Food might be your medicine even during perimenopause. A lot of you wonder if there is some special diet you should concentrate on or use, during this phase of life. My answer to that is – just small changes in your daily diet might do big changes in your wellbeing.

A Japanese professor once said that we should worry less about eating healthy because he believed that the worry in itself could cause more damage than the actual diet. It can’t be one of these everyday “musts” that you can barely achieve. It is no good to make it a hangup. But with this said I still want you to know that the changes in my diet that I have made during perimenopause have really changed things for me.

As we already know, a vegetarian diet is a winner. There are lot of studies showing that the risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer etc decreases, with a more vegetarian diet. I can tell you by my own expericence that when I started to eat more vegetarian my cholesterol levels decreased AND my perimenopause symptoms also tended to become less frequent. My hot flushes didn´t come that often, especially during the nights while I still had my periods. There are some studies that point out that a vegetarian/vegan diet decreases perimenopausal/menopausal symtoms so it’s not something that I just made up.

One other thing that was totally clear was that my pleasures with spicy food were over. Somehow the spices made my hot flushes worse.

It was also totally obvious that if I didn’t eat regularly – like every third hour – I became tired and shaky in a strange way. It was like my blood sugar level went bananas without me being diabetic. And of course there is a connection. Studies show that hormonal turbulence affects our insulin indirectly which means that it is more important than ever to eat regularly to feel good.

What I really want to pinpoint after thousands of hours of research is that I think that the diet that is the best through this period is the Mediterranean diet. A diet that is very balanced and guides you more about what you can eat than what you can’t. It reminds me a bit about the Nordic diet – a lot of fruit and veggies, nuts and almonds, legumes, vegetable oils, wholegrain and fish and less of red meat and dairy. In other words – skip the fast food and the crap food. And don´t forget to skip the sugar.

As you have already guessed the diet suggestions in perimenopause are not that different from a common sense diet. The thing is though that you can really feel the difference IF you do these changes. I will continue to dive in to more research about food and perimenopause so stay tuned. Have you made any changes in your diet and felt any difference? Less hot flushes or better sleep? Please let me know in the comment section. I’m so curious to know if anyone of you felt any difference by adjusting your diet.

This is a guest post. Any opinions expressed are the writer’s own.