How To Get Your Sparkle Back with Alison Bladh

Today's guest is Alison Bladh, registered Nutritional Therapist who is passionate about empowering women globally to reclaim their health during midlife and the menopause transition (perimenopause, menopause, post menopause and beyond) through realistic evidence-based nutrition, mindset and lifestyle modifications. Alison is the founder of the Menopause 5 Step Breakthrough Pathway.

In this episode I will visit with Alison about what it means to get your sparkle back. Menopause and perimenopause means a lot of changes are happening, but with some small diet and lifestyle changes, the symptoms can be minimized. Eating a low-glycemic diet can help regulate blood sugar and reduce hot flashes. Drinking plenty of water can help clear the brain fog. It's important to reduce cortisol, which can be aided by getting plenty of sleep and making sure to get some movement daily.

Alison has a library of free ebooks and meal plans available on her website: https://www.alisonbladh.com/resources

DoTERRA Wellness Advocate
At Wholistic Natural Health Australia, we often recommend the use of high quality essential oils.

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Transcript

Magic Barclay: 1:00

Welcome back to a Magical Life. I'm your host, magic Barclay, and today I'm again joined by Alison Blad. Now, in our last episode, we were talking about how to harness your hormones and get the most out of this change in life, going from perimenopause to menopause. So Alison, welcome back first of.

Alison Bladh: 1:23

Oh, thank you Maggie. It's lovely to be back again talking to you about such an important subject.

Magic Barclay: 1:28

It is, thank you. Now you say to your clients that they can get back their sparkle. Can you tell us just how they do that?

