Ditching Diet Fads: Nourishing Your Body with Real Food for Midlife Health and Menopause Wellness

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the endless stream of wellness products and diet fads that promise quick fixes for midlife health? Join host Heather Carey in this enlightening episode of Real Food Stories as she unpacks the complexities of menopause and midlife health amidst the noise of commercialized wellness trends. Heather, a culinary nutritionist with a passion for empowering women, critiques the misinformation spread by influencers and the wellness industry, emphasizing that real food should be the cornerstone of health, especially during midlife.

As the conversation around menopause evolves, Heather highlights the influx of products and extreme diets that often overshadow the fundamental need for nourishing our bodies with wholesome, real food. She shares valuable nutrition advice for midlife health, urging listeners to focus on healthy eating tips that prioritize fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, and adequate protein over the latest diet myths and weight loss stories. In a world inundated with quick fixes like the GLP-1 diet, Heather stresses the importance of maintaining a balanced diet rather than relying solely on medications.

Throughout this episode, you’ll discover how food beliefs and culture shape our understanding of nutrition and health, especially for women navigating the challenges of midlife. Heather invites you to embrace your personal food journey and encourages mindful eating practices that foster a positive relationship with food. She discusses cooking techniques that not only enhance meals but also promote sustainable eating habits, making cooking for wellness an enjoyable experience.

This episode is a heartfelt call to action for women to reclaim their health through the power of real food. With insights on midlife nutrition and the seven pillars of abundance, Heather aims to empower women to prioritize their well-being during this crucial stage of life. Whether you’re exploring the Mediterranean diet insights or diving into vegan cooking techniques, you’ll find inspiration to nourish your body and mind.

Join us for a transformative conversation that will help you navigate midlife changes with confidence and joy. Let’s ditch the diet culture and embrace a healthier, more fulfilling lifestyle together. Tune in and learn how to empower your menopause journey through the art of cooking and the joy of eating real food!

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Real Food Stories podcast. I am your host, Heather Carey, and today we are talking about something I have been quietly and sometimes not so quietly obsessing over, and that is what I call the disappearing act of food in the midlife wellness conversation. Now, to put it simply, menopause has become a big business, and I have simply had it with the quackery out there. It’s so amusing to me that just a mere two years ago, when I started this podcast with me talking about my menopause story and actually coming out with the fact that I was on menopause hormone therapy, it felt like such a huge deal. Like I was revealing some like big, deep, dark secret that I had. Because just a mere two years ago, no one was talking about menopause. And I felt like I was a little bit of a renegade. And honestly, I did not anticipate how saturated the menopause wellness space was going to get from that point on. It’s going gangbusters. And there’s a lot of good with that because I think menopause is becoming part of our dialogue. But with that comes a lot of the menopause scam artists and influencers just trying to sell you anything they can to make money off of you and your fear. Now, sure, there’s Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Hyman peddling their supplements and protein powders as they always have been. But suddenly, the menopause diets started creeping in, like Mary Claire Haver. her Galveston diet. It’s so funny. I was going through some old files the other day that I had saved online just coincidentally. And I don’t know why I saved this one quote from her, but I’ll tell you that in a second. And, you know, before she became the queen of menopedaling supplements and charging $2,000 for a one-on-one visit with her. to give you hormone advice that you could literally get from your general practitioner, along with a one-month supply of her supplements that you absolutely do not need for your health. And that will cost you another $200 a month to stay on them if you choose to waste more money. Anyway, I’m not sure why I even saved this line from 2022. It was like one of those things that just was on like an online file that I had. Probably because I was horrified back then and I’m still scratching my head over this one. So this is what she wrote on her website. Now, it’s not on there anymore because she’s updated her website. But she was talking about regarding the reasons to go on her Galveston diet, which