Best Nutrients for Women Over 40

Entering into our 40s can be a interesting time. During our first four decades we discover who we are with our home, work and friendship groups, while we have become well acquainted to our body. However, as we approach the big 4-0, our physiology begins to shift and hormone begin to fluctuate, leading increase appetite, and weight, and impairments to mood and cognitive function.

While signals major alarm bells we want to assure you that is completely normal, Best of all, we can address these changes with nutrition to enhance our health, blance our hormones, and boost our vitality.

That's why in this article, we discuss nutrition tips for women in their 50s. We cover key nutrients, tips for supporting hormones and weight management, and sample meal ideas to help you begin you shift toward better health.

Why Nutrition Changes Matter for Women in Their 40s

In a time where it feels like our body is rebelling against, nutrition can not only help us regain control of our health, it can elevate it to places we never though possible.

Our 40s is time where we begin to witness the signs of aging. From wrinkling skin, loss of muscle mass, and joint aches and pains, it can be a confronting. During this time, we may experience the end of reproductive years as our reproductive hormone estrogen and progesterone fluctuate and decline, leading to menopause and a range of symptoms which can impact our quality of life.

Common menopause symptoms include:

• Hot flashes
• Night sweats
• Joint pain
• Vaginal dryness
• Poor sleep
• Mood swings
• Anxiety and depression
• Wrinkling skin
• Increased appetite
• Increased rick of chronic illness

Fortunately, nutrition-dense foods containing essential vitamins and minerals can help alleviate menopause symptoms and bolster our overall health and well-being. Protein can help preserve muscles, calcium fortifies bones, omega-3 supports the brain and heart, while antioxidants can help protect our cells from disease.

As our body inevitably adjusts to a post reproductive phase, nutrition is the powerful tool that will support us along the way.

Key Nutrients for Women in Their 40s

Below is a list of key nutrients to help support your health and alleviate menopause symptoms. Each nutrient has a recommended daily intake, food source, and purpose so you know exactly which foods to eat to improve your health.

Protein for Muscle Maintenance and Metabolism

Protein is essential for building and preserving lean muscle mass. From 30 our skeletal muscle steadily declines by 3–8% per decade. As we enter our 40s and menopause, the decline of estrogen and progesterone results in another decrease in skeletal muscle mass, leading to decreased muscle volume, strength, and function.

Skeletal muscle also has metabolic properties, storing energy and amino acids. Making up approximately 40% of our body weight it consumes approximately 20% of our resting energy expenditure compared to body fat which consumes just 5%. When skeletal muscle declines, it can decrease our resting energy expenditure, leading to weight gain.

Because of this, protein is essential, enabling us to maintain mass, function, and optimal metabolic rate. The recommended daily protein intake is approximately 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight for healthy individuals and 1.4–1.6g/kg/day for active individuals who want to build muscle.

We recommended adding 25–30g to each meal, in the form of lean meats, fish, dairy, eggs, legumes, and whole grains. This will help you hit your protein target, improve fullness, and reduce snacking.

Calcium and Vitamin D for Bone Health

Calcium and vitamin D are both vital components to preserving bone health. Over the years, you’d have likely been warned of the dangers of decreased bone mineral density and the onset of osteoporosis. This can lead to frailty, loss of function, increased risk of falls, and loss of independence.

The bone formation and regeneration process are stimulated by mechanical strain, which comes from muscle contractions, impact loading, and gravity. Over the first four decades of our lives, weight-bearing movements against gravity help us reach our peak bone mass by the age of 40. From here, factors such as age, poor diet, hormonal changes, and reduced physical activity decrease bone mass, resulting in a loss of approximately 30–40% by age 70.

Menopause also has a negative impact as the decline of reproductive hormones. Estrogen prevents the breakdown of bone during the remodeling process, however, when these levels decrease, the breakdown occurs faster.

Because of this calcium and vitamin D are essential for preserving bone health and function. Bones contain approximately 98% of our body’s calcium, which is also used for muscle contractions and nerve and hormone function. Meanwhile, vitamin D, makes this all possible,  providing our small intestine with the ability to absorb calcium.

Calcium can be consumed in foods such as milk, cheese, yogurt, salmon, sardines, and vegetables. Meanwhile, vitamin D comes from sunlight. We recommend 12–15 minutes of midday sun exposure to ensure healthy Vitamin D levels. This will improve calcium absorption, enabling you to preserve bone health.

