Excess Matters

Category: Health

  • Noise by Daniel Kahneman: Summary, Key Ideas & Review

    The book in one sentence: Noise (random variability in human judgment) causes as much damage as bias, and most of us have never thought about it once.

    What Is Noise About?

    Ten nutritionists walk into a room. You give them the same patient file: 38-year-old woman, 30 lbs to lose, no metabolic conditions, sedentary desk job. Ask each one what she should eat, and you get ten different plans. Low-carb. High-protein. Intermittent fasting. Mediterranean. Intuitive eating. Mostly plants. No, mostly animals.

    Is the science just unsettled? Sometimes, yes. But Noise offers a different explanation for a lot of that variation: it’s not the science. It’s the judges.

    Daniel Kahneman (Nobel laureate, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow), Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein (co-author of Nudge) spent years documenting a specific kind of human error that almost no one talks about. Not bias, which pulls everyone in the same wrong direction. Variability: the kind of error that scatters decisions randomly, so that two equally qualified experts examine identical cases and reach completely different conclusions for no good reason. They call it noise, and their central claim is that it causes as much harm as bias while receiving almost none of the attention.

    This book is denser and more academic than Thinking, Fast and Slow. It’s written for organizations and researchers as much as general readers. But the core insight transfers directly to the chaos of dietary advice, the confusion of scale readings, and the mystery of why you make completely different food choices on Tuesday than you do on Friday.

    What Is the Difference Between Noise and Bias?

    Picture three teams of archers shooting at a target.

    Team A hits tight clusters near the bull’s-eye. They’re accurate. Team B shoots a tight cluster, but it’s offset to the upper left. They’re consistent, but wrong in a predictable direction. That’s bias. Team C’s arrows scatter across the entire target with no pattern. Some are left, some right, some close, some far. That’s noise.

    The math that governs prediction error treats these identically. Mean Squared Error equals Bias squared plus Noise squared. Reduce either one by the same amount and you improve your accuracy by the same amount. They are equally costly. The problem is that we have spent decades studying Team B while barely noticing Team C.

    Bias is visible because it has a direction. You can spot it, name it, correct for it. (“This scale reads two pounds heavy, so subtract two.”) Noise is invisible because it has no direction. Different judges are wrong in different ways on different days, and there’s no systematic correction you can make after the fact. The only solution is to build better conditions before the judgment happens.

    This distinction matters for anyone drowning in contradictory nutrition information. It’s not all bias. Some of the disagreement you’re seeing isn’t experts being wrong in a particular direction. It’s experts being inconsistent in ways they can’t detect or explain.

    Why Do Experts Disagree So Much About Food and Diet?

    Noise draws a line between two types of experts that you won’t find in most books about credentials or qualifications.

    True experts are people whose judgments can be verified against outcomes. Weather forecasters get rated against actual weather. Surgeons have tracked complication rates. Prediction tournament participants accumulate a verifiable record. Over time, feedback loops separate the accurate from the noisy. True expertise, in this sense, is earned through correction.

    Respect-experts are people whose authority comes from credentials, communication skill, and peer esteem, not a verified track record. They construct compelling narratives. They sound confident. But their predictions rarely get checked against outcomes in any systematic way. Without that feedback mechanism, their expertise is largely a performance of confidence.

    Most nutrition experts fall into the respect-expert category. A dietitian can practice for 30 years without anyone tracking whether their clients’ outcomes were better or worse than a control group. A doctor can dispense dietary advice with zero outcome verification. A wellness influencer can amass millions of followers without ever being wrong enough for it to matter to their platform.

    “Wherever there is judgment, there is noise — and more of it than you think.”

    When five credentialed people give you five different answers about whether you should eat breakfast, most of that variation is not five carefully reasoned conclusions from five genuinely different bodies of evidence. Much of it is noise: each expert’s idiosyncratic training environment, their own body’s response to food, their clinical experience, their personality (some are naturally cautious, some are enthusiastic about the latest research), and whatever they read last month. The expert who sounds most certain is not most accurate. They are often just least aware of their own noise.

    What to do with this:

    • Weight genuine scientific consensus more than individual strong opinions, even from credentialed individuals.
    • Look for practitioners who track outcomes (before/after data, client retention, actual lab results over time) over those who communicate confidence.
    • Your skepticism about contradictory dietary advice is not a sign of your confusion. It’s a reasonable response to a noisy information environment.

    Why Are Your Own Eating Decisions So Inconsistent?

    You already know the gap. You eat well for a week and feel in control. Then Friday arrives and you make five decisions in a row you wouldn’t have made on Monday morning. Your knowledge didn’t change. Your values didn’t change. Something shifted that you can’t quite name.

    Noise has a name for it: occasion noise, the within-person variability in judgment driven by transient factors the judge cannot detect. The same Israeli parole board that granted parole 65% of the time right after meals granted it near 0% just before meals. Same judges, same cases, same law. Different outcomes because of hunger and fatigue. The same forensic examiner looking at the same fingerprint on different days reaches different conclusions. Same expertise, same evidence, different noise.

    Your food decisions are subject to all of this. Hunger, fatigue, stress, time of day, what just happened in the previous hour, how the morning went: all of these shift your judgment without your knowing it’s happening. You are not the same measuring instrument at 9 a.m. Monday and 6 p.m. Friday. Neither is your willpower, your patience, or your ability to care about long-term goals when a short-term one is loudly present.

    The standard narrative calls this a willpower failure. You knew what you wanted to do; you didn’t do it; therefore something is wrong with your character or commitment. Noise suggests a more useful frame. Even the most trained, motivated, genuinely trying professionals show enormous occasion noise in their judgments. Trying harder does not fix it. Changing the conditions of the decision does.

    The reframe: Eating inconsistency is mostly a noise problem, not a character problem. The question isn’t “why can’t I be more disciplined?” It’s “what conditions produce better decisions, and how do I create more of those conditions more often?”

    What Is Decision Hygiene and How Does It Work for Food?

    The book’s most practical idea is decision hygiene: a set of practices that reduce noise without requiring you to know which specific errors you’re making. The handwashing analogy is deliberate. When you wash your hands, you don’t know which pathogen you’re avoiding. You don’t need to. The practice reduces an unspecified range of harms across a wide variety of situations.

    For food decisions, decision hygiene translates into a handful of concrete strategies.

    1. Plan before you’re hungry

    Judgments made in advance are less noisy than judgments made in the moment. Deciding what you’re having for dinner at 10 a.m. (before hunger and fatigue have entered the picture) uses a calmer, more deliberate version of your judgment than deciding at 6 p.m. after a long day. This isn’t about willpower. It’s about decision timing.

    2. Reduce how many live food decisions you make

    Every time you stand in front of the refrigerator without a plan and decide in real time, you’re making a high-noise judgment under conditions that maximize variability. Meal planning, batch cooking, and simple default rules (“on weeknights I always have protein and a vegetable”) all cut the decision load. Fewer live decisions means fewer chances for occasion noise to take the wheel.

    3. Separate “what do I want right now” from “what did I decide to eat”

    These are different questions with different answers. What you want in a moment of craving is heavily shaped by state (hunger, stress, habit activation). What you can decide to eat is anchored on plans made when you were in a clearer state. Let the clearer state make the decision. Let the tired state follow the plan.

    4. Use consistency as a noise-reduction tool

    Eat at roughly the same times. Create similar conditions for meals when possible. Consistency reduces occasion noise by narrowing the range of variables that can shift your judgment from day to day. This is why food diaries work partly as a noise-reduction tool: they create a consistent reference point that exists outside the moment.

    5. Change the environment before the moment of choice

    Don’t keep foods you don’t want to eat regularly in the house. Put the foods you want to eat at eye level and easy to grab. This is decision hygiene in its most physical form. You’re not fighting the in-the-moment decision. You’re eliminating it. The authors call this choice architecture. It’s not willpower. It’s structure.

    “Noise, on the other hand, is unpredictable error that we cannot easily see or explain. That is why we so often neglect it — even when it causes grave damage.”

    The food diary, meal planning, default protocols, and consistent eating times are all forms of this. None of them require perfect discipline. All of them reduce the surface area for noise.

    Is Noise Worth Reading?

    Read this if you’ve ever been frustrated by contradictory expert advice, confused by your own inconsistency, or stuck trying harder at something that hasn’t changed. The noise/bias distinction reframes a lot of the struggle around food decisions in a way that is genuinely relieving (it’s not your character) and immediately practical (here’s what to change instead).

    Skip it if you want an accessible, conversational read. Noise is academic in structure, heavy on case studies from insurance underwriting and criminal sentencing, and occasionally repetitive about the same examples. The ideas are important; the delivery requires patience.

    One caveat: The book is stronger on diagnosis than prescription. The practical tools are real and useful, but implementing structured judgment processes in daily life requires more scaffolding than the book provides. You’ll need to do the translation work yourself. (That translation, for food decisions, is mostly what this review has been doing.)

    Books Like Noise

    BookAuthorBest For
    Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel KahnemanThe bias half of the error equation — the companion read
    NudgeRichard Thaler & Cass SunsteinUsing choice architecture to make better decisions by default
    DecisiveChip Heath & Dan HeathPractical four-step framework for personal decisions with less noise
    The Art of Thinking ClearlyRolf DobelliThe bias catalogue that Noise argues tells only half the story
    Mindless EatingBrian WansinkHow environment and cues drive food decisions below conscious awareness

  • Hormone Intelligence by Aviva Romm: Summary, Key Ideas & Review

    Book in one sentence: A Yale-trained MD and former midwife maps six root causes behind most women’s hormone conditions and gives you a 6-week plan to address them.

    What Is Hormone Intelligence About?

    Imagine going to your doctor with heavy periods, brutal PMS, fatigue, and cravings that feel like a separate person living inside you. Your labs come back normal. You leave with a birth control prescription and a vague suggestion to “reduce stress.” Aviva Romm has heard some version of this story from thousands of patients, and Hormone Intelligence is her answer to it.

    Romm’s credential stack is worth paying attention to: she spent twenty years as a midwife before going to medical school at Yale. She has practiced integrative medicine long enough to be frustrated by both sides of the conventional/wellness divide. Her argument is not that your doctor is wrong and your herbalist is right. Her argument is that most hormone conditions share a small set of treatable root causes that neither conventional medicine nor most wellness protocols actually address. The book is her attempt to name those causes and give you something to do about them.

    At 592 pages, this is a genuinely dense read. Think of it more as a reference you return to than a book you power through in a weekend. The payoff for the density is specificity: doses, timing, mechanisms, and the actual research behind every recommendation.

    The Six Root Causes Romm Keeps Coming Back To

    Romm builds the first half of the book around a single claim: PCOS, endometriosis, fibroids, PMS, and most other common gynecologic conditions are not random bad luck. They are predictable responses to a specific modern environment. Six interconnected drivers account for the vast majority of cases she sees.

    1. Diet. Not in the calorie-counting sense. The specific dietary patterns that disrupt hormone function include ultra-processed foods that spike insulin, conventional dairy and excess red meat that increase estrogen load, and a general deficit of fiber, omega-3s, and phytonutrients the body needs to produce and clear hormones. Her recommended fix is a modified Mediterranean template with targeted additions (two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds daily, daily cruciferous vegetables) tied to specific mechanisms.

