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089: Meal planning for multiple dietaries with Annie Barry
2.6k Plays9 months ago
Mia and Dinah talk with accredited practicing dietician, Annie Barry, about how to plan family meals that help you 'glow, grow and go', balancing 'whole food' with 'soul food' and which food to embrace to support the perimenopause transition.
Resources
- The Art of Adulting
- Annie Barry's website: www.allroundwellness.com.au
- Supermarket Meals
- Annie Barry on Instagram: @healthy.habits.dietitian
- Annie Barry on Facebook
For the full shownotes, head to Life Admin Life Hacks.
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Transcript
Life Admin Life Hacks Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips, and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money, and improve your household harmony. I'm Dinara Roberts, an operations manager that's always embraced meal planning to help me deal with the complexity of the various dietary requirements of the members of my household. I'm Mia Northrock, a researcher and writer who is just thrilled to discover the term for my new tummy tire is Menopop.
Meal Planning Challenges and Expert Introduction
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks. Listeners, one of the areas you've asked for help with is meal planning in households where everyone wants to eat something different because of different preferences or needs to eat something different due to different dietary restrictions. And navigating that alongside your own food preferences if you're trying to manage your weight or deal with perimenopause
00:00:52
Speaker
and the different impact food has on your body. So in this episode, we reached out to interview an expert accredited practicing dietitian, Annie Barry, who talks with us about how to plan meals that help you glow, grow and go, balancing the whole food with soul food and foods to embrace to support the perimenopause transition. If you want a reality check on what healthy eating is really about, then listen on.
Annie Barry on Nutrition and Guidelines
00:01:17
Speaker
This episode is brought to you by our signature program, The Art of Adulting. Our next intake of members is in February, and each month we bring you masterclasses and mindset sessions to help you get on top of life admin and stay on top. Our topics include time management, decluttering, organizing digital photos, plus setting up your foundational life admin tools.
00:01:38
Speaker
There's also weekly co-working sessions where you can do your hour of power alongside other members from our private community for extra motivation and accountability. This is a monthly membership that meets you where you are with sessions and resources for those wondering how to begin and those who just want to consistently follow through and the support to stay organized. Head to lifeadminlifehacks.com to check it out and jump on the wait list.
00:02:03
Speaker
Annie Barry is an accredited practicing dietitian, health coach and habit change practitioner who is passionate about pushing back against diet culture and a firm believer that life's too short to skip the wine or the joy of eating your favorite food. Hurrah! Annie runs All-Round Wellness, an online consulting business where she provides a 12-week individually tailored coaching program
00:02:25
Speaker
to help women regain control of their weight, mood and energy without restrictive eating. Whether you're getting peri-ready or have already hit the menopause transition, Annie is on a mission to help women work smarter, not harder when it comes to their health and nutrition.
00:02:40
Speaker
Annie, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited. I am a little bit of a fangirl of you guys. I feel like it's a real cure to be on the podcast.
Understanding Dietary Information and Trends
00:02:50
Speaker
Look, as Mia said, you've worked in this space for more than 15 years across private practice, community health, everything. Let's start. How did food get so complicated?
00:03:00
Speaker
Interesting because for me it is all about simplifying things and I think it's I really just think it's also about the amount of inputs and messaging that we get. You know we used to learn about food maybe from now.
00:03:13
Speaker
it was at school or a little bit at home. And now we have email TV, we've got Instagram, we've got Facebook, we've got sort of your books, you know, there is so much import, that massive increasing import obviously means that there's going to be very broad opinions. And now we're exposed to the implies spectrum through our range of sort of options of, of shaping information. And I think that we're just kind of lost in the middle of it all at the moment. Yeah, I feel like
00:03:40
Speaker
every time you jump on social media or you listen to the radio or news program or whatever it is you're hearing about some new food ideology and it's confusing. It's confusing to know, you know, is there research behind this? Like what's the truth? What is the latest research on what is actually a healthy way to eat?
00:04:00
Speaker
I think we can really simplify things and look we've got Australian dietary guidelines and they're actually not about extra start and you know people have been arguing about whether they're right and whether they're wrong but reality is is that 90% of Australians don't follow them anyway.
