The Perimenopause Show with Jennifer Woodward

Supercharge Your Thyroid with Yummy Secrets! 🚀🍓 Dive into the Top 5 Fruits for Perimenopause Power! 🌟

• Jennifer Woodward • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Discover how nature's sweetest offerings can be your thyroid's best friends, especially as your body navigates the waves of perimenopause. I, Jennifer Woodward, will unravel the surprising benefits of fruits like blueberries, goji berries, avocados, kiwis, and coconuts, shattering the myth that they're just sugary indulgences. We'll explore not just their mouthwatering goodness, but the real impact they have on supporting thyroid health and managing the body's stress response. Get ready to be enlightened about the profound connection between your diet and your well-being as we explore the nutritional powerhouses that could be pivotal to hormone balance and vitality.

Throughout our engaging discussion, we'll also examine how these fruits bolster gut health and combat perimenopausal constipation with their natural laxative properties. Learn about the nutritional profiles that make fruits like blueberries crucial allies in weight management, urinary tract infection prevention, and memory loss reduction. By the end of our time together, you'll have gained invaluable insights on how to integrate these wonder-fruits into your daily regimen for a happier, healthier you during perimenopause and beyond. Tune in to transform your perspective on fruits and nourish your body in ways you never imagined possible.

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Jennifer Woodward:

In today's show, we're going to be talking about the overlooked benefits of fruits for thyroid health, which is really exciting because we all want our thyroids to work appropriately. A lot of women cut out fruit, thinking that fruit is too high in sugar or too high in carbs, or they think that vegetables are better for them than fruit. So, with their calories, they're going to prioritize vegetables. So I am here today to tell you that you need fruit, and we're going to talk about how fruits really contribute to better thyroid health. We're going to talk about specific fruits like blueberries, goji berries, avocado which is a fruit because it has a seed kiwis, coconuts and then the importance of phytochemicals. So stay tuned and dive in with me today in the perimenopause show as we go through fruits for thyroid health. Hey, there, it's Jennifer Woodward, and welcome to the perimenopause show, the go-to spot for all things perimenopause. I'm on a mission to demystify this wild ride sharing stories, laughs and maybe a few eye rolling moments. Whether you're knee deep in hot flashes or just curious, we've got you covered. Expect real talk, expert guests and a sprinkle of humor, because, let's face it, we could all use a laugh during perimenopause. So grab your favorite drink, get comfy and let's navigate this roller coaster together. This is the Perimenopause Show, where we're turning perimenopause into a conversation, not a crisis. Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Perimenopause show. I'm Jennifer Woodward. All right, let's dive in. So, as I talked about in the introduction, a lot of women that I talked to forget about fruit. They have these vestiges of the low carb diet where they're cutting out fruit from their diet, thinking that fruit is too high in sugar or too high in calories. They think that fruit isn't really an important part of their diet. But honestly, women in perimenopause, we have to focus a lot more on our thyroid health. Thyroid hormone production tends to slow down as we get into our perimenopausal years for many reasons, you know. We're not nourished enough, we're not getting enough calories, we've spent too many years kind of over dieting and under sleeping, over exercising. All of these put the body into fight or flight mode. They put us into sympathetic nervous system dominance. When we're in fight or flight mode, the body's going to preferentially create and then then utilize and then burn cortisol. And when our bodies are kind of overrun with cortisol, t3 hormone production tends to slow down.

Jennifer Woodward:

