Nutritional Guidelines for Healthy Hormones

4 Simple Guidelines to ensure you can take action, without feeling overwhelmed and completely derailing your life and your motivation!

The Following are SIMPLE, yet profoundly healing Nutritional hacks which will make a huge difference on your overall health and hormone wellbeing with time.

Foundational Nutrition Guidelines to Follow to heal your hormones

1. Cruciferous Indoles – a natural chemical compound found in the Cruciferous Vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables include:

The specific compound, Indole-3-carbinol is an important constituent of these vegetables that helps decrease cancer cell proliferation, increase apoptosis, and alter the ratio of weak to strong estrogens (2-hydroxyestrone/16-hydroxyestrone) favourably, meaning it supports the clearance of oestrogen metabolites and prevents ‘oestrogen’ dominance and treats all symptoms of ‘excess oestrogen; ie heavy bleeds, period pain, mood swings, sore breasts and so forth.

Additionally, these ‘super food’ compounds are responsible for:

• They help protect cells from DNA damage.
• They help inactivate carcinogens.
• They have antiviral and antibacterial effects.
• They have anti-inflammatory effects.
• They induce cell death (apoptosis).
• They inhibit tumour blood vessel formation (angiogenesis) and tumour cell migration (needed for metastasis).

2. Increase Fruit & Vegetable Intake – 10 serves of Vegetables Daily and 3 serves of fruit

Vegetables are responsible for so much benefit in your body for the sheer fact that are loaded with minerals, vitamins, anti-oxidants and phytochemicals, all which not only fuel biological activity but also help to stimulate vital organ functions including liver detoxification, immune activity and tissue repair.

As a Nutritionist and Naturopath, I DO NOT subscribe to the notion that you can eat too much fruit! Fruit represents fertility, it’s loaded with antioxidants, fiber, nutrition and healing enzymes and the fruit sugar is great fuel for our busy bodies. If you personally have an issue with Fructose, there’s a fair chance your gut needs healing, your immune system modulating and your system detoxing – all of which are covered in depths in the7 Step Hormone Healing System online program!

If you are wondering how the hell could you possible consume that much in 1 day, here’s a little example.

Start your day with a cold pressed juice – you can easily tick off 3 serves of fruit and 5 vegetables in that with this delicious juice recipe: Beetroot, Celery, Kale, Cucumber, Ginger, Apple, Lemon, Orange

Breakies – smoothies with spinach leaves and fruit, omelets with grated vegetables

Morning Tea – Veggie sticks and hummus and salsa

Lunch – Add a side salad of low calorie vegetables such as onion, cabbage, tomatoes, fresh herbs, cucumber, kale, spinach etc

Dinners – Stir-fries, veggie soups, Curries, Casseroles – just get creative and add extra veggies on top of what you would normally do, in every meal or snack

3. Consume ‘lifeless foods’ mindfully

The typical hormone disrupting ‘badies’ which affect your hormone health due to the inflammation they cause in your body and stress they place on the liver include: Refined sugar, white refined breads, pastries, wheat pasta, baked goods with refined flours, processed deli meats, coffee and alcohol

The issue with these foods is that they are Nutrition less so they cause spikes in your blood sugar levels and they are acidic so they upset the natural cell environment on top of the inflammatory stress and free radical the damaged oils and refined flours can cause to your system overall.

4. Avoid Gluten

The most important thing to point out here is that GLUTEN is harmful to your health and disruptive to balanced hormones for EVERYONE, you don’t have to have an allergy to gluten, be Coeliac or have even tested positive to gluten intolerance blood tests for gluten to be harming your health.

Whether you are aware and feel physically unwell from ingesting gluten or not, here’s how gluten is affecting your hormone health:

• The gluten molecule mimics thyroid antibodies and attacks your thyroid leading to under activity of your thyroid gland
• Gluten is inflammatory and leads to leaky gut
• Gluten affects liver detoxification
• Gluten increases overall inflammation in your body in general
• Eating gluten is probably contributing to your painful periods
• Gluten affects healthy neurotransmitter function
• Gluten can weaken your immune system
• Gluten can worsen depression and anxiety symptoms

Swapping gluten containing grains and products out for gluten free options is a relatively doable and affordable option these days with growing awareness surrounding the dangers of ingesting gluten on overall wellness. Don’t get caught in the trap of eating more processed foods just because it says gluten free on the label, still remember your wholefood guidelines and know that all the wholefoods’ vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, meats, poultry and seafoods which haven’t been messed with by man are naturally gluten free.

Gluten FREE GRAINS to consume: Rice, Millet, Quinoa, Buckwheat, Corn

Slowly to start to switch your standard bread and wraps (and any other gluten containing grains over to more wholesome, healthier alternatives. We will chat about this further in the future and I will give you more specific goals and alternative foods to choose, but for now just start to think about it, but focus on the dairy removal as primary goal.

I recommend the following breakfast options instead

• Homemade hearty, thick vegetable soups – mixed vegetables with a natural veggie stock
• Organic canned or homemade baked beans – served with a Jacket Potato
• Organic rolled oats – cooked on the stove, (not quick oats, DO NOT USE MICROWAVE) served with warm poached fruit and coconut yogurt
• Homemade Potato chips – Cut finely and roast in the oven with herbs and sea salt, serve with a homemade salsa (tomato/onion/fresh herbs) and mashed avocado and lime juice
• Lentil Dahl – google recipes
• Brown rice porridge – serve with dairy free milk, fresh or poached fruit and coconut/almond yoghurt
• Cold pressed juice – If you are not starving in the mornings, simply start your day with a cold pressed juice which is easy to digest and then eat several hours later when you are really hungry

The above breakfast suggestions will of course require more time preparing, so its best you do the preparation in advance and have these options ready to reheat as you go.