7 Hot Flash Trigger Foods To Stop Eating During Menopause

Stop Eating These 7 Foods To Help Hot Flashes And Other Menopause Symptoms

Food can positively and negatively affect how you feel during menopause. If you’re experiencing symptoms like hot flashes, you should avoid hot flash trigger foods. If you’re feeling bloated or gaining weight during menopause, there are other foods you’ll want to stop eating. You have the power to help control how you feel during the menopause journey. Let’s make it a “pausitive” experience!

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    What foods trigger hot flashes? 

    How do you feel after you eat a bunch of bread, spaghetti, or junk food? Do you feel bloated and lacking energy? Perhaps you don’t even need to eat carbs to feel bloated during the hormonal transition. The journey itself can do that.
     
    Food affects how you feel at all stages of life, but you may experience its effects even more during the menopause transition.
     
    You can begin feeling the effects of food as early as perimenopause and continue through post-menopause. 
     
    Avoid or limit these food groups to give yourself the best shot at feeling good during all three stages of menopause.
     

    Cut back or limit these types of foods:

    1. Caffeine
    2. Alcohol
    3. Processed foods
    4. High-fat and fast food
    5. Fatty meats
    6. Spicy food
    7. Hot beverages or soups
    Everyone’s menopause journey is different. It’s a marathon, with symptoms lasting a decade or more. Food is just one way to train for this marathon.
     
    While some of these trigger foods may increase symptoms for some women, they may not impact others. Every woman’s menopause journey is unique.
     
    In general, though, it’s a good idea to put these foods on the “watch” list and eat them in moderation.
    foods to reduce hot flashes

    Hot flashes after eating  

    Hot flashes are one of the most common symptoms of menopause. They’re related to the expansion of blood vessels. When this happens, more blood flows through your body. That’s why you feel flushed, hot, sweaty, and red throughout your face, neck, head, and chest. 
     
    Have you ever eaten something spicy that set your mouth on fire but cleared your sinuses?
     
    The heat in these foods, also opens up your blood vessels. While that’s a good thing if you’re congested and want your sinuses to open, it’s not the best choice if you’re menopausal.
     
    Spicy food can trigger hot flashes or at least make you feel more flushed. One of the top tips to manage hot flashes is to avoid spicy food and a few other foods and beverages like alcohol.
     

    Foods that cause hot flashes

    Ever drink a glass of wine and suddenly feel warmer? Like spicy food, alcohol expands your blood vessels, which can trigger hot flashes.
     
    Foods that cause hot flashes:
     
    1. Spicy food.
    2. Hot beverages and soups.
    3. Alcohol.
    4. Caffeine.
    In addition to causing hot flashes, spicy food can also trigger acid reflux or other digestion issues, which can keep you awake at night. 
     
    With sleeplessness already a problem for many menopausal women+, you don’t need one more reason to keep you awake at night.
     
    Hot beverages and soups can also bring on a hot flash. Think about the warming sensation you feel when you drink a hot beverage or eat hot soup when you’re cold. It instantly warms you up. 
     
    With warmth already an issue during the hormonal transition, hot soup or a warm beverage can make your menopausal symptoms worse.
     
    It goes beyond drinking and eating, too. A shower, bath, and even the weather can make your hot flashes worse.
    Hot flashes and menopause

    Caffeine and hot flashes

    When you’re sleeping less, what’s the first thing you grab the next day? Is it coffee? That cup of joe may sound like the perfect answer to sleepless nights due to the menopause journey, but it may also increase your symptoms.
     
    Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages, with the average person aged 35 to 64 drinking 3 cups a day.
     
    While coffee gets the most attention, caffeine is also in some tea and soda.
     
    A study by the Women’s Health Clinic at Mayo Clinic found a link between caffeine and hot flashes or other vasomotor symptoms like night sweats in women on the menopause journey.
     
    However, caffeine could be helpful in perimenopause. The study found caffeine may boost a perimenopausal woman’s mood, memory, or concentration.
     
    In a pausitive health menopause survey, a registered nurse who experienced tension headaches focused solely on her caffeine intake rather than changing her entire diet. She found it made a difference in how she felt.
     

    Listen to your body! Every woman+ experiences something different during the menopause journey. Symptoms vary and reactions to foods and medications differ.

    For example, caffeine makes some hearts race, and it can make people jittery. Others can’t drink caffeine past a certain point in the day, or they have trouble sleeping. 

    Even if you’ve never experienced side effects from drinking coffee, that may change during the menopause journey.
     
    Cut back or eliminate caffeine if you feel it has a negative effect. If you need to eliminate it, cut back gradually to avoid withdrawal symptoms like a headache or the jitters.
     
    If warm or hot beverages don’t cause a problem for you, grab a decaffeinated cup of coffee or try herbal tea. 

     

    Alcohol and menopause

    Like spicy foods, alcohol can also bring on hot flashes. Have you ever had a drink and felt like your face was flushed? That can happen at any stage in life, regardless of where you are on the menopause journey.

    In addition to potentially causing hot flashes, you want to limit your alcohol intake during menopause to help with other symptoms like sleeplessness.
     
    Alcohol makes it harder to stay in a deep sleep whether you’re menopausal or not.
     
    So, if you’re already experiencing sleeplessness, alcohol may make it even harder to get enough of the type of deep and restorative sleep that’s needed to wake up feeling refreshed.
     

    There’s also concern about long-term risks.

    After more than 100 studies, researchers convincingly say there is a link between alcohol and breast cancer. The NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study found just one glass a day of alcohol increases your risk for breast cancer.

    And the World Health Organization (WHO) and others now state they believe there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.

    Choose moderation if you choose to drink at all.
     

    The menopause journey diet

    In addition to hot flashes, menopausal women+ need to worry about the effect food has on their waistline and overall health.
     
    Processed foods are easy to grab on the go or to help with a craving after a sleepless night, but they don’t offer many benefits.
     
    They are usually high in salt, sugar, and/or unhealthy fats which will only make many people feel more bloated. Plus, they increase your risk of certain diseases.
     
    Fast food is also an easy on-the-go solution, but it is typically high in fat, salt, and/or sugar. They can increase your risk of conditions like heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and cancer, all of which are already a risk for post-menopausal women.
     
    Skip the potato chips, cookies, cakes, and processed meats like hot dogs and deli meats.

    During the menopause journey, food cravings may appear or increase, and both processed and fast food can make things worse.
     
    Make your snacks healthy choices, like raw vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Get your fat from healthy choices like avocadoes.
     
    Choose lean cuts of meat with high sources of protein.
     
    Better yet, choose fish over meat. Fish is loaded with omega-3 fatty acids and a staple of the popular Mediterranean diet, known to help slow down aging.
     
    You now know the foods to avoid during the menopause journey. So, what should you eat or drink during menopause? Get the pausitive health grocery list packed full of nutritious foods for a woman+ going through the menopause journey.
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    Focusing on healthy eating habits as part of a healthy lifestyle is the action you can take to alter the course of your menopause journey. It’s time to make a change for the better!

    Nutrition and healthy eating | Mayo Clinic

    Faubion SS, Sood R, Thielen JM, Shuster LT. Caffeine and menopausal symptoms: what is the association? Menopause. 2015 Feb;22(2):155-8. doi: 10.1097/GME.0000000000000301. PMID: 25051286.

    8 Symptoms of Caffeine Withdrawl | Healthline

    Moderate drinking increases risk of ER+/PR+ breast cancer | CancerNetwork

    No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health | World Health Organization

    What causes food cravings? | Healthline Media

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