Season 4: How to Press the Easy Button on Midlife & Menopause Nutrition

180,000. That’s how many times the Midlife Feast episodes have been downloaded since the podcast began. That’s absolutely wild! I have to take a minute to express how grateful I am that you have trusted me and chosen to take me on your own midlife journey. I am thrilled to bring you even more research, wisdom, and practical tools for navigating menopause, midlife, and nutrition in season four of the podcast! 

Having been a dietitian for many years, I recognize that there is no shortage of information about what we should or shouldn’t be eating in midlife. In fact, the problem is that there’s way too much information clawing for our attention. But what is missing is the conversation about how all the other parts of life influence our decisions about food because we just don’t eat in a vacuum! Everyone and everything depends on us in midlife, or at least it feels that way at times.

With all the conflicting advice, decision fatigue can keep us utterly stuck. So in this season, I am making it my number one priority to provide you with a road map of everything you need to feel confident about making decisions about your relationship with food and your body in menopause. 

In these really specific discussions-whether it be insulin resistance, blood pressure, or the need for more foster more creativity- every episode’s purpose will be to offer you information that will make your midlife years and menopause EASY! I am thrilled you’re joining me!

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Season 4 of the Podcast! 

Jenn Salib Huber 0:00
Hi, and welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr. Jenn Selene Huber. I'm an intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor, and I help women manage menopause without dieting and food rolls. Come to my table. Listen and learn from me. Trusted guest experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you. Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. And if you're looking for more information about menopause, nutrition and intuitive eating, check out the midlife beasts community my monthly membership that combines my no nonsense approach that you all love to nutrition with community so that you can learn from me and others who can relate to the cheers and challenges of midlife.

Hi, everyone. Welcome. Welcome back to the midlife feast we are in season four, if you can believe it. been off for the last little while, I guess maybe six or seven weeks, have started recording some episodes over the last few weeks as we try and kind of put the finishing touches on this next season. And I'm really excited about it. I'm going to tell you all about it in a minute and tell you about how I came to this this theme that is going to be woven into all the conversations that we have together. But I just want to shout out to all of you who listen to the podcast. And over two years have downloaded episodes, almost 180,000 times. When I saw that number today, I was literally at a loss for words because when I started this little podcast two years ago, I did it because I felt like there was a void in the in menopause land as it were or midlife land around the conversations that were happening in midlife. So my goal was to support menopause, midlife nutrition, obviously, talk about intuitive eating and how it can be such a great framework to help us, you know, feel better in midlife.

All The Other Things That Influence our Decisions About Food

But I also wanted to be having conversations about all of the things that influence not just menopause, and not just nutrition, but really influence the decisions that we're making around food because we don't eat in a vacuum. in midlife, we're often, you know, have other people in our households that are respond that we're responsible for, whether that be children, or partners, or roommates, or maybe even parents, whatever it is, we're not making our decisions about food in a vacuum. And so when I would see and hear people who would say, I just don't understand why I can't make the quote, right decision. Or I'm having such a hard time eating, quote, healthy, or I can't get back on track, whatever it was, we really needed to expand the conversation and say, Well, let's talk about why because it's not a lack of knowledge. It's not because you don't know that vegetables are good for you. It's not that you don't know about Canada's Food Guide, or the pyramid or whatever country you come from, in terms of what is being recommended for, you know, building balance plates.

But we just weren't talking about all of the other things that influence our decisions about food. And so that was really kind of the thrust of the first couple of seasons was talking about all of the other things that influence our decision about food. And I've just loved every single one of the conversations. And I've been so honored when people have reached out and said, this episode really was helpful. You know, it gave me support, it helped me realize I wasn't alone and help point me in the right direction. And so I just wanted to give a big shout out to all of you who listen and love the podcast because I love all of you. And I'm just so grateful that we've been able to connect through this medium.

But I've also noticed something really interesting happening over the last year especially but definitely, I'd say in the last six months, that there's a huge shift in the online and media conversations about menopause. And there are some upsides to that. And there are some downsides to that. The biggest upside obviously, is that we know what menopause is.