    2. Chronic stress and the HPA axis. When the stress response runs continuously, cortisol climbs and directly suppresses the hormonal cascade that triggers ovulation. This is a documented neuroendocrine mechanism, not a metaphor. Many women with irregular cycles or missing periods are not broken; they are in a chronic stress state that has deprioritized reproduction.

    3. Disrupted sleep and circadian rhythm. The brain’s master clock coordinates the LH surge that triggers ovulation, FSH secretion, and melatonin production. Late nights, irregular sleep schedules, and evening screen exposure disrupt all of these simultaneously. Women sleeping under seven hours secrete measurably less FSH.

    4. Gut health. A subset of gut bacteria called the estrobolome produces the enzyme that determines how much estrogen your intestines reabsorb versus eliminate. Dysbiosis shifts this toward estrogen excess (which feeds endometriosis, fibroids, PMS, and heavy periods) without any change in what your ovaries are producing. This is the chapter most likely to change how you think about hormones.

    5. Environmental toxins. Phthalates, BPA, parabens, and pesticide residues interfere with estrogen and metabolic hormone signaling at concentrations far below what was previously considered harmful. Women carry a disproportionate body burden due to cosmetic use and higher fat tissue, where fat-soluble toxins accumulate. Romm’s detox protocol is practical, not expensive: filtered water, organic produce for the EWG Dirty Dozen, glass food storage, fragrance-free personal care products.

    6. Disconnection from body signals. The sixth root is the one no other clinical book addresses: decades of medical dismissal teach women to distrust their own symptoms. That distrust is not just psychological. Chronic self-doubt is a stressor with real HPA consequences. It compounds every other root cause.

    Why Blood Sugar Is Usually the First Domino

    If you read only one chapter, read the diet chapter. Romm spends considerable time on insulin resistance as the upstream driver for conditions that look unrelated on the surface. In PCOS, insulin resistance is the primary mechanism (not just high androgens), and it is what keeps symptoms cycling back after any treatment that only addresses the surface.

    The mechanism matters here because it reframes what “eating for hormones” actually means. It is not about avoiding carbs or eating clean. It is about stabilizing blood sugar through the composition and timing of meals: protein at every meal, fiber from whole food sources, slow carbohydrates (legumes, root vegetables, buckwheat) instead of refined grains, and fat from olive oil, avocado, and nuts. These choices prevent the insulin spikes that drive androgen production in the ovaries and keep cortisol from compensating for blood sugar crashes.

    For PCOS specifically, the evidence Romm presents for myo-inositol plus D-chiro-inositol is worth knowing about. Multiple randomized trials show effects comparable to metformin for restoring ovulation, reducing insulin resistance, and lowering testosterone, without the gastrointestinal side effects. Spearmint tea (two cups daily) has also reduced testosterone in clinical trials within 30 days. These are not fringe claims. They are findings that most gynecologists do not mention because they fall outside standard prescribing protocols.

    “Our hormone imbalances are not solely individual problems; they are reflective of much larger social and environmental problems that we’re all facing.” – Aviva Romm, Author’s Note

    What This Has to Do With Cravings and Emotional Eating

    This is where the book lands hardest for the ExcessMatters audience. The hormonal chaos Romm describes does not stay in the reproductive system. It radiates outward into appetite, mood, cravings, and the capacity to self-regulate around food.

    Cortisol elevation drives cravings for dense, calorie-rich foods as a biological survival mechanism. Blood sugar instability (from poor sleep, from adrenal dysregulation, from a low-fiber diet) creates real physiological hunger and urgency that willpower cannot override. The gut’s role in producing 95 percent of the body’s serotonin means that dysbiosis contributes directly to the mood dysregulation that makes emotional eating more likely in the first place.

    None of this is an excuse or a way to avoid responsibility. It is a more accurate description of what is actually happening. When cravings feel disproportionate, they often are physiological before they are psychological. Understanding the mechanism is the first step toward addressing it at the right level instead of blaming yourself for failing at something that was never purely a willpower problem.

    Romm does not write about emotional eating directly. The book does not address the psychological dimensions of disordered eating, and it was not designed to. What it does is provide a solid biological foundation for understanding why your body has been doing what it has been doing. That foundation matters. Women who have spent years managing their eating in the dark, with no map of the hormonal terrain underneath the cravings and mood swings, often find that understanding the biology changes something about how they relate to the struggle.

    Is Hormone Intelligence Worth Reading?

    Read this if you have been diagnosed with PCOS, endometriosis, fibroids, or perimenopause symptoms and feel like you have only been offered symptom management. Read it if your PMS or cyclic mood changes are severe enough to affect your work or relationships. Read it if you have a history of unexplained weight resistance, cravings that track your cycle, or fatigue that lab work cannot explain.

    Skip it if you want a fast-start protocol or a specific eating plan without the underlying biology. At 592 pages, the book asks a significant time investment before you reach the condition-specific chapters. Lara Briden’s The Period Repair Manual covers similar ground more efficiently if you have one specific condition and want targeted protocols.

    One caveat: Romm is careful about evidence quality, but the book occasionally moves between well-replicated findings and single-study results without clearly flagging the difference. Readers without a science background may not notice. The supplement protocols in particular mix high-confidence evidence (omega-3s, inositol) with lower-confidence evidence. Use this book as a starting framework, not a final authority.

    Books Like Hormone Intelligence

    BookAuthorBest For
    Women Food and HormonesSara Gottfried, MDHormones + weight specifically; more diet-protocol focused
    The Hormone FixAnna Cabeca, DOKeto-alkaline approach to perimenopause hormones
    In the FLOAlisa VittiCycle syncing diet and lifestyle; more accessible entry point
    The XX BrainLisa Mosconi, PhDHormones and brain health; strong on menopause and cognition
    Eat to Thrive During MenopauseStephanie HuberPractical nutrition focus for the perimenopause transition

  • The Perimenopause Solution by Shahzadi Harper: Summary, Key Ideas & Review

    Book in one sentence: A UK menopause specialist and a registered nutritionist make the case that perimenopause starts years earlier than most women suspect, that the symptoms are real and treatable, and that restriction is exactly the wrong response to what’s happening in your body.

    What Is The Perimenopause Solution About?

    You’re in your early 40s. Your weight is doing something new, mostly around your middle. Sleep has gotten strange. Some mornings you wake at 3am, mind racing, no obvious reason. Your appetite feels unreliable, your mood snaps at things it never used to, and the brain that always felt sharp is suddenly foggy. You mention it to your doctor. Your periods are still regular, your bloodwork comes back normal, and you leave with a suggestion that maybe you’re a bit stressed.

    What nobody told you is that you might already be in perimenopause. Not approaching it. Not “too young” for it. Actually in it, years before the hot flashes most people associate with the word.

    The Perimenopause Solution was co-written by Dr. Shahzadi Harper, a UK women’s health physician and co-founder of The Harper Clinic, and Emma Bardwell, a registered nutritionist and member of the British Menopause Society. Both specialize in perimenopause. Both see these women in clinic every week. The book grew out of the conversations they kept having with patients who came in exhausted, dismissed, and convinced that what was happening to them was somehow their own fault, whether from stress they hadn’t managed well enough, weight they hadn’t controlled, or a general failure to hold things together.

    It is a UK-focused book (the prescribing guidance references NHS and NICE, not FDA), but the underlying science travels. If you’ve been puzzling over changes in your body, appetite, or mood since your late 30s and no one has connected those dots for you, this book is likely to feel like an explanation you’ve been waiting for.

    Why Your Body Changed in Your Late 30s (Before You Had a Name for It)

    Here’s the thing most people don’t know: perimenopause and menopause are not the same event. Menopause is technically a single moment, the one-year mark after your last period, average age 51. Everything before that, often spanning four to ten years and sometimes starting in the early 40s, is perimenopause. It is the phase when hormones are actively fluctuating and declining, and it is when the vast majority of symptoms occur.

    The confusion between the two words isn’t just semantic. It’s why a 43-year-old with regular cycles, crushing fatigue, and 3am waking gets told she’s “too young” instead of getting treated.

    Blood tests often miss perimenopause entirely. Hormone levels fluctuate day to day during this phase, which means FSH can read normal on Tuesday and elevated on Thursday. In the UK, NICE guidelines now support diagnosing perimenopause on symptoms alone for women over 45, because the test result is not the diagnosis. The symptom picture is.

    Testosterone is the hormone that falls first. By a woman’s 40s, testosterone levels have dropped roughly 50% from where they were in her 20s, a decline that predates the oestrogen drop most people associate with perimenopause. That fatigue that started years ago, the brain fog, the muscle loss, the flat energy that doesn’t respond to sleep: these are frequently testosterone deficiency symptoms, not character flaws, and not signs that you’re simply aging badly.

    The timeline matters for ExcessMatters readers in particular. The weight changes, the hunger shifts, the mood-driven eating that might have started in your late 30s or early 40s, those weren’t random. They had a hormonal mechanism. Your appetite was not malfunctioning. Your body was changing in a way that had a name, and nobody had given you that name yet.

    What Perimenopause Actually Does to Appetite, Metabolism, and Mood

    Most people know about hot flashes and night sweats. What most people don’t know is that there are over 34 officially recognized perimenopause symptoms, spanning physical, psychological, cognitive, and urinary domains, and only about five of them get talked about. The gap between what women expect and what they experience is where years of misdiagnosis live.

    The weight shift is real and documented. The book is direct about this: perimenopause causes changes to insulin sensitivity and metabolism that increase fat storage, particularly around the middle. Women who gained weight in a consistent pattern for years, then watched it start accumulating differently, are not imagining the change. The mechanism shifted.

    Poor sleep compounds everything. As progesterone drops (one of the earliest declines in perimenopause), sleep quality deteriorates, and the 3am wake window becomes a signature symptom. Disrupted sleep elevates cortisol, which then disrupts progesterone further, which worsens sleep. The book points out directly that poor sleep increases hunger the next day, because of course it does.

    The psychological symptoms are the piece most likely to go misdiagnosed. Menopausal Mood Disorder (MMD) is a hormonal phenomenon characterized by fluctuating (not persistently low) mood, loss of confidence, anxiety, cognitive slowing, and a flatness that women often describe as “not feeling like myself.” It gets misdiagnosed as clinical depression and treated with antidepressants. The authors are unambiguous: antidepressants are not first-line treatment for hormone-driven mood changes. For women who have spent time on SSRIs for symptoms that felt more physical than psychiatric, this chapter is worth reading.

    “When you’re feeling low, you may tend to reach for carbohydrates and other high-sugar foods, so be aware of your personal triggers. Eat nutrient-dense food regularly throughout the day to maintain your food intake and energy balance. Not eating will depress your mood and further suppress the release of those happy hormones.”

    The mood-food loop during perimenopause is not a willpower problem. Low mood drives carb cravings. Carb restriction depresses mood further and disrupts serotonin (90% of which is produced in the gut). The body asking for food is often the body trying to regulate hormones that have lost their footing.

    Why Eating Less Makes Everything Worse

    This is the section most directly relevant to anyone who has responded to perimenopausal body changes by restricting.