you do not need, by the way. Just side note. She wrote, and belly fat isn’t just unsightly. It’s also dangerous. Studies have shown to raise the risk of heart disease, diabetes, dementia, breast cancer, and perhaps even early sudden death. Thanks, Mary. Is that how you really feel about women? That they’re unsightly if they have a little extra weight to lose? Also, the things that she’s talking about, the being overweight and the risk of heart disease, diabetes, dementia, breast cancer, and early sudden death. are a little nuanced. And she had footnotes next to all of them, but I can’t click on them, unfortunately. So I don’t know where she was getting her information from. But I could argue that for a while with her. And this is just the start of the menopause vortex that is being created. I’m done with menopause nonsense. And I have turned into a bit of an amateur menopause sleuth, if you will. Seriously, I keep my eyes on the internet like a detective scanning for clues. And lately, the suspects… keep popping up everywhere. Here’s a couple of things. I just listed out a couple of things that you have definitely heard of lately that women are becoming so brainwashed to believe that they simply cannot live without. I’m going to bring these up in future podcasts, but this is a couple that I really want to be talking about soon. Weighted vests, GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Monjaro. sky-high protein goals that require an Excel spreadsheet and a master’s course on macro counting, supplement stacks that cost more than your mortgage, NAD supplements, peptides, and this one’s personal, the creeping return of the ultra skinny 90s look. Thanks, Mary Claire. It’s like the midlife wellness world has been hijacked by shiny toys and quick fixes. There is so much getting thrown at us right now, it’s more confusing than ever. And so far, none of these things I have mentioned deserve a place in the menopause space. Even, yes even, your weighted vest that you just spent money on on Amazon. Here’s a state secret. Weighted vests are not going to help your bones. Weighted vests are not going to help you build muscle, and they are not going to make you lose weight. There is research to back this up. So go to the gym, lift your heavy weights, and eat well. And I’m going to bring this up a whole podcast in the near future. But let’s talk about the food. In all of this talk about products, pills, powders, shakes, weighted vest, red light therapy, where’s the food? Seriously, what happened to eating healthy food to stay healthy? I don’t see it anymore. It just doesn’t come up in my role. And I am looking. believe me, I am looking every single day, there’s no talk about healthy eating because we’re just so focused on our protein goals. But here’s what really makes me pause. How did we go to a place where grilled chicken and broccoli are the most food anyone talks about and everything else is about lifting at the gym, your personal record on how much weight you can lift, your weighted vest, and listening to some 28-year-old guy. in a backwards hat, explain menopause on his podcast. Yes, I have seen that. Yes, I have laughed out loud. I have kids who are in their 20s. If I ever thought for a million years that I would get menopause advice from one of my sons, I would show them the door. I mean, it’s just too funny. I know that you’ve seen all this stuff too. So I’ll scroll through my feed And it’s like food. Where is the actual real food? It just doesn’t count anymore. Now, let’s be clear. I am not anti-weighted vest. I am not anti-going to the gym. And I am definitely not anti-protein because it was something that we absolutely need for our health. But I am anti-forgetting that food matters. Now, right now, the internet is obsessed with performance metrics and body composition to the point where food… is just fuel in the most basic, boring sense. It’s not joy. It’s not connection. It’s not prevention. It’s just numbers and macros. Here’s a scene that I see over and over. A woman in her 50s, newly on her wellness kick, drinking her third protein shake of the day, posting about her 5 a.m. lift session and saying she’s too busy to cook dinner. So it’s chicken breast and bagged salad again. Now, I’m not judging. I’m just saying this is what we’ve been told is the gold standard. Convenience protein, gym first, food as an afterthought. And if you’re nodding along thinking, yep, that’s me, here’s the problem. That’s not the path to long-term health. That’s the path to a bland diet that misses half the nutrients your body actually needs in midlife. It’s a boring way to eat. We want. to eat healthy and really well, and we want to absolutely enjoy our food. Food is a huge part of our lives. We celebrate with food, we gather with food, we sometimes eat emotionally around food, and we eat food for our health and our nutrition. So food has to play a role in your midlife and menopause experience. All right, I want to talk about GLP-1s for a second. These are