Fast fact: 80% of women who are in their menopause stage experience night sweats, brain fog, and frustration with weight loss.
Are you one of them?
In this week’s podcast episode, we got to talk to Dr. Mary Claire Haver, founder, and creator of the Galveston Diet. She talks about her experience and expertise on:
Dr. Mary Claire Haver is a Board Certified OBGYN. Dr. Haver has delivered thousands of babies, completed thousands of well woman exams, counseled patients, taught residents and did everything an academic professor and OBGYN could do. As her patient population aged, she was overwhelmed with the number of complaints and concerns her patients had with weight gain while going through menopause.
For years, she told her patients to eat less and exercise more. It wasn’t until she, too, experienced the changes of menopause that she realized this advice doesn’t work. Dr. Mary Claire Haver is the founder and creator of The Galveston Diet, the first and only nutrition program in the world created by a Female OBGYN, designed for women in menopause. The Galveston Diet is dedicated to helping women reach their health and wellness goals through an anti-inflammatory approach to nutrition.
---
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Fast fact: 80% of women who are in their menopause stage experience night sweats, brain fog, and frustration with weight loss.
Are you one of them?
In this week’s podcast episode, we got to talk to Dr. Mary Claire Haver, founder, and creator of the Galveston Diet. She talks about her experience and expertise on:
Dr. Mary Claire Haver is a Board Certified OBGYN. Dr. Haver has delivered thousands of babies, completed thousands of well woman exams, counseled patients, taught residents and did everything an academic professor and OBGYN could do. As her patient population aged, she was overwhelmed with the number of complaints and concerns her patients had with weight gain while going through menopause.
For years, she told her patients to eat less and exercise more. It wasn’t until she, too, experienced the changes of menopause that she realized this advice doesn’t work. Dr. Mary Claire Haver is the founder and creator of The Galveston Diet, the first and only nutrition program in the world created by a Female OBGYN, designed for women in menopause. The Galveston Diet is dedicated to helping women reach their health and wellness goals through an anti-inflammatory approach to nutrition.
---
Assess your Adrenals, Detox or Get my Guide
Join us on Instagram
instagram.com/anti.inflammatory.nutritionist/
Shop our Favorites
Loving the podcast? Leave us a review!
spk_0: 0:00
your nutrition can make a huge impact. Asked you how you handle the menopause changes that you can dramatically lower your inflammatory levels are Students are talking about how they're sleeping better. The brain fog is better simply by changing what they're eating and how they're eating it. Welcome to the less stress life podcast, where our only priority is providing those aha moments toe up level your life, health and happiness.
spk_1: 0:25
Your host Integrative dietitian nutritionist Krista Bigler, helps health conscious women reduce the stress and confusion around food, fatigue, digestive and skin issues at less stress. Nutrition dot com Now onto the show Okay, it's it's time to get jazzed. Get your jazz hands out because today is the official launch of the woman's health Flash brief Keane and some of you would say cool. And some of you would say, What the heck is a flash brief mean? Well, do you know Alexa? Alexa, what's the Temperature Elect? So what's the weather going to be this week? Alexa, Tell me a joke, Alexa. That little device that Amazon sells you that's getting equipped in cars and will is projected itI as common as a household TV. So Alexa has these flash briefings or skills so you can have it do a lot of things, but ours gives you 1 to 2 minutes off high value packed women's health stuff. Just this week, we have what it looks like to have a hormone imbalance. What pieces go into that? What it looks like if you want to get testing from your primary care provider if you think you have a hormone imbalance, what to not forget to get from your doctor? If you think you have a hormone imbalance regarding testing, what it looks like give you a blood sugar imbalance and your hang gree so really great stuff. I am stoked about it. We will have. I will remind you a few more times. Don't worry. So go Dear Lexa, say to her, Alexa, add the woman's health minute flash briefing. And that's it. So enjoy. And if you subscribe, tell me I would love to hear it. Go to less stress life dot com and click on the widget for speak Pipe and drop me a voice mail talk to using okay today on the less stress life we have, Dr Mary Claire Haber, who is a board certified o b G Y n Dr Haber has delivered thousands of babies, completed thousands of all woman exams, counsel patients and taught residents, and did everything that an academic prevents professor and O b g y n could do but asked her patient population aged, she was overwhelmed with the number of complaints and concerns her patients had with weight gain. While going through menopause for years, she told her patients to you last in exercise more. It wasn't until she to experience the same changes of menopause when she realized that this advice simply doesn't work. Dr. Mary Claire Haber is the founder and creator of the Galveston Die at the first and only nutrition program in the World, Created by a female O. B. G. Y N, designed for women in menopause, the Galveston Die is dedicated to helping women reach their health and wellness goals through an anti inflammatory approach to nutrition, something we like to talk about a lot on the less stress life. Welcome to the show. Thank you. So we were chatting a little off air and we were talking about just some background of the Galveston die and whatnot, so I think that's a great place, Thio. The maybe start is with your story because unfortunately, your story is a lot like a lot of other people story, which is why, you know, we read about it. We just immediately resonate, right, Because a lot of people are feeling in a similar way. You were so tell us a little bit about your story and kind of what led you here. When I
