Nutrition During Menopause with Elizabeth Ward and Hillary Wright [Podcast]

Nutrition during menopause guests Hillary and Liz

What happens when two dietitian-friends who are also writers go through menopause together? They write a book, of course.

Elizabeth Ward and Hillary Wright are coauthors of the new book The Menopause Diet Plan: A Natural Guide to Managing Hormones, Health, and Happiness. Their book highlights key research regarding nutrition and hormone changes at midlife, their own personal experience, and tasty and nutritious meal plans and recipes.

Elizabeth (Liz) is a registered dietitian, writer, recipe developer, and nutrition consultant specializing in nutrition communications. She is the author of several books including Expect the Best: Your Guide to Healthy Eating Before, During and After Pregnancy.

Hillary is the Director for Nutrition Counseling for the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health in Waltham, MA, where she specializes in nutrition and women’s health, and diabetes prevention. She is the author of two other books including The Prediabetes Diet Plan: How to Reverse Prediabetes and Prevent Diabetes through Healthy Eating and Exercise

This was timely as I’m currently in the process of researching nutrition for my book for women in midlife. We sat down to talk about nutrition during menopause and why it matters.

Highlights from the Show

How Liz and Hillary met in college and kept in touch both going into non-traditional dietitian jobs.
How they both failed to find good, quality evidence-based information in the menopause space, inspiring them to write a book.
The dietary factors affected by age versus changing hormones and why this difference is important.
Why Liz became more optimistic about their health at midlife after writing this book.
The importance of addressing health and not just symptoms of menopause, as some women won’t get any.
The most surprising factor that affected both Hillary and Liz and the changes they made to manage it.
The intersection of health and weight and why weight is just one piece of nutrition during menopause.
How protein needs change at midlife and why timing and amount eaten at meals matters.
The role carbohydrates play at midlife and how to modify your intake to boost your metabolism.
The importance of timing of eating, especially not eating late at night.
The type of exercises that are beneficial at midlife and simple tips on how to make changes.
The key dietary pattern that helps to decrease the risk of chronic disease which increases with age.
Tips for how to add protein to breakfast and plan a week of nutritious meals.
Dietary supplements Liz and Hillary recommend at midlife (and take themselves).

Quote from the Show

We feel strongly that eating should commence earlier in the day…within an hour or so after getting up with the goal of eating adequately so dinner is reasonable not twice the size of every other meal and wraps up earlier enough to allow your body to have those 12-13 hours of fasting time.