Just a quick little primer on the thyroid TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone, is the hormone that most doctors check when you go in and ask for a thyroid lab. So TSH is actually a pituitary hormone. It's not secreted by the thyroid, it's a created by the pituitary gland which is in the brain, and all it does is tell the thyroid signals. The thyroid located right about here signals a thyroid to produce T4, which is the inactive form of thyroid hormone. T4 has weekly you know thyrogenic action in the body. It can do a little bit of what thyroid hormone is supposed to do, but really T4 needs to be converted in the liver to T3, triiodothyronine, which is the active form of thyroid hormone, and lots has to go into the production of T3. We have to have a healthy, functioning liver. We have to have cofactors of iodine and zinc and other minerals and nutrients that we need to create healthy thyroid hormone. So when women again have been stuck in that fight or flight mode for a long period of time, we aren't producing thyroid hormone in the quantities that are needed. You're going to also learn a little bit today that when minerals are low, specifically potassium and calcium levels are too high in the soft tissue, specifically the hair and the nails and the arteries, we are not going to be able to get T3 hormone into the cell where it can do the work of regulating our metabolism and our weight, or energy and our digestion, because it literally can't. It can't, it can't get into the cell without sufficient levels of potassium. The RDA for potassium is 5,700 milligrams a day, and when I have my clients track their potassium levels, they're getting way, way less than that. If you're tracking your potassium in an app like chronometer, which is the one I recommend, I see women routinely getting between 2000 and 3000 milligrams of potassium when that's half of what they should be getting, and consequently, their thyroid is starting to slow down. So all that to say is that we can find potassium in quite high quantities in fruit. So that's one of the reasons why fruit is so powerful for thyroid health.

Jennifer Woodward:

So let's talk about specifics today. Fruits, you know, definitely, are going to help a function to your gut health. I have a lot of women who come to me. My name constipation. I asked them well, how much fruit do you eat every day? And they're like fruit. I don't eat fruit. It's too high in calories, it's too high in sugar. I'm like damn it, woman, you need some fruit. We got to get that, you know, kind of quoting action, that that mucus action of fruit, that slippery action of a fruit to help coach your digestive tract so that you, you know, can poop normally, especially if you're constipated.

Jennifer Woodward:

Fruit also is high in phytochemicals, high in phytonutrients. This can fight inflammation in the body and it can also protect the cells. And those are all things we're after in perimenopause not just health right now, but health within the next, you know, five years and 10 years and 15 years as we make this, this transition to, to menopause itself. So fruits contain plenty of nutrients, including fiber. We're supposed to get about 35 grams of fiber a day. Don't take metamucil, don't take a fiber supplement. Eat more fruit.

Jennifer Woodward:

Fruits also high in polyphenols. Phenols are compounds that are going to be very protective for the body and, uh, you know, from a cellular perspective, fruits high in flavonoids. Vitamins, for sure, but minerals are really what we want to focus on. You know everyone focuses on vitamins. Few people focus on minerals, and minerals are the spark plugs of the body. Minerals are what are going to increase thyroid health and thyroid hormone.

Jennifer Woodward:

When we do eat fruit regularly, you know this is going to help your gut health improve, not only because it's going to, you know, help help your stool slip through a little bit more easily, but also because it's it is high in fiber and fruit have natural fruit sugars that can be broken down by beneficial bacteria in your gut. Those are great ways that it can contribute toward gut health. You know, obviously, if you have really slow gut motility and you are bloated all the time, you're not going to want to introduce a bunch of fruit to your diet, especially not throughout the day. Right? Fruit if you don't have gut health can be a source of bloating and even constipation itself. So you don't want to work on gut health first and that's something you can do with. You know a practitioner, that's something I definitely do with my clients. We'll run the GI map. We will look at markers of gut health and gut you know function and dysfunction, and when we regulate gut function, then you can tolerate fruit, and that's the whole point. We want you to tolerate fruit, right. And when gut health is optimal, then thyroid health can be better. And those are the things you know gut, thyroid. Those are the things that we really want to focus on in perimenopause, because when your gut is healthy and your thyroid is healthy, you are a lot happier. So let's dive into some specific fruits that we can talk about.

Jennifer Woodward:

Blueberries taught my list. All right, they are definitely low calorie. It's about 88 calories for a cup of blueberries and they're delicious. I mean, everyone from like a one-year-old to 101 year olds basically likes blueberries. They're portable and they're really, really rich in phytonutrients and antioxidants. You can tell that something's high in phytonutrients and antioxidants which, again, are protective, beneficial compounds for the body reducing inflammation, protecting against cellular damage and DNA damage, reversing the effects of oxidative stress in the body. So, from chemicals and pollution and you know fried foods they all have oxidative effects on the body. They start to break down you know our DNA. They start to break down the cell. Antioxidant of the opposite effect. So antioxidants like those found in richly colored fruits and vegetables like blueberries, can protect against that oxidative stress that we accumulate just by living in the world, right, like flying on an airplane, breathing in car exhaust, handling plastics, right, those are all oxidative stresses on the body and antioxidants can help protect against that.

