Eating For You

Is it really possible to lose weight during perimenopause or after menopause? And could focusing on the scales actually make healthy eating harder?

Changes in body composition can begin in your 40s, but that doesn't mean you need another menopause diet or a completely different approach to eating.

In Episode 190 of the Eating for You Podcast, I explore why protecting muscle, bone and nutritional health matters more than simply chasing a target weight.

You'll discover:

• Why weight loss is still possible during and after menopause.

• Why muscle, bone and body composition deserve more attention than the scales.

• How restrictive eating can affect nourishment, cravings and emotional eating.

• Why mindful eating and good nutrition work better together.

• How one woman's experience illustrates a more sustainable way of eating.

If you've spent years losing and regaining weight, this conversation offers a different place to begin.

Ready for a more personalised way of eating?

Book a complimentary 30-minute Mindful Eating Strategy Call with Sallyanne Pisk, Dietitian and Mindfulness Practitioner, to explore your eating habits and the support that might help you make lasting changes.

BOOK HERE

What really matters for staying healthy after menopause? Do you need more protein, fewer carbohydrates, or a completely different way of eating?

With so much conflicting advice, it's easy to lose sight of what actually supports our long-term health.

In this episode I share five areas worth protecting as we age, drawing on nutrition research, my personal experiences and the lessons I've learnt from working with women.

You'll discover:

• Why maintaining muscle and strength matters more than chasing protein targets.

• How to protect your bones through nutrition, movement and appropriate health checks.

• Why carbohydrates don't need to disappear from your meals after menopause.

• How sleep, relationships, stress and time outdoors contribute to healthy ageing.

• Why preventive health checks and screening deserve a place in your self-care routine.

Whether you're approaching menopause or have been post-menopausal for years, this conversation will help you focus on what matters for your individual health and wellbeing.

Because staying healthy after menopause isn't about finding the perfect diet. It's about what you protect, what you practise, and what you check.

☀️ What do you need today?

Looking after your health after menopause doesn't mean changing everything at once. 

Sometimes the most helpful place to begin is simply noticing how you're feeling and what you need.

My free Morning Check-In Postcard offers one simple question to help you make your wellbeing a priority, one day at a time.

🎁 Download your free postcard (No email or details required to download)

Next week, in Episode 190, we'll explore why focusing on the number on the scales can sometimes make healthy eating harder.

Subscribe to the Eating for You podcast so you receive all of the episodes in our women’s health series.

If you'd like personalised guidance on nourishing your mind and body without restrictive food rules, book a complimentary Mindful Eating Strategy Call.

How often do you wake up and notice how your body feels, but forget to check in with your mind?

Some mornings we wake up tired, foggy or frustrated. Other mornings we're full of energy and ready to get moving.

But have you considered how these feelings might influence your eating and other choices throughout the day?

In this short, personal episode of the Eating for You Podcast, I share a conversation with an Ayurvedic doctor that changed how I start my mornings—and became particularly valuable during my transition through menopause.

You'll discover:

• Why checking in with your mind is just as important as checking in with your body.

• How our emotions, energy and mental load can influence our food choices.

• What I've learnt from mornings when I've felt angry, foggy or simply needed to get outside.

• One simple question that can help you recognise what you need today.

There's no complicated morning routine or another list of things to do.

Just a moment of curiosity that can help you make choices that suit you.

Because what you need today may be different from what you needed yesterday.

🎁  Download your free Morning Check-In Card

🌿 Want the Eating for You Podcast and accompanying resources delivered to your inbox each Monday? Join the free Nourishment Newsletter.

Can changing what you eat help with perimenopause symptoms such as poor sleep, hot flushes, mood swings, brain fog and low energy?

With so much advice about foods to avoid, protein, carbohydrates and menopause superfoods, it can be difficult to know where to begin.

In this episode, I explore three practical areas that may help you feel more supported through perimenopause:

• What you're drinking, including hydration, alcohol and caffeine.

• What you could add to your meals rather than focusing on foods to remove.

• How sleep, energy and eating habits are connected.

And while this episode focuses on perimenopause, these three areas are worth exploring at any stage of life. Understanding what nourishes you, what influences your energy and what's driving your eating habits can help you make choices that suit your individual needs.

We'll also look at why food cravings aren't necessarily a lack of willpower, and why understanding what's influencing your eating can be more helpful than introducing another set of food rules.