Fiber for Digestive Health and Heart Protection

Fiber is excellent for supporting digestive health and protecting our hearts. The decline of both estrogen and progesterone can affect how food moves through our gastrointestinal tract. This decline also affects the gut microbiome which is the ecosystem of microbes within the intestines.

Fiber is a non-digestible carbohydrates that promote healthy bacterial growth in the gut and acts as a bulking agent that keep us regular. Furthermore, it is associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, infections, and respiratory diseases by 34–59% in women, while additional research highlights its ability to reduce obesity and colorectal cancer.

Fiber is a complex carbohydrate that improves satiety and provides our body weight slow-release energy. This makes it excellent for weight management, improving fullness which can lead to consuming fewer calories.

The recommended daily intake for fiber is 25-29 grams per day and is found in foods including whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Like protein, we recommend adding a source of fiber to each meal. This will help you maintain good gut health and keep you fuller for longer.

Antioxidants for Cellular Health

Antioxidants are essential for our health and should be prioritized as we enter our 40s. Antioxidants are substances that protect our cells against damage caused by free radicals. Free radicals contribute to the development of chronic illnesses including cardiovascular disease, inflammation, and cancer.

Common antioxidants include beta-carotene, phytochemicals, coenzyme Q10, flavonoids, phenols, and phytoestrogen. Several vitamins and minerals are also considered antioxidants including copper, zinc, selenium, and vitamins A, C, D, and E.

These are present in a range of nutrient-dense whole foods such as grains, walnuts, beans, coffee, berries, carrots, strawberries, dark chocolate, and many more. The best way to increase antioxidants is to consume a variety of unprocessed nutrient foods.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids for Brain and Heart Health

Omega-3 fatty acids are incredible for brain and heart health, and reducing inflammation. Our 40s is a time when we experience a noticeable physiological decline. After 40, brain volume decreases by 5% per decade as we experience reduced blood flow, death of neurons, decreased mass, and slowing cognitive function.

For women, this is made worse by the onset of menopause, as the decrease in estrogen can reduce neuron firing, new cell growth, and function, which can lead to forgetfulness, reaction time, and brain fog.

During our 40s our cardiovascular risk factors such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, irregular heartbeat, and heart failure increase. Estrogen protects the heart and keeps the arteries relaxed, promoting healthy cholesterol. However, when levels decline, arteries can stiffen as vascular health declines, leading to the development of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and plaque buildup in the arteries.

Omega-3 supports brain health by promoting cognition, preservation of neurons, and protection against degeneration while promoting neurotransmitter release. Meanwhile, it supports heart health by improving blood vessel dilation, decreasing resting blood pressure, preventing irregular heartbeats, and improving mechanical function.

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Nutrition Tips for Supporting Hormone Balance

Correct nutrition is a powerful tool for supporting hormonal balance. Below, list a range of nutrition tips for supporting hormones including balancing estrogen, blood sugar, and energy levels.

Foods That Support Estrogen Levels Naturally

Menopause and the decline of estrogen are a natural part of life; however, its effects can negatively impact our health and quality of life. Fortunately, there are vitamins, minerals, and compounds within nutrient-dense foods that can help naturally support estrogen levels, including phytoestrogen and vitamins B and D.

Phytoestrogen is an estrogen-like compound found in plants that can mimic estrogen within the body. It is beneficial for the heart, weight loss, bone, skin, and reproductive health. It is also found in foods such as soybeans, garlic, celery, carrot, potato, rice, and wheat.

Meanwhile, vitamin B plays a role in estrogen production, while vitamin D increases estrogen availability. The combination of nutrients can naturally support estrogen levels, alleviate menopause symptoms, improving quality of life.

Importance of Regular Meal Timing for Blood Sugar Stability

Regular meal timing is essential in our 40s. The hormone insulin helps to regulate our blood sugar levels. When we eat, our body breaks down carbohydrates into glucose, and insulin signals to our muscles, fat cells, and liver to take the glucose. However, when there is insulin resistance, there is an ineffective uptake of glucose which can damage our heart, eyes, kidneys, nerves, and blood vessels. This is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

Estrogen plays a protective role, reducing glucose levels by promoting uptake in muscles and potentially suppressing glucose production in the liver. However, when estrogen declines lease responsive to insulin, increasing blood glucose levels.