Alison Bladh: 1:39

Yeah, that's Wonderful. I'm very much into sparkle. I think we should all have a little bit of sparkle. yeah. So when I work with my clients, I work with nutrition and I work with lifestyle and I work with mindset. so what I like to do initially is really have a look and see what you are eating. go really have a in-depth consultation to find out what is going on, you know, with your body and then putting in nutritional plan to suit you. but the things that you really want to do to get back your sparkle, uh, nutrition wise. The first thing I would say is to really think, just think about what you are eating. you want to eat nutritious foods, so try and swap out the non-nutritious foods for the nutritious foods, you know. I'm realistic. We, we all lead busy lives. It, it's not practical to suddenly expect people to change the, the completely the way they eat, but really just making small swaps can make a big difference with, with your, uh, diet and, and what you're eating. You know, for example, if you have in the morning, if you have, a piece of, uh, white bread with jam on for breakfast, you know, swap that to a, a piece of brown like whole meal bread with some nut butter. So there's just easy things that you can do, you know, rather than snacking on, you know, sugar load and snacks, have a half an apple with some nut butter. It's, it's a very, very nutritious snack. It's got protein, fat and carbohydrate in. So really making these small changes. So getting rid of all the sugary, refined foods, doing the swap, so you're swapping in healthy things. And eating more of, what we say a Mediterranean style diet. And it's, it's quite interesting with the Mediterranean style diet, there is research to back that up. That, that it is a very good way to eat. It's a very healthy way to eat. you know, what is the Mediterranean style diet? It means different things for different people, but it basically is where. You know, you're eating lots of a lovely fruit, colorful fruit and vegetables, so trying to eat like a rainbow of colors. fish, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, and then all, all your wonderful oils, you know, like olive oil and uh, sesame seed oil. Meat occasionally, but the, in, in a traditional Mediterranean diet, they, they don't eat red meat that often. They do eat meat, but, you know, maybe, oh, once, once a week, once every two weeks. And then is more fish. So, you know, fish and, and poultry based. So thinking about eating in that sort of way, however that works for you is, is a very. Healthy way of eating, um, because you're getting all the nutrients that, that you, you know, you really need for, for your body. And also still on the nutritional side, really thinking about water. And, and I know that's a very basic thing and, and people think, oh, water, yes, I drink water, but do you, and how much do you actually drink? Because we all. Want to drink water, but it's very easy to forget and it's difficult to say exactly how much you should drink because it's very dependent on how active you are, et cetera. But on, on average, we say around two liters of water a day. and that makes a huge difference, keeping yourself hydrated. You know, when we are going through the menopause, we've got so many other things going on. The last thing we want to do is be dehydrated because that. You know, heighten your brain fog and concentration. So really just drinking more water, being more mindful of how much, water you drink. So getting rid of all the sugary things. That helps also research to, to back that up. That, if you take out all the refined sugary foods, the, the number of hot flashes that you get, May decrease. So it how you eat actually affects your menopausal symptoms. And we don't really want hot flashes, do we? Nobody wants that. If you, if you want to get your sparkle back, you certainly don't want to have hot flashes all the time. So drinking water, and balancing your blood sugar, that is really, really key. I think, you know, I say to my clients, if there's one thing that you're going to do to improve your menopausal health and get back your sparkle is. Balance your blood sugar, and it doesn't have to be complicated. Balancing your blood sugar really means is eating, there's, there's something called the glycemic index, and this is where we see how certain carbohydrate foods, when we eat them, React and cause our blood sugars, uh, levels to increase. And there is actually a scale. You can, you can see foods on the glycemic index and how they affect your blood sugar and the foods that go straight into your circulation. and cause blood sugar rises are, are your refined car. hydrates like your, you know, white bread. All all the white things, you know, the biscuits, cakes, Crisps or all those really refined sugary products. And what that happens then is that this shoots your blood sugar up and your body doesn't like that, so it will then try to, Get the blood sugar down by, producing a hormone called insulin. And insulin is great. That comes into your blood system and will, it's a bit like a key, so it opens the key to the cell and this allows the energy to go in, which is the, the glucose, and then your blood sugar drops. But what happens is it will drop quite low because insulin's done a very good job and this. Then causes you to crave sugary things again because your body's saying, oh, blood sugar's low. That's not good. You need to eat something refined, sugary to get that up again. So then you'll start craving your muffins and your biscuits and your cakes. And you go onto this rollercoaster ride of eating the sugary fines. Blood sugar goes up, blood sugar goes down, and this will make your menopausal symptoms worse. It will cause anxiety, it will cause, uh, weight gain, you know, the, the list goes on. And especially during, uh, menopause and perimenopause, we don't need that. So by eating, Fiber really. You want really fiber rich whole foods, that don't peak your blood sugar. This, really will make you feel better, more, like I said earlier, the Mediterranean style diet is, is good for blood sugar control, on the lifestyle aspect for, regaining your sparkle. Really thinking about moving more. You know, even if you just, you don't have to go to the gym for hours. Just going out for a nice walk, five, 10 minute walk. Just really thinking about moving your body, reducing stress that is key to. Feeling better because of the stress hormones and the stress response. You know, in today's society, there's a very high percentage of us, um, suffering from chronic stress because we're, we're always so busy and have so many things to do, and this has a knock on effect, uh, with the stress hormones. One of them called cortisol, you know, It makes everything feel worse. And, and again, with weight gain, it's very difficult to lose weight if you've got cortisol levels in your, in your bloodstream. So stress management, little things I always say don't make life complicated. You know, we've all got a to-do list. That's, you know, a long to-do list and, and basically that to-do list, you have to accept that it's never really gonna be done, is it? And if you're waiting for that to-do list to be done, then you, you're gonna be waiting forever. So you really have to prioritize yourself and allow yourself to take time out and do self-care what works for you, whether it's meditation or yoga, or, or, or just five. Drinking a cup of tea, looking out the window. It doesn't have to be complicated, but self-care and stress reduction is really, really key to feeling better during, during, uh, perimenopause and, and menopause, and also reducing anxiety and helping to calm everything down and get everything back in, in balance. And sleep is a crucial thing in, Managing menopause sleep. Again, if we, if we are lacking sleep or we are finding it hard to sleep, that has a knock on effect on, on how we feel. Uh, it affects our hormone levels, it causes cravings. And interestingly, during. Perimenopause and menopause are what we call our hunger hormones. There's, there's hormones that can stimulate, our hunger. Uh, estrogen and hormone levels have an effect on these hormones. One, one in particular called grelin, and grelin is a hormone that, that makes us feel hungry. So, so when our body feels like we need to eat, it will produce ghrelin and, and this will give you a signal. Okay? Now, now, Feeling hungry and I want to eat. So what happens at estrogen as estrogen declines, it can actually increase this hormone. and we don't really want that, do we? Because ghrelin is something that gives us appetite. So, so, you know, and lack of sleep can increase hunger hormones as well. So that's something that we really want to work on is, is sleep hygiene. So that that's, there's so many different things. Mad I could say about getting your sparkle back, but they're, they're some of my, uh, top tips.