Every woman's experience is different, and food and lifestyle choices are only part of the picture. Sometimes professional support and menopause treatment are also needed.

Tune in to discover where you might begin—without trying to change everything at once.

If you'd like personalised support, you're welcome to book a complimentary Mindful Eating Strategy Call

And subscribe to the Eating for You Podcast or join my weekly Nourishment Newsletter for the remaining episodes in our menopause series.

What does menopause really look like—and what happens after the symptoms begin to settle?

For World Menopause Day, I’m sharing my own journey from perimenopause through to post-menopause. My first sign wasn’t one I expected, and over the following years I experienced disrupted sleep, mood changes, hot flushes and fluid retention.

But perhaps the biggest surprises came later, when my attention shifted from managing symptoms to looking after my longer-term health.

In this episode, I share how curiosity and mindfulness helped me listen to my changing body rather than fight it, what an overseas holiday taught me about noticing my own patterns, and why my bone density result was such a wake-up call.

This isn’t a list of foods to eat or lifestyle rules to follow. It’s my personal story—and a reminder that our bodies, health priorities and the way we care for ourselves can continue to evolve through menopause and beyond.

This episode also begins a five-part conversation about perimenopause and post-menopause, with evidence-based guidance coming over the next four episodes.

Subscribe to Eating for You so you don’t miss the rest of the series, or join the weekly Nourishment Newsletter for new episodes and resources delivered to your inbox each Monday.

Do you expect yourself to eat, move and live the same way every day of the year?

Our needs aren't static. They change with the seasons, our activity, our energy, our age and what's happening in our lives.

In this episode, Chinese Medicine practitioner Tania Grasseschi returns to explore the Five Elements—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water—and how they can help us understand and respond to change.

Together, we travel through spring, summer, late summer, autumn and winter, exploring what each season can teach us about food, movement, rest, connection and nourishment.

You'll hear why spring encourages flexibility and new beginnings, summer invites connection, Earth brings us back to nourishment and grounding, autumn reminds us to let go, and winter gives us permission to rest and restore.

We also explore an important meeting point between Chinese Medicine and the Eating for You approach: this isn't about replacing one rigid health plan with another. It's about becoming more aware of what you need and learning to adapt.

Because perhaps healthy living isn't about finding the perfect routine and sticking to it forever. It may be about becoming better at noticing when your needs have changed.

If you'd like to explore any of the Five Elements in greater detail, you'll find YouTube links to our previous seasonal conversations here or you can tune in on your favourite podcast platform:

Spring: Episode 143 Chinese Medicine Secrets for Spring: Mindful Eating, Movement, and Balance

https://youtu.be/c2Hj1aaPMls

Summer: Episode 153 Healthy Summer Eating: Chinese Medicine Tips To Stay Cool, Nourished And Off Diets 

https://youtu.be/GOyxfU9LNTY

Autumn: Episode 162 Autumn Is the Best Time to Strengthen Your Immune System

https://youtu.be/Wxh_1eh0SlY

Winter: Episode 172 How to Stay Healthy This Winter (Eating Comfort Food)

https://youtu.be/UPml8Ol_Ioc

Earth: Episode 176 Is your digestion trying to tell you something?

https://youtu.be/SoBLDG5lliM

A pictorial overview of how the Five Elements work together which is available on the Eating for You Website: https://eatingforyou.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Five-Elements-.pdf

For Tania’s resources:

Spring workshop: https://www.orientalwisdom.com.au/workshops/

E-books: https://www.orientalwisdom.com.au/shop/

Next week, I'll continue this conversation about change with a personal episode for World Menopause Day, reflecting on my own transition through peri-menopause and menopause and how it often wasn’t what I had expected!

Do you ever feel out of control around certain foods?

We often believe that restricting chocolate, chips, cake, bread or other favourite foods will help us eat less of them.

But restriction can make a food feel even more important — leading to cravings, bargaining, guilt and that familiar thought:

“I’ve blown it. I’ll start again tomorrow.”

In this episode of the Eating for You Podcast, I explore why giving yourself permission to eat can actually help you make healthier, more satisfying choices.

I share my own experience of trying to control chocolate and potato crisps, along with stories from women I’ve worked with who discovered what changed when they stopped labelling foods as good or bad.