    The book’s nutritional framework is built on one central mechanism: blood glucose instability amplifies every perimenopausal symptom. When blood sugar crashes, the body releases cortisol and adrenaline as a stress response. Cortisol disrupts progesterone (described here as the “grounding” hormone). Progesterone disruption worsens anxiety, disrupts sleep, increases irritability, and drives cravings. The resulting cravings, if met with refined sugar or simple carbs, spike blood glucose again and restart the cycle.

    The practical intervention the authors recommend:

    • Protein at every meal to slow glucose absorption and maintain satiety
    • The Key 3 at each sitting: protein, fibre, and healthy fat together
    • No sweet foods as standalone snacks (pair fruit with nuts, eggs with toast)
    • Complex carbs replacing refined ones rather than carbs eliminated altogether
    • A short walk after meals to blunt the postprandial glucose spike

    Note what’s not on that list. Calorie counting isn’t there. Elimination isn’t there. The authors are explicit that very low-carb approaches backfire for perimenopausal women: carbohydrates support serotonin production and calm the nervous system, and removing them entirely raises cortisol, worsens sleep, and compounds the hormonal pressure already present.

    “Perimenopause — a time when your body is undergoing significant adjustments — is not a time for deprivation. No good can come from punishing your body into submission because it doesn’t look or feel like it used to any more. On the contrary, this is a time for positive nutrition — a time for nourishing yourself, filling up on the good stuff and making small dietary and lifestyle shifts that stack up over time. It’s about adding in rather than taking away.”

    The gut layer adds another dimension. The estrobolome (the gut bacteria responsible for metabolizing used oestrogen) means that gut health is directly hormonal health. When the microbiome is disrupted, metabolized oestrogen can be reabsorbed into circulation, adding oestrogen imbalance on top of the fluctuations already occurring. The prescription: 30+ different plant foods per week, fermented foods, prebiotic fiber. Not a detox, not a cleanse, just feeding the microbiome consistently.

    The book’s exercise hierarchy is worth noting too. Resistance training comes first, because oestrogen has anabolic properties and its decline accelerates muscle loss. Muscle loss slows resting metabolism, worsens insulin sensitivity, and accelerates the body composition changes that perimenopause already drives. The authors argue strength training should be prescribed. Walking (second in the hierarchy) is cardioprotective, accessible, and weight-bearing. High-intensity work without adequate recovery raises cortisol and can make symptoms worse.

    Is The Perimenopause Solution Worth Reading?

    Read this if you are in your late 30s or 40s and something has shifted (energy, sleep, weight, mood, cognitive sharpness) and you haven’t found an explanation that fits. Read it if you’ve been told your bloodwork is normal but you don’t feel normal. Read it if you’ve been offered antidepressants for symptoms that feel more physical than psychiatric. Read it if you’ve been restricting food to address weight changes that restriction keeps making worse.

    Skip it if you’re primarily looking for US-specific prescribing guidance (the book references NHS systems throughout), or if you want a deep single-topic treatment of sleep, gut health, or nutrition as standalone subjects. The book covers a lot of ground across 15 chapters, and some sections go shallower than others because of it.

    One caveat: The book is UK-specific in its HRT prescribing detail, and it was published in 2021. The broad science holds, but anyone acting on specific HRT recommendations should cross-reference with current guidance from their national menopause society (the Menopause Society in the US, the British Menopause Society in the UK). Guidelines have continued to evolve.

    For ExcessMatters readers with a complicated relationship to food and dieting: the book contains a fat loss chapter (Chapter 15) that is notably respectful. It names the Health at Every Size movement, acknowledges that not every reader wants to address weight, and frames the nutrition guidance throughout as “adding in” rather than “taking away.” The perimenopausal lens here is useful even if weight isn’t the primary concern, because it explains why the body changes in the ways it does, and why deprivation makes those changes worse, not better. The appetite shifts, the mood-driven eating, the cravings that started in your late 30s are not personal failures. They are a physiological event with a name.

    Books Like The Perimenopause Solution

    BookAuthorBest For
    It’s Not You It’s Your HormonesNicki WilliamsBroader hormone picture including thyroid and adrenals alongside oestrogen
    The Hormone ShiftTamar Gur & Jessica RitchUS-based, covers the full reproductive lifespan including perimenopause
    Hormone IntelligenceAviva RommFunctional medicine approach, more alternative-medicine oriented
    Menopause BootcampSuzanne Gilberg-LenzAccessible, US-focused, integrative approach to the full menopause transition
    The Menopause BrainLisa MosconiDeep neuroscience of oestrogen decline and cognitive health; the science behind brain fog

  • The Menopause Diet Plan by Hillary Wright: Summary, Key Ideas & Review

    Book in one sentence: Two postmenopausal registered dietitians build a Mediterranean-DASH hybrid eating framework calibrated to the hormonal, metabolic, and body composition changes of menopause. Evidence-backed, no gimmicks, and genuinely useful.

    What Is The Menopause Diet Plan About?

    A 59-year-old woman named Sue opens the book with a single sentence: “Before menopause I could eat anything I wanted without gaining weight, but after menopause I put on 15 pounds even though I hadn’t changed my eating or exercise habits.”

    If you have lived that sentence, this book was written for you.

    Hillary Wright (MEd, RDN) and co-author Elizabeth Ward (MS, RDN) are both practicing registered dietitians and both postmenopausal. They did not write this from a clinical distance. They went through the hot flashes, the belly fat, the metabolic confusion of “nothing has changed but everything has changed,” and then applied decades of nutrition science to explain why it happens and what to do about it. That combination of credentials and lived experience is rarer than it sounds.

    The book’s central argument is that menopause reorganizes multiple body systems at once: cardiovascular risk accelerates, insulin resistance increases, muscle mass declines faster, bone loss spikes in early postmenopause, and brain chemistry shifts. A diet that only targets weight (or only targets heart health, or only targets hot flashes) isn’t enough. The Menopause Diet Plan is a Mediterranean-DASH hybrid, modified to be higher in protein and lower in carbohydrate than either source pattern, designed to address all of these changes simultaneously.

    What Makes This Approach Different From Other Menopause Books?

    The menopause nutrition space has a noise problem. On one end: generic “eat more vegetables” advice dressed in midlife marketing. On the other: aggressive elimination diets, hormone optimization claims, and supplements protocols with little clinical backing.

    Wright and Ward occupy a different position. There are no fad elements here. No dairy elimination. No “detox” phase. No proprietary supplement stack. Just a rigorous, dietitian-built framework grounded in what the research actually supports for this life stage.

    The book is organized around specific health conditions rather than a single diet identity: cardiovascular disease gets a chapter, diabetes prevention gets a chapter, bone health gets a chapter, brain health gets a chapter. That structure reflects how menopause actually works. It doesn’t strike one system. It reorganizes all of them at once, and the eating pattern responds accordingly.

    Worth noting for context: the book was published in 2020 and reflects the research of that period. Some areas (time-restricted eating, the gut microbiome, and hormone replacement therapy) have moved since then. The HRT discussion is brief and cautious in a way that may not match current clinical consensus, given how substantially the evidence has shifted since the Women’s Health Initiative era. The foundational nutrition framework, though, holds up well.

    What Are the Five Core Principles of the Menopause Diet Plan?

    The MDP is built around five principles that work as a system. The authors are clear that you can’t follow four and let the fifth slide.

    1. Eat According to Your Body Clock

    Insulin sensitivity is highest in the morning and falls through the day. Your glucose-processing machinery is more efficient at 8am than at 8pm, and eating most of your calories at night creates a mismatch between food intake and metabolic readiness.

    The trial Wright cites here is worth pausing on: two groups of women ate the same total daily calories. One group’s largest meal (700 calories) was breakfast. The other group’s was dinner. At the end of the study, the breakfast group had lost nearly three times as much weight. Same calories, different timing, dramatically different outcomes. The practical translation: eat breakfast reliably, make lunch substantial, keep dinner lighter, and stop eating as early in the evening as practical. No evening snack in the MDP meal plans.

    2. Focus on Plant Foods

    The eating pattern blends the Mediterranean diet and DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) into a plant-forward template that isn’t exclusively plant-based but strongly prioritizes vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes, seafood, nuts, and seeds. This pattern reduces LDL cholesterol, blood pressure, inflammation, and diabetes risk simultaneously, and all of those outcomes become more urgent for menopausal women when estrogen’s protective effects weaken.

    3. Distribute Protein Across Every Meal

    The standard protein recommendation (0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day) was set for the general adult population. It doesn’t reflect what menopausal women actually need. Declining estrogen accelerates muscle loss, and aging muscles develop “anabolic resistance” (they need more protein to produce the same synthetic response). The European Society for Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis (ESCEO) recommends 1.0–1.2 g/kg/day for women over 50 who exercise regularly.

    For a 150-pound woman, that’s roughly 70–82 grams daily, compared to the standard RDA of about 55 grams. More importantly, it means at least 20 grams per meal, spread across breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Piling protein at dinner and eating light all day is one of the most common patterns among women shaped by decades of diet culture. It’s exactly backwards for muscle protein synthesis.

    4. Moderate (Not Eliminate) Carbohydrates

    The MDP target is under 50% of daily calories from carbohydrates, compared to the typical American intake of 55–60%. Menopause promotes visceral fat accumulation, and visceral fat is inherently insulin-resistant. Muscle loss further reduces the body’s capacity to clear glucose efficiently. The same carbohydrate load that worked at 35 may produce a different metabolic result at 52.

    Reducing carbohydrate intake by replacing refined grains and added sugar with whole grains, legumes, fruit, and vegetables reduces the glucose and insulin burden without producing the deprivation of true low-carb eating.

    5. Prioritize Both Cardio and Strength Training

    Exercise gets one of the five core principles, not a sidebar, and the book is specific about why both types matter. Aerobic exercise (walking, cycling, swimming) addresses cardiovascular health, hot flash severity, mood, and sleep. Resistance training addresses muscle mass, bone density, and insulin sensitivity, the systems aerobic exercise doesn’t protect to the same degree. Neither substitutes for the other.

    One finding worth noting: 15 weeks of weight training cut hot flash rate by approximately 50% in a study the book cites. Strength training is not just for body composition. For menopausal women, it functions as medicine.

    What Does the Menopause Diet Plan Say About Protein, Supplements, and Weight?

    The Supplement Reality

    The book does something honest that many nutrition books avoid: it names the nutrients where even a well-planned diet leaves most menopausal women short, and prescribes specific supplements to close the gap.

    • Calcium increases to 1,200 mg/day after 50. Most women eating two dairy servings daily get 500–600 mg from food, so supplements fill the gap. No more than 500 mg per dose for best absorption.
    • Vitamin D at 600–800 IU from guidelines, but 1,000–2,000 IU in practice given widespread deficiency (especially in northern climates).
    • Vitamin B12 in synthetic form for all women over 50, since gastric acid production declines with age and natural food-bound B12 requires gastric acid to absorb properly. Women on metformin or proton pump inhibitors face especially high depletion risk.
    • Omega-3 EPA+DHA at 250–500 mg daily for women who don’t reliably eat 8 or more ounces of fatty fish per week. After menopause, estrogen’s cardiovascular protection disappears, and omega-3s directly address triglycerides and arterial inflammation.

