After the age of 40, women’s estrogen begins to decline. Unfortunately this doesn’t usually happen in a steady, calm way, but often what feels more like a wild roller coaster ride!

First let’s talk about why we have hot flashes. The decline in estrogen triggers the hypothalamus in the brain, which believes it needs to heat the body up, raising your body temperature and creating what feels like a “hot flash”. The good news is there are many ways to manage hot flashes naturally.

Three types of Estrogen

3 Types of estrogen

Women have 3 types of estrogen, two are helpful estrogens and one is a harmful, cancer causing estrogen. So women approaching or going through menopause will want to support the good types of estrogen while minimizing the bad. You can test and measure your levels of these 3 types of estrogen with a Dutch Hormone Test.

2-OH is the most helpful estrogen. You can get this type of estrogen through mold and pesticide free coffee, flaxseed oil, and leafy green vegetables.
4-OH is the harmful, cancer causing estrogen. This can be raised as a result of high leptin or insulin resistance.
16-OH is the second helpful estrogen and this particular estrogen is broken down in the liver. Therefore, to successfully metabolize and break down this estrogen for your body to use, the liver needs to be functioning well. The best thing you can do to help 16-OH is to keep the liver and detox pathways open, and minimize toxins like alcohol, acetaminophen (aka Tylonol) and pain relievers.

I go into much more detail about what happens to women’s bodies during menopause in my book, The Menopause Reset.

Which types of fasting will help hot flashes?

During menopause you want to be particularly careful about keeping the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian (HPO) axis communication lines clear. These communication pathways can often get clogged, leading to poor signaling inside the body, which can then lead to unpleasant symptoms.

Autophagy Fast: My favorite fast for this Autophagy fasting. Autophagy is a process that helps your cells “take out the garbage”, removing damaged cells in order to generate newer, healthier cells. It entails 17 hours of fasting with specific macros, so watch this to find out how to autophagy fast.

Gut reset fast: My second favorite fast for hot flashes is a 24 hour fast. A 24 hour fast will increase intestinal stem cell regeneration, which in turn helps the body use the little estrogen you are producing efficiently. When the gut microbiome is compromised, your body will be less efficient at breaking down and using estrogen in a healthy way.

====> Learn all about the 6 styles of fasting I teach and how to do each one!

Other hacks for hot flashes

Tip #1. Avoid the Standard American Diet (SAD)! This means fast food, restaurant foods, harmful vegetable oils, refined flours, sugars, bad fats and all processed foods.

Tip #2. Stay hydrated

Tip #3. Avoid antibiotics and products that contain antibiotics, like commercially grown meats, hand sanitizers and harsh cleaning products that kill the microbiome.

Tip #4. Increase estrogen balancing foods

Best foods for estrogen balance

Brussel sprouts
Kale
Broccoli
Artichoke
Leafy greens
Fermented foods
Orange and red peppers
Onion
Garlic
Beets
Carrots
Flaxseed
Cilantro, dill, fennel, parsley
Cumin
Berries
Polyphenol foods
Cabernet Franc wine…did you know that Cabernet Franc wines have the highest amount of resveratrol, a natural polyphenol that will help raise good estrogen and break down the bad. However, make sure the wine you are drinking is ALWAYS toxin-free, the one I drink is Dry Farm Wines.