Now, if I think back 10 years ago, if I mentioned to someone that they could be in perimenopause, I would say at least 50% of the time, they'd never even heard that word. Were out whereas now I do feel like it has become a more everyday word. It's something that people at least have heard of, even if they don't know exactly what it is, but at least they've heard of it. their health care providers have heard of it. And there is absolutely more support that was needed is needed for people in this age and stage of life. But there's a downside to that.

And the downside is that it has been, menopause has become a commodity, it has become something that we sell solutions to it, you know, it has now become a brand almost, and everybody is trying to fight for this piece of the pie. And as a result, everybody's got an opinion, everybody has a solution, and everybody wants to kind of throw their two cents in. But that's not always a good thing. Because we end up with more information than is necessary, I think, to make decisions that are actually helpful that will move us in a direction of either supporting our health, reducing our symptoms, or just feeling better in our midlife bodies as we go about this age and stage of life.

And I have another episode that's kind of brewing, percolating, whatever you want to call it fermenting about how DIY culture is really hurting our health. And this and it will piggyback on this one. Because I do feel that so many women who are, you know, looking for help feel like they have to solve it themselves. And maybe that's because they can't access care. Maybe depending on where you live, if you if this is you, you don't know where to find information, or you can't access it in a timely way. Or maybe even if you do have a health care provider. They're not on board with it, whatever it is, I totally get the I need to figure this out, and I need to fix it. And ultimately, I think that having personal responsibility for your health and input on that is incredible. It's empowering. I think it's necessary.

Menopause and Menopause Nutrition

And these really do need to be conversations that we have with our healthcare team. But the problem is that because menopause has become a commodity, and especially the conversations around menopause nutrition have become so fragmented. It becomes like quicksand, where you just feel stuck. Do I intermittent fast? Do I take magnesium? Should I have my hormone levels checked, maybe I should try this protein supplement, everybody's got an opinion.

And without a way to filter it, it becomes overwhelming. And I've just seen this increase in the conversations that I'm having with people the conversations that I'm seeing in the midlife ease community. And just kind of in general, that there are too many opinions, there's too many cooks in the kitchen. So we need to have a way to, to filter it out. And I don't have a quick solution to that. So I can't offer you that this season. But what I can offer you and what I am looking forward to giving you is my theme for season four, which is menopause and menopause nutrition made easy.

Jenn Salib Huber 8:18
And the way that I want to do this is to try and bring really specific conversations to the table of midlife. So whether we're talking about something really specific, like diabetes, or high blood pressure, or maybe we're going to be talking about the need for creativity in midlife, or maybe we're going to be talking about when our relationships have a midlife crisis. All of these conversations are still happening around our decisions around food. But they're also getting really caught up in the business of menopause. And so I've tried to find people to have these conversations with experts, who will really just help to kind of cut through the crap and help you feel like you're standing on your own two feet again, or at least have a really good roadmap. And so that's going to be the theme this year.

Addressing the Biggest Problem of Eating Well in Midlife: Decision Fatigue

I hope you're as excited about it as I am. It might seem it might seem it's hard to visualize. I get that. But starting with the first episode next week with the conversation with Val Schoenberg, and we're diving right into insulin resistance, which is such a hot topic. And don't worry, yes, there is an episode on CGM, continuous glucose monitors coming out. But you know, I really wanted to take these specific topics, questions, concerns, problems, whatever it is, and try and give you what I think is the best information because if I can help you filter through the crap and so that you can Feel confident again, so that you feel like you have the right kind of information to make a decision because it's the decision fatigue that I think is really, the end problem of too many cooks in the kitchen is that nobody knows what to do.