    The Weight Conversation

    Wright earns credit here for holding a genuinely difficult balance. She’s direct that excess visceral fat amplifies nearly every major menopausal health risk (cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, hot flash severity). Pretending otherwise would be medically dishonest.

    At the same time, the MDP sets a calorie floor of 1,600 calories per day, not the 1,200-calorie approach that diet culture has marketed to women for decades, which backfires metabolically and behaviorally at this life stage. The evidence-based weight loss target the book cites is 5–10% of body weight: a threshold where blood glucose, blood pressure, and inflammatory markers measurably improve. For a 170-pound woman, that’s 8.5–17 pounds.

    “The goal is to help you strike a balance between good health and a good quality of life. Even though it’s morphed, your body can still be beautiful, strong, and capable of doing all the things that can make the next phase of life fun, liberating, and adventurous.”

    The Soy Question

    The section on phytoestrogens is one of the more nuanced in the book. Soy isoflavones weakly bind to estrogen receptors, and the popular claim is that they reduce hot flashes. The research says: inconsistently. Some studies show modest reduction; others show no effect. Wright does not recommend whole soy foods as a hot flash treatment because the evidence doesn’t support using them for that specific purpose.

    What whole soy foods are (apart from any hot flash question) is nutritionally excellent. Rich in complete plant protein, potassium, magnesium, and isoflavones that may offer modest bone protection and LDL-lowering effects. Large studies confirm they are safe for most women, including breast cancer survivors in moderate amounts. They belong in the MDP not for their estrogen-like effects but for their overall nutritional profile. Concentrated isoflavone supplements are a different matter and get a “discuss with your provider first.”

    Is The Menopause Diet Plan Worth Reading?

    Read this if you are in perimenopause or postmenopause and your previous eating habits have stopped working in ways you cannot explain. This book is for the woman who has been eating reasonably well and still gaining weight around her abdomen, who wants to understand the physiology behind what’s happening, and who wants a single evidence-based framework that addresses cardiovascular risk, blood sugar concerns, bone health, and weight management at the same time. The protocol format means specific meal plans, calorie ranges, and nutrient targets (either exactly what you want, or exactly what you don’t).

    Skip it if you are looking for a psychological framework for your relationship with food. There is no body-image psychology here, and the authors’ warmth around the weight conversation is genuine but brief. Women navigating a complicated food history may find the directness around calorie ranges activating without the scaffolding to hold it. For that piece, pair this book with something like Geneen Roth.

    One caveat: The HRT discussion is cautious in a way that reflects 2020 clinical consensus, not 2026. If hormone therapy is relevant to your situation, talk to a current provider rather than relying on this chapter.

    Books Like The Menopause Diet Plan

    BookAuthorBest For
    Eat to Thrive During MenopauseStephanie HuberPlant-forward eating with more flexible structure
    MenuPauseAnna CabecaHormonal balance through food, more lifestyle-oriented
    The Menopause Metabolism FixStephanie MetzMetabolic focus, weight loss emphasis
    Menopause BootcampSuzanne Gilberg-LenzWhole-picture menopause care beyond nutrition
    The Longevity DietValter LongoLongevity science and fasting-mimicking protocol

  • The XX Brain by Lisa Mosconi: Review, Key Ideas & What Actually Matters for Women’s Brain Health

    Why This Book Exists — and Why It Matters

    Here is a statistic that should be front-page news: two-thirds of all Alzheimer’s patients in the United States are women. A 60-year-old woman is twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s in her remaining lifetime as she is to develop breast cancer. Women make up the overwhelming majority of unpaid dementia caregivers. And yet, for most of medical history, Alzheimer’s research was conducted primarily on men, using male-derived norms, with findings generalized to everyone.

    Lisa Mosconi is Director of the Women’s Brain Initiative at Weill Cornell Medical College and Associate Director of the first Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic in the United States. She has been scanning women’s brains for two decades. Her mother and grandmother both developed Alzheimer’s. She is not writing as an outsider to this topic — she is writing from the inside of a crisis that medicine has systematically underaddressed.

    The XX Brain is her answer to a simple but devastating question: why are women’s brains so disproportionately affected by Alzheimer’s, and what can we actually do about it? Her answer is grounded in neuroimaging data, clinical trials, genomic research, and 20 years of patient care. This is not a wellness book dressed in science language. It is science, translated into something a woman can actually use.

    For anyone who has ever been told that brain fog, memory lapses, mood changes, or cognitive symptoms are “just aging” or “just hormones” — this book is a direct refutation of that dismissal.

    The Core Argument: Estrogen Is a Brain Hormone

    The single most important idea in The XX Brain is also the one most consistently overlooked by medicine: estrogen is not primarily a reproductive hormone. It is a neurological hormone that happens to also govern reproduction.

    Estrogen receptors are distributed throughout the brain — in the hippocampus (memory), the prefrontal cortex (reasoning and planning), the amygdala (emotional processing), and beyond. Through those receptors, estrogen governs the brain’s energy metabolism, neuroprotective immune function, production of new synaptic connections, and release of serotonin, GABA, and endorphins. Mosconi describes estrogen as the brain’s “master regulator” — and the data backs this up.

    This reframe matters enormously because it changes how we interpret what happens at menopause. Menopause is not merely the end of reproductive capacity. It is a neurological event. When estrogen declines, the brain’s energy supply falters, its inflammatory defenses weaken, and the infrastructure for memory and mood is compromised. The brain fog, sleep disruption, mood volatility, and memory lapses of perimenopause are not psychosomatic. Mosconi’s own FDG-PET imaging shows reduced brain glucose metabolism in perimenopausal women — the same metabolic signature seen in early Alzheimer’s disease — years before any clinical symptoms appear.

    This is the foundation everything else is built on. Understanding that estrogen is a brain hormone makes the rest of the book’s recommendations not optional lifestyle tips, but medically justified interventions.

    The Alzheimer’s Myth That Keeps Women Helpless

    Before Mosconi gets to solutions, she clears away a lie that has kept women passive about their brain health: the idea that Alzheimer’s is genetic destiny.

    Deterministic Alzheimer’s — caused by rare genetic mutations (PSEN1, PSEN2, APP) — accounts for only 1–2% of all cases. For the other 98–99%, Alzheimer’s is multifactorial: an interaction of genetic susceptibilities, medical conditions, hormonal status, and lifestyle choices that accumulate over decades. APOE-4, the most well-known risk gene, is a susceptibility factor, not a sentence. APOE-4 carriers who maintain an active, well-nourished, low-stress lifestyle dramatically reduce the probability that their genetic risk will actualize.

    Here is the kicker: Alzheimer’s pathology — amyloid plaques, tau tangles — begins accumulating 20 to 30 years before symptoms appear. This is not a reason for despair. It is a reason to act in your 40s, not your 70s. Mosconi’s research shows that brain imaging can detect early metabolic changes at subclinical stages when the brain is still fully capable of responding to intervention. The window for prevention is long, the interventions are real, and waiting for symptoms means waiting too long.

    The modifiable risk factors Mosconi identifies are not exotic. They include cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension, depression, sleep deprivation, chronic stress, sedentary lifestyle, and poor diet. Every single one of them is addressable.

    Key Ideas Worth Knowing

    The Critical Window for Hormonal Therapy

    One of the most important — and most misunderstood — sections of the book concerns menopausal hormone therapy (MHT). In 2002–2003, the Women’s Health Initiative trials were halted early after showing that MHT increased risk of stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer. The resulting panic caused 80% of American women using MHT to stop overnight. Doctors stopped prescribing it. A generation of women was left without a tool many would have benefited from, based on findings that were misapplied.

    Mosconi explains what the WHI actually studied: women averaging 63 years old — more than a decade past menopause — given synthetic progestins combined with conjugated equine estrogen (derived from pregnant mares’ urine). The problem is not MHT itself; it is that the WHI used the wrong women, at the wrong time, with the wrong formulation.

    The “timing hypothesis” holds that hormonal therapy initiated during perimenopause or early menopause — when estrogen receptors are still active and responsive — has a fundamentally different risk/benefit profile. Research published since the WHI supports that women who begin MHT within a few years of menopause onset show reduced cardiovascular risk, preserved cognitive function, and in several studies, reduced Alzheimer’s risk. Transdermal estradiol carries significantly less thrombotic risk than oral conjugated equine estrogen. Micronized progesterone is safer than synthetic progestins.

    Mosconi is not telling every woman to take hormones. She is giving women the information to have an actual, informed conversation with their doctor — rather than a reflexive “no” based on a misread study.

    What Actually Happens in the Female Brain at Menopause

    Women’s brains are not smaller male brains. They are structurally and biochemically distinct. The female brain has stronger connectivity between the hippocampus, amygdala, and frontal cortex — producing generally stronger verbal memory, emotional memory integration, and social cognition. Women process emotional information more bilaterally. These are genuine strengths.

    The vulnerability comes from the same source: the female brain is more tightly coupled to hormonal environment. This is why Alzheimer’s presents differently in women. Because verbal memory systems are so robust, early Alzheimer’s pathology can be masked — women compensate, continuing to appear cognitively normal while pathology accumulates. When symptoms do appear, they tend to progress more steeply. Women are also more likely to be APOE-4 carriers, more likely to show tau pathology, and show faster hippocampal atrophy once disease begins.

    None of this was reflected in standard diagnostic norms built on male data. Mosconi’s work — and the growing field of sex-differentiated neurology she is helping to build — is correcting that.

    Diet: The Research Is Specific, Not Vague

    Mosconi does not recommend “eating healthy.” She identifies specific nutrients, specific foods, and specific quantities with clinical trial or large-scale observational study support — and she specifies the evidence for women in particular:

    • Dark leafy greens: One serving daily is associated with cognitive function 11 years younger than age-matched peers who rarely eat them. The mechanism involves vitamins K, folate, and lutein.
    • Berries: Eating at least one serving of blueberries and two servings of strawberries per week was associated with 2.5 years of slower cognitive aging in women (based on a study of 16,000+ women). Flavonoid content is the active component.
    • Fatty fish: Omega-3 fatty acids (EPA/DHA) are critical for brain membrane structure and anti-inflammatory signaling; 2–3 servings weekly is the research target.
    • Fiber: Women’s estrogen metabolism depends on gut bacteria that require adequate fiber for proper estrogen processing; 25+ grams daily stabilizes blood glucose and supports hormonal balance.
    • Olive oil: Primary fat source in Mediterranean-MIND trials with the strongest cognitive outcome data.

    What to limit: refined grains, added sugar, ultra-processed foods, and — this surprises many people — alcohol. Even one drink per day is associated with measurable brain shrinkage in women. The “a glass of wine is protective” narrative does not survive neuroimaging data.

    Exercise Is Brain Architecture

    A clinical trial Mosconi cites had 120 sedentary adults do either brisk walking or yoga/stretching for one year. The stretching group showed the 1–2% brain shrinkage normal for aging. The walkers showed a 2% increase in hippocampal volume and measurable improvement in memory performance — rolling back cognitive age by approximately two years. From walking.

    The mechanism is real: aerobic exercise increases BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which promotes neuronal growth and new synaptic connections), reduces systemic inflammation, improves insulin sensitivity, and enhances cerebral blood flow. In APOE-4 carriers, regular exercise measurably reduces amyloid plaque accumulation — meaning genetic Alzheimer’s risk is partially offset by movement.

