Speaker 1: Oh, hello there. Thank you for joining us on the
Speaker 1: daily podcast from Body and Soul called Healthy Ish. I
Speaker 1: am Felicity Halle. Today we're chatting with Jamie Rose Chambers.
Speaker 1: She's a dietitian, nutritionist and author of the Peridet. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're talking about perimenopause, the second puberty of life, as
Speaker 1: she refers to it, as she's going to share the
Speaker 1: key foods to help relieve common symptoms. Now, if you
Speaker 1: want more from Jamie, listening to our sister podcast, Extra
Speaker 1: Healthy Ish, where we got a bit deeper into the
Speaker 1: impact of food not only on perimenopause, but also on menopause,
Speaker 1: but really on every daily aspect of life. Hey, make
Speaker 1: sure you're listening to Extra Healthy Ish, our sister podcast
Speaker 1: where she goes deeper into the impact of food on perimenopause.
Speaker 1: You can search for Extra Healthy Ish wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Jamie ice to have you on the podcast
Speaker 1: and congratulations on your new book.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Oh it's a hot topic, isn't it. Pery menopause. Oh,
Speaker 1: we're talking about it all of the time. Eight out
Speaker 1: of ten women suffer from pery symptoms. That's a lot.
Speaker 2: It is a lot, and you know, I think maybe
Speaker 2: we just didn't talk about it much for a really
Speaker 2: long time, or it was just associated with menopause. But
Speaker 2: actually what we're finding is that the bulk of the
Speaker 2: symptoms that women experience are actually through perry. Remember that
Speaker 2: women can go through perimenopause for up to ten years,
Speaker 2: so it's a really long time to be living with
Speaker 2: some of these symptoms.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, isn't it, Because often you'll have a symptom.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in that age bracket and you're something
Speaker 1: will happen and then you're like, is that pery or
Speaker 1: is that just because there's so many question marks going
Speaker 1: on in my mind right now.
Speaker 2: It's so true. And look, I mean certainly in clinic,
Speaker 2: the women that I see in that age group and
Speaker 2: in that pery zone, they have so much going on.
Speaker 2: I mean, it really is kind of the peak of
Speaker 2: our life. The forties is when we often have families
Speaker 2: where a couple of decades into our careers, we've got
Speaker 2: you know, often parents that we're caring for. We're juggling
Speaker 2: so much like me, I'm right in the middle of
Speaker 2: a house renovation as well. At the moment, I've got
Speaker 2: a little one who's waking up in the middle of
Speaker 2: the night with nightmares. So it's like, is it Perry,
Speaker 2: Am I just tired? I don't know what's going on?
Speaker 2: So it can be a really it's a really challenging
Speaker 2: time for a lot of women.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the symptoms remind us?
Speaker 2: Okay, so I think probably the main one that we
Speaker 2: all associate certainly with menopause. But remember we're talking these
Speaker 2: are the same symptoms, it's all perry is the lead
Speaker 2: up to menopause. So hot flushes, that's probably one of
Speaker 2: the most common ones. Now they do get more serious, generally,
Speaker 2: and more frequent the closer we get to menopause, So
Speaker 2: if you're just kind of early on in perry, you
Speaker 2: may not be so much experiencing them. What you might
Speaker 2: find and probably the best way of figuring out whether
Speaker 2: you're in the throes of perry is period start to change.
Speaker 2: So our menstrual cycle starts to change. They might get longer,
Speaker 2: they might get shorter, they might be heavier, they might
Speaker 2: be lighter, they might be all over the shop. So
Speaker 2: that's usually a pretty good indicator that things are starting
Speaker 2: feeling a bit pmsy but not when you're supposed to
Speaker 2: be PMS. So for example, feeling a bit ragey and
Speaker 2: you know, irritated by things that probably shouldn't be irritating you,
Speaker 2: feeling a bit teary watching an ad or a silly
Speaker 2: thing on Facebook, and all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 2: you're finding that tears are springing to your eyes. So
Speaker 2: they're pretty common things, more so at the start of
Speaker 2: that Perry journey. As time goes on, that's typically when
Speaker 2: the hot flushes tend to kick in. Look, mental health
Speaker 2: issues are a really big one. I mean, I've heard
Speaker 2: stories such as women sending themselves off to be tested
Speaker 2: for depression, anxiety thinking they had early on set Alzheimer's
Speaker 2: or dementia because they had this brain fog they couldn't
Speaker 2: concentrate properly. You know, I do it all the time.
