Perimenopause Training and Nutrition Guide

Betty Rocker (00:15):

What’s up, rock stars Coach Betty Rocker here. Thanks so much for spending some time with me today. So this is part two of a three part series where I’m talking about the life stages and the best strategies for training, nutrition and life habits to support your hormones. This is a big one today, so if you’re in perimenopause, you might want to take notes and save this episode because I’m going to cover some strategies that will help a ton with this life stage. And remember, the transcript is available on the show notes page too, so you can reference that since it’s, I know it’s a lot of information to take in. So as you know, there’s this phase of life that we go through that we often don’t even realize we’re in it first, and that is perimenopause. That’s the years of our life leading up to menopause where our cycle starts to get a little bit erratic.

(01:03)
You’ll have a period and then you won’t have another one for a while or it’ll just be really close together. Now one of the hallmarks of perimenopause is noticing that the things you used to do just aren’t working the same anymore. Whether it’s getting aches and pains that just don’t go away as quickly after your workouts or weight that doesn’t come off your body even when you work out more or you cut back on your sugar or your alcohol for a couple of weeks, the body just isn’t seeming to respond like it used to, and that can be very unsettling, I know. Then there are the other symptoms, a lot of women experience like hot flashes, mood swings, poor sleep, irregular periods, fatigue, and of course the weight gain. The reason all of this starts to happen comes in large part from the changes in our levels of estrogen and progesterone, both in their levels decreasing and in their levels being out of balance with each other.

(01:56)
So to really understand where we’re at in perimenopause, I think it’s helpful to just get a refresher of a regular cycle and how our hormones were behaving before we started having to think about this so much. So the two key hormones that of course really stand out like I mentioned, are estrogen and progesterone, and these hormones are primarily made by the ovaries, which are of course responsible for releasing an egg with each cycle at ovulation. And as our cycle starts to slow down and we’re not making as much of these hormones, things start to go a little haywire in our system and it was in the first half of our cycle from when we get our period to when we ovulate that we have more estrogen in our system and it was in the second half of our cycle from when we ovulate to when we get our period that we have that higher progesterone levels that balance out the estrogen and it’s really the balance and back and forth of these two hormones over the course of our regular cycle.

(02:50)
That’s the biggest part of what gives us our regular energy, helps us build and preserve our lean muscle tissue, gives us the resilience to come back strong from our, and it really supports our ability to recover and bounce back even when we get off track a little bit. And our estrogen is very anabolic or muscle supporting. It’s actually three hormones, three types of estrogen, E one, E two and E three and we make the E one and E two mostly in our ovaries, although some is made in our adrenals and our fatty tissue and the E three is primarily made during pregnancy. So we have this E one throughout most of our lives even after menopause, but the E two estrogen and that’s the one that we start to lose during perimenopause, those years leading up to menopause when our period stops, that’s the one that really helps support the lean muscle repair and growth helps us regulate our body fat, supports our heart health, our bone health and our brain function.

(03:45)
So that’s why during the first half of our cycle when it’s higher, we have an easier time of building and repairing our muscle tissue after a workout and we held onto that muscle tissue that we had a lot more easily and we got to remember that muscle tissue is really valuable tissue that increases our resting metabolic rate and it makes us more efficient fat burners and the more muscle we have, the more readily we utilize the glucose from our carbohydrates. This is one of the reasons it becomes harder to lose weight once we start losing muscle tissue. So this is why we want to really preserve that tissue, strengthen it, build it after we ovulate in the second half of our cycle, that progesterone helps prepare the uterine lining for possible fertilization. The body has a slight increase in our basal body temperature as it elevates and your immune system is a little more taxed and you have a greater need for nutrients as the body is laying down new tissue, you probably recall or even still experience a dip in your energy before your period and you notice how you don’t have the same drive at that time, your sleep is affected in that luteal phase due to that increase in the basal body temperature.

(04:51)
And many women get PMS symptoms in the late luteal phase due to the compounding impact of that heightened progesterone and the lower estrogen levels and the heightened inflammation and just all of those sort of compounding things. So in perimenopause, you’re likely still getting your period, but the length of the cycles may be changing. You can miss periods entirely or they just might seem different than they used to in other ways. And the symptoms you experience on either side of ovulation are starting to get more extreme because those even levels of those two key hormones are starting to really change and that starts to affect your body in profound and far reaching ways that are really related into your training and recovery response and your muscle to fat ratio. Menopause just means the cessation or end of your period. So that’s the event where it just fully stops and post menopause is the timeframe that happens after that event.

(05:48)
So in perimenopause we’re in the years it could be five years, seven years, it’s different for different women. It’s the years leading up to the of our period. So in perimenopause, the levels of these hormones we used to have in such nice even robust quantities that were evenly balanced each month, they begin to diminish and become imbalanced with each other, which is one of the primary contributing factors behind so many of those symptoms we were talking about. Brain fog, weight gain, hot flashes, energy highs and lows, poor sleep and more. Now some of these symptoms can be addressed and mitigated by working with your doctor to test your hormone levels and use some type of hormone replacement therapy or HRT for short to ease those transition symptoms. Adding back some of the hormones you’re losing access to can help relieve some of the discomfort and help mitigate some of those symptoms.