    The prescription is simple: 40 minutes of brisk walking (walking as if late for an appointment), three times per week. That is it. Not an elite fitness regimen — a sustainable, evidence-based minimum that produces structural brain changes.

    Sleep and Stress Are Not Soft Topics

    Chronic stress elevates cortisol chronically. Chronic cortisol elevation damages brain tissue. A study of 2,000+ middle-aged adults found that high-stress individuals show measurable memory loss and brain shrinkage before age 50 — with effects more severe in women. Women also face specific sleep disruption risks during perimenopause (hot flashes, hormonal fluctuations, heightened anxiety) that require intentional management.

    Sleep is when the brain’s glymphatic system flushes amyloid-beta and tau. Seven to nine hours of quality sleep is not a wellness preference; it is the cleaning cycle for the proteins that cause Alzheimer’s.

    Mosconi also makes an argument that social connection is medically neuroprotective. Social isolation is an independent Alzheimer’s risk factor. Strong friendships, community engagement, and intellectually stimulating relationships reduce risk — and the effect is larger for women than for men. This is not soft advice. It is the tend-and-befriend stress response, documented neurobiologically: women co-release oxytocin with cortisol, orienting toward social connection under stress, and this response is genuinely protective when channeled toward real relationships.

    Notable Quotes

    “Estrogen is a ‘master regulator’ in the female brain, serving many roles that actually have nothing to do with reproduction, but rather everything to do with energy.”

    The thesis of the entire book, in one sentence.

    “Women were promised we could ‘have it all.’ We’ve discovered that means ‘doing it all’ instead. And not only do we now get to do it all, but we do so for lower pay and less recognition, and not at all surprisingly, at the expense of our health.”

    Mosconi locating women’s brain health crisis within a larger social context — the health consequences of overextension are not personal failure, they are systemic.

    “There is a chronic lack of acknowledgment regarding how gender affects our distinct needs and requirements when it comes to adequate nutrition—unless a woman is pregnant, that is.”

    The state of nutritional research for women, bluntly stated.

    “Eating a salad a day can keep your brain younger by as much as eleven years!”

    An extraordinary finding that should be common knowledge and is not.

    “This is a forever plan, not just a quick fix. As with anything of excellence, it takes discipline, consistency, and commitment. The difference is, with this quality of investment in yourself, the benefits will last a lifetime.”

    Mosconi’s honest framing of what prevention actually requires — and why it is worth it.

    Who Should Read This

    Read it if you are:

    • A woman in your 30s, 40s, or 50s who wants to understand what is actually happening in your brain as your hormones shift
    • Anyone experiencing brain fog, memory changes, or mood disruptions around perimenopause who has been told it is “just aging”
    • Someone with a family history of Alzheimer’s — especially maternal history — who wants an evidence-based prevention framework
    • A woman who has avoided or is confused about menopausal hormone therapy based on the 2002 WHI scare
    • Anyone who cares for women and wants to understand their brain health needs

    Skip it (or read selectively) if:

    • You want a quick-read checklist with no science — the book requires engagement with genuinely complex biology
    • You are already deeply versed in neuroimaging research and are looking for primary literature rather than translation

    Read alongside:

    • Brain Food by Lisa Mosconi (2018) — the deeper nutritional science companion
    • Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker — essential on sleep’s role in amyloid clearance
    • The Menopause Brain by Lisa Mosconi (2024) — her updated, focused work on the menopausal transition

    What to Actually Do With This Book

    Mosconi is not presenting a theory. She is presenting an action plan. The core asks are:

    1. Get a basic risk assessment: know your APOE status (23andMe or a clinical test), your homocysteine, your fasting glucose, your blood pressure, your B12, your vitamin D.
    2. Eat the Mediterranean-MIND pattern, with particular attention to dark leafy greens daily, berries twice weekly, fatty fish 2–3x weekly, fiber 25g+ daily.
    3. Walk briskly 40 minutes, three times per week, consistently.
    4. Protect sleep — 7–9 hours, address hormonal sleep disruption, screen for apnea.
    5. Manage stress through social connection (not just alone-time self-care, which is also valuable, but specifically relationships).
    6. Learn something genuinely new — not deepening an existing skill, but building cognitive reserve through novelty.
    7. If you are approaching menopause, have an informed conversation with your doctor about the timing hypothesis and your personal risk/benefit profile for MHT.

    None of this requires a prescription or a genetic test to begin. Most of it is free. All of it is evidence-based.

    Related Reviews on Excess Matters

  • The Happy Hormone Guide by Shannon Leparski: Summary, Key Ideas & Review

    Book in one sentence: A plant-based blogger’s practical system for balancing hormones through cycle syncing, seed cycling, and daily lifestyle changes. Accessible entry-level, but light on clinical evidence.

    What Is The Happy Hormone Guide About?

    Shannon Leparski spent her teens and early twenties cycling through the same miserable loop: severe PMS, jawline acne, mood swings bad enough to frighten her parents, and periods so irregular she went 42 days between them. Doctors offered her the pill. Dermatologists offered her harsh medication. Nobody offered her an explanation for why her body was behaving this way.

    She found one eventually, not through the medical system but through a book. Reading Alisa Vitti’s Woman Code triggered what Leparski describes as a complete reorientation of how she understood her own body. Over the next few years, she rebuilt her cycle from scratch using food, lifestyle changes, and phase-specific routines, and documented what worked in her vegan food blog, The Glowing Fridge. The Happy Hormone Guide is that documentation turned into a book.

    Leparski is a holistic health coach and wellness writer, not a clinician. She is transparent about this throughout. The book is organized around what she calls the Happy Hormone Method, a four-part framework covering blood sugar stability, toxin reduction, gut health and estrogen clearance, and cycle-synced living. Two distinctive tools run throughout it: seed cycling (rotating specific seeds across the two halves of the menstrual cycle to support estrogen and progesterone) and adaptogens (herbs like ashwagandha, maca, and reishi used for stress and symptom support). Both are wellness-world staples. The evidence behind them ranges from reasonable to thin, and Leparski does not oversell it.

    What Is Seed Cycling and Does It Actually Work?

    Seed cycling is the practice this book is most associated with, and the one most worth examining before you decide whether to read further.

    The theory: The menstrual cycle divides into two halves with different hormonal priorities. In the first half (days 1-14, menstrual and follicular phases), rising estrogen is the dominant force. In the second half (days 15-28, ovulatory and luteal phases), progesterone takes over. Seed cycling uses four seeds to support each half:

    • Days 1-14: Flaxseeds and pumpkin seeds. Flax contains phytoestrogens and lignans that support estrogen production while helping clear excess estrogen. Pumpkin seeds are high in zinc, which Leparski says “helps prime and support the production of adequate progesterone in the next phase.”
    • Days 15-28: Sesame seeds and sunflower seeds. Sesame contains lignans that modulate estrogen and magnesium for cramp relief. Sunflower seeds are rich in selenium to support liver detoxification of hormones.

    The honest picture: Seed cycling has a following in wellness circles and an origin in traditional herbalism. What it does not have is robust RCT-level evidence. The proposed mechanisms are plausible, flaxseed lignans do influence estrogen metabolism, and omega-3s from pumpkin and flax have anti-inflammatory properties. But whether rotating seeds on a specific schedule produces measurable hormonal changes in healthy women has not been rigorously tested. One small 2023 study found no significant effect on cycle regularity. Leparski cites the Herbal Academy and a lignans-breast cancer study, not clinical trials on seed cycling itself.

    Worth doing? Probably harmless, and possibly useful as a habit anchor that keeps you eating seeds consistently. Worth treating as a proven protocol? Not yet.

    How Does Cycle Syncing Work in Practice?

    Cycle syncing, the broader framework Leparski builds seed cycling into, has stronger physiological grounding even if the phase-specific prescriptions stay somewhat ahead of the research.

    The four phases of the menstrual cycle genuinely do produce different hormonal environments, and those environments do create real differences in energy, metabolism, recovery capacity, and mood. Leparski structures the book’s second half around a seasonal metaphor: menstrual phase as winter, follicular as spring, ovulatory as summer, luteal as autumn. Each phase chapter covers food recommendations, exercise type and intensity, skin changes, and social energy.

    The most practically useful phase guidance covers the luteal phase (days 15-28), when progesterone rises and PMS symptoms accumulate for women whose hormonal balance is off. Leparski’s recommendations for this phase are specific and well-reasoned:

    • Eat complex carbohydrates (sweet potato, oats, brown rice) to support serotonin production and reduce cravings in the days before menstruation
    • Prioritize magnesium-rich foods (pumpkin seeds, dark leafy greens, dark chocolate) for sleep and PMS reduction
    • Reduce or eliminate high-intensity cardio in the late luteal phase, because it spikes cortisol at the exact moment the body needs progesterone to dominate
    • Use sesame and sunflower seeds from the seed cycling rotation

    For the follicular phase (days 6-13), she highlights rising estrogen’s effect on serotonin and dopamine, making it the natural window for new projects, harder workouts, and social energy. The ovulatory phase (days 14-17) gets the endorsement for maximum-intensity training. The menstrual phase gets a clear prescription: rest, warmth, iron and zinc replenishment, gentle movement only.

    The framework requires cycle tracking as a prerequisite. Leparski covers apps (Kindara, MyFLO, Flo), basal body temperature charting, and dedicated monitors. Women on hormonal birth control do not experience the four-phase cycle, so the phase-specific recommendations do not apply while on it.

    What Else Does Leparski Cover?

    Adaptogens for stress and symptoms. Chapter 5 introduces adaptogens as herbs that “adapt to whatever your body needs help with at the time.” Ashwagandha and maca appear in her ovulation and amenorrhea support list. Reishi appears for period cramps. Rhodiola and DIM (diindolylmethane) appear for severe PMS. These are framed as symptom-specific additions after the core protocol is in place, not replacements for it.

    Blood sugar as the master lever. Leparski identifies unstable blood sugar as the most consistently overlooked driver of hormonal symptoms. Glucose spikes trigger insulin responses; insulin resistance creates a cortisol response; sustained cortisol suppresses ovulation. The practical fix is structural: protein, fat, and fiber at every meal, no carbohydrates eaten alone, no skipped meals, caffeine after food rather than before. Straightforward, applicable immediately.

    The gut-estrogen connection. The estrobolome, the subset of gut bacteria that metabolize estrogen, gets a full explanation here. When bowel transit is slow or the microbiome is imbalanced, estrogen the liver has already processed for excretion gets reactivated and returned to circulation. The result is estrogen dominance: heavy clotty periods, breast tenderness, jawline acne. Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale) contain DIM, which supports the liver’s estrogen detoxification. Daily fiber, fermented foods, and hydration support the rest.

    Endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Chapter 2 walks through the average woman’s daily chemical exposure, more than 100 synthetic compounds before leaving the house, and focuses the practical guidance on reducing the highest-absorption products first: deodorant and body lotion (left on skin all day), then cleaning products, then food containers. The EWG Skin Deep database is her recommended audit tool. One category per month.

