As women get older, they may notice that losing extra weight becomes more and more challenging. According to Mayo Clinic, it’s totally common for women to gain weight during perimenopause, which continues at the rate of 1.5 pounds each year through your fifties. While this element of menopause isn’t ideal, board-certified OB/GYN and menopause specialist Dr. Mary Claire Haver offers some tips for the transition.
During an episode of Asking for a Friend, Dr. Haver explained that the way women approach nutrition in their thirties and early forties typically stops working through the menopause transition. One solution she offered was incorporating a sufficient amount of fiber into your diet.
“Women typically have 12 grams of fiber in their diet naturally per day. We need to have 25,” Dr. Haver says. “And actually, you can push to 35 for optimal health. Number two is watching the added sugar in your diet. Added sugars are sugars added in cooking, processing and alcohol. Not naturally found in foods. Limiting those to 25 grams or less per day goes a very long way into decreasing insulin resistance and inflammation.”
Dr. Haver says the third major tip she would recommend is to get your Vitamin D levels checked at your doctor’s office. She went on to say that 80% of her patients are Vitamin D deficient, which is an easy thing to correct with over-the-counter supplements. In addition to fiber and added sugars, Dr. Haver also recommends getting enough magnesium in your diet per day.
To uncover more menopause tips from Dr. Haver, make sure to watch the latest episode of Asking For A Friend.
As a postmenopausal woman and breast cancer survivor, is vaginal estrogen cream recommended for treating occasional UTIs?
“Vaginal estrogen should be put in the water supply,” Dr. Haver says. “I think it should be available in vending machines across the country. It is one of the safest medications that any woman could take, especially those who are undergoing chemotherapy or adjuvant therapy for their breast cancer. It is not absorbed into the bloodstream and there’s never been a correlation between increasing recurrence of breast cancer with vaginal estrogen.”
Dr. Haver says vaginal estrogen protects the health of your bladder, vagina, and vulvar tissues, restoring them to their premenopausal health. She goes on to say that the rate of UTIs can decrease 50% from the use of vaginal estrogen.
“The elasticity and the mucus production of the vagina increases so that those tissues can remain healthy and happy for the rest of your life,” Dr. Haver says.
Is alcohol good or bad during menopause?
“What I’ve found in myself, my patients, and the majority of people agreeing with me on social media, is that most of our relationship with alcohol changes through the menopause transition. It becomes extremely sleep disruptive, and even with hormone therapy, I still have to protect my sleep with my life. It’s to the point where if I choose to drink, and most of my patients are choosing to drink, if it’s really close to bedtime, they’re going to choose not to sleep. It’s that 3 a.m. wake-up call every single time.”
Is an espresso martini once a week okay?
“Alcohol in moderation is fine. If you are thinking it’s a problem, it’s probably a problem.”
What can I do if I can’t sleep, have night sweats and hot flashes all the time?
“If your sleep is being disrupted by your hot flashes or night sweats, you need to consider hormone replacement therapy,” Dr. Haver says. “That is the gold standard of treatment. It’s going to be the best thing that’s going to help you. It’s going to stop those hot flashes and decrease the nighttime awakenings due to that. Adding in progesterone, which is mandatory if you have a uterus, but if you’ve had a hysterectomy or have an IUD that contains progesterone, it’s not mandatory but it is optional.”
Dr. Haver says many of her patients do very well with progesterone, especially in perimenopause, to help them sleep at night. She also recommends turning off your phone a couple of hours before bed, keeping the room cool and making sure to wear the appropriate pajamas to keep you comfortable throughout the night.
How many hours of sleep at night do you recommend?
For women, it’s actually more than men. For men, it’s seven to eight. Women need to have probably eight to nine hours of sleep average at night.