Lots of us have spent years thinking low fat but low fat is a big ‘no no’ when you are approaching the menopause when fat has never been more crucial for your health, your skin and your waist line. You just need to make sure you are eating the right kinds of fats.

Saturated fats, found in dairy products and meat can increase your risk of heart disease (which already goes up at menopause) and some cancers. You also need to avoid hydrogenated fats and oils in the form of fried, oxidised or transfats found in processed foods, margarines and fast food snacks as well as cakes, sweets and biscuits as they can increase your risk of heart disease and diabetes. But unsaturated fats found in olive oil and essential oils (EFAs) like omega 3 and 6 found in oily fish, nuts and seeds have a protective effect on your heart and will give you healthy hair, skin (less wrinkles) joints and improved brain function. EFAs also help keep your weight stable during the menopause, when there is a tendency to pile the pounds on especially around the waist, because they delay the passage of carbohydrates into your blood stream and keep blood sugar levels stable and insulin levels down. In fact EFAs are one of the best blood sugar stabilisers around and stable blood sugar levels means less likelihood of menopause related fatigue, mood swings, heart disease, depression and weight gain.

 

Take action

 

• To limit your intake of saturated fats reduce dairy products and eliminate or drastically reduce meat and eat fish and organic eggs instead.
• Trans fats should be avoided completely so you need to read the labels on products and don’t buy any which contain hydrogenated vegetable oils.  If you have been upping your intake of whole foods and fibre and cutting down on sugar and refined carbohydrates you may already have cut down on the transfats in your diet. Instead of margarine it would be better to go for a small amount of organic butter.
• Increase your intake of Omega 6 and especially Omega 3. You’re less likely to be deficient in Omega 6 because it is more common in Western diets and found in foods such as leafy green vegetables and soya, sunflower and sesame oils. Omega 3s are less common and found in the oils of cold water fish, such as mackerel, salmon, herring and sardine, as well as in hemp seeds, flaxseeds, nuts and seeds. 
• Aim to eat oily fish at least twice a week.  If you don’t eat fish you can eat sea vegetables (seaweeds) and up your intake of hemp and flax seeds. Flax and hemp seeds are a good source of omega 3. You might like to try a daily dose of 3 teaspoons of cold pressed flaxseed oil or three tablespoons or ground flax seed. You can also use hemp and flax seeds in salad dressings and smoothies. 
• Nuts such as walnuts, almonds, pecans, brazil and cashew and seeds such as pumpkin, sunflower, hemp and sesame are good sources of EFAs so try to eat a handful every day, perhaps as a snack between meals or sprinkled on your salad, soup or cereal. You can also use them in baking.
• If you are not keen on oily fish, then my recommendation is to add in a fish oil supplement with the oil taken from the body of the fish.  I would recommend that you do not use cod liver or halibut liver oil.  The liver is the waste disposal unit of the body and fish can accumulate toxins and mercury, which then have to pass through their livers.  Extracting the oil from the liver of the fish is likely to provide higher quantities of these toxins than the oil taken from the body of the fish.  (The fish oil I use in the clinic is taken from the body of the fish and is called Omega 3 Plus see the Resources Page.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 at 3:10 am and is filed under Menopause. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.