Menopause & nutrition, with Dipshikkha Chaliha
How diet and lifestyle can positively influence Menopause
Vesta and Dipshikkha discuss menopause not as an end, but as a transition to a fulfilling life, focusing on managing metabolic age through diet and lifestyle.
Dipshikkha advocates for eating according to circadian rhythms and prioritising gut health to reverse the ageing process and maintain energy levels.
Metabolic Age vs Biological clock
Menopause is a transition towards the beginning of a fulfilled feminine life rather than its termination.
It’s not the biological clock that we should be worried about, it’s the metabolic clock. While chronological ageing is inevitable, metabolic age can be reversed. This reversal is achieved by managing oxidation through conscious breathing and nourishing food, slowing down the ageing process
Circadian Rhythm Diet
Dipshikkha advocates eating according to the circadian rhythm, following a “grandparents diet” of two meals a day, timed with the sun’s peak and sunset, and connecting with nature.
This efficient eating pattern conserves energy, as “if you’re constantly eating, your body is constantly using energy to digest the food, unnecessarily so.”
Macronutriment Balance
While not restricting food groups, Dipshikkha emphasises doubling protein intake, consuming healthy carbs, and prioritising vegetables for fibre, crucial for gut health, which she identifies as “the gateway to well-being.”
Good fats, like ghee, butter, and olive oil, are also essential for brain health and preventing cognitive degeneration.
Calcium & Vitamin C & D
Calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin C are vital for menopausal women to combat bone density loss.
Dipshikkha also recommends animal protein for its essential amino acids and iron, stating, “human beings were hunter gatherers, right? Our genetic coding has meat-eating as a part of it.”
She distinguishes between healthy meat from a butcher and processed meats like sausages and salami, which contain additives and chemicals.
Sugar is identified as a major enemy, causing insulin resistance and diabetes, with Dipshikkha explaining, “sugar is an oxidising agent.”
Be healthy. Be gutsy.
The gut is described as “the engine of the body” and “the first brain,” with its health directly impacting brain health and the immune system.
To enhance gut health, Dipshikkha recommends a diet low in sugar, high in protein and vegetables, and rich in probiotics (curd, kefir, kimchi, kombucha) and prebiotics (ginger, garlic, onions).
Three pieces of advice
Her top three pieces of advice for women going through menopause are :
- to prioritise gut-friendly foods,
- increase protein intake,
- and avoid sugar.
Gravity and wrinkles are fine with me. They’re a small price to pay for the new wisdom inside my head and my heart.
When you’re young, there’s so much now that you can’t take it in. It’s pouring over you like awaterfall. When you’re older, it’s less intense, but you’re able to reach out and drink it. I love being older.
I see menopause as the start of the next fabulous phase of life as a woman. Now is a time to ‘tune in’ to our bodies and embrace this new chapter. If anything, I feel more myself and love my body more now, at 58 years old, than ever before.
All of a sudden I don’t mind saying to people, ‘You know what? Get out of my life. You’re not right for me.’ It’s wonderful and liberating.
If you deal with it in a healthy fashion then I think you come out the other side a better person. I’ve got so much more energy now than I ever had in my early 50s before the menopause.
The very best way that you can help yourself is to develop and sustain a positive attitude. The way you think and feel about everything will make all the difference to your experience.
Menopause. A pause while you reconsider men.
A study says owning a dog makes you 10 years younger. My first thought was to rescue two more, but I don’t want to go through menopause again.
Women are always being tested … but ultimately, each of us has to define who we are individually and then do the very best job we can to grow into it.
Confidence comes with age, and looking beautiful comes from the confidence someone has in themselves.
I think our bodies are beautiful, and I think celebrating them and being comfortable in them—no matter what age you are—is important. There shouldn’t be any kind of shame or discomfort around it.
I don’t think of getting older as looking better or worse; it’s just different. You change, and that’s okay.
For you, it’s a joke, but think about it for me, everything is going south. Menopause is one of themost significant things that happens to women. As someone who is in that phase, it is very frightening, because everything is basically out of your control.
The anticipation of a problem creates bigger problems than it really is. One has to adapt to alifestyle change to remain in the best of health. What works for one in their 30s or 40s cannot workin your 50s. You need to understand what you are getting into and make those small changes. One can have methi to regulate hormones. Zinc too. Start exercising, limit your alcohol intake if you drink and get into bed earlier.
I didn’t know what peri menopause was, I thought after a certain age we go through pre menopause up to 10 years before menopause? But did you know you could go through perimenopause up to 10 years before menopause ? It’s like the body is getting ready for menopause?
Menopause is considered as a “problem” rather than something normal every women experience.There’s a very important message behind it because what we’re saying here is that there are noexpiration dates for women.
I have a very healthy baseline, and also, well, I was experiencing hormone shifts because of infertility, having to take shots and all that,” Obama explained. “I experienced the night sweats, even in my 30s, and when you think of the other symptoms that come along, just hot flashes, I mean, I had a few before I started taking hormones.
Menopause is like autumn leaves falling; it’s a natural shedding of the old to make way for the new.
Gravity and wrinkles are fine with me. They’re a small price to pay for the new wisdom inside my head and my heart.
When you’re young, there’s so much now that you can’t take it in. It’s pouring over you like awaterfall. When you’re older, it’s less intense, but you’re able to reach out and drink it. I love being older.