00:04:18
Speaker
So how do we even know if they're right or wrong?
Basic Dietary Guidelines and Misconceptions
00:04:21
Speaker
So, you know, we do have some really basic, great guidelines. We talked about our core food group, types of foods that we need to be eating on a daily basis, and, you know, the different requirements that we might have at different ages and stages. These guidelines are being reviewed at the moment, and we'll probably have a new sort of release, I think, 2024. But, you know, just looking at your basic five food groups, which we've got your fruit
00:04:47
Speaker
your vegetables, your grains and cereal, your meat or meat alternatives, and then your dairy foods or plant alternatives. It's a really good place to start. I didn't know we had Australian dietary guidelines. I'm assuming it's not the food pyramid and that we've come away from that because they
00:05:06
Speaker
Didn't that kind of get debugged? It's not really? Version of. It's a version of. But I mean, yeah, the basics of our dietary guidelines are around sort of eating more from our core food groups and less of our discretionary foods, which are going to be those foods that are high in some of the added sugars and some shade of alcohol.
00:05:25
Speaker
So it's still very much sort of eating a wide range of unprocessed food, like food that's as close to its normal source, its original source as possible. Is that what you're talking about? And the discretionary foods are all those refined things. Yeah. So there's a really nice Michael Pollan quote, which is, I think it's, eat food, not too much, mostly plants. And I really love that because it really kind of simplifies things. So I think that we have unnecessarily complicated things.
00:05:53
Speaker
Just to give you some really interesting stats like 90% of Australian adults are eating enough vegetables and I think around for over 50% are not eating enough fruit. So if we're kind of looking to really simplify things you know those stats can be really powerful. Yeah so what is enough vegetables and enough fruit? What do the guidelines say we should be eating? So this is where our two and five comes in so it's around two serves of fruit and a serve is about
00:06:18
Speaker
Or if little fruits like apricots would be two, two apricots would equal a serve. And five serves of veg. So a serve of veg is roughly a cup of salad veg or half a cup of veg. So how I normally sort of translate this to my clients is that we need to be eating vegetables at at least two occasions or two meals across the day if we're going to be getting close to meeting our serves.
Meal Timing and Dietary Strategies
00:06:41
Speaker
And so is that what we're all getting wrong? Is that like the biggest thing that Australians are getting wrong when it comes to eating well and managing our weight? Is it kind of the fruits and veggies or is it more complicated than that? It's a really big one. So probably what I would say is the biggest one is that our intake of those discretionary foods that I mentioned before. So they're sort of foods that are not needed to meet our nutrition requirements and tend to be quite high in calories and saturated sugars, salt, etc.
00:07:10
Speaker
Our intake of these discretionary foods is too high. So I think the stats have suited around kind of 30% of our intake of these discretionary foods. And it doesn't mean that there's not room for these foods in a balanced diet. It's just that our current intake is too high, which means that then, okay, if we're filling out our intake with these foods, what are we missing out on? And we're definitely missing out on
00:07:34
Speaker
in terms of our plants, our fruits and vegetables, which means that our fiber is going to be taking a hit as well. The other thing was also that when we're thinking about some of our breads and cereals and grains, a bad rap at the moment, particularly with the popularity of diets like keto, is that we're probably consuming too many refined cereal products.
00:07:54
Speaker
rather than sort of getting in really fibrous whole grain comments as well. So I think it's sort of that combination of increased discretionary food and not enough for those poor food groups. Okay. And I guess one of the things that we're also getting lots of messages about, it's not just what to eat in terms of whether you're going like a Mediterranean diet or keto or paleo or one of my cousins is doing carnivore right now. She's
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, like experimental way, see what works for you. But it's also about when to eat. So there's all this talk about different types of fasting, whether it's time restricted eating or intermittent fasting or circadian fasting, there's so many different sort of flavors. What do you think is worthwhile exploring when it comes to that kind of, you know, when to eat strategy?