Jennifer Woodward:

As stated, blueberries are pretty low in calories, not that I'm going to focus a ton on calories and the perimenopause show, but let's be honest, to lose weight, which a lot of people in perimenopause want to do you have to be in a somewhat, somewhat of a calorie deficit, so at some point we do have to focus a little bit on calories, and blueberries are a food that are high in fiber and lower in calories. They're also a little bit lower in carbohydrates. So if that's something you're doing, kind of watching your carbohydrates um which I recommend to an extent, but not as an obsession right, many women in perimenopause have been too low carbohydrate for too long, and that has the opposite effect of what we want. It slows down thyroid function. You need carbohydrates in order to have a healthy, functioning metabolism, healthy functioning digestive tract and healthy functioning thyroid. All right, but blueberries tend to be a lower carbohydrate. They're a good carbohydrate. So, um you know, I'd encourage you one, two cups of blueberries every single day. They're relatively low on the glycemic index, meaning that, since they are compounded with fiber and this beautiful food that God created yes, there's there's some sugar, but there's also fiber. So sugar might be the problem, but fiber is the antidote to the problem. That's why fruits are good for you, but candy is bad for you, because we don't have any of that antidote, any of that fiber when you're just eating, you know, sugar like candy, right?

Jennifer Woodward:

The other thing that blueberries do right is is they have some very specific effects so they can prevent urinary tract infections. These compounds in blueberries and cranberries actually sweep away bad bacteria from the gut of your urethra. So so the wall, you know, if the bladder, that can become quite infected. Often I see a lot of my women, you know, struggling with recurring UTIs in perimenopause. Blueberries, cranberries, these have the benefit of, you know, sweeping that bacteria away and preventing urinary tract infections. That's kind of a big one for women in perimenopause. Blueberries also have compounds that will help reduce memory loss. That's another big one that I get a lot from my women. They're like I'm terrified of ending up like, you know, my grandmother or my great grandmother, with dementia and Alzheimer's and we're a lot more cognizant of current health status and our future health status and I think our grandmothers were, uh, we have to be. But eating some of these whole foods can be really, really helpful for, you know, reducing that memory loss with, with a multifactorial approach, right, balancing your blood sugar, eating regular meals, creating robust thyroid health and then increasing the compounds that can protect against neurodegeneration. Through. Foods like blueberries can be really, really powerful.

Jennifer Woodward:

Next up, let's talk about goji berries. These kind of have their moment, right, like everyone was into goji berries for a while. They were in, like you know, all your smoothie bowls and acai bowls and all over Instagram they're. They're really really nice fruit Like generally, they're dried, so that's how we get them in the United States.

Jennifer Woodward:

But the impact and the mechanism of action of goji berries for perimenopausal women are simply that they're adaptogenic, so they help the body manage stress. Right, we are under a lot of stress. The premise of the show, the premise of my practice, is that women are stuck in fight or flight mode. They're stuck in the stress response and therefore they're not able to heal well because they don't have the capability. Their body is prioritizing staying alive, not prioritizing rest, digestion and healing. So using foods that can help you manage stress, like goji berries, are going to be really helpful for mitigating some of that. You know, fight or flight action in perimenopause.

Jennifer Woodward:

These are traditionally used in in Asian countries, right, for a variety of health issues. They made it to the top of the Instagram chain for a reason. Right, people have been using them for for centuries for various health issues, but it's there, again, their adaptogenic properties, meaning an adaptogen is something that kind of fixes whatever is awry in the body, right, so it's able to go in and adjust you know, stress levels that are too high, or support you for, maybe, cortisol levels that are too low, so kind of you know the the midstream management of stress levels. That's what something that has that adaptogenic term would do it would meet you where you're at and adjust for what is imbalanced. Goji berries also, though, have these fantastic immune boosting properties, so what they will help do is support thyroid hormone conversion. So, again, that T4 to T3, the compounds that are in goji berries can can really help with that and protect against autoimmune diseases.