Speaker 2: I walk to the fridge and I open the fridge.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know why I'm here, I can't
Speaker 2: remember why I'm here. I walk into a room, what
Speaker 2: am I here for? Again? You know, those sorts of
Speaker 2: things are really common. To change to digestion, that's another
Speaker 2: really common one. So again, a lot of women find
Speaker 2: that through their cycle, they might be a little more constipated,
Speaker 2: and then for example, they get their period and they
Speaker 2: have a bit of you know, a looser store. And
Speaker 2: so this is again a really common one where bal
Speaker 2: habits can change. Forty two percent of women in perimenopause
Speaker 2: experience or report that they experience heartburn. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: you know, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Let's give up on that. On the digestion what and
Speaker 1: talk more about food. What role does the food we
Speaker 1: eat playing how we experience perry and all the symptoms.
Speaker 2: So I've sort of summarized the way I think about
Speaker 2: the relationship between food and perry is sort of It's
Speaker 2: got three main roles. Number one is managing or helping
Speaker 2: to manage the inevitable weight gain or change to body
Speaker 2: composition that goes along with perimenopause. I don't think I
Speaker 2: know a female that has been through menopause and hasn't
Speaker 2: noticed a change to their body shape or had some
Speaker 2: sort of a change to their weight. It can be
Speaker 2: very distressing for a lot of women. I hear them
Speaker 2: talk about, I can't wear my clothes anymore. I used
Speaker 2: to have a waste and I no longer have a waist,
Speaker 2: and so that's a really common one. Obviously, the way
Speaker 2: in which we eat and adjusting for that can really
Speaker 2: help you get through that time. I think once upon
Speaker 2: a time, weight gain was sort of an inevitable part
Speaker 2: of perimenopause, and although it is, we have really good
Speaker 2: tools to manage it. Now we know a lot more
Speaker 2: about why that happens. The second is literally managing the
Speaker 2: symptoms of perimenopause. So we talked before about hot flushes,
Speaker 2: we talked about anxiety and depression and change to mood.
Speaker 2: So in the book, what I've done is literally trawled
Speaker 2: through all the research to find any foods or nutrients
Speaker 2: that had a relationship with perimenopause symptoms, both positive and
Speaker 2: negative and negative, so we can actually use some of
Speaker 2: these foods to target some of the symptoms acutely, so
Speaker 2: right now, but also long term as well in terms
Speaker 2: of how our body changes through perimenopause. The third is
Speaker 2: again that long term, so it's sort of like the
Speaker 2: long game through perimenopause, and once we get out the
Speaker 2: other end of menopause, our body has kind of been
Speaker 2: through a lot and things have changed quite a lot,
Speaker 2: and there are certain body systems that become a little
Speaker 2: bit more vulnerable that we have to look after our brain,
Speaker 2: our cardiovascular system. So there are certain foods and food
Speaker 2: groups that we know can really help to protect those
Speaker 2: body systems so that we're in good shape for kind
Speaker 2: of the next phase of our life after menopause.
Speaker 1: Give us some of these, I mean, you've got a
Speaker 1: list of power foods in your book. Can you just
Speaker 1: give us a few of these, and then obviously we
Speaker 1: can buy a book to find out more.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to give you sort of my top
Speaker 2: three or four that I think the most important. Number
Speaker 2: one protein. We bang on about protein. If you see
Speaker 2: anything about perimenopause, you'll notice that there is a very
Speaker 2: strong relationship with protein. We talk about it a lot.
Speaker 2: The reason why is that through perimenopause, women will lose
Speaker 2: up to about ten percent of their muscle mass, and
Speaker 2: so through perimenopause we lose The symptoms are all triggered
Speaker 2: from this decline in our female reproductive hormones, particularly estrogen.