You’ll discover:

• The important difference between medically necessary food restrictions and restrictive food rules

• Why forbidden foods can become even more appealing

• Why permission doesn’t mean eating whatever you want, whenever you want

• How removing guilt and judgement can create space for choice

• Questions to help you identify the food rules that may no longer be serving you

And I’ll invite you to think about one food you don’t completely trust yourself around — not to change anything yet, but simply to become curious about the rules you have attached to it.

Because sometimes creating a healthier way of eating isn’t about adding another food rule. It’s about discovering which rules no longer work for you.

If you recognise a cycle of restriction, overeating and starting again, book a complimentary Mindful Eating Strategy Call with me.

We can explore what’s happening with your eating and whether mindful eating could help you create a healthier and more peaceful relationship with food.

☎️ You can book here

💛 And for more support, subscribe to the Eating for You Podcast and join our free weekly Nourishment Newsletter here.

Does mindful eating really work — or is it simply another eating technique that sounds good in theory?

Perhaps you’ve tried slowing down, removing distractions or noticing your hunger and fullness, but didn’t feel that anything really changed.

In this episode, I explore why mindful eating is much more than paying attention to your food — and why the better question may be: what are you expecting mindful eating to do?

Drawing on research, my own experience and the stories of women I’ve worked with, I explore three important shifts that take you from controlling your eating to creating a personalised way of eating that is right for you.

You’ll hear the experiences of Anne, Annette, Judy, Gayle and Valerie — women with very different eating histories, health needs and lifestyles — and how mindful eating helped each of them in different ways.

And if you’ve tried mindful eating before and thought, “It didn’t work for me,” I explore another possibility: perhaps it wasn’t given the time, support or personalised approach needed to create meaningful change.

If mindful eating feels like it could help you, but you’d like support working out where to start, book a complimentary Mindful Eating Strategy Call with Sallyanne to learn more about the Foundations Mindful Eating Program.

☎️ Book Here

📖 A great place to start to understand your eating is our FREE 3-day mindful eating journal, which you can download here: https://eatingforyou.com.au/mindful-eating-journal/

🎧 Subscribe to The Eating for You Podcast for practical, evidence-based conversations about creating a healthier relationship with food — without more diets, guilt or rigid food rules.

Want to change an eating habit?

Before you decide what you need to stop, restrict or do differently, there’s something more useful you can do first: observe.

In this episode, I introduce a simple 3-day mindful eating exercise to help you understand why, what, when and how you eat — without counting calories, judging your food choices or trying to get your eating “right”.

You’ll discover:

• why understanding an eating habit needs to come before trying to change it

• why the same eating habit can have very different reasons behind it

• how this simple exercise can reveal patterns that normally happen on autopilot

• why this is very different from keeping a traditional food diary

• how noticing what’s already working can be just as valuable as noticing what isn’t

And if the thought of recording your eating brings back memories of counting calories, points or macros, stay with me.

I explain why this approach is different — and why women I've worked with have often been surprised by what they discover.

Want to try the 3-day exercise for yourself?

Download my free 3-Day Mindful Eating Journal to guide you through it.

Download the journal here

Want to eat healthier but feel overwhelmed by all the advice about what you should—and shouldn't—eat?

With so much information about protein, carbohydrates, sugar, meal timing, fasting and supplements, it's easy to believe that healthier eating means changing everything.

It doesn't.

In this first episode of Series 9 of the Eating for You Podcast, I take inspiration from this year's Women's Health Week theme, One Step, and share one simple place to begin.

It's a step that's at the very heart of the Eating for You approach—and it doesn't involve another diet, cutting out foods or following more food rules.

In this episode, you'll discover why this one step can help you:

• cut through the overwhelm of conflicting nutrition advice

• better understand your own eating

• discover what may actually need to change for you

• begin creating healthier eating habits that fit your health and life

And importantly, I give you one simple way to get started this week.

You don't need to change everything. You just need somewhere to begin.

🎧 If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you subscribe to the Eating for You Podcast here or on your favourite podcast platform, so you don't miss any of the episodes coming up in Series 9.

📚 And if you'd like the latest episode, along with my blogs, practical tips and free resources, delivered straight to you, subscribe to the free Nourishment Newsletter.

It arrives in your inbox every Monday at 10 am Sydney time, giving you simple, evidence-based support to help you nourish your health—without another diet or more food rules.