spk_0: 3:38
started practicing medicine, I went into a traditional ove Hee jin busy clinic practice, and I sat across from thousands of women and I was in my late twenties, thirties at the time, and I would occasionally have the patient who was approaching menopause attended to age with my patients. But when I would hear them talk about, you know, Dr Haber, I don't understand what's happening. I'm doing the same things. I'm really eating healthy. I'm working out, and all of a sudden, as I'm going through menopause, I've got this £15 tire around my midsection and I cannot get rid of it. And I just started hearing it over and over and over and over again, and I did what I was taught. I've really had very little nutrition training in medical school? None really. And I would just pat him on the knee and kind of, you know, just so well, you're probably not working out hard enough. And are you really tracking your calories? You really, really paying attention to these things And I feel like a hypocrite, because when it happened to me, I realized I just sat there in shock and I thought, Oh, my gosh, I have sat across from these women and did what I was taught, but I basically was telling him something that makes zero sense and doesn't work. And I felt terrible, and I'm like, I've got to fix this. So I started researching. Yeah, so I at the time worked in a large academic institution, and we have at the time we had a amazing nutrition department, so I marched down there. I delivered several of those babies and taking care of many of the faculty. So I marched in on what what is happening, and they laughed and said, Oh, you know, it's kind of normal. I said, Normal hasn't lots of people do it or normal as, and there's nothing you can do about it. And I said, Oh,
spk_1: 5:31
no, no,
spk_0: 5:31
no. You could do stuff about it So they pointed me to studies. There's not that many that were specifically done for women our age in this mid life transition, mostly done on the elderly or 25 year old male athletes. And so is that. Okay, let me take this data and let's meet in the middle somewhere. And let me look at these concepts. Do you do a deeper dive? And what kept coming up time and time again was information, information, information and how nutrition fits into that. I was like, Okay, this is where I'm going to start. I'm gonna focus on what we know scientifically is real ways to fight implement chronic inflammation. Not acute, of course. Chronic inflammation simply due to aging simply due to menopause. And what nutritional changes can we make to help fight that? And when I took those principles and put them into practice, it was literally what magic for my students who decided to jump into the program.
spk_1: 6:25
So let's go back and talk about what specifically happens in the body when we're transitioning to peri. Menopause is the phase before menopause. Kind of witnesses that give us the lay of the land. Maybe first. When does this happen? How long does it last? And then let's talk about what's going on in the body.
spk_0: 6:43
Sure, so the minute plus transition can affect a woman anywhere from her late forties into her Excuse me, her late thirties into her forties, the average age of actual menopause, which by medical definition is the cessation of your periods for over a year. That average age is 51 which is my age right now. And but the process of the ovary shutting down starts late thirties to early forties, so you will start having these hormonal fluctuations and changes you know, for seven years is the average before you actually get to the ending period of menopause. At the same time, we're also going through a natural, aging process. This has nothing to do with menopause. You know us men and women go through it together. So
spk_1: 7:26
when we
spk_0: 7:27
look at what's happening as faras inflammation goes, the best way of seeing, it explained, is something called the perfect Storm. And there's three components to that. Number one is simple, aging and It's the natural breakdown, a cellular function. Over time, we expect it. No one expects Philip forever. It's just part of being a human being, however, and what here's what I learned in my studies is that process is exquisitely sensitive to what nutrition you put in your body. That's the kind of the missing piece I didn't realize. And when you look at a traditional Western diet or standard American diet, depending on how you call it, it is filled with things that cause tremendous amounts of chronic inflammation on a daily basis. So the second component of the perfect storm for women specifically is the menopause change. And lo and behold, when you look at blood tests that measure inflammation done on women and pre during and post menopause, those inflammatory markers start rising and go up dramatically through the end of the menopause. Transition to just being menopausal causes inflammation outside of aging. The third thing is that when you're dealing with inflammation, we start weight gain is a side effect of inflammation and specifically weight gain around our midsection, and when we have, that's a trip little obesity that that that tire that forms that was not there Before that those fat cells themselves become an endocrine organ and pump out Maur inflammatory hormones. You got these three things putting you into a negative feedback cycle like this vortex starts spinning. And you know, here we are trying to continue to raise our families, deal with teenagers, aging parents, everything going on at the stage of our lives. You know, some people are like having that bonus, baby, you know? So now you've got a kindergartner at 45 all of these life stresses and changes that are particular to women our age, plus things that we never thought that we could control. But it turns out we can control a lot of it. We just didn't know how before.