00:08:41
Speaker
It's a really good question and the first question that I'll always ask is, you know, for what? For people like I was fasting good, I'm like, for what? For weight loss, for how you feel, for sleep, for, you know, so it really comes down to what your goals are and what you're trying to get out of the process in terms of fasting for weight loss. It's not, you know, it's not any more effective or less effective than other myths.
00:09:06
Speaker
And so, you know, if it's slang that suits you, then that's fine. In terms of sort of general health and wellbeing, again, it comes down to the individual. And a good example that I often have is that for
00:09:18
Speaker
women who might exercise or train in the morning is that, you know, potentially we don't, depending on the intensity of what you're doing, you might not want to be doing that faster because you're not going to get the appropriate performance. And so that's an example of where something like an intermittent fasting where you're fasting short of the morning might not see you.
00:09:37
Speaker
As a general guide, I think it's great for us to have a decent break daily overnight where we're not consuming treats. It can be problematic for some of my clients. They might be sort of late in the evening, 10, 11 o'clock at night, and then having an early breakfast when they wake up, which means that the body really doesn't survive much.
00:09:55
Speaker
time where it's sort of resting on and recovering. So if, you know, it's sort of generally speaking as a kind of really fit guide, I would suggest if we can get 10, 11, 12 hours across the evening where we're not eating, then I think that that's a really positive thing in terms of sort of adding in additional hours of fasting or having fasting days that will come down to the individual and their goals. And in terms of, you know, the timing of meals, this
00:10:24
Speaker
What's that old saying? It's like you breakfast like a king, you have lunch like a queen.
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah. They did it like a paw park. Is that still, you know, is there science behind that in terms of saying, yes, you should have your bigger meal earlier in the day and then kind of, you know, taper, I guess, so that you have that big break overnight, your body can heal and restore itself. Is there a truth in that? Yeah, it actually is. And I think that that's sort of something that particularly for women sort of in the carry menophores, menophores transition. But I think this is definitely something that we would look
00:11:02
Speaker
look for heat in terms of making sure that we're starting the day with a really protein purpose.
00:11:09
Speaker
It is some theory behind sort of, I guess, going a little bit lighter at night in terms of saving sort of more of our carbohydrate distribution. So things like, they can be in breads, our rice and pastas, saving those for a little bit earlier in the day or around the time of day when we're most active and perhaps going a little bit lighter at night. The thing for me though is always bridging the gap between what's perfect and what's
00:11:34
Speaker
because for some people, you know, that's the time evenings when they sit down and they have a meal with their family. And so it's about sort of trying to balance all of those things as well. So I think sometimes good enough is good enough. And if it's not perfect, then that's okay.
Meal Planning for Diverse Needs
00:11:51
Speaker
So it's with finding that middle ground between sort of what's scientifically perfect and what's kind of cool for people and their day to day life.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good point because there are so many, you know, health podcasts I listen to and they'll say, oh, you know, this is a great way to eat. And I'm like, hmm, what does that actually look like for a family when you're having breakfast in 20 minutes and trying to get kids out the door and there's probably, you know, you might not necessarily be cooking like a cooked brekkie. It's likely to be porridge or cereal or, you know, something that gets them out pretty quickly.
00:12:24
Speaker
and you're packing stuff in a lunchbox that's got a certain size and you want things to stay, you know, not go off during the day in terms of what you can put in the lunchbox that's not going to be refrigerated. And then, yeah, you have your family meal when you can actually sit down and slow down and spend more time on cooking. It's actually kind of, you know, the rhythm in the household is kind of actually flips that entire idea of when you would have your bigger meal and when you would taper those things.
00:12:52
Speaker
How do we reconcile what's potentially most healthy for us versus the way that we actually live? Just making some small tweaks and changes. I mentioned having a nice protein packed breakfast doesn't mean that you have to sit down and have a nice cooked eggs and spinach and mushies and a bit of toast. There's nice and quick ways that we can do that.
00:13:16
Speaker
And same again, sort of thinking about evening meal, this is where some small quicks can come in in terms of making some small substitutions or perhaps just the way that you portion the meal out on your plate might be slightly different to other members of their household.