Magic Barclay: 11:51

I love it. I love a guest that is like talking as if my brain was there, I was just nodding the whole time you were talking So let's summarize all of that cause there's a lot of great information that you've just given us there. So the first thing is to swap out things to control blood sugars. Increased fiber, lower glycemic index. So it's not listeners making a complete overhaul, throwing everything out in your cupboard. It's start by swapping some things out because we wanna keep our stress down. So when you say to yourself, I'm never eating that again, I'm never doing this. I have to empty my shelves, you're gonna stress out. You really are. An up goes cortisol. So just start by swapping things out. Really listen to your body. Are you actually hungry or are you tired, or are you thirsty? Because leptin and ghrelin are those hunger hormones and ghrelin. Well, it's often called the gremlin hormone because that's what makes you that crabby gremlin when you're actually probably just tired or thirsty. So really listen to your body with that. Get great sleep. Sleep hygiene's really important. We've spoken about it before on the podcast. We will speak about it again, but really listen to yourself. If you need a nap, have a. If you don't, then don't. And exercise, exercise is kind of one of those things. You know, you should be doing it. But again, why stress yourself out about it's so, go for a walk, enjoy nature, breathe in all those essential oils from the trees around you, and really just take some time for yourself. So whether that's meditation, yoga, going for a walk, going for a cup of tea with friends or a cup of coffee, make that time for yourself. Have I summarized that? Yes. Yeah,

Alison Bladh: 13:52

brilliantly. Yeah. Perfect. There's just so many other things that you know that come into play as well, but you've summarized that brilliantly of what, what I said. Absolutely. Thank goodness I didn't miss

Magic Barclay: 14:04

anything there, That's great. Now, ladies and Jens, don't forget your Andrew Pores. This is a time in your life that you need to celebrate. So Alison, what are some ways that people can celebrate? In our last episode, you mentioned we're not living in those communities where, you know, the wisdom of age is revered as much. So what are some ways people can celebrate themselves now that they're older, wiser, and their body doesn't have. Make children anymore, but it can be nurturing and contributing nonetheless.

Alison Bladh: 14:44

Yeah, it, it's, I'm so passionate about, you know, menopause all women or women when we come into that, you know, it is really the next phase of our life, isn't it Post, uh, menopause? Is that the, you know, you can be in that depending on how long you live for 30 plus years. So I would say that, You know, embrace this period with, with joy and, and really sit back and think how amazing you are and the amount of knowledge that you've got and what you can give to, you know, your community or, or your family, or your grandchildren, you know, the, the people that you have around you. You've, you've got so much knowledge and, and love that I just think it, you should be spreading that out in, into the community, uh, and really helping people. And I, I think as well, another way to celebrate is to just. do the things that you want to do cuz now that you are, you know, have more time. I mean, the majority of people when they come into Postmenopause, their children are, may be slightly older if they have children, so you have more time for yourself. Learn something new, go and do something maybe crazy that you've always wanted to do, but you haven't had time or you haven't dared to do there. There's some fabulous, women that, you know are slightly older that, that, you know, they all of a sudden write a book or, you know, they set up a company or, you know, I'm not saying you need to do something as drastic as, as setting up a company, but you know, Don't feel that there's boundaries just because you're slightly older, really. do things that make you feel good and make you feel happy because this is a time in your life that should be rejoiced and and embraced with excitement. I say, I'm in perimenopause and I, I'm a very much believer in embracing this time period and, you know, I push myself. Quite regularly to do things that I think, oh, maybe that's a bit uncomfortable. I started learning to play golf, six months ago, which is, it's actually pushes you out of your comfort zone quite often. But I'm thoroughly enjoying that. I started scuba diving. You know, so doing things that make you feel alive and being positive and, and happy during this time period.

Magic Barclay: 17:09

Fantastic. Some great tips there. Now, listeners, you can find Alison at her website, alison blad.com. That's a L I s. O N B L A D h.com. On Twitter at Pink Tearoom Instagram, Alison Blad, Facebook, Alison bla nutrition. Thank you so much for your time and sharing your wisdom with us today, Alison.

Alison Bladh: 17:38

Oh, thank you so much too. It's been, it's been lovely talking to you. Really, thank you so much for having me on your, on your wonderful podcast. Thank

Magic Barclay: 17:46

you listeners, again, thank you for your time. This was your episode 1 75 in 1 76. We have Maureen Ross, Jimmy talking about leadership starts with you. So that will be a fantastic flow on from our episode today. Listeners, again, thank you for your time. Go forth and create your magical life.