    Reading your period as data. One of the book’s most distinctive contributions is a short guide to interpreting menstrual blood characteristics. Bright cranberry red blood: balanced. Dark purple-eggplant blood: excess estrogen. Very light pink: possible low estrogen. Clots: probable estrogen dominance or impaired clearance. Brown spotting before the first heavy day: often low progesterone from an anovulatory cycle. A free monthly feedback mechanism that updates faster than lab work.

    Is The Happy Hormone Guide Worth Reading?

    Read this if you are already plant-based (or vegan) and want hormone-specific guidance that works within those constraints, most hormone books ignore plant-based eaters entirely. Also worth it if you are new to cycle syncing and want an accessible, organized entry point before moving to denser clinical books.

    Skip it if you have already worked through Woman Code or In the FLO by Alisa Vitti, Leparski credits Vitti openly as her primary source and the conceptual overlap is substantial. Also skip it if you have active clinical conditions (PCOS, endometriosis, clinical hypothyroidism) that need more than lifestyle guidance.

    One caveat: The seed cycling evidence is limited, mostly traditional and mechanistic rather than RCT-tested, and the book’s clinical rigor overall sits at the lower end of the hormone books on this site. Leparski is honest about her non-clinical background and consistently directs readers toward naturopathic and medical practitioners for diagnosis. That transparency earns trust. Still, women who want clinical depth should read Aviva Romm’s Hormone Intelligence alongside this one, not instead of it.

    The book is a good fit as a gentle first book for women who suspect their symptoms are not inevitable, have not yet dug into the cycle syncing literature, and want practical food and lifestyle guidance they can start immediately. Women already deep in functional medicine territory will find limited new material here.

    Books Like The Happy Hormone Guide

    BookAuthorBest For
    Happy HormonesLara Briden / Nat KringoudisNatural approaches to hormone health with more clinical grounding
    Healthy HormonesSamantha KirkpatrickPractical hormone nutrition with stronger evidence base
    In the FLOAlisa VittiLeparski’s primary source, deeper on the Cycle Syncing Method
    Hormone IntelligenceAviva Romm, MDClinician-authored, stronger on PCOS, endo, and thyroid; best companion read
    Eat Like a GirlMindy PelzCycle-aware eating for women navigating perimenopause and metabolic shifts

  • Hanger Management by Susan Albers: Summary, Key Ideas & Review

    The book in one sentence: A clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic explains the real biology behind why hunger wrecks your mood and relationships, then gives you 45 practical tools to stop letting it.

    What Is Hanger Management About?

    You’ve snapped at someone you love and genuinely had no idea why until ten minutes later when you finally ate something. That is not a personality flaw. It is a hormonal event, and Susan Albers has been studying it for twenty years.

    Albers is a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic who specializes in eating behavior and mindfulness. She has written eight books on mindful eating, including Eat Q and 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food, and has worked with thousands of clients navigating every version of a difficult relationship with food. Hanger Management is her most accessible entry point. It does not ask you to diet. It does not tell you what to eat. Its subject is narrower and more practical: why hunger turns you into a worse version of yourself, and what to do about it.

    The book arrived in 2019, before GLP-1 medications became mainstream. But the framework Albers built turns out to be almost more useful in that context than it was when she wrote it. (More on that in the “Is It Worth Reading?” section.) Whether you’re dealing with classic hanger or navigating a radically changed relationship with hunger and appetite, the core questions are the same: what is your body telling you, and are you listening?

    Why Do You Get Angry When You’re Hungry? The Science of Hanger

    A lot of people still treat hanger as a joke or an excuse. Albers spends the first section of the book making the case that it is neither.

    Three biological systems are responsible.

    Blood sugar dysregulation is the most familiar pathway. When you eat refined carbohydrates, your blood glucose spikes and then crashes. During that crash, your energy, concentration, and mood all drop at the same time. The urgency to eat whatever is nearest spikes in response. Foods with protein, fiber, and fat release glucose gradually instead, which is why a breakfast with eggs and avocado holds your mood stable for hours while a bagel wrecks it by 10am.

    The stress hormone cascade is less well-known but explains the aggressive edge. When blood glucose falls low enough, your body releases cortisol to trigger emergency glucose production from fat and protein stores. Then adrenaline fires. These two hormones evolved to make a hungry animal more aggressive and more likely to fight for food. In modern humans, they produce irritability, reduced empathy, and tunnel-vision decision-making. Chronic stress keeps cortisol elevated around the clock, which is part of why some people seem to live in a permanent state of low-grade hanger readiness.

    Neuropeptide Y is the third pathway. This brain chemical is released when you’re hungry, and it does two things simultaneously: it drives urgent, intense feeding behavior, and it regulates anger and aggression. High neuropeptide Y levels correlate directly with high impulsivity. This is why hangry people don’t just want food. They become neurochemically primed for conflict.

    The reason this biology lesson matters is not academic. When you understand hanger as a hormonal event rather than a character problem, shame goes down and effective management becomes possible. You cannot shame yourself out of a cortisol spike. You can, however, build habits that prevent the spike from happening in the first place.

    What Are the Different Types of Hunger?

    One of the most useful things in this book is a framework that took me about three readings to fully appreciate. Albers identifies four distinct types of hunger. We treat all of them the same way. That is the problem.

    Health Hunger is physical, biological hunger. Your body needs fuel. Signs are clear: low energy, difficulty thinking, stomach growling, mild headache. The fix is to eat. Even here, what you eat matters, because a bag of chips creates a blood sugar spike and crash that leaves you worse off ninety minutes later.

    Head Hunger starts in your brain, not your stomach. You weren’t thinking about food, and then you saw something or smelled something, and now you can’t stop thinking about one specific thing. The specificity is the tell. You don’t want food in general. You want that. Head Hunger is triggered by external cues, and eating something else almost never satisfies it, which is why you find yourself trying four different snacks looking for something you can’t quite name.

    Heart Hunger is emotional. Stress, boredom, loneliness, anxiety, the uncomfortable feeling after a difficult conversation. Food isn’t addressing a physical need here. It is being used to manage a feeling. This is the one that drives late-night eating, stress eating, and emotional binges. Albers is direct about the math: eating does not resolve Heart Hunger. The food mutes the feeling briefly. The emotion returns because food was never the solution.

    Hands Hunger is the sneakiest. You eat the nuts at the party because they’re in a bowl in front of you and other people are eating them. You’re not hungry. You don’t even really want nuts. They were there. Hands Hunger is almost entirely driven by proximity and environment, which is why you can eat a full dinner and then mindlessly graze through a party spread two hours later without noticing.

    The practical value is immediate. Before eating anything, ask which type this is. Health Hunger requires food. The other three require something else entirely, and feeding them with food makes each one worse.

    How Does Hanger Affect Your Relationships?

    Albers opens the book with a study from Ohio State University. Researchers gave married couples a voodoo doll representing their spouse and a collection of pins. Couples with lower blood glucose stuck more pins in the dolls. They also blasted their spouse with louder, longer noise punishments during a game.

    “The study found that participants who had lower glucose levels stuck more pins in their voodoo dolls. And they also blasted their spouse with louder, longer doses of noise.”

    That is not a subtle finding. Your hanger does not stay inside you. It leaks into every interaction with everyone you love, and the research confirms it is measurable, not imaginary.

    The practical application Albers suggests is worth taking seriously. Create a household hanger signal with the people you live with. A code word or gesture that means “I’m hangry, not angry at you” removes the blame and normalizes hanger as a physiological event rather than a relationship problem. A pre-fed rule (no important conversations when either person is hungry) eliminates a surprising percentage of recurring household friction. Keeping snacks in the car costs almost nothing and prevents a category of road-trip arguments that, in retrospect, were never about the thing you were arguing about.

    These small structural agreements reframe hanger from a character issue into an environmental design problem. Which means it is solvable.

    Is Hanger Management Worth Reading?

    Read this if you regularly find yourself irritable, unfocused, or reactive in ways that feel out of proportion to what actually happened. If you snap at people and wonder afterward where that came from. If you have a history of dieting and have lost the thread of what genuine hunger actually feels like. If you’re on a GLP-1 medication and navigating a radically changed relationship to appetite, this book is more relevant than its title suggests. GLP-1 medications suppress the conscious sensation of hunger, but the biological cascade (cortisol, neuropeptide Y, blood sugar) can still run whether or not you feel hungry. Learning to read mood, energy, and irritability as hunger signals becomes essential when the primary signal has been pharmacologically muted.

    Skip it if you already have a well-established mindful eating practice and solid hunger signal awareness. Also skip it if you are looking for clinical depth on eating disorders, or if a warm, pop-psychology writing style with exclamation points and portmanteaus (“hangxiety,” “regretfull”) is going to drive you up a wall.

    One caveat: The book is about twice as long as it needs to be. Multiple readers noted the content could have been compressed to 30 pages without losing much. The frameworks are genuinely useful. The 45 tips section is a menu to pick from, not a program to execute in sequence. Read it for the four hunger types model and the biology section. Treat the rest as a reference.

    Books Like Hanger Management

    BookAuthorBest For
    Eat QSusan AlbersGoing deeper on emotional intelligence and food; the companion to this book
    50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without FoodSusan AlbersWhat to actually do when Heart Hunger shows up and food isn’t the answer
    The Hunger HabitJudson BrewerThe neuroscience version of this same territory, more research-rigorous and less practical
    Eating MindfullySusan AlbersSlower, more clinically grounded mindfulness approach to the eating experience
    Mindless EatingBrian WansinkHow environment and visual cues drive food decisions without your awareness

  • The Joy of Movement by Kelly McGonigal: Summary, Key Ideas & Review

    The book in one sentence: Movement is not a tax on the body for eating too much. It’s the oldest reward system in the human brain, wired to generate joy, belonging, and hope.

    What Is The Joy of Movement About?

    Picture a woman named Julia, retired and living alone, who has a progressive neurological disease that causes tremors, balance problems, and muscle spasms. Every morning, she walks 500 meters and climbs 140 stairs in her apartment building. Other residents call her “on patrol.” She says: “I must be getting a kick from it because I really enjoy it… is it adrenaline? I think I might be getting a bit of, is it heroin?”

    Julia is getting something real. Kelly McGonigal’s The Joy of Movement is the book that explains what.

    McGonigal is a health psychologist at Stanford who has also spent over two decades teaching group exercise. That combination matters. She knows the research on dopamine and endocannabinoids and neuroplasticity, and she has also been in the room when a sixty-year-old returns to the aerobics studio after a cancer diagnosis and cries with relief. The Joy of Movement is not a fitness book. It’s a book about why the human brain is built to reward movement, and why so many of us have been cut off from that reward by treating exercise as punishment.

    For anyone who has ever calculated what a workout “earned” them, or used a run to compensate for a binge, or avoided the gym because it’s always been tangled up with shame: this book offers a different door in.

    Why Exercise Makes You Happy (and It’s Not Endorphins)

    The runner’s high has a reputation for sounding unbelievable. Trail runner Scott Dunlap describes his: “I would equate it to two Red Bulls and vodka, three ibuprofen, plus a $50 winning Lotto ticket in your pocket.” For decades, we blamed endorphins. Turns out that’s mostly wrong.

