I often get asked if there’s a particular diet to treat hormone issues. Common ones include PCOS, endometriosis, PMS/PMT, perimenopause, and menopause.
There’s are lots of myths flying around and I’ll be the first to hold my hands up and say I’ve been sucked in the past with statements about gluten, meat, and dairy being the nemesis of female hormone health.
I’m still waiting for scientists to link Covid to gluten via a study funded by gluten-free crumpet manufacturers.
Now the good news is there are dietary models that will improve hormone health and possibly reverse hormone conditions.
The tricky part is that there is no one size fits all.
Your office colleague may have absolutely experienced a cure for endometriosis swapping to almond milk, but it doesn’t mean that you necessarily will.
You see hormones are part of a bunch of chemicals altered by a number of factors including your metabolism, gut health, immune system, physical activity levels, genetics, and your mental health.
I know what you’re thinking, I’d rather clean the oven than even contemplate wading through that lot.
Well, you can put Mr. Muscle down because luckily all the above respond brilliantly to the following FIVE nutrition principles:
- Balance blood sugars: with protein at every meal and appropriate calorie intake
- Maintain a healthy weight: being either overweight or underweight can negatively impact hormone health.
- Be physically active daily: ideally, implement some structured exercise 2-5 times a week alongside some daily movement.
- Focus on food quality: I don’t mean organic but rather just the real food your grandparents ate before they lived on cake and toast.
- Consume foods that work for YOUR digestive health: this involves a little ‘trial and see what happens’. It could be that you discover an omnivorous diet works best for your gut. You could also try going gluten-free, plant-based, dairy-free, or low carb. Or even just eating your food more slowly (often a gamechanger for my clients).
All of the above will involve you eating a wholefoods diet, with an emphasis on home cooking as much as is feasible. It’ll require you to moderate processed food, alcohol, caffeine and maybe eliminate some food groups that irritate your digestive or immune system.
Follow this for 2-3 months and I’m pretty confident your hormones will feedback the benefits.
Get Your Hormone Hero Nutrition Essentials eBook
If you’re looking for more practical details on the above and recipes it’s all covered in my Hormone Hero Nutrition Essentials eBook.
It includes this Salted Caramel Protein Latte which is my absolute favourite afternoon pick me up so thought I’d share and we can raise a cup to happier hormones going forward.
