Menopause - And what you eat!
Have you been frantically performing sit-ups? Is the bulge around your mid-section completely ignoring all of your hard effort to eradicate it? Have you even considered that the unsightly bulge has something to do with your hormones and menopause?
You are happy when, after going to bed hungry because you didn't eat after 7:00 pm, you wake up in the morning and your tummy feels nice and flat and not bloated. You start your day with your healthy breakfast including the cereal, which has very little sugar content, covered with skim milk and your coffee with splenda and all the vitamins you know you are supposed to take. Sure enough, shortly after breakfast the bulge is back to haunt you for the rest of the day. You vow to work out harder at the gym but nowhere in your mind do you consider menopause. You have some trail mix and a banana for a snack then lunch with a can of soup that is healthier than most because the salt content is slightly less than the others plus you enjoy some crackers and cheese, maybe a few too many but the crackers are whole wheat!! You enjoy a cup of tea with splenda in the afternoon while you have your afternoon snack of some more trail mix then its home for dinner where you enjoy some packaged brand name rice with a chicken breast that you left this morning to marinate in a store bought bottle of marinade and again you feel good about it because the sugar content is very low plus you heat up frozen veggies (you are pleased with yourself for adding these veggies because you have no time to chop and steam raw ones). Now you can enjoy that nice, large glass of red wine and feel really good about it because the experts say a glass of red wine a day is good for us.
After dinner you frantically do some more sit-ups and try to squeeze in some exercise because that tummy bulge is again at its largest. You still haven't even considered menopause as the culprit.
Ladies, if you are serious about feeling good during menopause, then a serious evaluation of your diet and lifestyle is in order. When you are young and your hormones are in better balance then even a little effort in dieting and exercise works well. The extra sugar, extra salt, the alcohol and caffeine are not such a problem when we are younger. Once our hormones are out of balance we begin the cycle of weight gain, craving junk food and sugar, losing sleep and our sex-drive plummets. We feel old, ugly, over-weight and just plain lousy. We become devastated that our once young and trim body looks and feels old and we inevitably become chronically obsessed and depressed about ourselves which contributes to being irritable and unable to sleep. We can't seem to get any long-term relief from the symptoms.
It's time to explore the many ways to make small changes or additions to your diet and lifestyle that will help you combat the unique symptoms of menopause that you are experiencing. Check back frequently for more informative articles on diet, lifestyle and healthy hormones