00:13:32
Speaker
It's just sort of again, this is sort of what I do with my clients. Often people think that it's delving deep into the science of what we do. Yes, you know, that's part of it, but it's also like, okay, when are you making lunch? And exactly that, like I had a client who gets the tram to work and she didn't want to carry 400 containers to work. So we had to figure out how to make her lunch nice and compact, but we're still going to meet her needs. So.
00:13:54
Speaker
Half of what I do is just kind of walking through all of these logistics, life admin hacks for eating. Yep. It's an industry. So when you have a breakfast, Annie, what would you suggest that people do if they don't have time for the eggs and the bacon and the spinach and the mushrooms? What is the good protein packed breakfast?
00:14:16
Speaker
So preference, I'm being smoothie obsessed for a while now. So smoothie is my go-to, but also, you know, I understand smoothies are not also appealing for people in winter. So basically, we can turn anything into a higher protein option. So, you know, this is where some products sometimes like protein powders can be helpful. I don't sort of necessarily suggest that people kind of squeak
00:14:40
Speaker
protein drinks all day, every day. But perhaps, you know, supplementing with something like a protein powder or a higher protein yogurt can turn something like
00:14:51
Speaker
a porridge or a cereal into a breakfast that's then higher protein. There's also options as well. There's higher protein breads that don't make great sandwiches, but aren't too bad in the toaster as well. So that then, you know, we can, we can have, if you like this veggie martin toast in the morning, we can turn that into a higher protein option. So there's lots of sort of different ways, but I mean, I love breakfast foods, but we can turn cereal, toast, porridge,
00:15:18
Speaker
oat smoothies into a really nourishing breakfast pretty easily with a few small cleats. What are you having breakfast time these days?
00:15:27
Speaker
I love getting into the nitty gritty. What does actually everyone eat? I do actually have eggs quite a lot. You know, if I if my morning has gone to plan, that's what I will have. Or I will have toast with Vegemite on the days that I'm in a hurry. What about you, Mia? You have some production line, don't you, where you prepare your breakfast in advance. I do. I have these little pots that I have that I put yogurt and nuts and seeds into berries in and I make a big batch of that on the weekend. I have to stand there and line them all up and doll it all out.
00:15:57
Speaker
And I have that, but we have eggs a lot. I make eggs for the kids in the morning. I'll have scrambled eggs or a soft boiled egg and some bacon and some toast, or they'll have porridge. I think what's worth considering is that actually cooking a breakfast like that does not take as long as you think.
00:16:14
Speaker
It might feel like it's a big production and, oh, it couldn't possibly be like cooking brekkie. It takes like 15 minutes. So I think when you've got, you know, I know exactly what the kids like, I'd stop asking them what they want for breakfast. Cause it's just like, I know what they like. Unless it's the weird weather and the funny moods, try and introduce some variety and just like, we're having baked beans today. We're having eggs today. You know, it's porridge today.
00:16:39
Speaker
And then on the weekend, it's a car crash of waffles and pancakes. And we have bacon with it, so there's some protein in there.
00:16:47
Speaker
it doesn't often take as long as you think to make something that's a bit more substantial. Yeah, and I do find that a lot. It's often the perception of sort of the difficulty or the time required for it to last. Same again for cooking dinner. Sometimes it's the seed that it will be quicker to get picked away. That's where you only break it down. By the time you've ordered it and you wait for it or you go pick it up, you know, you probably could have done a really nice job. Oh yeah, you totally could have.
00:17:14
Speaker
sometimes then breaking it down like so that we've got some really quick, easy backup options so that that feels easy. If it feels easy, we'll do it. If it feels hard, we won't. Yeah. So maybe we should chat a bit more about meal planning because Mia and I are huge fans of meal planning. Yeah.
00:17:30
Speaker
It's one thing that does start to make things feel easier. Yeah. And it definitely does. You know, if you are thinking about mixing up your breakfast and things, you kind of do need to do that planning so that you make sure you've got the right ingredients and you've got the right headspace. But if you're a single person, is it worth meal planning?
00:17:49
Speaker
Absolutely.
