Zesty Wheat Berry-Black Bean Chili
Beans are a good source of vitamins and minerals, including calcium, folic acid and vitamin B-6 and are a low-fat source of protein which are all especially important for a healthy diet. This rib-sticking chili offers a hearty mix of wheat berries, beans, peppers and onion. Feel free to add an additional chipotle pepper to crank up the heat in this one-pot meal. Cooked wheat berries will keep for up to 1 month in your freezer and there’s no need to thaw them; just stir them directly into the chili.
6 servings, about 1 1/2 cups each
Active Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour

Cool-jams Menopause Diet Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped
- 1 large yellow bell pepper,chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon
Choosing A Workout For Women Over 40
When you are over 40 or close to menopause, your body reacts to exercise differently than that of a younger person. There are many benefits to a workout for women over 40. Weekly cardiovascular and strength training routines can stave off health problems later in life, including osteoporosis and heart issues. Getting active while you are still young is important. If you wait for too many years, it will get too difficult to start a routine. Doing a workout for women over 40 several times a week will help to keep you healthy for many years. When used in conjunction with a proper eating plan, you will not only get and stay healthy, but you may even lose a few pounds. Using a workout for women over 40 means that it is specifically designed for your particular point
Click here to continue readingDo you need Vitamin D supplements?
I have been checking vitamin D levels on my patients the last year or so, due to an abundance of data showing the benefits of vitamin D. I have been amazed how many women are low, even though we live in “Sunny San Diego”. Vitamin D is known as the “sunshine” vitamin. The body makes vitamin D from cholesterol through a process triggered by the action of the sun’s ultraviolet B rays on the skin. Factors such as skin color, age, amount and time of sun exposure, and geographic location affect how much vitamin D the body makes.
An estimated 1 billion people worldwide, across all ethnicities and age groups, have a vitamin D deficiency. This is mostly attributable to people getting less sun exposure because of climate, lifestyle, and concerns about skin cancer. Current studies suggest that we may need more vitamin D than presently recommended to prevent chronic disease.
Click here to continue readingAnother Way to Help Clients with Hot Flashes
Bodywork can help ease women’s hot flashes. However, massage therapists who incorporate mindfulness-based stress reduction training into their practice can give menopausal clients with this symptom an additional tool for hot flash relief.
Defined as the final menstrual period and usually confirmed when a woman has missed her period for 12 consecutive months, menopause is a natural event. Despite menopause being a normal physiological part of the aging process, its symptoms present a challenge to many women. As one of the predominant symptoms of menopause, hot flashes frequently arise as a massage therapy client’s main complaint. A skilled massage therapist has several bodywork approaches to choose from to offer his or her clients hot flash relief. However, a relatively new study shows that there is another way to help ease hot flashes.
Click here to continue readingSeverity of facial wrinkles may predict bone density in early menopause
A news study finds that the worse a woman’s skin wrinkles are during the first few years of menopause, the lower her bone density is. The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society’s 93rd Annual Meeting in Boston.
“In postmenopausal women the appearance of the skin may offer a glimpse of the skeletal well-being, a relationship not previously described,” said Lubna Pal, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist and associate professor at Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.
The study demonstrates only an association between bone density and skin wrinkling, stressed Pal, the study’s principal investigator. However, she called their findings noteworthy.
“This information,” Pal said, “may allow for the possibility of identifying postmenopausal women at fracture risk at a glance, without dependence on costly tests.”
The study is an ancillary study to an ongoing multicenter trial called the
Click here to continue readingManaging Menopause Symptoms Through Diet and Exercise
- As a woman enters perimenopause she begins to experience a variety of symptoms. She might have hot flashes or night sweats, feel irritable, anxious or have headaches. Other symptoms include low libido, depression and dry skin. Whatever the symptoms are, it usually has to do with fluctuations in a woman’s hormone levels which cause all sorts of problems during the menopausal years. Some women seem to breeze through menopause with a few mild problems, while others are so debilitated with major symptoms, they have difficulty maneuvering through life. For many women, symptoms like night sweats and hot flashes can last well into their sixties.Recently there’s been much research done on foods that help to ease menopausal symptoms. Certain foods and lifestyle changes hold promise as natural remedies for combating the problems associated with menopause. By eating
Menopause 101: What is it and how to survive
- DR. ROBERTA WATTLEWORTH, chairwoman of the family practice department at Des Moines University, writes a monthly column for Health.Even though it is a normal part of life, menopause is a strange and daunting event for women. It is often misunderstood, feared or ignored. It is hoped the following information will help you understand what it is and how to deal with it.
What is menopause?Every woman is born with a set number of eggs in her ovaries. These eggs remain immature and inactive until puberty. At this point, the pituitary gland stimulates the ovaries to cause some eggs to mature and be released from the ovaries. The egg(s) travel down the fallopian tubes, through the uterus, and out the vagina if fertilization does not take place. During this trip, the hormones estrogen and progesterone are produced in varying quantities by
What Are The Causes of Night Sweats In Men and Women?
There are many reasons for the occurrence of night sweats. Below we discuss ten of the most common reasons for this pesky problem. For whatever reason you, family members or friends suffer from night sweats, moisture wicking pajamas offer a natural solution to the problem.
- MENOPAUSE: Menopause starts as the ovaries fail to produce an egg every month. This in turn interrupts the regular pattern of the hormone cycles, and gradually leads to the somewhat chaotic and long-drawn out shutting down of the reproductive system. With this shut down, the hormones begin to fluctuate dramatically resulting in all kinds of menopausal symptoms which include insomnia, night sweats and hot flashes to name a few.
- ANDROPAUSE: So you thought that women were the only ones to be effected by age related hormonal changes? Low levels of testosterone in men has
New Facts About Menopause
- Two million women turn 50 each year. There are 75 million baby boomers and half are women.
- Over half of all women going through menopause report having night sweats and hot flashes.
- Hormonal fluctuations during perimenopause and menopause are the primary cause of night sweats and hot flashes.
- The average age of menopause is 51 years. The normal age range is 45 to 55.
- An “early menopause” is defined as the last period occurring between the age of 40 to 45. A “late” menopause is defined as a women’s final period occurring between the ages of 55 to 60.
Reasons For Night Sweats and How To Prevent Them
There are many reasons for night sweats to include pregnancy, certain medications, thyroid conditions, diabetes, obesity, chemotherapy, sleep apnea and anxiety; however, the most common reason for women over the age of forty seems to be the onset of menopause. During menopause women experience hormonal changes which can cause hot flashes and night sweats.
Men can also experience night sweats due to hormonal changes called Andropuase. The good news is that certain lifestyle changes can reduce the severity of night sweats regardless of the reason.
- Be consistent with the time your retire each night
- Get at least eight hours of sleep
- Avoid alcohol at bedtime because it can cause hormone levels to spike and drop suddenly thus leading to hot flashes.
- If night sweats do strike, get up, go to