(06:39)
And this is really a great strategy. It’s one I’ve personally used with my doctor’s guidance off and on. Adaptogenic herbs are also really promising for supporting the body’s stress response, which impacts our hormone levels and in some cases really helps to balance the hormone levels. I’ve had really good success in using them myself with my doctor’s supportive course because I want to check what my levels are and which ones would be the most appropriate for me. But I’ll just give one example. Rho yellow rosea can help some of the neurotransmitters from actually being degraded like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which helps to decrease symptoms like anxiety and depression. It also helps to enhance relaxation, which allows the brain to focus and work better. Rhodiola also acts as what is called a sm, which is stands for a selective estrogen reuptake modulator. So as estradiol, that’s our E two estrogen we talked about.

(07:34)
As that declines as we approach menopause, rhodiola can actually modulate the receptor site, which means that if you have a little too much estrogen, it can exert a moderating effect and if you have a little too, if you have too little, it can actually act a little bit as a booster, which is really cool. So it reduces the impact of estrogen fluctuation and it also supports that heightened inflammation response in vasomotor symptoms, which are those hot flashes and night sweats that come along with perimenopause and early post menopause. Since mood swings and anxiety and depression are also hallmarks of this transition, rial is beneficial impact on the brain and the neurotransmitters can really help to support and improve those symptoms. I’ve actually got a great article over on the blog, the betty rocker.com where I talk about six adaptogens that I’ve had a lot of success with that they have a lot of great uses for mitigating the stress response and supporting our hormones in various ways.

(08:28)
And of course there are contraindications for some of these, so you really want to do your homework. You could start by reading my article because I go over a lot of that. You can read my references and I also always recommend really getting your hormone levels checked before taking these types of supplements anyway, as plans are powerful compounds. And with that being said, adaptogens are gentle compared to some types of creams and hormone replacements. They do take a little longer to work and they work best when you’re doing things that help them work their best like eating well, lowering the stress burden in your body by not overtraining and things like that. They have these wonderful supportive properties, but they’re not a drug or a magic pill and they can’t override bad habits or unhealthy lifestyle practices. So while I find them very exciting and I love using them myself, I also know that they work the best in what I’d call a friendly environment where we’re already making an effort to reduce our stress burden and we’re already making an effort to reduce inflammation in the body with what we eat and how we train.

(09:27)
So more on those specific tips coming right up. Now when it comes to supplements that are supportive in perimenopause, you can also look into DHEA commonly available supplement that supports your body as a precursor to testosterone and estrogen. And again, I recommend working with your doctor on dosing and determining if this is appropriate for you of course here as well. But that’s a relatively accessible supplement that is commonly used in perimenopause. I mentioned testosterone there and that’s another really important hormone for us. Of course, we don’t have it in high amounts to start with compared to men, but the amounts we have start to decline at this life stage and that can also really impact our ability to build and hold onto our muscle tissue and support our bone density and cognitive function. So it’s another one to check in on if you are getting your hormone levels checked, and this of course is just scratching the surface of the supplements conversation and like anything you’re ingesting that can potentially alter your body’s chemistry, it’s important to have the data from your hormone tests and work with a practitioner to make adjustments over time as it’s very unlikely that you’ll stay in exactly the same place with your hormone levels and stress levels are just really, really important to pay attention to in general as constant stress can impact our HPA access.

(10:44)
That’s the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, which is how the body regulates our hormone balance in response to stress. You may remember in a previous podcast episode I talked about 12 ways you can work on building stress resilience, and I mentioned how really being proactive with this can help your body get into that rest and digest state more often, which will help lower your stress burden and help your body deal with some of the effects of that lower estrogen. So if you want a little refresher, put that episode in your playlist for up next so those adaptogens can help too. They can help your body manage the stress response, but you also have to be proactive and help that process along because cortisol, which is released in response to heightened chronic stress, creates more fat storage and breaks down our muscle tissue and the stress response also impacts our insulin sensitivity.

(11:36)
That’s our body’s ability to regulate our blood sugar, which can over time create insulin resistance and we don’t want that. Insulin resistance is a condition where our cells no longer open up to accept the glucose from the food we eat, meaning we storm more fat and those high levels of blood sugar in our bloodstream can lead to really dangerous health conditions like obesity, type two diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure. So really managing the stress response is key, especially in perimenopause because our estrogen levels are dropping and estrogen is actually a really big helper in our cells for optimizing the insulin response. But when our levels of it are low, our insulin receptors become less functional and the body just can’t handle glucose as efficiently. So this is why we’re going to talk more about nutrient strategies for perimenopause next because we want to really be mindful of added sugar and sugar in general in our foods and drinks because it just has an even greater impact on us.

