Did You Know There is a Menopause Diet That Could Help You Fight its Symptoms?
Menopause comes with a host of problems that are manifested both physically and mentally. Even though there is plenty of awareness created in the recent past, there are still too many women out there who are unable to get the right medication due to various reasons. There is good news for you if you are falling into this bracket. You could control the symptoms with the help of a simple yet extremely effective menopause diet.
What is A Menopause Diet?
Even though it sounds a little odd, there is nothing unusual with the menopause diet. In fact, your grandmother or great-grand mother would be very familiar with it and the reason for which she would have gone through menopause better than your mother would be owed to the type of food she ate when she was menopausal.
Depending upon what type of symptoms you have, you could use food to alleviate them and maintain a healthy life. Hot flushes, which are some of the most common symptoms of menopause, can be easily controlled by an increase in water intake and reducing or completely cutting off spicy food, alcohol and anything that contains caffeine. Very often these would be the triggers for the hot flushes.
The menopause diet should contain plenty of phytoestrogens which would act as a natural HRT (hormone replacement therapy). Foods that contain phytoestrogens are apples, soy beans, legumes, yams, carrots among others. A word of warning here - these foods are contraindicated for women who suffer from breast cancer.
The next most common symptom is depression accompanied by mood swings. It has been found that this particular symptom is mostly due to a sudden fall of the levels of serotonin in the brain. This can be balanced by adding omega 3 essential fatty acids and carbohydrates to your diet. Foods like salmon, cereals and whole grain breads can easily provide you with these elements.
Weight gain is another particularly unpleasant symptom of menopause. Here too, the menopause diet can be of great help. Cut out all the saturated fats from your diet and replace these with grilled and broiled food. Avoid red meat and even eliminate it from your diet if you could. Replace it with fish (rich in omega 3) and chicken which is fat free.
In case you still would like occasional deep fries, use olive oil which would cause the least harm. Also ensure that you add to your diet plenty of dairy products such as cheese, yoghurt, milk which would prevent your bones from loosing calcium. As you can see, you can control most of the menopausal symptoms with the help of the right diet.