Speaker 2: So as that declines, our muscle mass declines as well.
Speaker 2: Now muscle I like to think of it like a
Speaker 2: big kind of calorie burning furnace. As we lose our
Speaker 2: muscle mass, we lose our ability to burn calories. So
Speaker 2: where let's say we used to eat you know, this
Speaker 2: amount of food every day and it kept our weight stable,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, we can't burn calories like we
Speaker 2: used to, and so the weight starts to creep up.
Speaker 2: So that's one of the mechanisms they believe is related
Speaker 2: to that change in weight. So that happens through perimenopause.
Speaker 2: So protein is particularly important. Our needs are probably higher
Speaker 2: than a lot of people really realize. We also need
Speaker 2: to kind of have it nicely distributed through the day,
Speaker 2: so it's really important that there is some protein throughout
Speaker 2: all of our meals so we're actually getting enough consistently
Speaker 2: through the day. That of course needs to then be
Speaker 2: coupled with strength based training as well, so it's all
Speaker 2: about preservation of muscle mass. The second thing is calcium.
Speaker 2: We begin to lose bone mass as well as muscle
Speaker 2: mass through perimenopause. We really want to look after our
Speaker 2: bones because if we don't, there is a really sharp
Speaker 2: decline in loss of bone mass through perimenopause, and it
Speaker 2: just puts us at such higher risk of osteopenia and
Speaker 2: osteoporosis later on in life. It's really hard to turn around.
Speaker 2: Once it's there, it's really difficult to change and to
Speaker 2: treat improve So, and you can see by if you
Speaker 2: look at the recommendations of calcium every day, premenopausal women
Speaker 2: need a thousand milligrams a day. That's the three servings
Speaker 2: that we all hear about. After menopause, it goes up
Speaker 2: to four servings a day, and that's thirteen hundred milligrams
Speaker 2: a day. We also then need to make sure that
Speaker 2: our vitamin D levels are optimum. Two can be done
Speaker 2: with a simple blood test, but vitamin D actually helps
Speaker 2: us to absorb calcium from our intestine, so the two
Speaker 2: work together. The third of fider estrogens, now, these are
Speaker 2: really interesting ones. These are basically plant estrogens, so they
Speaker 2: mimic what estrogen does in the body to a much
Speaker 2: milder degree of course, but if we're having these foods
Speaker 2: every day at a reasonable dose, the researchers found that
Speaker 2: they can really help to support some of the symptoms
Speaker 2: that go along with perimenopause, particularly things like hot flushes.
Speaker 2: So fighter estrogens we're shown to decrease symptoms like hot
Speaker 2: flushes by over forty percent in women in pyramids. It
Speaker 2: really is. Yeah, so what can you.
Speaker 1: Just give us a few foods that would have fighter
Speaker 1: estrogens in them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the top top two are flax seeds otherwise
Speaker 2: known as seeds. I always recommend grinding them because we
Speaker 2: can access the nutrients more efficiently. The seconder soy based products. Now,
Speaker 2: this is really controversial because soy was always thought to
Speaker 2: be you know, sort of associated with breast cancers and
Speaker 2: things like that. Always if you're worried, check with your
Speaker 2: health care provider. But overall, soy has been shown to
Speaker 2: be very healthy and can be a very uh you know,
Speaker 2: a fantastic part of a healthy diet. But we're talking
Speaker 2: whole soy products. So edimamae beans, tofu tempe soy milk
Speaker 2: are really our main sources there.
Speaker 1: Beans. I've really got into those really, so that is
Speaker 1: that's good news.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And if you buy them frozen, they're so easy.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't have to go to Japanese or
Speaker 2: you know, sushi to get them.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, Jamie, Thank you for coming on healthy,
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Hey, thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: this chat. If you want more from Jamie, her book,
Speaker 1: it's called The Peri Diet It is out now, and
Speaker 1: she is also up on Extra Healthy Ish, where we
Speaker 1: go a bit deeper into what to eat to relieve
Speaker 1: those perimenopause symptoms. If you did enjoy this one, though,
Speaker 1: tell us rate and review these episodes. Subscribe to this
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