Balancing Family Dietary Requirements
00:17:50
Speaker
We all experience the same thing in the sense that we get to the end of our day, we've already made a billion decisions during the day, and then we've got that sort of mental fatigue and what the heck am I going to put within us. So family, single, whoever, I do think that having systems in place when it comes to meal planning is really important.
00:18:11
Speaker
I think it's also really important to acknowledge that planning and meal planning can look really different for everybody. We don't sort of all need to have that Instagram perfect fridge where our meals for the week are nicely prepared in containers. There's lots of sort of different types of meal planning that you can do and it's as a way
00:18:30
Speaker
me with my clients, it's about merging the right strategy to the right person. Just sort of not getting stuck in that one size fits all, but there's a couple of different things that we can do. So, you know, we could think about, you know, meal planning could be booking a whole meal or it would be.
00:18:46
Speaker
shopping up some ingredients, or it might be just marinating some meat or some protein so that you've got, you know, the components of the meal ready to go. It might be using meal kits like HelloFresh or Marley's food, or it might be getting your meals fully cooked and delivered ready to go, you know, so it really depends on your preferences and your budget and what's been worth your household.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's nice to sort of take that wider perspective with meal planning and know there's a few different levers you can pull to add that convenience and ease into your week and thinking about, yeah, is it how many meals am I doing? Is it breakfast, lunch and dinner? Is it every day? Is it some of the days? Is it full bulk meal prep or just thinking about just having an idea of what you're going to cook on a day?
00:19:32
Speaker
knowing that you've shopped and you've got the ingredients, that gets you halfway there. At least you know there's food in the fridge and there's a plan for how you're going to use it.
00:19:39
Speaker
which is certainly not the way that I used to operate. I used to have like the five o'clock freak outs. What's for dinner? What's in the thing? And I was married to someone who could do like the super chef thing. What was that show, surprise chef? Ready, steady cook, Will, you got like- Yes, yes. Some random ingredients, make something happen. And he could do that. I can't operate like that. Yeah, that's my super skill too. Well, my partner's the gourmet cook and I'm the, okay.
00:20:07
Speaker
we haven't got anything, what can we make out of the pantry sort of person? I feel like there's other fridges now where you can just type it, you can type it into chat GPT and say, this is what I have, what can I cook at chat GPT will tell you. And I mean, I think then the next thing to talk about is like, how do you meal plan when you've got people in your family who have all different kinds of any requirements? So you might have
00:20:32
Speaker
people who've got celiac and so want to be gluten-free, lactose intolerant, other intolerances. And actually I've got my in-laws coming to stay with me shortly who one gluten-free, one type one diabetic. And it always does freak me out a little bit about, oh, like how am I going to adjust our meal plan to kind of suit them? So how can we approach this in a sustainable way when you've got all of these different dietary requirements?
00:20:58
Speaker
It's a really great question and it comes up a lot with my clients, sort of people freaking out like, oh gosh, my partner's at high cholesterol and my kid doesn't like this and now I've got to watch my weight. Like, am I cooking three separate meals? Yeah, this is the question we get a lot. So what I can start with is just helping people understand the components of a balanced meal, because then once you understand the framework, then it's a little bit easier to sort of mix and match those things in and out. So
00:21:27
Speaker
This is also something that we can talk to our kids about as well. So I get people to usually just think about their plate and put it into four quarters or four quadrants. So who are those quadrants or half the plate could be our vegetables or salads. This is where our plants are coming in. A quarter of the plate is based around our protein. So that could be things like meat or chicken, fish, eggs, it could be things like tofu or tempeh, lentils or legumes.
00:21:55
Speaker
quarter of the plate is our carbohydrates. So this is things like our rice, our pasta, grains, breads, wraps, or sort of more of our stock you veg. So I think like your potato or your sweet potato. So why don't we get all got that framework? Then what we can do is have a look at, let's say, are there in terms of preferences? Do we have kind of shared preferences around protein? Does the whole family like chicken? Girl.
