The Hormone Balancing Diet that Makes Sense

What you eat can either help or hurt your hormones. Your diet plays a huge role in hormone production and maintaining a proper hormone balance throughout a woman’s life. In this article, we’re talking about the best foods for hormones and the appropriate balance of these foods for happy hormones. We’ll also talk about the foods that lead to major hormonal imbalances and how we can work to crowd these out with the right ones. This hormone balancing diet will flood your body with necessary nutrients, keep you satiated, and help foster the best version of you! 

Why are hormones important?

Hormones are involved in just about everything. Hormones are your body’s chemical messengers and play an important role in all major processes in the body, including growth, development, metabolism, sexual function, skin health, fertility, thirst, mood, stress, brain function, proper digestion, and so much more. Basically, when your hormones are healthy, the rest of your body can function properly. Think of them as the foundation for good health. 

When you experience hormone imbalance, you can experience things like unwanted weight gain, low sex drive, digestion issues, PCOS, irregular periods, increased PMS symptoms, cystic acne, poor sleep, and low mood. 

Our endocrine system (hormonal system) is super complex, but supporting it optimally doesn’t have to be. Today, we’re going to look at a simple diet for hormones throughout a woman’s cycle. 

We’ve talked before about the best hormone balancing foods, and foods to eat for PMS, acne, and adrenal fatigue—but we haven’t dove into the best foods to consume during certain times of your cycle. 

Before we dive into that, let’s talk about which foods to not eat if you want to really work on hormone balance. 

Foods that can lead to hormone imbalances 

There are certain foods (especially when consumed in excess) that can cause imbalances in the body by confusing hormones and wreaking havoc on gut health. Yes, gut health plays a huge role in hormone health. 

• Inflammatory oils: avoid inflammatory seed oils that cause major inflammation in the body and cause hormones to go haywire. 
• Processed sugars: balanced blood sugar is vital for balanced hormones. When blood sugar gets thrown out of whack thanks to high-sugary and high-processed foods, we are sent on a blood sugar roller coaster. High blood sugar symptoms include anxiety, a huge burst of fake energy, followed by a crash. 
• Conventional dairy: conventional dairy (especially here in the US) is loaded with antibiotics and hormones. When we consume this dairy, we also consume antibiotics (that ruin gut health) and hormones (that mess with our natural balance).  
• Gluten: the sad truth is that our wheat is not the same as it used to be. It’s not sprayed with tons of pesticides and herbicides (heavy metals that ruin gut health and hormone health) that cause inflammation and major stress in the body. 
• Simple carbs: simple carbs like white bread, cookies, candy, and pasta all cause blood sugar spikes. Avoid these when possible and switch them out for complex carbs, which we will talk about later on. 

*A tip for blood sugar balance: take a walk after your meal, no black coffee on an empty stomach, and always consume a balanced meal with healthy fat, high-quality protein, complex carbs, and fiber. 

How to Balance Your Hormones Naturally 

Before diving into our specific hormone-balancing diet, we need to talk about lifestyle. As I mentioned above, you really want to remove endocrine disruptors from your diet that are found in conventional dairy, but endocrine disruptors are also found in conventional cosmetics and cleaning products.

 A good rule of thumb and place to start is to remove anything that has the word “fragrance” on the ingredient label. This “ingredient” is an alias for over 3,000 chemicals known as hormone-disruptors and cancer-causing chemicals! Opt for organic and clean makeup as well. But a good place to start is ditching fragrance. 

Next up is to incorporate stress-management practices like yoga, meditation, exercise, and downtime off electronics. Our hormones are impacted by and impact stress in our lives. They let us know if we can be resilient or if we can be crazy! So making sure that you have a daily stress-management practice that you can commit to daily is absolutely essential. 

Menstrual Cycle 101 

Each month, between puberty and menopause, a woman’s body goes through a number of changes. This is a series of hormone-driven events/experiences. A true journey not for the faint of heart (; 

• Menstrual: the start of your period 
• Follicular: 7-10 days leading up to ovulation 
• Ovulatory: 3-5 days of ovulation 
• Luteal: 10-14 days before your period 

During the cycle, an egg develops and is released from the ovaries. If pregnancy doesn’t happen, the uterine lining sheds during the menstrual phase, starting the cycle again. 

