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The Plant Powered Collective Podcast helps women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond live vibrantly and nourish boldly. Hosted by integrative nutrition coach Lori Willinski, each episode blends science-backed nutrition with approachable strategies for hormone balance, energy, and healthy aging. Rooted in lifestyle medicine and personalized coaching, Lori shares her story of thriving on plants since age 14 and managing autoimmune disease with nutrition. Discover how a plant powered lifestyle fuels not only your health, but also your leadership and your future self.
Welcome back to the Plant Powered Collective podcast. I'm Lori Walinski, integrative nutrition coach and founder of the Plant Powered Collective, where we nourish boldly and live vibrantly every day. Last week we talked about gut health. We explored how the microbiome influences aging, brain health, and hormone balance. Today we're building on that conversation because our gut and our nervous systems are constantly communicating and one of the most important influences in that conversation is food.
Speaker 1:Today we're talking about nutrition as nervous system support. Not dieting, you know I don't like that word. Not perfection, not control, but steady supportive nourishment that helps our bodies feel safe. So many women in midlife are not struggling because they lack discipline. We are navigating leadership and caregiving and relationships and community commitments and shifting hormones and changing sleep patterns.
Speaker 1:That's a lot and our nervous systems feel it. So let's talk about how food can help regulate and steady us. So if you're ready, let's dive into the podcast.
Speaker 2:Do you ever wonder what is happening to your body? I know I do. And here's the thing. We're gonna talk about the nervous system today. And we
Speaker 1:have two main nervous system modes, fight or
Speaker 2:flight or rest and repair. Fight or flight is protective. It helps us respond to stress. But when it stays too often, digestion slows, sleep becomes lighter, blood sugar becomes more variable, and hormones feel less steady. Our bodies are incredibly intelligent.
Speaker 2:They are always working to protect us. But they rely on signals that things are stable. One
Speaker 1:of the most powerful signals of safety is rhythm. Our bodies thrive on rhythm. We wake up feeling alert because cortisol naturally rises in the morning. We wind down at night because melatonin increases. Digestion works best when meals are predictable.
Speaker 1:Even our gut bacteria follow daily cycles based on when we eat. When our days become chaotic, our bodies work harder to compensate. So let's make this real.
Speaker 2:If we skip breakfast, rely on coffee, move through meetings, and do not eat until midafternoon, blood sugar drops. When blood sugar drops, the body interprets that as stress. Stress hormones rise to bring glucose back up. And that can feel like irritability, shakiness, brain fog, cravings, and late afternoon crashes. This is not
Speaker 1:a character flaw. It is physiology. Now let's add menopause into this. Talk about a double whammy. As estrogen and progesterone fluctuate and decline our bodies often become more sensitive to blood sugar swings.
Speaker 1:Estrogen supports insulin sensitivity. When it shifts, glucose regulation may feel less smooth. Progesterone has calming effects on the brain and when it declines, we may feel more wired or restless. In midlife, our
Speaker 2:margin for chaos narrow in midlife, our margin for chaos narrows. Irregular meals that once felt manageable may now leave us feeling anxious or depleted. I mean, I know that is like
Speaker 1:that for me for sure. This is not failure. It is our biology asking for steadiness. And here is where last week's gut conversation connects. Our gut and brain communicate constantly through the gut brain access.
Speaker 1:Our gut bacteria respond to when we eat. If meals are erratic, microbial rhythms may shift.
Speaker 2:When the gut environment becomes unsettled, inflammation may increase. When inflammation increases, the brain senses stress. Stress hormones rise again and it becomes a loop. Stress affects the gut. The gut affects stress.
Speaker 2:But if we can interrupt that loop with something simple, and that simplicity is consistent nourishment. It doesn't have to be perfect,
Speaker 1:but it does need to be consistent.
Speaker 2:For many women in midlife rhythm can look like: Eating within an hour of waking up. Including protein at breakfast. Eating every three to four hours while awake.
Speaker 1:Pairing carbohydrates with fiber and healthy fats, avoiding caffeine on an empty stomach, creating consistent sleep and wind down patterns. This is not rigid scheduling,
Speaker 2:it's reassurance Because we are telling our bodies there is enough. Energy is coming. We are safe. And safety lowers stress hormones. Lower stress hormones support better sleep.
Speaker 2:Better sleep supports more stable hormones. More stable hormones support mood, metabolism and resilience. So you're seeing a pattern here, a rhythm because all of
Speaker 1:it is connected. Sleep and nourishment and hormones and metabolism and mood and resilience and stability.
Speaker 2:Now let's talk about what nutrition we include.
Speaker 1:Magnesium rich foods like leafy greens and pumpkin seeds support relaxation and muscle ease. Plant proteins like lentils and tofu and beans provide amino acids to our brain
Speaker 2:so that our brain can make neurotransmitters.