spk_1: 9:27
The great point. I want to go back a little bit too kind of some of the transition and some of the other. We're talking about weight gain or this Tyrus sort of like a big symptom that is really glaring at people. And I think people sometimes that tribute that's in that particular symptom to the other symptoms they're having. But what are some other common symptoms people start to see or feel as this on sets?
spk_0: 9:50
Sure. Well, for women specifically, as we start going through, the change is associated with the menopause. We will see. Uh, hot flashes is one of the most common. About 80% of women will experience these hot flushes, and we call them night sweats. They do happen at night, but they can happen any time during the day. But sometimes during the day were so busy, we don't notice them it much. But at night they quite often can which us up. And it will cause disrupted sleep in which, in and of itself, if you're not getting adequate sleep, that's leading to more. You know, stress, inflammation, etcetera. Another thing that happens is your mental status. Sending people aren't thinking as clear on and we think it's because of the inflammation. They're having more brain fog. They're struggling to remember, you know, where was I going? What was I doing? And we see that a lot more in menopause, we also see some emotional changes. Women, You know you're not sleeping well. You're having these were hot flushes. You're gaining weight. All of that kind of feeds into this change and emotional status. We Seymour depression, More anxiety, Um, as well as like I talked about before. The life changes that tend to go on at this age is well leading to more psychiatric issues as well.
spk_1: 11:08
So this various for different people, right? Like some people say, Hey, my transition into menopause was actually quite smooth. And others would say this is like health. And so why is that a little bit different for different people? Um, some of it,
spk_0: 11:23
probably some of it is genetic, for sure. You know, if your mom kind of sailed through it, you've got a pretty good chance that you might still through it as well. However, here's what we've learned. Um, through our research is that your nutrition can make a huge impact. Asked you how you handle the menopause changes that you can dramatically lower your inflammatory levels are students were talking about how they're sleeping better. The brain fog is better simply by changing what they're eating and how they're eating it.
spk_1: 11:52
Yeah, that's those are always fun stories to hear. So, you know, you mentioned earlier in the perfect storm talking about not only the aging process of cells, which I'd like to touch a little bit more on and then the process of menopause itself. So the ups and downs or the fluctuations that are happening in hormones that are new or different, sort of. So let's talk about what's going on and kind of where hormones are coming from from the ovaries, then transitioning to the adrenal glands. Let's talk about that a little bit. Let's get familiar with those hormones. Maybe first. So we've got estrogen, progesterone, DHEA, G A. What else? Let's talk about those and how you like to think about those and I fit in.
spk_0: 12:28
Well, there's estrogen. There's a little bit of testosterone. There's progesterone. Esther represents around predominantly before the menopause transition, producing the ovary, and you have the H E A, which is produced in the adrenal gland. I don't have it done. A lot of research on our join a pause, you know, when we talk about what changes happen with the adrenal glands. But I've got the overs on lock down and they don't just shut down overnight. It is a very it's like untold Kharj elope. If I'm dating myself here I am 51 but you know, a really old car that is on its last leg. It doesn't just kind of die. You tend to get this sputtering dit dit dit dit dit dit dit dit dit And then, you know, you know, run okay for a little while and then you'll hit a bump in it'll, you know, kind of spazz for a little while. But it doesn't quite die, and you'll get another burst of energy out of the car. And the ovaries are the same where the overall trend is down as faras the amount of hormones that were producing. But it doesn't happen overnight hints We get this 7 to 8 year, you know, transition phase.