00:22:18
Speaker
Does everybody like rice? Great. Okay, what veggies do we have? And so having that framework can be really helpful in terms of understanding how we support things in them. The other thing is, is that this framework can be used for kids as well. So we might just change the proportions slightly, like they might have a
00:22:36
Speaker
third a third, third to third protein. And we can talk to them the way that I usually sort of frame that instead of talking about protein carbs and plants is that we can talk about our go foods, which are our carbs, our fuel, our bro foods, which are our proteins, now glow foods, which are our plants, which help us blow from in.
00:22:55
Speaker
I am writing this down. It's not a time to go grow and glow, but it's just also nice that if you want to have that conversation about food, that's a nice language that you can use. But also it just goes that the framework can be applied to different people at different ages and stages. It's just that the proportions might change slightly for kids.
00:23:18
Speaker
When we're thinking about adults, the cautions might be slightly bigger. You would still use that sort of framework. Me as a smaller female with a desk job, my energy needs aren't huge, whereas if you're
00:23:32
Speaker
partner as a builder on their feet all day or somebody who works at a hospital moving around on their feet all day and clocks up their kilometres, then their energy needs might be great enough. Using that framework, first off, means that you know that you've got a balanced meal, we've got our protein, we've got our plants, and we've got to do we have sort of shared options. So, for example, in terms of
00:23:55
Speaker
making a change for a vegetarian dish, the rest of the family's having to thin, you could sub out some marinated tofu and then you've still got that nice sort of homework. The issue is sometimes when we're trying to adapt meals we remove a category. So for example vegetarian eating often what we do is that we remove the meat protein but we don't necessarily replace it and we just increase our portion. So we know we're going to be nailing our nutrition and
00:24:20
Speaker
if we're using that framework. So what you can have a think about is the different proteins that you might use in your household, different carbohydrates, the different things used in that. So that's going to be a really good way to start. Are there plates out there that have like portions on them? Like have the quarters? There are, there are. They do exist. They do exist. I'd say some people, yeah, some of my clients have got those in the past when they like them, but I mean, it's, it's a basic enough stuff.
00:24:48
Speaker
visual that you can use. We don't necessarily need to be measuring or weighing everything but just having that sort of rough framework in mind you can eyeball the plate and it's a really good place to start. You know the thing that I would really encourage people to do is I mean this I'm not going to sort of go over all of the meal planning because you guys have already outlined some really great strategies
00:25:11
Speaker
But the other thing I'd really encourage people to do is write things down. Like if you've got some family meals that you have run like, write it down to the Middle East and start to create your own sort of meal Bible. Because I know personally, like I go blank when I'm on the spot and thinking about cooking something. It's like tumbleweeds. I can't think of anything that I've ever cooked or enjoyed before.
00:25:35
Speaker
Whereas some of my clients might just have phone notes or either an Excel or a Google Doc where they just note down what the favourite family meals are and over time they can sort of build up their repertoire. Whereas I think sometimes we always forget about it and then remember it four years later and go,
00:25:55
Speaker
You know what? That's when those Hello Fresh recipe cards come in handy because every time we had one of them that it was a hit, I'm like, I'm keeping that one. But I still have a stack. I still have a stack of them that were successful. And I literally have a thing in my meal plan at the moment that's called Chicken Dinner Winner.
00:26:12
Speaker
because everybody loved it and raved about it. And they're like, we have to remember what this combo was. So we did replicate it to the chicken dinner winner. Oh, funny. Yeah, I do think that that's really helpful. Just having your own sort of little creating your own recipe book, so a family favorite and go tos. And also then sort of noting down where you can write some substitutions to a couch or different type of requirement.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah. And if you want to go digital with that, I recommend, highly recommend the Paprika app.
Digital Tools for Meal Planning
00:26:43
Speaker
I don't know if you've used it, but you can basically forward recipes to the app that you find on the web.
00:26:49
Speaker
And it will save it all for you and you can put categories in and you can give it ratings out of stars and stuff. We use that in our house and it's very helpful. Yeah, we use paprika as well. Actually we use a combination of things. We use sort of a Google kit, shared notes for our shopping list. And also that's where we'll drop down sort of what we're doing for dinner. We've also got a little whiteboard on the fridge and we also use paprika as well. So ours was a bit of a sort of mishmash of things, but it works.
