings and painful periods.  Whether the dairy  upregulates oestrogen receptors, or whether it’s the omega-6 oils I’m not sure. But removing dairy from the diet of a woman whose hormones are creating havoc can have some positive effects.

WHAT ABOUT OSTEOPOROSIS? DON’T I NEED A CALCIUM SUPPLEMENT?

There are two other important factors in maintaining strong bones besides your calcium intake: the stimulation of weight bearing exercise (see my blog post about it here) and balanced hormones.

If you’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis or osteopenia, it’s even more important to check your gut acidity first (or that calcium supplement might not be absorbed). Get your hormone balance checked too, and make sure you’re participating in enough weight bearing exercise every day to make a difference.

BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO CUT OUT DAIRY COMPLETELY!!

Don’t think that you must drop dairy out of your diet completely to be healthy. Like most foods, its fine in moderation. Use it as a condiment, to spice up dishes: Like sprinkling a little feta on your salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and olives; or slicing off one very delicious sliver of vintage cheese to enhance your glass of wine. But don’t think that you HAVE to have bucket loads of dairy every day to prevent your bones crumbling. It aint necessarily so.

So, that’s my argument – what do you think? Leave your comment below…

For some women in their fertile years life can become a living hell for two weeks of the month – for themselves and everyone around them. Normally reasonable, happy women can become cranky, irritable and irrational. Even worse, you can get physical symptoms too: Swollen bloated tummy, digestive problems and very painful periods. The curse of PMT, or pre-menstrual tension, has been the inspiration for many jokes, but it’s not funny at all if you’re living with it.

 

Once you know why it’s happening, and what you can do to help, overcoming PMT is very possible. You don’t have to ‘just live with it!’

 

The hormones from your endocrine glands do a complex dance during the month, some rising steadily while others fall. It’s the dance between your estrogens and progesterone that are the main players in PMT. Estrogen is responsible for causing the lining of your uterus to grow, and after an egg is released from your ovary, progesterone instructs your uterine lining to complete development because there’s an egg on its way. I call progesterone the ‘happy hormone’ because it promotes calm and clear thinking.

 

But without progesterone to tone it down, estrogen can run rampant, and this is the major cause of your PMT. As you near menopause your progesterone levels can drop even faster than estrogen,  so some women find their PMT worsens as they near the end of their fertile years.

 

Balance between hormones is everything, and there are lots of actions you can take to make a difference. Here’s your task list:

 

• Fibre from lignin-rich foods like legumes and linseed will help the balance by boosting your level of SHBG, a carrier protein that helps prevent a flood of hormones. Add half a cup of cooked legumes into your daily diet, and two tablespoons of linseed-sunflower-almond mix.

• Regular exercise (getting sweaty almost every day) will help reduce your stress. More stress creates an even greater hormone imbalance. (Ever noticed how your hormones can misbehave more when you’re under a lot of stress?)

• Eat a diet rich in omega-3 oils (like seafood) and low in saturated fat from dairy and fast foods. 

• Avoid sugar and sugary foods like soft drink, it will give you blood sugar spikes that can worsen mood swings

• A little chocolate can help. “A little” means about two squares, not the whole family size block!

 

Remember, it’s what you do all the month through that will make a difference, and it’s harder to eat properly and exercise when you’ve already got PMT; so it’s a good idea to start making positive changes now.

Now the year is in full swing:  people are returning to work, to full time study, or packing the kids off to school. The holiday period has gone and we’re all becoming busier.  Did you make a new year’s resolution to spend more time ‘on yourself’ this year? Perhaps improving your fitness, or taking up meditation or a creative pursuit. And yet every week so far, do you look back and see that you were ‘too busy’ to spend any time on you?

Your running shoes sit abandoned on the spare room floor. The blank canvas just aching to be painted is still in its wrapper. The meditation CDs you purchased haven’t seen the inside of your CD player yet. And you’re becoming concerned that this year could be just like the last – too busy, and not enough time caring for you.

Before you abandon all hope for improvement in your work-life balance, here are some strategies that could help you actually make it happen:

• Make an appointment with yourself, and keep that appointment as carefully as you would with any professional person, knowing that there will be consequences if you don’t. If you have a diary, slot in those ‘me’ time appointments. Then, if someone asks, you can politely decline, honestly admitting that you already have an appointment booked for that time.
• Tell someone close to you what you’re committing to, and report on how you went. Even better, make it really public on Facebook! There’s nothing like the potential for public embarrassment for increasing the chance you’ll do it!
• Pretend you have a camera crew following you around and narrating your activities for the day. Imagine explaining your ‘reason’ for not taking time out to a television audience, and see how convincing you sound.
• Sometimes removing yourself to a different location can help make it happen. E.g Instead of trying to paint at home, why not book into a painting masterclass?

Remember that we all have a natural resistance to change. Expect to feel resistance.  Everyone gets this feeling, particularly when it comes to activities that are potentially uncomfortable and will leave you feeling sweaty – like exercise. The people who get things done are the people who recognise this tendency to stay on the couch, but get out and do the deed anyway.

The rest of life will get in the way of your quest for a ‘you’ time, if you let it. So don’t. Take out your diary now, mark out your ‘you’ time for the coming week, make it happen, then, see how you’re feeling about yourself at the end of the week.

How do you make time for yourself? Let us know by leaving your comments below..

So many of us make resolutions on 1st January to 'get healthier' this year. And yet just a few short weeks later those resolutions are forgotten or abandoned. Here's a tool to help you make sure you achieve all that you want with your health in 2011.

Its a goal setting process that takes you through what you're not happy with now, setting out the results you want by the end of this year, and writing down an action plan to get you there. You can download the goal setting template here.

Enjoy! And if you're feeling brave, tell the rest of us about your new years health resolutions too! Add your comments below....

I enjoyed this post by Rachelle Gardner, and wanted to pass it on to you. 

Its for all those people who claim they "don't have enough time to exercise/sleep enough/eat healthy foods" 

Click here to read the article

If you’re suffering from pre-menstrual tension, or menopausal hot flushes, its good to know that there are foods easily available that can help balance your hormones. There’s two specific foods, linseed and legumes, that you can easily incorporate into your diet and reap the benefits.

Linseed (flaxseed) and legumes are both classed as phytoestrogens, containing lignans and isoflavones. They’re called phytoestrogens because their molecular structure closely resembles the molecular shape of oestrogen, so they can ‘latch on’ to oestrogen receptors on your cell membranes. Although they’re 100 times weaker than real estrogen, their action can help make up for insufficient oestrogen production, and help block the effects of excessive circulating oestrogen.

Too much oestrogen can lead to pre-menstrual tension, mood swings, and some other unpleasant symptoms like pre-period bloating. In women who are menopausal or peri-menopausal (the years just preceding menopause), this phytoestrogenic action of linseed and legumes can help balance hormones, minimising unpleasant symptoms like hot flushes. Research continues to try to confirm whether a good dietary intake of phytoestrogens can reduce the incidence of breast cancer.

Because phytoestrogens are converted to their active form by good bacteria in your intestine, and good bacteria need fibre to thrive, the best way to get your phytoestrogens is through whole unprocessed food that includes fibre – seed mixes, beans etc. Even better, by eating whole foods you’ll get lots of extra goodies – including fibre, plant oils, vitamins and minerals.

Here’s how you can easily incorporate linseed and legumes into your daily diet:

1. Make up a seed mix of two tablespoons linseed, one tablespoon each of walnuts, pepitas, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. Grind and sprinkle on your high fibre cereal or stewed fruit. About two tablespoons of seed mix a day is a good ‘dose’. Keep the remainder in the fridge in a sealed container. I like to mix up 1/3 cup oats, 100g plain yoghurt, two tablespoons seed mix and one grated apple to create a sustaining afternoon snack.

2. Include legumes in your diet almost every day: Sprinkle chick peas on your lunch time salad, or use a lentil stew as a side dish with dinner, or enjoy baked beans for breakfast. Legumes are easily added to your slow cooker casserole too.

There are lots of other foods you can eat and actions you can take to help balance your hormones – but linseed and legumes are a particularly useful combination.

It started in a medical centre in Pennsylvania. One of the local physicians, who had been caring for the residents of several adjoining communities for 17 years, noticed an intriguing trend. One of the communities, consisting exclusively of Italian immigrants, had almost no heart disease compared to residents in neighbouring towns. Why? The unique health of this community attracted a 30-year scientific study of their diet and lifestyle behaviours that provides valuable clues to help our modern communities become healthier too.