the drugs that you see everywhere. Ozempic, Wegovi, Monjaro. No judgment if you are on one of these drugs because you have weight to lose and you’re hearing what people describe as the food noise. Here’s the part that no one is saying loudly enough, and I’m going to get to this in another podcast, but there is a lot of chatter out on the internet about microdosing GLP-1s as well that you can easily just purchase on the internet. No doctor required, no nothing. I strongly, strongly advise against doing that. If you want to make the choice to go on a GLP-1, That’s totally fine. But please go to your doctor and be guided through them, not with someone on the internet. I see it all the time. And again, I’m going to bring this up in a future podcast so we can really unpack what that means. But please go to your doctor and get advice that way and be monitored that way. These are serious drugs to take, okay? This is no joke. So that’s what you need to do. But here’s the part that I feel like no one is talking about, and I have talked about this before in past podcasts. Even if you’re eating less, even if one of these GLP-1s decreases your appetite, you still have to eat well. This does not give you the whole pass to stop eating real food, real good food. GLP-1s help to decrease your appetite, which in turn decrease your calories. I have said this for years, it’s calories in, calories out. It is food first. That is how you lose weight, is to go into a calorie deficit. But you still need to make those calories count. So we need to really make the best food choices. Again, when you’re on these meds, your appetite is lower, and that can be great for some people. But if the few bites you do eat or just coffee and a protein bar, you are missing. the chance to nourish your body. And I strongly advise against that. All right, let’s talk about protein goals for a second. Let’s not get started on the you must eat your body weight in grams talk. Okay, it’s confusing. It’s kind of nonsense. We’re not, you know, training for a bodybuilding contest. Most of us, I mean, if you are, that’s a whole different story. But yes, protein is very, very important. There’s no doubt. It’s a macronutrient. We need to eat protein every single day. And when we’re in midlife, we especially need to eat protein because we want to help build muscle. Protein builds our muscle. Muscle means your metabolism gets lower. So you need to do this in two ways. You need to eat a little more protein and you need to go lift heavy weights at the gym. But that doesn’t mean that we have to start counting our macros and making sure we get 150 grams of protein a day. And if we don’t, we’re a failure. Okay, we just want to make sure for most women that you get a good serving of protein at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack if you’re going to eat it. Okay, again, I’m going to talk about this more in future podcasts. because I really want to just focus on food in general today. Now, Instagram isn’t going to tell you this because there’s nothing to sell you, right, in making lentil soup and like put it in the freezer for a week or meal plan and make sure you have some grilled chicken in your refrigerator for lunches and dinners. Instagram isn’t going to tell you that because what are they getting out of it? What are the wellness influencers getting out of telling you what to eat? That’s free, right? That’s free information. So I’m going to tell you it, but most of those quacks out on the internet are not making money off of that information. So they’re not going to tell you that. Now, I want to just throw in also some supplements I’ve been seeing too. NAD+, peptides, green powders. I call these hope in a jar products because they give the illusion that you’re doing something cutting edge for your health. but they’re not going to fix the fact that you had no vegetables yesterday. Okay? You cannot out-supplement your diet. You cannot starve yourself into a good diet. You have to really focus on food first when it comes to your health. All right, let’s flip the script for a second. You know what not to focus on exclusively, right? I just talked about the obsession with protein, menopause diets. weighted vest, and on and on. Let’s focus on though, now, when I say we need to focus on food first, what do we need to focus on exactly? What are we looking for besides grilled chicken and a protein bar? All right, the first thing… That is the most important are plants. Plants, plants, plants. That’s vegetables, fruits, whole grains, things that grow in the ground. These are the most important things. These are your edible vitamins. This is where all of your really micronutrition comes from. All those vitamins and minerals and fiber. Remember fiber? Okay, we need fiber too. We can’t just survive on protein. Fiber is more important than any other nutrient that we can get our hands on. So I’m not talking about a little salad with your like eight ounce of grilled chicken. I’m talking about the