    Endorphins are too large to cross the blood-brain barrier in the quantities originally assumed. The real driver of exercise-induced euphoria is endocannabinoids (specifically anandamide, named from the Sanskrit word for bliss). Unlike endorphins, anandamide does cross the blood-brain barrier, and it produces the specific cocktail runners describe: euphoria, reduced pain, time expansion, and warmth toward strangers. Ultrarunner Stephanie Case puts it this way: “I feel connected to the people around me, the loved ones in my life, and I’m infinitely positive about the future.”

    That warmth-toward-strangers part is not a coincidence. Endocannabinoids activate social bonding circuitry. The runner’s high is, in part, a love drug.

    There’s a catch, and it matters for anyone who has tried exercise and quit: the reward only activates after sustained moderate effort. David Raichlen’s research found that walking slowly had no effect on endocannabinoid levels. Neither did sprinting at maximum effort. Jogging at a moderate pace for at least twenty minutes tripled them. McGonigal calls this the persistence high: not the running high, not the gym high, but specifically the reward for not giving up. The brain evolved this system to motivate hunter-gatherers to keep tracking prey all day. It still works the same way.

    The practical consequence: people who try exercise and quit after fifteen uncomfortable minutes never reach the neurochemical threshold where it starts to feel good. It’s not that they lack willpower. They’re stopping right before the reward kicks in.

    “Anything that keeps you moving and increases your heart rate is enough to trigger nature’s reward for not giving up. There’s no objective measure of performance you must achieve, no pace or distance you need to reach.”

    Beyond endocannabinoids, McGonigal covers what she calls “hope molecules”: hormones secreted by muscles during physical activity that make the brain more resilient to stress. Your muscles, when you use them, literally send hope signals to your brain. Not metaphorical hope. Actual neurochemical signals that reduce inflammation and increase capacity for optimism. This is why exercise rivals antidepressants for mild-to-moderate depression in clinical studies. The mechanism is in the muscles.

    How Movement Builds Identity, Not Just Habits

    In 1970, a Brooklyn psychiatrist tried to pay regular exercisers to stop exercising for thirty days. Nobody would sign up. Those who eventually did reported severe anxiety and depression from what felt like deprivation.

    McGonigal uses this story to complicate the usual “exercise is like addiction” frame. Yes, movement activates dopamine, endocannabinoids, and noradrenaline. Yes, regular exercisers show what researchers call attention capture (their brains scan environments for workout opportunities the way an alcoholic’s brain scans for liquor). Yes, three days without exercise can produce depression symptoms. But she argues the addiction analogy misses something.

    The better word is devotion. People who maintain movement practices over years are not primarily disciplined. They have become someone for whom movement is part of who they are. Missing a workout feels like missing part of yourself, and that is not pathology. It’s the brain organizing around something that is genuinely good for it.

    The identity shift is the actual mechanism. Not habit stacking, not accountability systems, not motivational quotes. When “I am someone who moves” starts to feel true, the brain protects that identity. Attention capture, community investment, deprivation distress: these are symptoms of having crossed over.

    This reframe has direct implications for anyone who has repeatedly “tried to exercise” and had it fall apart. The goal was probably wrong from the start. Habit tracking doesn’t create a mover. Finding the form of movement that makes you feel alive, and doing it enough times that the identity starts to shift, does.

    One chapter offers what may be the book’s most quietly devastating story. Araliya Ming Senerat was in her early twenties, depressed, isolated, planning to end her life. The day she had set, she went to the gym for one last workout. She deadlifted 185 pounds, a personal best. When she put the bar down, she decided she wanted to live. “I wanted to see how strong I could become.” Five years later, she deadlifts 300 pounds.

    McGonigal’s point is careful: exercise is not a cure for suicidal ideation. The point is that physical accomplishment produces self-narrative shifts that verbal affirmation cannot. When your body does something you believed it couldn’t, the old story gets physically contradicted. That kind of rewrite lives in the muscles.

    Can Exercise Help With Emotional Eating?

    McGonigal never mentions emotional eating directly. She doesn’t have to.

    For anyone who has used exercise as punishment for food (calculating calories burned against calories eaten, forcing runs to “make up” for a binge, avoiding the gym entirely because it has always been coupled with shame), the entire frame of this book is a quiet intervention.

    Movement isn’t a response to eating. It’s not a remedy, a compensation, or a tax. It’s a separate neurochemical event that generates joy, belonging, and hope through mechanisms that have nothing to do with what you ate. The endocannabinoids don’t care. The hope molecules don’t care. The persistence high activates because you moved, not because you burned anything.

    McGonigal’s chapter on synchronized movement opens up another angle. When bodies move together in rhythm (in a group class, a dance, a walk with a friend), the brain releases oxytocin and amplifies endorphins. Studies show that people who exercise in sync with a partner show higher pain tolerance and greater cooperation than those who exercise identically but out of sync. Ottawa rower Kimberly Sogge describes the moment training reaches full synchrony: “We’re all feeling each other and the movement of the water, and it becomes not clear who is feeling what, because we’re one living entity.”

    Loneliness is a known driver of emotional eating. Group movement offers a neurochemical route to belonging that does not go through food. Not as a replacement, not as a fix. As a parallel source of the same emotional regulation that food can temporarily provide, without the aftermath.

    The chapter on green exercise is worth particular attention for anyone whose emotional eating is driven by anxiety and rumination. Movement in natural environments suppresses the brain’s default mode network (the seat of self-referential loops like “what is wrong with me” and “why can’t I just stop”). Within five minutes of entering a natural environment, people report mood shifts and reduced anxiety. The same walk done outdoors instead of on a treadmill produces meaningfully better psychological outcomes. For people who exercise regularly but still feel empty after, moving the workout outside (and removing performance expectations) often changes everything.

    McGonigal distinguishes between terror and horror in a way that applies directly to exercise avoidance. Terror is anticipatory: the imagined awfulness of the group fitness class where everyone will see you struggle, the dread of the first mile. Horror is actual bad past experience. Most exercise avoidance is terror, not horror. The prediction is almost always worse than the reality. Moving toward terror, staying in the discomfort instead of retreating, is precisely how courage gets built.

    Is The Joy of Movement Worth Reading?

    Read this if you have a complicated or punishing history with exercise and want a way back to movement that isn’t organized around your body or your food. Also valuable if you’ve repeatedly tried to “make yourself exercise” and had it fall apart, or if you’re dealing with loneliness or depression and are open to group movement as part of the picture.

    Skip it if you’re a committed exerciser looking for performance optimization or clinical protocols. McGonigal is a science communicator, not a clinician. She explains why things work better than she prescribes how to deploy them. The book is also essayistic rather than structured; it accumulates emotional weight more than it builds to a conclusion, which some readers find unsatisfying.

    One caveat: a few of the research claims get presented without the caution they’d warrant in a clinical context. The “three times higher depression remission rates” for outdoor movement comes from a single study. The terror/horror framework is psychologically astute but underdeveloped for trauma survivors or people with clinical exercise anxiety. Read it as science journalism with warmth, not as a treatment manual.

    What the book does better than almost anything in the health space: it refuses to moralize. There is no implication that people who don’t exercise are failing. The posture throughout is one of invitation. Here are the systems your brain evolved to make movement rewarding. Here is how to re-engage them. In an industry dominated by shame-based messaging, that is not a small thing.

    Books Like The Joy of Movement

    BookAuthorBest For
    SparkJohn RateyThe clinical neuroscience behind exercise and mental health. More research-dense, less narrative
    Strong CurvesBret ContrerasFor readers ready to act on McGonigal’s identity framework. A practical program built around strength as identity
    The Willpower InstinctKelly McGonigalSame author, earlier book. Applies similar “reframe what you’ve been taught to fear” logic to self-control
    The Hunger HabitJudson BrewerWhere McGonigal addresses movement from the reward side, Brewer addresses compulsive eating from the same neurological angle
    Lean and StrongJosh HillisBridges the gap McGonigal leaves open: how to build the movement practice once you understand why it matters
  • Grocery Meals June 12-18

    Grocery Meals June 12-18

    I’m so happy this new series has received such a positive response. I love good food and I love saving money so sharing how to shop sales and optimize your weekly grocery haul at Whole Foods fills my heart.My hope is to not only share “recipes” and shopping lists but my process, so that you can learn how to feel confident creating meals specific to your tastes too.

    The first thing I do is look through the weekly deals & sales. Each week Whole Foods has dozens of sale items throughout the store, but also special “Prime Member Deals” which are typically priced lower than you can find anywhere else. Prime members also save an additional 10% off all regular sale items so if you aren’t already a Prime Member, sign up for a free trial and see for yourself.

    When scanning the Prime Deals, pay special attention to proteins and produce. This week, Sustainable Wild-Caught Fresh Halibut Fillets and Made In-House Pork Sausages jumped out at me. They also continued the $2 off Rotisserie Chicken deal. To save money, I tend to stick to protein priced at $5-6/pound or less. The halibut is higher than I’d normally pay, but the lower cost of the pork and chicken offset it and I think it’s worth it to treat yourself, especially when there is a deal like this. I then decide which fruits and vegetables suit my taste and start thinking about how I can pair them with protein for tasty meals.I then scan the rest of the sale items (or if in store, I walk down the aisles looking for yellow tags) and see if any of my pantry staples are on special.

    This week, one of my very favorite products is on super sale. If you haven’t tried Rao’s Homemade Marinara Sauces, you are in for a treat. I don’t know how they do it, but it’s incomparable. It’s a premium product normally priced at $8.99, but they really hook it up when sale rolls around as it’s discounted to $4.49! If you take anything away from this weeks post, stock up on Rao’s sauce. My favorite is the spicy Arrabbiata, but all the flavors are delicious. If you’re keto, the sensitive formula omits onions which lends itself to a lower carb count. Bolognese made with ground beef is one of my favorite staples in regular rotation so I will definitely be making that this week.

    As I continue this series, you’ll learn that I always stock up on 1lb increments of ground beef when it’s on sale. It’s a lower-priced cut at regular price so don’t hesitate to buy it for meals this week, but definitely stock up when pasture raised is a Prime Deal at $3-4/lb.

    On the Menu this week:

    • Mediterranean Halibut with Tomatoes, Artichokes, & Capers
    • Tomato, Asparagus, & Feta Salad + Rotisserie Chicken
    • Ground Beef Bolognese with Noodles + Zucchini
    • Spicy Italian Sausage “Egg Roll in a Bowl”
    • Yogurt with Peaches & Raspberries

    I cook for myself so the quantities I buy and discuss are based on meals for one person. I typically prepare 1 pound of protein and split into 4 portions, roughly 4oz each. With the Halibut, I am only buying 1/2 pound because leftover fish ain’t exactly my jam. I will also cook them in the order listed above to optimize for what keeps longest. The beef and sausages can be kept in the freezer until ready to cook.