spk_1: 13:41
So you know what I think about when we're talking about the normal stresses you were talking about? I loved the bonus baby and kind of Howard's sort of just kind of trying to carry on. But other things are going on our body that some things were not paying attention to. But if I think about the importance of D H E A and how that's coming from adrenal and when we're we're seeing the shift of how hormones are produced from like the ovaries are kind of saying I'm done having babies now and now we're gonna move into a different phase of life. Andi adrenals, come in and take a little bit more of the work. I think that we're not always giving as much credit Thio like Okay, So if we've already got a new overscheduled life, let's go right with that. Because that's easier to say than stress. We already got a really overscheduled life. And then we're entering this phase where, by the way, our body actually needs to utilize our organ. That is, our organs that air so much that are well known for their stress, resilience or stress response. Then I think, you know, we're not really serving ourselves, I guess, eh? So how often do you see stress is like a big piece of how significant symptoms are? And then the challenges is that it then fuels. What gets me is that people become so stressed out by their weight gain in a Z move into menopause that it's like a double edged sword.
spk_0: 14:56
Exactly Like I talked about the vortex. You're just feeding back into it and our adrenals or stressed but overworked with besides being overscheduled, our dream was over work because they are picking up the slack. And cortisol is thean product of, you know, that's our stress hormone. But, you know, again, court is all too much of it can lead to elevated blood sugars. I mean, all of it feeds into each other. Nothing is separate. So when you try to tease out how much of a distress, how much I think you just get into this crazy traffic circle where things were flying around so fast. But the good news is that it looks like that traffic circle can slow down quite a bit, just with nutritional changes.
spk_1: 15:39
And actually, I want to talk about the nutritional changes. But before we leave hormones, I think it's easy to say, like, What about the role of hormone replacement therapy? So my body doesn't want to make these things anymore, So I'm just gonna go take them, talk to us about that because that's a pretty common thing people are doing. They have. Maybe we should just mention to synthetic versus bio identical hormones.
spk_0: 15:59
It's interesting, because in my residency training, you know, we weren't taught a lot of non pharmacologic options as much as here. Take this pill we're gonna give you back with your body is missing. I said that phrase 1000 times in my practice because that's what I was taught. You know, HRT definitely has a role for bone density. It has a role for hot flashes on dhe some of the vessel motor, the vascular motor symptoms associated with menopause. But when we specifically look at inflammation levels, the HRT replacement, you don't see that decrease. And so that's what I just found fascinating. And the only thing that seemed to help was nutritional changes with lowering the inflammatory levels.
spk_1: 16:42
Okay, so let's talk about nutrition. You know what specifically changes? Do you mean like, what is an anti inflammatory approach to nutrition Look like at this age, as opposed to other stages of life,
spk_0: 16:55
Our youth allows us to get away with a lot. Um, you know, ourselves are more resilient. They're they're more plastic. They can kind of take the bumps and bruises. But you know, as we start really hitting the aging process hard, you just can't feed yourself those things anymore. Uhm and not expect to have some detriments so specifically in Galveston diet. When we talk about an anti inflammatory approach. It's to prompt. It's eliminating the things that we know cause general information, inflammation for everyone and that, And it's pretty common sense things now. It is things that are, you know, simple sugars, things that are processed, meaning that the first sample, all cereals and grains, are not necessarily bad. But when you strip the wheat germ and the brand off, you're taking away the fiber and the nutrients and the minerals, and you're just leaving sugar behind. So when you look at artificial foods that are optimized by the food industry, and they've had added chemicals to make them prettier, to make them smell better, to make them taste stronger, you know, have the taste pop on the tongue. All added with things that we were never meant to eat us as human beings. Anyway, those caused tremendous levels of information. So that's the first form. Let's get rid of the things that we know we shouldn't be eating okay, because they cause inflammation and there's multiple studies documenting all this. Then let's start adding in things that are rich in anti inflammatory components and antioxidants. So again, kind of a no brainer But people need to be told fruits, vegetables, eating the rainbow, eating things that are high in fiber eating things that are high and polyunsaturated Fatty acids specifically will make it three, um, on the flipside Omega six and abundance, which is what most Americans have way too high Don't like a six in their diet. Is hiring inflammatory as well? So in Galveston diet, we really break down those components, talk about it and then give people kind of a framework of here are good things to eat. And here are things you know, I hate to say you have to avoid everything that poison. Um, but there are things you can eat a lot of as much as you want of and just feel, you know, fill your body with this. And here are things you can have very, very occasionally.
spk_1: 19:02
I like that semi balanced approach to it. Um, because I think part of the unknown, like undiscussed side effect of all of this is that people end up with a really poor food relationship right there. Kind of like a yo yo dieting. And essentially, because they're so frustrated that what they were doing isn't working anymore and why the heck isn't working. So I'm gonna try all these things and like, before you know it, you've gone into this spiral or vortexes. You call it, and it's just it's not healthy in all the ways, right? And it's just not healthy for our brain, either.