Jennifer Woodward:

And this is something else I see a lot in my women, my perimenopausal women, you know, between the ages of 35 and 45, that's when a lot of women get hit with autoimmune diseases Hashimoto's, graves, crohn's, ulcerative colitis, lupus. I see a ton of this in my practice. Women who previously did not have autoimmune issues now have these problems popping up. They have any antibodies positive, you know positive antibodies on their, their blood work. They've got positive TPO antibodies. They're wondering, like, how did this happen? And I can tell you how it happened. It happened because you've been stuck in fight or flight mode for too long.

Jennifer Woodward:

You have a genetic predisposition to having an autoimmune disease. But then also the epigenetics, the environment, you know, the food, the stressors, the, the day-to-day these are our triggers, that kind of ripen, the possibility that that genetic expression of autoimmune disease would actually express itself, would actually come to fruition. So we see a lot of autoimmune disease starting in perimenopause and goji berries, through their adaptogenic response, can kind of help mitigate that epigenetic expression of autoimmune disease. So try a tablespoon, two tablespoons, in a smoothie oatmeal and see how you do. None of these things are like going to fix you right. It's not like if you add blueberries it's going to make your thyroid function perfectly, or if you add goji berries all of a sudden you're going to have no stress. What we're doing here is just layering on small healthy habits that help eventually get you out of that stress response back into a balanced autonomic nervous system. And one of my favorite ways to do that is through whole foods autonomic nervous system. And one of my favorite ways to do that is through whole foods, especially fruit, and I have seen again fruit and root vegetables be very important compounds for healing the thyroid and having normal thyroid function, especially in perimenopause.

Jennifer Woodward:

All right, let's get to avocado. So this is a healthy fat for your thyroid. It's, yes, high in fat, but it is technically a fruit because it has a seed. Avocados are really high in fiber, of course, high in minerals, especially potassium. So avocado actually has more potassium than a banana and less sugar than a banana. So it is the backbone of our potassium smoothies. We can share the potassium smoothie recipe with you in the show notes for today. But that plant based fat that avocados have is mono unsaturated fat, so it's a really protective fat. It's a very stable fat at room temperature, right, and avocado is solid at room temperature and that's a good thing for our body.

Jennifer Woodward:

We don't want necessarily lots of like liquid fats, like trans fats, because that's a very oxidative kind of um um compound. So things like canola oil and you know, rice bran oil and corn oil those are liquid at room temperature, those are unstable in the body. That can cause oxidative stress. So if you are eating a lot of seed oils now, you know that you can use blueberries to help combat some of that oxidative stress. But really what we want to do are choose foods, and fats specifically, that are more stable at room temperature, and avocado is one of those. Those foods they really do support optimal thyroid function by increasing potassium and I see potassium being low in, I'd say, 98% of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hair tissue mineral analyses that I've run and low potassium is going to lead to low thyroid function. So, increasing your amount of avocado in the diet not like five avocados a day Don't take this advice and go crazy on the avocado.

Jennifer Woodward:

You just want to add a little bit of avocado every single day to help support that potassium getting close to 5,700 milligrams a day. And that potassium like. If you can meet 5,700 milligrams of potassium every single day, if you can even do that in your diet, I can guarantee you your thyroid is going to start performing better. So we've got some healthy fat that's going to balance out your blood sugar level levels very helpful for, you know, mood and weight in perimenopause. But we also have this beautiful low sugar fruit that is going to increase your potassium and thereby increase your thyroid hormone conversion and accessibility to T3, right, that T3 is going to be able to get to the cell a little bit easier and you are going to feel better. Your metabolism is going to start increasing. Your weight is going to start decreasing. Your metabolism is going to start increasing. Your weight is going to start decreasing. Your energy is going to start increasing. Your bowel movements are going to be a little bit better All signs of a healthy, functioning thyroid.