Regular meal timing can help stabilize blood sugar, reducing insulin resistance and improving insulin function. Foods such as rich in protein and complex carbohydrates such as nuts, eggs, fish, berries, oatmeal, and apples all provide a slow release of glucose, stabilizing insulin and blood sugar levels.

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Best Dietary Practices for Energy and Mood in Your 40s

Correct nutrition has a major positive on our bodies, providing vital nutrients to boost our overall health. However, there are other areas we can work on to support our health. Below we discuss the best dietary practice for energy and mood in your 40s.

Focus on Balanced Meals with Complex Carbs

Balancing our meals with complex carbohydrates can be a game-changer for maintaining our energy and mood. During those early stages of switching to a healthy lifestyle, it can be easy to be hyper-focused on hitting your protein intake with high-protein foods. However, concentrating on complex carbohydrates is also essential for fueling our bodies.

Complex carbohydrates are low on the glycemic index and provide a slow release of energy, with many being a great source of dietary fiber. This improves fullness and stabilizes energy levels which are essential for combating the increased appetite, fatigue, and mood changes that come with menopause.

Creating a diet consisting of complex carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats, provides our bodies with everything they need to balance energy, mood, and overall health.

Hydration Tips and How Much Water to Drink

Hydration is an essential for managing energy levels and moods. The total body water makes up 45–75% of a personal’s body weight, this supports cognition, mood, organs, and connective tissue. When dehydration reduces body mass by more than 2% it can impact mood, alertness, and increase fatigue.

To combat this we need to maintain healthy levels of hydration throughout the day. The recommended water intake for women is 2,200 milliliters per day. This can be achieved by:

• Drinking water with meals
• Carrying a water bottle at all times and taking small, regular sips.
• Maintain electrolytes (potassium, sodium calcium, magnesium) to maintain fluid balance
• Consume foods with high water content such as tomatoes, watermelon, mushrooms, broccoli, and cucumbers

Smart Caffeine Consumption

Caffeine is a well known which can increase our energy levels and mood. However, consumed in excess (greater than 400 milligrams per day) can result in headaches, drowsiness, anxiety and nausea. All symptoms which we may already be feeling from menopause.

Because of this, we should limit our caffeine intake to part of our day where need a boost in cognitive function, to boost creativity, productivity, and alertness, while limiting after 3 pm to avoid disruptions to sleep.

A good rule is to limit yourself to two coffees a day. A cup of coffee contains approximately 70–140 mg of caffeine, and by having two you will still be well under the 400 mg per day limit that can impar function.

Weight Management Tips for Women in Their 40s

A big component of nutrition for women over 40 is managing a healthy weight. Below we discuss weight management tips for women in their 40s.

Portion Control and Mindful Eating

Managing our portion sizes and eating mindfully is one of the best ways we can manage our weight. While eating nutrient-dense foods it a big step int the right direction, eating them in large quantities will still result in us exceeding our daily calorie intake, leading to weight gain.

Here are a several ways to control our food portion:

• Drink water with your meals
• Measure portion sizes
• Allow 20 minute before a second serve to allow you brain to receive the message that your stomach is full
• Use a smaller plate
• Fill half your plate with vegetables or fruit

How to Incorporate Healthy Snacks

Adding healthy snack is a great for maintaining and managing our weight. While many people will think this is carrot sticks and almonds (which are still interesting), healthy snack boost your protein intake, and add a natural sweet treats to your meal plans.

Foods such as protein smoothies, dark chocolate almond clusters, protein yogurt, and protein balls will not only kill your hunger, they will have you looking forward to snack time, while helping you hit your daily protein goals.

Benefits of Tracking Macronutrient Intake

Tracking our calorie and macronutrient intake is a powerful tool for fine tuning our diet and ensuring long term success. Often seen as going overboard and being too restricted, tracking our nutrition actually allow for greater freedom with our diet and still help us manage or lose weight.

For example, weight management requires a balance of calorie to achieve a specific goal. To maintain a healthy weight, we must be consuming and equal amount of calorie to our daily energy expenditure. To lose weight we must eat fewer calories that or daily energy expenditure to form a calorie deficit.

Many individuals will begin eating nutrient-dense foods without considering portions sizes, total calories, and macronutrient intake. Sure, they may feel better with the influx of nutrient-dense foods, but they may still be exceeding their daily limit, leading to weight maintenance of weight gain.

Tracking their calorie intake will not only ensure they are equal or below their calorie limit it allows them to manipulate what they can have.

