What nutritional supplementation, diet plan or eating plan should you follow when on progesterone?
Throughout our website we repeatedly mention nutritional supplementation, vitamin regime, diet plan, exercise and lifestyle. All are very important if you want to maximise the benefits and the outcome of progesterone therapy, and to derive optimum hormonal balance.
Reducing estrogen dominance is not about crash diets that have the potential to induce further chemical imbalance and result in increased appetite, depression or mood swings.
Instead, we know that progesterone combined with phytoestrogens and diet often control such symptoms as hot flushes and other menopausal problems. We recommend you increase your essential omega 3-6 oils which are the building blocks for hormones and cells in general. Reduce or, better still, cut out animal fats completely.
Drink at least 8 glasses of filtered water a day. Take out dairy products because they have the potential to be hormone disrupters. Incorporate calcium rich foods such as seaweed, nuts, etc., and vitamin & minerial supplement as needed. Cut out yeast and refined sugars and carbohydrates, especially women who suffer from leaky gut syndrome and Candida. Combine these modifications with progesterone supplementation and you’re going to see an incredible result!
But will these measures, of themselves, resolve weight gain? Not always.
Unsightly and unhealthy weight gain
We cannot stress enough how vital it is that you find a way to manage your weight in conjunction with hormone balancing.
Yes, it’s true, hormone imbalance can often contribute to unslightly and unhealthy weight gain, particularly around the tummy, hips and thighs. But did you know that by simply being overweight, you’re body is converting that extra body fat into steroid hormones that will compound your estrogen dominance?
For example, obesity will increase the estrogen in a woman’s fatty tissue, stimulating the growth of fibroids and with a potential to worsen endometriosis and increase menstrual blood flow and pain. As women get fatter the level of the male hormone testosterone increases, with a corresponding tendency to increase the facial hair, greasy skin and acne. A higher calorie intake equates to a greater number of free radicals that generate greater damage to tissue, increasing the incidence of breast cancer.
If you are overweight, then weight loss will correct these hormonal imbalances and consequently improve gynaecological and skin problems.
FACT: The human body doesn’t get sick for any other reason than ‘We are what we eat, drink, breathe, and think’.
Therefore, helping women understand cellular nutrition and reach a healthy weight-to-age ratio is as much our charter as is helping women achieve hormone balance. The two, in our experience, go hand-in-hand.
Exercise may cut cancer risk
Brisk walking for just an hour or two weekly can help older women reduce their risk of breast cancer by nearly 20 per cent, even if they have used hormone pills for symptoms of menopause, a study has found.
The findings are based on data from a landmark study that linked hormone use to breast cancer, heart attacks and strokes. They suggest that exercise may help counteract - but not cancel out - the slightly increased risk of breast cancer faced by longtime hormone users, said lead researcher Dr Anne McTiernan of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle.
The study also adds to the growing body of evidence that says exercise for women need not be super strenuous for them to reap substantial health benefits, even if begun relatively late in life.
“We thought it important to determine if moderate-intensity physical activities, such as walking, biking outdoors or easy swimming, when initiated later in life, can reduce the risk of breast cancer since these types of activities are achievable for most women,” she said.
The researchers analysed data on 74,171 women ages 50 to 79 who participated in the US government’s Women’s Health Initiative study from 1993 to 1998.
Women who said they engaged in about 1.25 to 2.50 hours of moderate exercise weekly had an 18 per cent lower risk of breast cancer than inactive women.
The findings appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Study participant Cecile Cowdery, a fit 77-year-old, has been walking regularly for exercise since she retired from nursing 12 years ago.
Besides helping reduce the risk of breast cancer, which Cowdery has never had, “it also gives you more mobility to do other things other than sitting around and knitting,” said Cowdery, who lives in Seattle.
“I think most people could be out there doing the same thing.”
A separate study in JAMA found that moderate exercise combined with dieting was about as effective as intense exercise in helping younger women lose weight and improve cardiovascular fitness.
While some experts say an hour of moderate-intensity exercise daily is optimal, both studies add support to less stringent recommendations from the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine.
Those guidelines recommend a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-level activity like brisk walking most days of the week to reduce the risk of heart disease and other chronic health problems.
In McTiernan’s study, little additional benefit resulted from more intense or frequent exercise - perhaps because relatively few the women studied had engaged in such levels of activity, Harvard Medical School’s Dr I-Min Lee said in an accompanying editorial.
“It is therefore encouraging to know that women can experience health benefits at far lower levels of physical activity,” Lee said.
The Women’s Health Initiative study made headlines last summer when it was halted after finding that the risks of hormone pills containing oestrogen and progestin outweighed the benefits for post-menopausal women.