Jennifer Woodward:

Next up, let's talk about kiwis. Okay, kiwis are really fun. My, my colleague and my friend and one of my mentors, bella Lindeman, has a gut clinic in Australia and she loves to use kiwis for constipation. So that is a really powerful fruit because it's high in vitamins and vitamin C. But it's also got a lot of fiber. Right, if you're looking at a kiwi, if you're eating the actual outside of the Kiwi the skin that's that's high in roughage and fiber. But if you open up a Kiwi, there's hundreds and hundreds of these little like most chia seeds, like gelatinous seeds, that are encased in that Kiwi. So it's really helpful for gut health and kind of soothing um and healing the digestive tract. But Kiwis are really really rich in vitamin C, you know, almost as much as as oranges or more.

Jennifer Woodward:

Kiwis also have vitamin E. Vitamin E is a very protective. You know fat-based vitamins. So the. The fat-based vitamins are A, d, e and K. Not a lot of us get enough vitamin E, and researcher and clinician Dr Ray Pete actually you know tells us that vitamin E is a very protective compound for the thyroid. It's a metabolism stimulating compound. So we want to get more vitamin E into our diets, and Kiwis are a good way to do that. Kiwis are also high in potassium. With the the array of minerals that Kiwis have, it can help with mood and, again, gut health and then also increasing our sleep quality.

Jennifer Woodward:

So try the kiwis one, two a day. You can put them in a smoothie, like Bella has us do, or you can just eat them with your lunch, like I do. I love kiwis and I eat the skin too, actually, but I'm weird like that. So let's lastly talk about coconut, another high fat fruit. It's got a seed right. Coconuts also contain medium chain triglycerides. This gives us immediate energy. It also is a fat burning substance. So we do have studies that show that MCT oil itself can have anti-obesity effects, and so coconut can be a really powerful plant-based, food-based tool for weight management and people who struggle with their, their thyroid. I use it in my potassium smoothie, so I'll do a tablespoon of coconut oil in the morning, but I don't recommend like going hog wild on coconut products. It's a fat, so it's still going to add calories to your diet. Start this in small quantities and just see how you do, but this can be really, really helpful for thyroid function too.

Jennifer Woodward:

I just want to address some potential concerns. Like people can have allergies to fruits, especially those who struggle with histamine issues or who are already kind of like sensitive or compromised. So Kiwis do tend to be a fruit that some women react to. So just go low and slow and be careful and use, you know, good judgment and common sense. I'm not a doctor, so I don't diagnose, treat or prescribe or give you medical advice. I'm just educating you on the importance of fruit for thyroid health.

Jennifer Woodward:

I do recommend starting with two to four servings of fruit every single day. I have a piece of fruit with every single meal, at least one piece of fruit. And since I started doing that I realized that you know, my cravings for sweet things have diminished. I don't crave as much chocolate anymore. I don't crave as much caramel sauce anymore Caramel's like my kryptonite because I am getting natural fruit sugar and it's balancing my blood sugar and it's satisfying my sweet tooth. So if this has helped you, reach out and let me know. If you are going to increase your fruit consumption, reach out and let me know. If you have any questions, reach out and let me know. But thank you for being here with us today on the perimenopause show, learning about all of the benefits for fruit with regards to your thyroid, and I'll see you next time on the perimenopause show. Well, that's a wrap for today's episode.

Jennifer Woodward:

I hope you enjoyed our candid chat about perimenopause the good, the challenging and everything in between. If you found this episode as enlightening and entertaining as I did, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a dose of perimenopausal realness. Before you go, remember that you're not alone in this journey. We're building a community of kick-ass women embracing the changes and supporting each other. Connect with us on social media, share your stories and let's keep this conversation going. And hey, if you have a burning question, a topic you'd love us to tackle, or just want to say hello, shoot us a message. Your feedback keeps this podcast fueled and fabulous. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Until next time, take care, stay fabulous and remember perimenopause is just another chapter in the adventure of being a woman. Catch you on the flip side.