(12:33)
As our estrogen levels start to drop, it’s going to be harder for your body to handle sugar and it’s going to disrupt the gut microbiome, which will also impact our ability to handle estrogen and move excess estrogen out of our system. One of the causes commonly attributed to things like hot flashes, weight gain, poor sleep, rain fog, and many other symptoms associated with the perimenopause years is estrogen dominance, which is where our estrogen is too high in relation to our progesterone. Now even when we’re losing our estrogen, sometimes we can end up with estrogen dominance since estrogen and progesterone serve as these counterbalances to each other in our regular cycling years. When they get off balance, things can get really uncomfortable and one of the reasons we can end up with estrogen dominance can be because we’re not eliminating excess estrogen from the body as efficiently as we should due to poor liver function or compromised gut health, which is what we were just talking about with the sugar intake.

(13:31)
But it can also get disrupted by high levels of stress, alcohol and other things that overwhelm our system compromised gut health makes it harder to stay healthy and have a strong immune system. It can promote feelings of anxiety, plus it just disrupts our hormone balance and makes it harder for us to absorb the nutrients we eat. Your gut actually has a specialized section that deals with the breakdown of estrogen called the estrobolome. The bacteria in that specialized section further breakdown the estrogen using an enzyme called beta glucuronidase, and this enzyme is super important and has to be in a just right balance in order to process and break down estrogen. Otherwise those estrogens get recirculated back into the bloodstream as dirty estrogens and can really further imbalance your hormone levels and contribute to that estrogen dominance, which has its own whole host of symptoms like we were talking about.

(14:24)
Now, there are a lot of signs of gut imbalance which sometimes get diagnosed as something else or could be combined with something else, but you want to look for digestive issues like bloating, gas, diarrhea or constipation, weight changes, food sensitivities, fatigues, skin irritation, autoimmune conditions, and of course hormone imbalances can all be related to a gut dysbiosis and there can be other causes for any of these issues too. But since what we eat is really within our control, taking the steps to support a healthy gut microbiome is something we ourselves can influence and action relatively quickly. You can ask your doctor to run some tests to see if you have a bacterial overgrowth or an imbalance in your microbiome, and most frequently a stool test is what is used for that. Hormone testing may be your first stop If you are experiencing perimenopause symptoms though, so just so you know what’s off balance and you have a baseline to work from, but the body is dynamic and there are many moving parts.

(15:24)
So we often don’t look at just one thing in isolation, so sometimes we develop sensitivities to certain foods and eliminating them for a bit can help the body reduce inflammation. You’ve probably heard of an elimination diet, some type of diet like that may be advised by your doctor where you just take out some or all of the common inflammatory foods like gluten or dairy or eggs or soy or corn. Nightshades are really common caffeine. I know that’s tough to give up sugar pre-made foods and then you slowly reintroduce them back into your diet one by one as your body establishes a better baseline. And that of course takes some time and patience and it’s not like all of those things get eliminated. It’s really specific to you. I’m just mentioning some of the common ones. If it’s needed, this can help bring balance back into the gut biome and support your body in that hormone balancing as well.

(16:15)
And outside of eliminating food, some people just need better stomach acid to process their food and a digestive enzyme can be helpful, so that might be something to look. Eating prebiotic foods is also a great way to help support the gut bacteria. Prebiotic foods contain resistant starch and gut-friendly fiber, which really supports those friendly gut bacteria. So foods like seeds and nuts, unprocessed whole grains, green banana, onion, garlic, beans, greens, and cruciferous vegetables are all good sources. Then there are of course the probiotics which contain live organisms that support the gut microbiome and can be found in all kinds of foods like fermented dairy products. If you’re good with dairy like yogurt or kefi, they’re found in sauerkraut, kimchi, tempe, miso, and many more. There’s a lot of variety in the availability of probiotic supplements as well. And what you need individually actually kind of depends on what diversity is lacking in your system currently.

(17:10)
So some experimentation and testing may be helpful, but don’t just rely on supplements. You want to include food sources as well, and a good variety of them is going to help cover your bases. Now if you want to take action on your own to just support better gut health in general, one thing you can do is to simply get back to basics for a month and just focus on cooking simple whole food meals that don’t rely heavily on some of those common irritants that we were talking about or you can just take a couple out if they sound like they could be triggering to you. I really recommend at minimum eliminating added sugar and alcohol from your diet for a few weeks if you use them frequently just because they have such an impact on your gut health and on your hormones and maybe don’t eat pre-made foods that aren’t just the way you would make them at home that really think about the whole foods you could add back in, like we were talking about some of those great examples of those prebiotic fiber rich foods or those probiotic foods and really think about nutrient diversity.

(18:08)
You could totally use the body fuel system for instance, which follows this whole food, gluten and dairy-free path and offers you full on meal plans for six weeks. And I have people using it all the time with a ton of success and a lot of women actually rate me and say, I don’t have as strong PMS symptoms, and I know that that’s a lot because they’re lowering the inflammatory load in their body, which helps their body deal with some of the changes that happen in that second half of our cycle in the luteal phase. So people just really love how things are laid out for them in the body fuel system with delicious recipes. And of course that program includes both omnivore and vegetarian options. And you could also use something like my dinner plan, which is another program I have which has entree recipes, and you could use those for lunch or dinner or both, and that has like 24 weeks worth of plans that are also gluten and dairy free and has the..