rainbow, right? Let’s go back to basics. The rainbow, different colors, peppers, berries, dark leafy greens like kale and collard greens, squash. zucchini and yellow squash, winter squash, acorn squash, butternut squash, herbs of all kinds, spices. These fight inflammation. These support digestion and give you the micronutrients your body is screaming for. Now, if fruits and vegetables aren’t your jam, okay, they should be. But if they’re not, I get it. You don’t have to love all fruits and vegetables. But let’s start small, okay? Just like that protein rule I said, make sure that there’s protein on every one of your meals. Let’s make sure that there’s a fruit or a vegetable on your plate too, every single meal. Now, I still remember a client who started adding in just one extra vegetable to her dinner every night. That’s it. She started small. She just gradually kept adding in and being consistent. And by the end of the month, she said, Her energy was well-balanced. She felt better. She was getting fuller on fewer calories because fruits and vegetables are like almost giveaways, okay? They are full of fiber, which fills you up, and they have almost no calories in them. Remember what I said before about the GLP-1s reducing your appetite, which in turn reduces your calories, and that we need to be in a calorie deficit if we want to lose weight? Well, here you go. Okay, replace a lot of those processed, higher calorie foods with some fruits and vegetables and you’re going to be fine. All right, let’s talk about protein again. First, we want to get protein from real food. Okay, not protein bars, not protein shakes in a bottle, real food first. Fish, poultry, eggs, beans, lentils. Greek yogurt, tofu, tempeh, these build your muscle. And they also give you another bonus. They give you minerals, they give you vitamins, they give you healthy fats that all of the protein shakes and powders in the world are not going to give you. Okay. Think of protein bars as candy bars. That’s like an emergency food. That’s like if you have nothing else to eat, fine. Bring a protein bar with you. If you feel like you’re traveling, you’re not going to be able to get to anything good, have a protein bar. That’s fine every once in a while, but do not rely on them as your daily lunch. Okay, that’s silly. We want to be on real food first. The next I want to talk about is healthy fats. Healthy fats are your brain food. Okay, they help balance your hormones. Okay, you need fat to transport hormones through your body. They make your food taste good. They give you energy. Olive oil, nuts, seeds, avocados, canola oil. Don’t get me started on seed oils, okay? Seed oils are perfectly fine. These oils support your brain. They support your heart, your hormone production. So drizzle olive oil on your vegetables and stop fearing it. It’s not the 90s anymore, okay? We’re not going fat-free and we’re not going like… ultra skinny, okay? But we want to be at a good healthy weight, but fat is your friend, okay? It makes your food taste good. It helps to fill you up. Whole grains. All right, whole grains, again, full of fiber, right? They’re a little more calorically dense than those fruits and vegetables I talked about, but still, they help fill you up. They’re full of fiber. They are full of B vitamins. Good for your brain. Good for your mood. Oats, quinoa, farro. brown rice. These keep blood sugar steady, support your gut health, and make you feel satisfied. Now, you don’t have to have whole grains every single day, but have them, okay? And it doesn’t have to be the star of your plate. Right? Half a cup of brown rice, half a cup of quinoa, a small portion of pasta, whole wheat pasta, brown rice pasta, all perfect. Now let’s talk about things that help build your bones because for women in midlife, we need to protect our bones. This is when that dip in estrogen comes and our rate of osteoporosis and bone issues and fractures goes way up. All right, so we want to not only be lifting weights at the gym or in your house, okay, not relying on that weighted vest, that does not help your bones, but we also want to be adding in and making sure that we get enough calcium-rich foods in our diet. Calcium is what helps build bone. And I know a lot of women who don’t eat dairy, they think they’re allergic to dairy, which is an excellent source of… calcium. Now, if you don’t eat dairy, that’s fine, but you must make sure that you are getting some other calcium-rich foods, okay, like fortified plant milks, dark leafy greens like kale, sardines are one of the best. And we also need to throw in some vitamin D, okay, if you need it, okay, if you are not getting exposed by the sun, if you have tested low in vitamin D, because vitamin D and calcium work together. to support your bones. Eggs, fortified milks, okay? Sardines are one of the best because they have vitamin D and they’ve got calcium as well. So again, your bones are losing density faster in these years. And don’t wait until you get that DEXA