The Plight of The High Protein Breakfast

Eating to stabilize hormones, because hormones are everything.

Today I am going to dive into the hot topic of hormones and protein, breaking with my regular format of recommendations for what to EAT/WATCH/READ/WEAR. Let’s ease into it with a couple of personal reflections from the week.

I have been snickering at the hushed murmurs of a “gentle parenting” backlash in my dispersed community of like-minded parents. Two years ago, we fully embraced Dr. Becky and Janet Lansbury as our gurus in raising kids with healthy boundaries and emotional fluency. My unscientifically collected data shows that acolytes might be tiring of the “scripts,” and the feeling of failure that comes with unrealistic expectations of superhuman patience. I’m hearing a lot of, “Fuck Dr. Becky,” and, “These kids are total assholes.” This revolt seems like a great premise for Bad Moms III, should any screenwriters be reading.

@cailinaomiI blame my ansestors #momhumor #keepinitreal @cailinaomi

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I’m experiencing slightly less anxiety since I signed up for a service called Ridwell that collects your un-recyclables in a $20 weekly pick-up. Plastic film, plastic bags, bubble mailers, used batteries, styrofoam, the list goes on (my husband jokes that they are covertly forming a rival Great Pacific Ocean Patch). I am recycling textiles and unusable old clothes with a paid service called Trashie, and of course, there is always the Straus Creamery and Erewhon glass bottle return program. This model of luxury, pay-to-play recycling is problematic on some level, but it’s also forcing individuals to proactively reduce waste when our municipalities fail to do so.

Various bags for collecting waste in your Ridwell box.

In the garden, I am hoarding coriander berries, the green seeds that follow just after the delicate white flowers (also edible and delicious). The micro, fresh seeds pop in your mouth with a bright and complex flavor. Use them anywhere you would use coriander or cilantro, or simmer in simple syrup and add them to sparkling water for an herbaceous soda.

Use green coriander seeds fresh, or let them sit out until they dry.

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As promised, I am circling back to my plight of the high protein breakfast. As I touched on last week, starting the day with protein instead of sugar/simple carbs helps to stabilize your endocrine system. This is crucial for all of us, but especially for women in the times of life when hormones are in flux -- postpartum, perimenopause and beyond.

After birthing two children, I lost sight of any kind of “normal” hormonal baseline, but I was loathe to accept 101 flavors of mood swings, night sweats, and unexpected weight gain. Funny enough, it was Miranda July, our patron saint of middle age, who encouraged me to see her naturopath, Dr. Michelle Gerber, to get a snapshot of my hormone levels on the other side of 40. (The OB/GYN in On All Fours is loosely based on Dr. Gerber). If you read July’s newest book, it should come as no surprise to you that she is an advocate for taking action in this department.

“Dolls That Failed,” illustration by Dahlia Gallin Ramirez for The New Yorker

Symptoms of perimenopause can last up to 10 years. That’s a significant portion of a woman’s life, yet funding has only recently been allocated towards the study of women’s brains during this transitional period. (I found it very comforting to read that as a result of this research, estrogen and progesterone have been reclassified from “sex hormones” to “brain hormones”). And, while thinking around Hormone Replacement Therapy for menopausal women has been flipped on its head, there isn’t a playbook for the murky, volatile, potential DECADE that comes before. 

For this reason, I was disappointed when Dr. Gerber unpacked my bloodwork and broke the news: if I had begun perimenopause, I was just starting to dip my toes in.* Hormone therapy was not an option (yet). In fact, she said I had the hormones of an extremely fertile 35 year old. (This entitles me to a humble-brag since infertility became my assumed identity in the years I spent struggling to get pregnant). Instead of a hormonal silver bullet in the form of a patch, Dr. Gerber mixed me a tincture and directed me to make some “lifestyle” changes. Not what I wanted to hear. She encouraged regular exercise, preferring 30 minutes of moderate movement a day over sporadic, high intensity training. On the topic of diet, I wagged my tail and panted in anticipation of a big, fat gold star. Again, Dr. Gerber had notes, which brings us back to that bodybuilders breakfast: 20 grams of protein in the morning.

Before I had kids, I would wake up with a ravenous appetite and eat a multi-course savory breakfast, tout de suite. These days, thanks to my two, very loud children, my cortisol levels rise with the sun. My heart pounds and my nervous system is set to high alert as urgent demands hit me like machine gun fire in the kitchen. Cortisol, a “fight or flight” hormone, is an appetite suppressant. So, the idea of eating three eggs when my body thinks it’s being chased by a bear is untenable. I tried protein powders, but it would seem I am not a powder-as-food kinda gal -- I love to chew too much!  (If there is a powder out there that doesn’t taste like the contents of my hand vacuum, I would love to know).

So, with all of this in mind, what follows are a handful of ways to approach the most important meal of the day. I am sharing the detailed recipe down below for my Smoky, Silky Breakfast Beans with a Spinach Purée made with tons of olive oil. My recipe for the Miso Cod is coming next week (still tweaking it).

*While blood tests give a window into a moment in your cycle, at the start of perimenopause your hormone levels might be robust one month, but the following they might plummet. Thus, it’s hard to say definitively if you are in perimenopause or not from looking at one month’s activity.