spk_0: 19:34
And, you know, in Galveston, I called out some diet Galveston just for ease. But we do A lot of you know, we have some mind work there as well as to forgive yourself. And every day's a new day and starting fresh. And, you know, when you get a flat tire, don't. My favorite is when you get a flat tire, don't slash the other three, you know? Okay, just start over tomorrow. It's fine. You have the rest of your life to figure this out.
spk_1: 19:58
Yeah, I love that. I'm a analogy fan. I like that one. I'll be adding that to my library of analogies. So you mentioned that this that menopause really is this perfect storm of aging, You know, the menopausal hormone swings and then fat cells that form around that the midsection become the endocrine organ about aging cells. Are we talking about mitochondrial function in the cells on dhe. Sometimes we use, so I won't talk about that and then concerns about the insuring. We're getting enough nutrients into the cells.
spk_0: 20:29
So the mitochondria service a great marker for aging. Um, we inherit them all from our mother, and they're very It's a very specific organ, l you know, in the cells that we have. And, um, it is what scientists used to kind of track the aging process. There's It's a very long by a chemical, you know, process to understand. But they're easy to measure, and they seem to be a hallmark of aging, the function of the mitochondria.
spk_1: 21:02
You know, it seems like you had said earlier you got into research and the research was not as robust as you wanted it to be, especially for the age group you were working with. Sounds like you're having your future role is to mentor someone to do research on menopausal women for the for the approaches they're using. Is that something you thought about?
spk_0: 21:22
That is definitely something I have thought long and hard about. Um, it's on the radar, probably in the next five years is to get back into academics. I've taken a break from clinical practice from one I am 51 years old, and getting up at three in the morning on a nightly basis to deliver babies is beautiful. But it is hard, and I have two teenage daughters soon evening and her husband, who works overseas. So part of my success with the Galveston diet allowed me to back off, you know, financially back off from clinical practice and just focus on this for a while. But once I get both girls in college, I'll have a lot more free time to get back in academics and get some studies. Some real studies going.
spk_1: 22:01
Yeah, I've always been a lot of empathy for, oh bees, because it's like a gift. But they really do have the worst call schedule ever, depending on how they serve their kinds having babies. And oftentimes, I mean, if if you want to be catching your own babies
spk_0: 22:12
Yeah, O r. I did that for her and then until I just couldn't I still practice. I work four shifts a month as a hospitalist, so I go in for 24 hours, do everything that needs to be done and then not go home.
spk_1: 22:25
Yeah, it's a good experience to kind of jump back into what's really bothering or what's really kind of happening. So you've given us a really proud I think. I think you've given us a really practical approach to dealing with something that is so common but doesn't have to be the norm. What if there's a woman listening to this today that says, Man, thank you for boiling them down for me. Thank you for helping me think I'm not crazy and for dispelling that I don't have to count all these calories and exercise more in the last. What you want to say to that women. If she could start one thing today, Thio move her in the right direction.
spk_0: 23:05
I would tell her to look at intermittent fasting. It's free. It's easy. It is daunting to think about, but it actually of all the component. We have three components of Galveston diet. It is the one that seems the most daunting, but it is the one that people take to the easiest, enjoy the most and feel like they've conquered something, and it you really start seeing the scale start moving when you start intermittent fasting.
spk_1: 23:32
Dr. Haber, where can people find you online?
spk_0: 23:35
So we have our website, which is Galveston diet dot com that has we have a free meal plan that you can download full of good stuff. There's I have a blogger there, lots of great information. It will also take you If you want to learn more about the Galveston Diet Signature program, which is an all online course, it's $49.1 time fee. There's no subscription with the online course. It's a self study program. I go through all the components of the plan. There's five weeks of meal plans, and, um, there's a 30 day money back guarantee.
spk_1: 24:08
Come on. Well, Dr Haber, thanks for coming on today and sharing your story, which is the story of so many others out there that needed to hear it.
spk_0: 24:17
All right. I loved it. Thank you so much. One
spk_1: 24:19
of the best gift you could give us at the less stress life is your feedback. We are paid in podcast reviews. If you enjoy this or any other episode, please leave us a review in the iTunes store or from your podcast app. Just search for less dress life as if you're not already subscribed. Click on the banana Face image scroll to the bottom, where it shows the text of other reviews and write a review while you're there. Hey, make sure you hit. Subscribe for Android or stitcher users. You gotta go to the desktop site and search for less dress life and then scroll down to leave a review. Stitcher doesn't load Apple reviews on their site, so if you want, you can leave a review in both places. Your feedback means a lot to the success of the show. Thanks so much for taking the time to do that, you rock.