scan, okay, to have a scare. All right, do this now. Start now. The last thing I want to talk about is hydration because water is absolutely underrated. Most midlife women I meet are dehydrated and they think they’re just tired or they’re foggy. And often, really, what’s going on is that you’ve been drinking tons of caffeine for your hydration. You start out with two cups of coffee in the morning and you’re not drinking enough during the day. That can make you feel really tired. It can make you feel hungry. And it can just make you feel like you’ve got that brain fog. So make sure you are drinking eight glasses of water. There is no rule about how much water to drink. Okay, that eight glasses of water a day was created, it was a myth, but just drink water. Okay, just make sure that you’re not thirsty and that you’re drinking enough water. All right, this is the part I can’t skip, even if it’s not glamorous. But I want to remind you, if that you are between 40 and 60 years old, you are at the highest risk window for heart disease. That is the number one killer of women in midlife. Okay? Not just for men. The women go through the roof when they start to hit midlife and menopause. Why? Because of your dip in estrogen. Another highest risk window is osteoporosis. Again, why? You’re dipping estrogen and not only just osteoporosis, but all the fractures that potentially come with it. You’re also at a huge risk for type 2 diabetes, especially if you’ve had metabolic red flags before. Your cholesterol is high. You need to lose some weight. You’ve had an A1C test that was high. This is your risk for type 2 diabetes, which you don’t want to get and have to manage, okay? Now, here’s the thing. Every one of these, heart disease, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, is heavily influenced by what you eat. Estrogen or no estrogen, okay? Every one of these is affected by your food choices. Not your weighted vest, not your GLP-1 microdosing, okay? Not your protein shake. By what you eat. Now, estrogen and hormone therapy can play. a really significant role. And that is something you should have a conversation with your doctor and see if that choice is right for you. But that can absolutely help with all of these. Food is the foundation. Everything else is just like the trim on the house. All right. I want to talk about bringing this back to the kitchen. How do we do that? Because I know for me, okay, personal story, when I first started cooking for myself, after my kids moved out, when it was just Mark and me at home, and I had no kids there, I’ll admit it felt weird, right? I was in the process or the, you know, I was just in the habit of cooking for five people every single day. And I cooked a lot. I mean, I also cook for my job, But. I was just pumping out food a lot. Now, all of a sudden, it was just for two of us. And that took a little like adjustment to have to get into the mindset of just like cooking like half the food. But what I was not going to do was give up on cooking. Okay, I knew and I still know that my food right now is more important than ever. I’m not going to go into a habit of you ordering takeout five nights a week and then going out to dinner the other two just because my kids aren’t around. And I realized something. Cooking for myself was one of the most loving things I could do for me and for my husband. It was a statement that my health matters just as much as it did when I was feeding my whole family. Cooking for your family is not just about them. It’s about you too. You have to cook for you first. So keep that in mind. That’s the mindset I want for you, that your plate is your daily act of self-care, compassion, and kindness, that you are doing something really loving for yourself by taking care of yourself. All right, here’s the bottom line. You can walk in your weighted vest. You can lift heavy weights. You can even use a GLP-1 if that’s the path you choose. But none of these replaces the need for real nourishing food. Make this week the week you put food back at the center of your health plan. And if this episode spoke to you, send it to a friend and even share with me what you’re thinking about this. How do you feel about cooking for yourself in midlife? Maybe you don’t have kids home anymore. Maybe it’s just you. I know it’s hard. I know it’s easy to order takeout. I know it’s easy to just fall back on convenience. And start to not care or fall back on that convenience and then take a GLP-1 to just reduce your appetite. That’s not the point. We want to make sure our food counts, okay, just as much as anything else. All right, I’ll be back next week with more real talk about menopause midlife and how to cut through the noise. And until then, feed yourself like your health matters, because it does. Have a great day, everybody. And as always, if you loved this podcast, please consider gifting me with a five-star review. It is so helpful for me to get the word out on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.