00:27:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. You've got to find the tools that work for you that are just convenient.
Perimenopause Nutrition and Exercise
00:27:22
Speaker
Oh, I love that. Many of our listeners are women who are experiencing perimenopause or menopause, and we talked about that a little bit earlier. But what sort of foods should those women who are in that stage of their life be thinking about in terms of things that might make symptoms worse or those sorts of things? Talk us through how you coach people who are facing this life change.
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's a big one and I feel like as women the goalposts continually shift throughout our life when we just get used to one stage and settle in and then the goalposts shift again and that's sort of how I feel very menopause that transition is. What I will say is that, you know, with the hormonal changes that come with
00:28:02
Speaker
very menophores like lifestyle interventions such as diet and exercise are really important but they don't replace medical management and so the first thing I'll usually say is make sure that you've got a great GP who understands very menophores and menophores and can
00:28:18
Speaker
provide adequate support. In terms of sort of what happens during this climb, like these people can play so many roles in the body. And as it declines, we do start to see shrimp tangles. And so that can impact things like our mesh, particularly our visceral shot, which will shoot around our organs in that middle there. I'm nodding vigorously. I'm nodding, nodding, nodding. Menopots, which I don't love. Menopots! Oh my God, that's awful!
00:28:47
Speaker
It's awful and I have one. Oh my God. I just want an incredible bite. As you said, Addie, you know, as women, you go through these different transitions with your body and you know, if you've had kids, you go through pregnancy, you're like, oh, this is so fascinating. And then you get to this stage and like, this is so fascinating and bloody awful. You made my menopot. Oh my God. Keep going.
00:29:09
Speaker
Look, I just think our body is just bloody incredible. But I do think that we have to manage a lot, you know, and menophores is another one of those. So when it comes to, I guess, sort of lifestyle measures that we can take to support this transition, there's a couple of things. I'll touch on exercise briefly. Obviously, as a dietitian, exercise is not my area of expertise, but you know, it is really important at this time for a couple of reasons. One, we get this decline in muscle mass.
00:29:39
Speaker
It's really important that we are. It's either the case of move or lose it, like we do need to be using our muscles to protect our muscle mass. It's going to affect things like our function, mobility, balance down the track. So making that investment now is important. And the other thing is that the research suggests that
00:29:56
Speaker
This is a time in our lives where we're less physically active and it makes sense where often we see we've got kids, we might have aging parents, we might be in the middle of our, you know, careers. There's lots that we're juggling and so not mentoring, if you're experiencing menopausal symptoms, you might not feel like exercising. So the research is suggesting that we are actually decreasing our activity at this point in time. So it's just something to note that this is really
00:30:22
Speaker
really important to prioritize. And I guess I take an all or something approach, not all or nothing approach. Anything is good, however you can move your body. Oh, I like that too Annie, I'm writing that down too. Sometimes we think that it's got to be grand and intense for it to have an impact, but reality is whatever you can fit in and whatever you can do will be great.
00:30:43
Speaker
In terms of nutrition, there's a couple of things that we want to think about. We've already touched on that, a couple of them. Protein and plants, we really want to be protein and plant forward for a couple of reasons. One, protein will help support that muscle mass that I talked about just before with that sort of age-related cycle. We can really need to be making sure that we're getting in enough of our raw foods to support our muscles. Oh, talk about a little bit more about psychopenia. Whenever I hear that term, I just think of people's bottoms
00:31:15
Speaker
It's just suddenly there's a flat pancake there. What happened to my muscles? Yeah. What is it? So I mean, there's there's elements in terms of changes that come with aging and there's elements that come with, I guess, some of the hormonal changes as well. So I guess that psychopenia can happen just as a result of the aging process, the change in hormonal, but also as a result of being lesser.
00:31:37
Speaker
And as I mentioned, this is a time in our life where we can become less active. So we do need to be, I guess, sort of flashing against a little bit. So it is a combination of sort of age and hormone related changes along with a more sedentary lifestyle. It's always tough when you feel like, damn, I've not blamed everything on my hormones. I've actually got it.