Speaker 1:B vitamins from legumes and whole grains support energy production. Omega-three fatty acids from walnuts and flaxseeds help reduce inflammation. Fermented foods like miso support our gut microbiome, which in turn supports the gut brain connection we talked about last week. But nutrients work best within rhythm. We cannot out supplement skipped meals in chronic stress.
Speaker 1:There has to be consistency first and then quality. There is one more layer to all of this. We can prepare a nourishing meal. How we eat matters too. That's the one extra layer on top of the rhythm.
Speaker 1:It's important to prepare a nourishing meal but if we eat while standing scrolling multitasking
Speaker 2:our bodies may not fully shift into that digestion mode. We need to have that rhythm. Before our next meal, I invite you to try something simple. Place both feet on the floor. Take one slow breath.
Speaker 2:In. And then release that breath slowly. Then pause.
Speaker 1:That moment signals safety to your body.
Speaker 2:And safety supports digestion, and digestion helps with that rhythm that we talked about, that our body won't be in fight or flight, that it'll be in rest and restore.
Speaker 1:Let's bring this into the kitchen. So this is a grounding, steadying soup. You know I like to talk about a recipe that supports blood sugar and gut health.
Speaker 2:And so it's a lentil soup that my sister-in-law taught me.
Speaker 1:It's olive oil and leeks, carrots and celery and garlic and ginger and turmeric, red lentils, vegetable broth, cauliflower, zucchini, kale, miso, squeeze a lemon, and then pumpkin seeds that you can put on top for just that little bit of crunch.
Speaker 2:Don't worry about writing all of that down.
Speaker 1:I know it sounds like a lot, but I promise you this soup comes together within thirty minutes. And, basically, all that you need to do is saute all of the vegetables together,
Speaker 2:add the lentils, add the broth,
Speaker 1:and simmer until the lentils
Speaker 2:soften and the the cauliflower breaks down and it becomes like this beautiful creamy, soup. And then you turn off the heat. Stir in the dissolved miso. Add in the kale. Put a squeeze of lemon, some smoked paprika, and you're all set.
Speaker 2:You have this beautiful satiating soup that is perfect for any time, but particularly the winter. And, you know, the protein in this soup provides steadiness. The fiber in the soup provide is great for your microbiome. The minerals calm your nervous system, and the warmth of this soup just adds a comfort level, that just makes everything okay. This soup is simple, it's supportive, and it's rhythm in a bowl.
Speaker 1:Now here's something that I just wanna talk about too about real life integration. There are seasons when nourishment requires intention, Like busy weekends, like I had, last weekend when I was at Art Fest Fort Myers, and I talked about that in last week's podcast.
Speaker 2:Travel. We know that when
Speaker 1:we travel and we have to eat out a lot or we're staying at a family member's house and we're trying to eat well. Leadership events. How many times have you been to
Speaker 2:a leadership event and all it is is bagels in
Speaker 1:the morning, sandwiches with lunch meat in the afternoon, brownies and cookies for the afternoon snack, and then going out
Speaker 2:to dinner with drinks with, you know, your colleagues. And caregiving. You know, I know I eat different than my parents. And right now,
Speaker 1:you know, my father has dementia. And when I do go out to eat with him and bring him out, I don't eat the way that I normally eat. I eat the way that he likes to eat. I bring him to different types of restaurants that I would go to. And so all of those things, the busy weekends, the travel, the leadership events, the caregiving, it all upsets
Speaker 2:that that nourishment and that intention.
Speaker 1:But in those seasons, when we do those things, we can simplify. We can batch cook. We can prepare soups like the one I was just talking about. We can avoid caffeine on an empty stomach.
Speaker 2:We can prioritize regular meals, not out of rigidity, but out of respect for our biology. Because regulation and that rhythm builds resilience. I invite you this week to have a little bit of rhythm, not perfection, but rhythm. Think about that arc of when you eat, when you rest and digest, when you put both feet on the floor, when you take that breath in and slowly that breath out to get your body ready to accept the nutrition that you're giving it. Just that small rhythmic nutrition and intention and see how you feel.
Speaker 2:See if you're still in fight or flight. See if you still feel that irritability, that brain fog, that unsteadiness, or if it helps. Let me know. I'd be really interested to hear from you.
Speaker 1:So here's our takeaway. Our nervous systems thrive on rhythm. When we eat regularly, support our gut and create small daily anchors, we shift from survival mode into repair mode. We do not need perfection. We just need consistency.
Speaker 1:If this episode resonated we can take the next step together. Visit plantpowercollective.com and book a complimentary nutrition strategy session. We will look at our current rhythm and gently refine it to support our nervous systems and hormones. If this conversation felt helpful, subscribe and share it with someone navigating midlife stress or menopause. Next week we will talk about protein in midlife and why it becomes increasingly important in the season.
Speaker 1:Until then let's take one breath before our next meal and nourish boldly and live vibrantly. I will see you next time.