A prime example of this is eating out with friends. Someone who is eating healthy but not tracking their nutrition will restrict themselves to nutrient-dense foods to avoid breaking their diet. Meanwhile, someone who tracks their calories can reduce their calorie intake during that day or over the course of the week by 200–400 calories, allowing them to have a guilt dessert or a glass of wine. This enables them to treat themselves without disrupting their progress.

Tracking nutrition is now easier than ever with Reverse Health, where your goals can be set and your meals can be logged for accurate, sustainable weight loss.

Sample Meal Plan for Women in Their 40s

It is clear that eating healthy nutrition food it great for improving our health. However, in the beginning, it can be difficult to come up with healthy meal ideas. Below, we have created a sample meal for women in their 40s to help improve overall health and well-being.

Breakfast Ideas for Lasting Energy

• Chilled overnight chia pudding with almond milk, oats, honey, lemon zest, blueberries, banana
• Smashed avocado on wholegrain toast with sliced hard-boiled eggs feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, radish, chives, and sesame seeds
• Baked Pan Fajitas with eggs, sweet potatoes, red pepper, red onion, coriander, jalapeno, avocado

Lunch and Dinner for Nutrient Density

• Lemon and herb grilled chicken quinoa salad bowl with cherry tomatoes, avocado, feta, baby spinach, red onion, parsley, lemon juice, garlic
• Middle Eastern salad tacos with chickpeas, hummus, avocado, diced tomatoes, arugula, diced cucumber, coriander, lemon juice
• Kimchi burrito with diced onion garlic, red pepper, ginger, rice, black beans, scallions, coriander, garlic, chili paste, low-fat shredded cheese
• Seared beef with green tea noodles with miso dressing, spring onions, Japanese rice wine, sesame seeds
• Ocean trout with quinoa and zucchini salad with tahini yogurt with lemon juice, garlic, tahini, sumac, mint, parsley

Snack Ideas to Curb Cravings

• Grilled chicken satay strips
• Miso and sesame eggs
• Protein balls with flaxseeds, protein powder, oats, and cinnamon
• Protein smoothie with whey protein, frozen mixed berries, banana, Greek yogurt, honey, almond milk

Lifestyle Tips to Complement a Healthy Diet

Nutrition is essential part of long-term health and well-being, however, there are several things we can do to improve our health. Below we list lifestyle times to complement your healthy diet.

Importance of Regular Exercise

Few things have a positive impact on your health like exercise. While there is no way you can out train a bad diet, exercise sure can help expend energy and contribute to weight management.

But this isn’t even the best part. Exercise in the form of resistance training, and aerobic exercise can preserve bone and muscle mass, improve mood, cognitive function, and cardiovascular health while decrease stress.

Furthermore, daily exercise has been shown to lower risk of chronic illness, reducing cardiovascular disease risk by 80%. Type 2 diabetes risk by 90%, and cancer by 33%.

This makes it an incredible for women in their 40s who experience decrease muscle mass and bone mass, and impaired mood and cognitive function.

Sleep and Stress Management

Stress and sleep management vital for maintaining our health. In our 40s, we face an uphill battle as menopause can impact our mood and sleep quality.

Sleep and stress closely are related, as poor sleep can lead to poor mood. While poor mood and feelings of anxiety and depression can make it diffcult to sleep. This can cause major issues as chronic stress can negative effect our immune system and lead to illnesses including cardiovascular dysfunction, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune syndromes and mental illness.

Meanwhile, poor sleep has been linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity, and depression.

Managing stress levels and sleep can be difficult during menopause can be challenging. For stress management we recommend setting a consistent routine with your work, and social interaction. Moreover, exercise is a incredible for managing stress, releasing feel-good hormones while improving emotional resilience, reducing the effects of acute stress.

As for sleep, maintaining a clean bedroom free of devices combined with a regular bedtime can help set your up for a great night sleep. This can help improve mood and energy levels.

Recap: Building a Nutrition Plan for Health and Vitality in Your 40s

Our 40s comes with major change to our health. Our job is to decide whether it will negatively our health, or be the stepping stone to enhancing longevity and well-being. The best thing we can do is to start examining our nutrition, and make a switch to healthy lifestyle.

By adjusting our nutrition and focusing on nutrient-dense foods, we can help feeding our body essential vitamins and minerals to support our bones, muscles, heart, and brain. When we combine this with regular exercise, adequate hydration, quality sleep, and stress reduction, we set ourselves up for a long and healthy life.