00:31:58
Speaker
how to do something, exercise is going to be really important and our protein intake will help and will support that muscleness, will also help. It's a really sort of satiating, so it will help us feeling nice and full and satisfied. So we want to be protein and plant forward and we really want to be putting a fiber
00:32:18
Speaker
There's a couple of things that change. A loss of muscle includes sort of loss of smooth muscle which can actually add digestion. We can also get changes in our gut microbiome and so this is where we want to be making sure that we're getting in lots of plants, lots of fiber, fermented foods as well, so some of that yogurt.
00:32:36
Speaker
and the sauerkraut, those sorts of things. Sometimes symptoms of perimenophores can be digested with foods like bloating, diarrhea, constipation, excessive gas, or both, or an awesome thing. And so sometimes that can be a result of changes through the perimenophores transition.
00:32:53
Speaker
of other things we wanted to be thinking about higher proteins as well. So really sort of embracing our legumes and lentils and also some of our soy cracks as well. I know everybody kind of when I say tofu that
00:33:08
Speaker
But what I would say is there is a marinated tofu from the supermarket. There's already some flavor in there. And it can be actually a really thick and versatile protein. So keep an open mind, people. And a couple of other things are going to be our Amiga 3. So perimenopause can also be a time of
00:33:27
Speaker
I guess, are more of an inflammatory state. So each of them is actually on to the front of thing. As early levels of estrogen decline, we can become sort of more in an inflammatory state. So thinking about things like our oil leafy, so salmon, sardines, and April, there are some plant options. Last but not least, thinking about sort of our polyphenols that are going to be really helpful and protective. So these are things like our berries, like think about your
00:33:53
Speaker
red and purple sort of colored things like our berries, red cabbage, olive oil, turmeric, ginger. So yeah, there's lots of considerations to make when it comes to our perimen port of hand if you can. But also if you remember that this also isn't too far away from the guide for guidelines that we talked about. So it's really just about minimizing our four food groups and minimizing that intake of those discretionary foods.
Alcohol and Health in Perimenopause
00:34:19
Speaker
I do like you calling them discretionary foods because it's
00:34:22
Speaker
it makes it feel better than they're not bad foods, they're just discretionary. Yeah, I call them sort of soul foods, really, or, you know, treats or whatever sort of language works for you is that, you know, there are foods or drinks that are good for the soul but aren't necessarily contributing to your, you know, daily nutrition. And that's okay. If our intake is predominantly soul foods and not enough whole foods, then, you know, that's when the balance is a little bit out of whack. So there's absolutely room for those things in our diets. It's just
00:34:51
Speaker
about forgetting mental health right. What about alcohol, any people in perimenopause? That's a really good question and it's a really tricky one because, you know, for people, typically during this time, like alcohol can be a really nice outlet. It can be a really nice stress reliever. People might even be using it to help them get to sleep. But the realities of alcohol aren't great, particularly when it comes to perimenopause, you know,
00:35:16
Speaker
and exacerbate symptoms typically from of those laser murder symptoms like sweating and hot flushes. The other thing is, you know, sleep can be an issue during these times, but alcohol generally might help us get to sleep, but it's not going to contribute to the quality
00:35:38
Speaker
to contribute to weight gain. So again, you know, it's not something that I say never do, but I do think that this is, we do really need to moderate and we do need to, in some cases, perhaps have a look at our relationship with alcohol as well.
Conclusion and Further Resources
00:35:52
Speaker
So, you know, is it playing a role in terms of being a sleep aid or a stress reminder and having a reflection of the tools and strategy that we can use for those things instead. Oh, that's just some really good tips, Annie. So I think that that really is
00:36:06
Speaker
a really good way for us to finish up our episode for today. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Where can our listeners find you if they want to hear more? So my website is allroundwellness.com.au or I am on Instagram at healthy.habits.dietition. And Annie's also got a really great guide about how to make supermarket, quick supermarket meals. So we will make sure we link to that in the show notes as well.
00:36:34
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeandminlifehacks.com. And if you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.