    In my Cart this week:

    PRODUCE

    MEAT & CHEESE SHELF STAPLES SNACKS
    • Chocolove, Chocolate Bar Salted Almond Butter
    • Lundberg Family Farms Organic Wild Rice Cakes
    STOCK UP & SAVE STAPLES
    • Sausage Pork Link Chorizo
    • Rao’s Homemade Arrabbiata Sauce
    • Natural Calm Magnesium Supplement, 40% off

    Mediterranean Halibut with Tomatoes, Olives, Artichokes, & Capers

    I haven’t made this exact recipe or combination before, but I stumbled upon it when googling to look for a baked halibut, tomato, and zucchini recipe I used to make. It was tasty, but this sounds better. I only have a stovetop these days, so I will be attempting to make this in my cast iron skillet. I really like to keep things simple for a variety of reasons and so I typically only glance at recipes for general timing or flavor guidelines. I haven’t made this yet but I’ll update with details when I do. Most people have an oven so if you aren’t an adventures cook yet, I’d recommend following along the recipe linked above.

    Tomato, Asparagus, & Feta Salad + Rotisserie Chicken

    Summer is when you’ll find the most flavorful tomatoes and we are just kicking off the season. Different varieties will continue to be on sale throughout the summer and I dreamt up this combination to pair with Asparagus, which is also on sale this week. I love to keep feta crumbles and shredded parmesan in the refrigerator. They last a long time and a little goes a long way in amplifying a simple dish.
    1. Whisk together dijon mustard, avocado oil, and lemon juice
    2. Add asparagus to salted boiling water and cook for 4-5 minutes (A good friend recommends peeling asparagus to improve texture. I’ve never tried, but probably will this week and I’ll report back!)
    3. Chop grape tomatoes into halves while the asparagus cooks
    4. Drain asparagus and rinse with cold running water
    5. Toss tomatoes, asparagus, dressing, and feta

    Ground Beef Bolognese with Noodles + Zucchini

    I’ve made this so many times that I could probably make it in my sleep. It’s my number one go-to meal and using Rao’s Homemade Arrabbiata Sauce is my favorite way to do it. Spaghetti and meat sauce is mega comfort food for me and I’ve poured this sauce over all kinds of vegetables and pasta with equal delight. It’s great with zoodles and lately, I have been experimenting with different types of noodles mixed with zoodles. The base recipe couldn’t be easier:
    1. Brown ground beef in large skillet or pot
    2. Feel free to drain excess fat (I don’t) or add spices (sometimes I add Simply Organic Italian Seasoning — If you use Rao’s, it doesn’t really need it.)
    3. Optional step: Add chopped mushrooms or vegetables and saute for a few minutes. You can also do this after the next step. There really is no wrong way to do this.
    4. Add a jar of marinara sauce. Again, you know what I use and I’d suggest you do the same. Other sauces are fine too, but once you use Rao’s I doubt you’ll go back.
    5. Add a little water to the jar and shake it around to clean the jar and use all the sauce. I typically reduce the heat to a simmer and leave it on the back burner for half an hour or more. It’s not necessary, I just think it infuses the meat and vegetables with the sauce. This could be totally in my mind, but this is what I do.
    Because I cook in 1 pound increments with meat, I typically divide this into 4 servings and often freeze 2 to keep on hand for times when I don’t feel like cooking. As I’ve been experimenting with adding in more vegetables, I have been stretching it to 5 or 6 servings, especially if I am eating it over pasta instead of zoodles alone.I use the original spiralizer to make zoodles and I love it. I know there are many more styles available on the market now, but I’ve been using this one for nearly a decade and it still works as well as the day I bought it.The MOST IMPORTANT tip for zucchini noodles is to salt them and let them rest for about 10 minutes. This releases the excess moisture and makes for a more noodle-like texture that doesn’t leave you with a watery sauce.I was on a Banza chickpea spaghetti kick for awhile because I love the flavor and consistency, but I’ve finally admitted that chickpeas make me bloated and gassy so this week I experimented with Modern Table Complete Protein Vegetable Beet Rotini. I really enjoyed it and because it is on sale, I will buy an extra box to keep in the pantry. Spicy Italian Sausage “Egg Roll in a Bowl” You can hardly call this a recipe because I literally brown the sausage and then add in chopped cabbage. I am a simple woman and the spices in the sausage season the cabbage well enough for me to enjoy. On occasion, I will get fancy and add in sesame oil or soy sauce, but I don’t think it needs either. This is also called “crack slaw” and tastes especially delicious reheated in a skillet with an egg.

    Yogurt with Peaches & Raspberries

    I’ve been slowly adding fruit back into my diet and it usually shows up at breakfast. Last week I bought an extra Siggi’s Whole Milk yogurt when it was on sale. The expiration date isn’t until the end of the month so I will eat it again with sliced peaches and raspberries this week. I don’t always want to eat breakfast but like to have an option if I wake up hungry or feel like a snack in the afternoon. One large container is typically 4-5 servings which lasts me a week.
  • Grocery Meals June 5-11

    Grocery Meals June 5-11

    I try to keep things simple so you’ll often see me eating a lot of the same. I shop to optimize savings and build my meals around weekly sales.

    In my cart this week:

    My meals this week:

    • Chicken with veggies in bone broth
    • Taco grass-fed beef stuffed peppers
    • Tuna/Chicken salad with Mary’s crackers
    • Yogurt with blueberries & peanut butter
    • Green soup

    Chicken in Bone Broth

    Rotisserie chickens are a mainstay in my arsenal for easy dinners. The everyday price is always a good deal (it differs by region but an organic chicken is typically $9.99 in San Francisco), but the past few weeks they’ve been $2 off for prime members. I occasionally buy non-organic if I am interested in the featured flavor. Both organic and non-organic are rated “Step 4” so I feel good about the quality either way.

    As soon as I get home, I pull all the meat off the bone. If I’m feeling detail-oriented, I separate the white meat and dark meat as I’ll often use them in different ways (ie: white meat for chicken salads, dark meat when eating plain), but it really doesn’t matter. What’s key is saving the bones and putting them in an instant pot, covering with water, and setting for 90 minutes. This makes super gelatinous gut healing bone broth that can be used throughout the week.

    Chicken in broth isn’t the kind of meal that I get super jazzed about, but it’s quick and easy + always feels nourishing for my body. I find ways to mix it up with add-ins like vegetables, cauliflower rice, or recently rice noodles, depending on what I have on hand. It shouldn’t be complicated. Just add salt + pepper and spices like cumin, smoked paprika, or turmeric, depending on what sounds good. Recently I have been including Lotus Foods black rice noodles and I want to experiment with asian / umami flavors next. Maybe even add in a soft boiled egg?

    (post in progress, please check back and refresh as I toggle between here and instagram #notaprofessionalblogger)

    Taco Stuffed Bell Peppers

    Like most of the world, I love a good taco, and I’m happy with taco flavors in pretty much any form. Taco spiced ground beef is in regular rotation in my kitchen as grass-fed ground beef is budget friendly and I love the taste in any form. This week bell peppers AND grass fed ground beef are on sale so I’m cooking up taco stuffed peppers. These are easy to modify to your dietary preferences and can be roasted in the oven or served cold.

    This meal is great for anyone following a paleo, keto, or even whole 30 way of eating. I’ve also tried a vegan version made with quinoa, and it was surpassingly delicious. Recently I’ve experimented with adding some grains and legumes to the meals I cook at home, which is new for me.

    The basic recipe for taco seasoned meat couldn’t be easier. Brown 1 pound of ground beef until no longer pink. I use half a packet of spicely organic taco seasoning (I stock up when it’s on sale), but I’m out, I’ll just add cumin, chili powder, and salt. I rarely measure and recommend you don’t either. Learning how to intuitively cook and season food is one of the best life skills you can practice and this staple is hard to mess up. If you want to drain the fat, add a tiny bit of water to help everything mix together and then turn down the heat to simmer for a few minutes while prepping the peppers.

    While I have access to an oven, I am roasting the peppers one last time before switching over to colder versions as I shared on instagram (see below). If roasting, you want to slice and put in the oven BEFORE cooking the meat as they can take a while to soften up unless you put in the broiler. There’s no wrong way to roast them but I like them soft and slightly charred which can take up to 30 minutes in an oven at 350.

    Simply scoop the taco meat into the bell pepper shells and top with guacamole, sour cream (I typically use whole milk yogurt but coconut yogurt is also good!), salsa, cheese, etc.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/Bemh0GmHP-G

    Tuna/Chicken Salad

    You probably don’t need me to teach you how to make tuna/chicken/egg salad but maybe you will be inspired by the little things I do to spice it up with little to no effort. This week, Wild Planet Seafood and Primal Kitchen condiments are on sale. I’m a huge fan of PK avocado oil mayo, having used both plain and chipotle flavors for the past few years. I’ve been wanting to try the new garlic aioli version since it came out but I do not buy products like this unless they are on sale so it’s had to wait until this week. I think their chipotle mayo works especially well for a quick tuna/chicken salad that requires no other ingredients and I am excited to see how the garlic aioli flavor works out.

    I also bought Mary’s Gone Crackers, another product I’ve never tried and would only buy on sale. I don’t often eat crackers but this classic combo feels nostalgic so I figured YOLO. I typically eat tuna and chicken salad on a bed of salad greens, green beans, or alongside crudités. Here’s a quick and dirty nicoise inspired version where I added feta and soft boiled egg. Avocado is also a great add-in. So many options and the key to saving time and money is to use what is easy and already on hand.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BCQ_IHgI_GJ/

    Whole Milk Yogurt with Fruit

    I’m pretty loyal to Siggi’s Dairy because I love the thicker consistency, especially in their whole milk and triple cream yogurts. It’s also easy to find nationwide and doesn’t contain any weird ingredients or additives. I usually go for the larger container because it’s cheaper per ounce and I can also use a spoonful for other meals (like the stuffed bell pepper tacos).

    This year I’ve gotten really into blueberries and peanut butter. I actually bought these blueberries last week when they were on sale. This week the organic strawberries at 2/$5 is the best value. There’s something about the combo of fruit and peanut butter that really works for my tastebuds and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top adds a little unexpected “sweetness” — that’s in quotes because it’s not actually a sweetener, but as someone who eats very little sugar, cinnamon does make it sweeter (in my mind?)

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BXkCDxdhP3l/

    Green Soup

    My friend Tynan introduced me to this soup, who was introduced to it by his mother, who saw it in Austin Fit magazine attributed to The Soup Peddler. I found a nearly identical recipe by Liz Moody that appears to be the original. I’ve modified my version and removed “Detox” from the name. Whatever version you choose to follow, I encourage you to make it your own. It is a delicious way to maximize your vegetable intake and easy to batch and freeze. I have frozen into bowl and cube size servings to use in various recipes. I often toss a few cubes into bone broth or tomato sauce for added nutrition. I have made this three times with slightly different variations and it’s hard to mess up. It is not necessary to measure and if you follow the basic instructions, your soup should turn out well. Adding the fresh parsley and cilantro at the end is key for a bright green soup.

    Ingredients 
    Avocado Oil
    1/2 large yellow onion, diced
    2 garlic cloves, minced
    1 large zucchini, diced
    2 whole broccoli crown,
    roughly chopped
    1 bunch kale, de-stemmed
    and chopped
    1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
    1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
    Juice of 1/2 fresh lemon
    Salt and pepper to taste

    Preparation
    Saute onion and garlic in oil until onions are translucent.
    Add zucchini, kale and broccoli.
    Cover with water and cook until all vegetables are very soft. Remove from heat and add cilantro, parsley and lemon juice. Puree with an immersion blender or Vitamix blender. Season with salt and pepper.