You don't know how to who to trust, you don't know what decision to make. And it feels like you're never confident that the decision that you've made is the right one. Because tomorrow, probably somebody's going to have a different opinion, which is kind of crazy, right? So I wanted to introduce that concept into the conversations that we're going to be having. One of the story sessions that's going to be coming up is with someone who had tried to DIY intuitive eating for a long time, had read the books had done some self paced courses, but started to feel confused as even into the term intuitive eating was being co opted by coaches and nutritionists and other people in the health field. And it started to get messy for her. So we talked about how she needed to stop trying to DIY that, which I think again, this whole idea of DIY or health, we need to we need to reframe that, or at least redefine that or figure out what we should have personal responsibility for and what we really should defer to experts for you know, one of my one of my most shared posts on Instagram was something I said a couple of years ago on what was twitter then, which was, you know, if you wouldn't, I can't remember I should have pulled it up.

But you know, if you wouldn't let a surgeon you know, do your root canal. And if you wouldn't let a dentist do your appendectomy, then, you know, don't get nutrition advice from people who aren't qualified to do so. And I get that nutrition feels like it should be something that we all know. And there's a huge part of that, that I agree with. Absolutely. But what the problem is that we end up with confusion and misinformation, when the people giving advice aren't qualified to do that. So that's definitely going to be a theme to is trying to help you figure out who is and who isn't qualified when it comes to giving advice about nutrition, and health in general. And thankfully, I've been able to find lots of experts who are going to be able to do that. And there's a great conversation that'll be coming out in October with Dr. Sylvie Martin, who's one of my fellow MD colleagues, who is also a registered nurse and also an intuitive eating counselor where we talk about the problem with Diet and Wellness culture in integrative medicine, especially.

So, I I'm excited. And I hope that you are too I hope that you're excited to continue learning about not just menopause, not just menopause, nutrition, not just intuitive eating. But all of it through this lens of how can this information make my life easier? How can I use this information to help make menopause easy. And if you're listening to this in September, so this one's coming out, September 11. So if that's today, hello, welcome. I'm so glad you're here on the first day this came out. But if you're listening to this at any time in September, I want to make sure that you sign up for my newsletter, or get on one of my list somehow because there's going to be some fun, free stuff happening in October for menopause Awareness Month.

So October is kind of a big month. So it's menopause Awareness Month. It will be the two year anniversary of the midlife feast podcast, and the one year anniversary of the midlife feast community. So I promise you good things are coming. And you're definitely going to want to be on the list for this.

The Story of How the Midlife Feast Got It's Name

So for now, I thought I would leave you with a little story actually, which is the story of how the midlife feast got its name. People often asked me this in person or sometimes on other podcasts, but I don't actually think I've told the story here. So I thought it would be a fun little story. So a couple of years ago, I had been thinking about a podcast for a while, but I was was caught between a few names and I can't actually remember what the other two were. But the midlife piece was one that I had been, you know, it had been rattling around, but I just couldn't decide I couldn't pull the trigger and my family was thoroughly done with me asking for their opinion. And even my sister who works in communications is kind of like, I don't know, Jen, you're just gonna have to figure this out. And so we happened to be at lunch. I was at lunch with my sister who like I said works in communications and we were having lunch with a former colleague of hers who also works in communications.

And Friedel said, Why don't you ask her just throw the names out there. So I threw out the names. And immediately she was very clear, in a very, I call it a Dutch direct way. Clearly the midlife feast is the best. And when I asked her why, because it was it was a very clear and quick response. She said, Because I picture myself sitting at a table happy and relaxed, surrounded with food that I love. And I thought that is perfect. That is exactly what I want. I want people to feel calm and relaxed around food, and to feel nourished by food and excited by food. And to believe that food is their friend, not their enemy. So I hope that that little story was was fun. And if that wasn't new for you, I'm sorry if you've heard that before. But I do get asked not infrequently about the story behind the title of the podcast. So I will leave it there today.

But I'm back every week and next week we're starting with Val Schoenberg and it is going to be a season full of information to help make menopause and menopause nutrition easy. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the midlife feast. For more non diet help hormone and general midlife support. Click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me. And if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review or subscribing because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife.