… but don’t invest in a continuous blood sugar monitor

Blood sugar balance is important, but Sohal warns against getting too bogged down in the data. “People without diabetes or prediabetes don’t need to be worrying about ‘glucose spikes’ as they’re a natural part of our body’s response after eating carbohydrate foods. Carbohydrates contain crucial B vitamins, and deficiencies can lead to low mood, impaired concentration and tiredness.”

You’re better off tracking your blood sugar responses intuitively. “Save your money – don’t buy a continuous glucose monitor if you don’t have diabetes,” she says. If you feel hungry and tired at 3pm after a ham sandwich, that might not be the best option for a busy office day. But if you never need to snack or have a second shot of caffeine after a big bowl of overnight oats in the morning, then all those beta-glucan-rich oats are doing their job.

Start actively protecting your bones with vitamin D and calcium

Bone health can start to come under threat with perimenopause, so it’s important to make sure yours are as strong as possible before you reach that stage. Strength training is one of the most effective tools for this, but food also plays an important role. Registered nutritionist Sophie Bertrand says that bone mass becomes really key in this decade: “Bones continually repair and rebuild until around the mid-30s, when bone loss starts to outpace bone repair.”

Sohal flags that the key nutrients here are calcium, protein and vitamin D. “We can generally get enough calcium and protein from our food, but vitamin D should be supplemented, particularly during the autumn and winter months in the UK.” Vitamin D is also the only supplement recommended by the NHS.

Eat more fats

Nutritionists have been trying to get us to stop fearing fat for a while now, but many of us are still nervous about filling up on the macronutrient. Senior specialist neurosciences dietitian Kinga Topolowska says that fats like olive oil, nuts, seeds and oily fish can all support brain function, help maintain appropriate levels of HDL (good) cholesterol and also play a role in reducing inflammatory processes. “You don’t need much but small additions make a difference,” she tells Strong Women.

6 simple nutrition rules that every 30-something woman should follow, according to 5 neurohealth, hormonal and plant-based nutritionists