Hormone Balancing Diet Plan for Each Phase of Your Cycle 

Menstrual Phase Foods

During the start of your period, hormones are at all all-time low! Prostaglandins are peaking, hello cramping, iron and blood is getting lost, and your happy hormones are at all time low to help you want to come inward, and slow. 

During this phase, focus on nourishing and warming foods that help build iron and assist in iron absorption. Also, focus on antiinflammatory foods and foods that support liver detox and are blood-building. 

• Dark leafy greens: spinach, chard, kale, collard greens 
• Broccoli and broccoli sprouts 
• Turmeric 
• Ginger 
• Cardamom 
• Cinnamon 
• Garlic
• Parsley 
• Curry 
• Kidney beans 
• Chickpeas 
• Strawberries 
• Cherries 
• Citrus fruits 
• Wild blueberries 
• Atlantic dulse 
• Oats!
• Liver 
• Fish 
• Poultry 
• Flax and pumpkin seeds 
• Sweet potatoes 
• Avocado 
• Nettles 
• Raw carrots 

Follicular Phase 

Hormone levels begin to rise, and energy starts to pick up. It’s time to load up on B-vitamins, protein, and cruciferous veggies. It’s also a good time to focus on excess estrogen detoxification. 

• Sweet potatoes, japanese sweet potatoes, white potatoes 
• Olives and olive oil
• Green leafy veggies 
• Nuts and seeds (pumpkin seeds and flax) 
• Mushrooms 
• Raw carrots 

*A note on seed cycling for days 1-14: flax and pumpkin seeds help to improve estrogen levels while preventing excess estrogen. Flax seeds contain lignans which bind to excess estrogen. Pumpkin seeds are high in zinc, which help to support progesterone production. 

Ovulatory Phase 

Around days 11-14, for about 3-5 days, you should ovulate. This is when estrogen peaks, and you feel your most lovely, vibrant, and beautiful! Yup, you probably have a higher sex drive during this time. During this time, you may experience fluid retention or mild constipation. Opt for fiber-rich foods and foods that help nourish the blood. 

• Ginger 
• Parsley
• Celery
• Legumes
• Grass-fed beef
• Wild caught salmon
• Leafy greens 
• Eggs 
• Continue with flax and pumpkin seeds 

Luteal Phase 

This is the phase when progesterone is on the rise, and we are primed for fat-burning. Towards the end of this cycle, we experience a drop in hormones, and hunger will go up. 

• Magnesium-rich foods: spinach, dark chocolate, legumes, avocado, banana, raspberries
• Wild-caught salmon 
• Complex carbs like sweet potatoes 
• Avocado 
• Coconut 
• Sunflower and sesame seeds 
• Quinoa 
• Eggs
• Fresh fruit
• Lean meats
• Cauliflower 
• Chia seeds 

*A note on seed cycling during this phase: sesame and sunflower seeds boost progesterone production. Sesame seeds are high in zinc (boosts progesterone production), and sunflower seeds are high in vitamin E and selenium. Vitamin E also helps to boost progesterone production, while selenium helps to remove excess estrogen. 

Supplements 

The sad fact of the matter is that our foods are not as nutrient-dense as they used to be 50 years ago. Our modern farming and soil require us to eat many more servings of food to get the vitamins and minerals we need. 

This is why I am a huge advocate of supplementing. When it comes to getting greens in, sometimes it can be hard to fit a ton in! That’s why we created our Superfoods Greens powder that is jam-packed with all of the leafy greens, anti-inflammatory foods (think ginger and turmeric), adaptogenic mushrooms, and more. You can find it here. 

Another supplement I always recommend is our Hydration Superfood Energy powder, a non-caffeinated supplement that promotes gentle detox and is loaded with B vitamins, which, as we learned, are essential for hormone production and balance. 

Lastly, our true hormone-balancing hero is our vanilla-honey collagen supplement. This product is packed with adaptogens to balance hormones, collagen for gut health, and zinc for hormone production and balance. 

You can find all of our supplements here. 

I hope this article has provided a guide for the perfect hormone balancing diet. Add these foods and supplements to your must-have-for-healthy-hormones list, and you’ll be golden. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below.