A quick Google of “what to eat for my hormones” will bring up a host of strategies from eating more protein to fasting to seed cycling or a list of progesterone-boosting foods.
While these strategies can work well for many women in their 20s and 30s to support their hormones throughout the cycle, the hormone landscape during perimenopause and menopause is unique. Most of these strategies will not hurt, they might not be worth your effort or get you the results you’re after.
Some strategies, on the other hand, may in fact make your hormone issues worse, such as fasting. This doesn’t mean that fasting is inherently bad or that experts teach it are wrong, it simply means that this tool might not be a good tool for your current issue. The important thing to always understand is how these strategies work so you can better understand if they will be helpful for you.
This type of knowledge is exactly what I cover in my book Hangry. Learn more about that here.
Progesterone Boosting Foods
Foods that are often touted as boosting progesterone generally are high in vitamin B6, magnesium, zinc, omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin C. Other foods that are often encouraged to support estrogen:progesterone balance include dietary fiber and from whole grains and vegetables.
While this is all true in that these nutrients are key to progesterone production, metabolism and utilization these are most useful when the cause for low progesterone is not due to aging ovaries and altered signals from the hypothalamus. When we are in our younger years and dealing with hormonal imbalances due to issues such as stress, are suffering with PMS or need fertility support these interventions can make a bigger impact than they can during perimenopause when the ovaries are simply trying to close up shop.
That said I certainly use all of these nutrients as part of a bigger treatment approach for creating a better hormone balance during perimenopause but it is important to understand the mechanism of how these nutrients work to understand how they will impact progesterone production during perimenopause.
Can You Eat Wild Yam To Boost Progesterone?
It is a common misconception though that because bioidentical hormones are derived from natural sources such as wild yams that we can go directly to the food source to boost our hormones.
Wild yam contains a compound called diosgenin, which is a plant-based estrogen that can be used as a raw material to make bioidentical progesterone in a lab but our bodies cannot make this conversion.
So no, eating a yam will not boost your progesterone. You would get some slight phytoestrogen benefit however, but the conversion to progesterone doesn’t happen in our human bodies so you won’t make progesterone from it.
Seed Cycling
Seed cycling is an old idea made popular again. It involves using different seeds such as flax and pumpkin to support estrogen during your follicular phase (first two weeks) and sesame and sunflower seeds to mimic or support progesterone during the luteal or second half of your cycle.
While there is little research on specifically how cycling different seeds throughout the menstrual cycle benefits women’s hormones, the idea makes sense and we can certainly benefit from all the nutritional goodness in nuts and seeds in our diet. Many women in their 20s and 30s find this simple act of seed cycling to help with their PMS or other period related discomfort.
And while seed cycling would certainly not hurt during perimenopause it is very unlikely this will create enough impact on fluctuating and ultimately falling hormones levels to make a real difference in the brain fog, insomnia and more significant cycle alterations that happen as we more drastically lose progesterone and estrogen. As well these seeds will not raise hormone levels enough to impact bone or brain health, thus they aren’t reducing that risk the same way HRT does.
But fiber, minerals and healthy fats? Of course those are great for overall health and hormone balance so toss a few pumpkin seeds in your salad. I certainly do.
However, if you are focusing on seeds and not on getting adequate protein, it’s wise to redirect those efforts. More on why women need a high protein intake for optiomal hormones in this article.
Fasting
Both 24 hour fasts or longer as well as intermittent fasting can be great tools to lower inflammation, give the gut a rest and can improve insulin resistance.
Intermittent fasting is also a great tool for controlling calories as many find it easier to skip a meal than micromanage counting calories all day long. Proponents of fasting will also taut the benefits of fasting on aging and autophagy while in truth the research doesn’t bear this out more than regular calorie restriction. But again, many people find it much easier to focus on intermittent fasting vs. calorie counting and I can’t say that I blame them!
Fasting can be a great tool for many women and it is not one I suggest they stop if it’s working for them. However, fasting can create a couple of issue for many women so if it’s not working for you or you’re up against these, fasting might not be a great tool during perimenopause or menopause:
Eating fewer meals can make it very hard to get 100g or more of protein per day. Many women that fast until noon, thus skipping breakfast can find it hard to get enough protein in their remaining meals and that is a huge problem as maintaining muscle mass is an ongoing battle we fight as we age. Lowering estrogen and testosterone and often issues with cortisol can make maintaining and gaining muscle very difficult, so strategies that make it harder to get adequate protein can be a mistake.
This article will help you figure out how to get 100g of protein per day or more.
As well, many women find they aren’t actually controlling calories with fasting as they tend to overeat during their feeding window. If you’re ending up ravenous and just dying to eat come noon or whenever you break your fast it’s easy to eat too much because you’re quite literally Hangry. This may be due to lower cortisol overall or low in the morning or other issues with maintaining blood sugar. Again,, this is just a tool and if it makes it harder to do better it’s not a great tool for you right now.
With progesterone beginning to wane as early as our mid 30s, we become more stress sensitive as progesterone has a lovely way of tempering cortisol. If your cortisol is high overall, high or low in the morning, or otherwise dysregulated fasting may exacerbate these issues as you try to maintain your blood sugar with an extended time away from food.
Again, there are a lot of people that do fine with fasting, especially intermittent fasting but it absolutely is not mandatory for women espeically in midlife, and it is not a good strategy for every woman period. So if you’re not responding well to it or even if it used to work well but doesn’t feel the same anymore don’t be afraid to let it go and find a better tool for your current hormone landscape.
For more info on what to eat during midlife, see this article