Gut bacteria and your gut microbiome is talked about a lot these days. Gut bacteria changes daily based on what you are eating because what you eat feeds the bacteria in your gut.
These bacteria affect not only our immune system but our central nervous system and how your appetite is controlled. They affect your blood sugar, your parasympathetic and sympathetic drive as well.
Gut function and the bacteria in your gut are pretty important.
Having a diverse microbiome, a variety of bugs, helps us achieve better health
When you hit menopause (this is important for all women to know because all women will eventually hit menopause) your risk factors of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, etc. increase significantly. You can see a decrease in fine motor skills, cognition, increased depression and anxiety and a greater risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
This is true even if you are physically active.
What is the best way to improve your gut bacteria?
It is NOT a probiotic.
Probiotics have their place for sure. Scientists are able to study specific strains of probiotics for specific conditions.
The thing that improves your microbiome is fiber.
When the fiber we eat from vegetables and fruits gets to our colon, it ferments producing short chain fatty acids like butyrate, acetate, and propionate.
These short chain fatty acids prevent the bad bacteria from making their home in your gut. They also help you produce neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.
Having good gut bacteria also helps improve our bone mineral density by influencing the production and recruitment of immune cells that produce inflammation that causes bone turnover (how we build bone).
Premenopausal women have a different microbiome than men and post menopausal women have a similar microbiome to men. This is thought to be because of the change in sex hormone levels as we (women) age.
There are bacteria in the gut that are responsible for helping get estrogen into our cells and when you hit menopause you need less of those bugs so they die off. So we have less of these bugs available to help us use the estrogen we still make.
Estrogen also helps prevent leaky gut.
Less estrogen (estradiol) = more inflammation, increased leaky gut, decreased gut bacteria diversity.
All of this plays a role in increasing fat storage.
Eating well, increasing the diversity of bugs in your gut, having a healthy gut = lower inflammation, better energy, less fatigue, less fat storage, increase in neurotransmitters and growth of brain tissue and better bone density.
Poor diversity in gut bacteria pre-menopause can trigger autoimmune diseases post menopause along with the CVD, diabetes and the other stuff mentioned before.
A gut that has a healthy microbiome has approximately 90% Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes family and having a lower Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes ratio means a leaner body, better blood sugar regulation, immune and brain health.
Menopause encourages the growth of Firmicutes. We want to encourage the growth of Bacteroidetes.
We do this with moderate exercise and fiber. A wide variety of vegetables, fruits and whole grains. The daily recommendation for fiber is 30g per day. Most people don’t even get 15g per day. If you are not eating ½ a plate of plants at every meal you likely are not even close to the recommended amount.
Getting a variety can be a challenge but if you put some thought into it, you can get up to 20 or more different plant foods a day. It doesn’t have to be 20 servings, just 20 different plants which would include herbs, nuts, seeds, spices, and maybe even juice.
Here is what that would look like:
Breakfast: Overnight oats using dairy free yogurt like coconut yogurt, banana, blueberries, cinnamon, almonds, pecans, cashews, and a teaspoon each of hemp and chia seeds and maybe some diary free milk to make it less thick. That is about 10 different plant foods right there.
Lunch: 4 oz protein of choice, 4 cups ripped mixed greens which might have 4 different kinds of greens in it, tomatoes, carrots, radish, cucumber, microgreens, primal kitchen salad dressing (likely has at least one herb in it). That might be around 13 different plant foods if the microgreens have multiple plants in it.
Dinner: Some kind of protein cooked with olive oil and sprinkled with an herb blend of 4 herbs with brown rice, onions, a bean and a side of stir fried zucchini, mushrooms, garlic and shallot. That is about 12 different plant foods.
Dessert could be berries with coconut cream and any snacks you need throughout the day can be protein and veggie or fruit such as nut butter and apple or celery and nut butter.
The more plants you get in the better.
I’ve been meal prepping these types of things, especially the breakfast and lunch examples for a couple weeks now and it makes life so much easier. I’m the type of person who won’t eat if there is nothing prepared in the fridge so this helps me a lot. I’d also rather snack on a snack bar or a cookie than veggies so having less of that kind of stuff in my house and giving me veggie and fruit options is just better for my personality.
Using my meal planner can help you get ideas of how to get more plant foods in. You can sign up for a free 3 day anti-inflammatory meal plan and I think monthly plans run $9.99 per month to $14.99 per month so it’s quite affordable. I also us the Feel Better App that used to be called Deliciously Ella. It is an app that has exercise, meditation, and recipes which are all plant based. I like using it because it helps me get more plant based foods into my diet. You don’t have to be a vegan to enjoy a plant based app. Another thing I have been using to ensure I get my veggies in is Imperfect Produce. I had a weekly plan where I could order organic veggies weekly which helped me eat more produce in general because I wouldn’t want to waste it before the next shipment came. I have paused it for the summer because i’m now buying from farmers markets which is slightly more expensive but I love supporting local farms.
You don’t have to buy organic but if you are dealing with autoimmune disease, it is ideal because the less chemicals and toxins you put into your body, the better.
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