The community of Roseto, Pennsylvania, contained only immigrant Italian families. Their life revolved around subsistence farming initially as they struggled to settle in their new country. Family and society bonds were tight, and researchers noted that the residents were community-focused. Several generations lived in each household.

Almost right beside them was another community which shared their water supply and medical facilities.

In the early 1960s a team of scientists descended on Roseto and remained there for many years as they learnt why these residents were far less likely than their neighbouring community to suffer from heart attacks. The Roseto residents were long lived, healthy, and a cohesive community.

Was it their diet? Actually, no. Researchers were astonished to discover that their diets were less than ideal. They used more lard than olive oil; they didn’t cut the fatty strip off ham. They smoked cigarettes.

Was it less stress? No shortage of that. They were working hard to establish themselves in a sometimes hostile environment. Financial problems were intense. Conflict occurred between families and friends, as it does in all communities.

The surprising conclusion reached by the researchers was that the people of Roseto remained healthier because of their deep connection to the people they lived with. Each resident felt responsible for the wellbeing and quality of the community they lived in. They had powerful systems of family and community support to counteract the stressors. And that gave them the upper edge in their health.

Although I don’t suggest that you take up smoking and a high fat diet, you can use the experience of the Rosetans to help your own health. Consider what your connection to your community is. Do you participate in local events? Volunteer to help make your community a better place? And, do you have regular contact with other people to talk things over with?

Roseto is no longer the way it was. New generations began to branch out, and the old ways of strong community connections declined. With it, the average health of Rosetans declined too, to match the communities around them.

The lesson in this research is that remaining vibrantly healthy isn’t just about the science of nutrition and fitness – love and connection with the people around you will help you stay healthy too.

There’s a popular perception that menopause just arrives; but in reality you will probably get several years of warning that its coming soon. If you want to influence how good your body looks and feels after menopause, this is your last chance; it will be much more challenging after the end of your fertile years, when your estrogen levels have dropped.

The ‘perimenopausal’ time of a woman’s life can last for several months or years. It’s the time when your hormonal regulation systems can get a little ‘wobbly’. Progesterone levels can drop, resulting in more intensive pre-menstrual tension and mood swings as estrogen temporarily gets the upper hand. Your periods may become more painful. Every woman is different, so your particular symptoms may vary from these.

But the underlying message you can feel is that your hormonal balance is shifting and waning. Menopause is on its way – and with it the possibility of symptoms such as hot flushes, dizziness, mood swings, more wrinkly skin, and a tendency to gain weight and lose shape.

As you get closer to menopause, your body’s levels of FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) will rise, and this is a good way to measure how your fertility is waning. FSH is a hormone produced by your pituitary gland that tells your ovaries to produce eggs. When your ovaries don't co-operate and release eggs for fertilising, your pituitary just shouts the message louder - it thinks your ovaries just aren't paying attention, when in fact they've stopped producing eggs. Ask your doctor for a hormone profile blood test  that includes when you see her for your annual physical and pap smear.

The decline in your oestrogen levels after menopause makes it more challenging to keep your body toned, bones strong and skin supple. (Estrogen promotes the formation of muscle and a feminine shape, as well as bone formation). But there are actions you can take now to help keep your shape and femininity.

The first step you need to take, if you aren’t already, is to begin weight training, and keep training, even after menopause. Engage a personal trainer for the best results. You won’t turn into a muscle-bound strongwoman, but you will develop a higher ratio of muscle to fat. This will help you maintain your weight and your shape. The gentle pressure this puts on your bones will help prevent osteoporosis too.

Having a rigorous training regime in place will help you now, but will also help minimise the symptoms of menopause. One of the major therapies I use to combat menopausal symptoms in my clients is......exercise! It really makes a positive difference.

Check that your diet is high in vegetables, particularly green leafy vegetables, and lean protein from seafood and kangaroo. A little legumes in your diet every day is good too. Continue to avoid consuming extra cakes and biscuits. This is no time to become a granny who keeps sweet treats in the pantry "for the grandkids". (They won't do well on biccies either).

Natural remedies are available to help keep your hormones more stable during your perimenopause, after you've done testing to find out where your hormones are actually at.