“Menopause really isn’t that bad…”
…said no woman ever!
Menopause isn’t something we can just grin and bear. We’re in this stage for the long haul and the symptoms women experience during menopause are no joke!
Thankfully, you don’t have to resign yourself to the side effects of menopause. There are steps you can take that’ll turn the menopause dial down. You can lose weight, you can sleep better, and you can have more energy!
Three supplements will help. If you’re like me, these three supplements will become your tried-and-true friends. They’ll support you, even on your most menopausal days!
Magnesium—Your Missing Mineral
Magnesium deficiencies are associated with poor memory, moodiness, irritability, osteoporosis, and high blood pressure. Sound familiar?
This single supplement lowers your risk of heart disease, helps to prevent stroke, fights obesity, treats diabetes, and improves mood and memory. It’s a miracle mineral—one that every menopausal woman needs to have in her medicine cabinet.
Here are two big benefits you’ll feel right away with a magnesium supplement:
- Better Sleep: Magnesium plays a crucial role in the regulation of your sleep-wake cycle. It also is involved in producing the neurotransmitters that make you feel relaxed and sleepy. I don’t have to tell you that sleep disturbances, like insomnia and restless leg syndrome, are common during menopause. Magnesium can help.
- Hormone Balance: Inadequate magnesium levels can contribute to hormonal imbalances and menopause symptoms. Supplementing with magnesium can help your body metabolize estrogen and other important hormones.
Magnesium comes in many forms—some better than others. Skip supplements that have magnesium oxide, sulfate, glutamate, or aspartate. Good forms of magnesium include citrate, glycinate, chloride, carbonate, taurate, and malate.
Working to optimize your magnesium levels will improve the way you feel tenfold! Here’s an affordable brand of magnesium that I love. My favorite magnesium supplement, though, is ReMag.
Vitamin D + K—Both Bring Bone Health
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with poor sleep, muscle pain and weakness, and fatigue. No thanks! It’s also linked with a low immune system, dry skin, and obesity.
Vitamin D is particularly important during menopause for a few reasons:
- During menopause, our estrogen levels decline, which can accelerate bone loss and increase our risk of osteoporosis. It’s serious stuff. Vitamin D is crucial for our calcium absorption, which can increase our bone density and strength.
- As we age, we also experience muscle loss and weakness. Vitamin D, though, helps boost muscle function and strength.
- Vitamin D also plays a big role in mood regulation and mental health! Adequate vitamin D levels can help us feel more stable and experience less anxiety and depression.
- Changes in hormone levels can impact our immune function, but vitamin D combats this symptom for us. Adequate vitamin D levels improve our immune systems and reduce our risk of infections.
- During menopause, many women experience changes in their cholesterol levels and blood pressure. This can increase their risk of heart disease. Vitamin D has many cardiovascular health benefits, including reducing your risk of heart disease and hypertension.
When our sun exposure is lower during winter, we need to supplement with Vitamin D even more!
Research has found that vitamin K can enhance the effectiveness of vitamin D. It promotes more vitamin D absorption and utilization in the body. This can help maximize the benefits and make supplementing really worth it.
Omega-3—A God-Send Supplement
Omega-3 fatty acid’s list of benefits will make you swoon. It can ease symptoms of depression, mood swings, and anxiety. It can help prevent heart disease and benefit people with metabolic syndrome. It boosts bone health, lowers inflammation, and decreases joint pain.
Women benefit especially from Omega-3 since it can ease menstrual pain, prevent osteoporosis, increase moods, alleviate rheumatoid arthritis, and even reduce cancer risk.
The best source of omega-3 is found in wild-caught seafood, specifically cold-water fish like salmon, halibut, cod, herring, mackerel, and sardines. Grass-fed meat also provides good amounts of omega-3 and can contain up to five times the amount of omega-3 as conventional, grain-fed meat!
Even if our diet is full of fish, supplementation can help, especially during a season like menopause. Find a good quality fish oil, like this one. You can also try Antarctic Krill oil, which contains astaxanthin, a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compound.
Surviving Menopause: Popping Pills Won’t Cut It.
How we live can make a massive difference in how we look and feel during this stage of life. As a Registered Dietitian, I know from 20+ years of experience what works and what doesn’t. As a 46-year-old woman, though, I can personally empathize with everything you’re experiencing.
Here’s the truth about supplements…
It does not matter how many supplements or how much hormone replacement therapy you consume if you don’t address your lifestyle.
Change requires change. What we did in our 20s to lose weight and stay fit doesn’t work anymore. We have to adjust our strategies and change the way we live if we want to see change in our bodies and overall health.
Menopause is a doozy. But it doesn’t have to dominate your life or flip your fitness upside down. You just need to learn the new strategies that work with menopause in mind.
Once you have your lifestyle in check, the three supplements we talked about above will help. Think of them like sidekicks. They’re not the superhero of your health story (your lifestyle is), but they can contribute a helping hand.
Surviving and thriving through menopause isn’t as complicated as you might think. How you live really matters, but it just takes a few, simple lifestyle shifts that you can make to start moving in the right direction when you’re dealing with menopause.
Check out my FREE complete guide on menopause, and how to tackle weight loss for menopause.
