how to eat to ease symptoms

Menopause nutrition – probably not top on your list of things to figure out this week if you haven’t yet reached that stage of life, but you may be surprised at how high-priority – even for the spring chickens among us – it actually is.

It’s easy to think of menopause – and even perimenopause – as distant, something to worry about down the line, but the sooner you make the dietary tweaks needed (which, by the way, are the opposite of deprivation) the better. ‘Ideally, I want women to make sure they’re well prepped in advance, rather than waiting until their symptoms are impacting their wellbeing,’ says Emma Bardwell, registered nutritionist and co-author of The Perimenopause Solution: Take Control of Your Hormones Before They Take Control of You (Vermillion, £14.99). ‘Forewarned is definitely forearmed.’

The average age to reach menopause is 51, with perimenopause kicking in in your 40s. It lasts four to seven years, and can include various symptoms, from mood changes to sleep problems to joint pain – all of which can be eased by getting your food intake sorted. Question is: how do we navigate menopause nutrition in a mindful and healthy way, and what can we do now to prevent severe symptoms later on?

How can I nourish my body during menopause?

Half the battle is knowing where to direct your menopause nutrition efforts in a world where everyone seems to be an expert. For Bardwell, those areas are protein, blood sugars, fibre and calcium. ‘In a nutshell, all women over 40 really need to be thinking about eating for their heart, brain and bone health,’ she explains.

Nourish your heart

Get plenty of heart-loving non-saturated fat from foods like oily fish, olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds. Focus on fibre too; according to the British Dietetic Association, UK adults are only managing to get 60% of the recommended 30g a day. Upping it helps you to manage your weight (which is important going through menopause) and builds diversity in your gut microbiome, as different bugs eat different things so the more variety you give them, the more species thrive. ‘Fibre is key for managing cholesterol so think about adding in vegetables, wholegrains, beans, lentils, chickpeas and fruit’, says Bardwell.

Strengthen your bones

Calcium is key for bone health, which gets more urgent as we age; ‘after 50, we lose 1% bone mass a year so we need to do all we can before then to lay down bone mass and increase bone strength,’ says Bardwell….