An email landed in my inbox last Tuesday that I can’t stop thinking about. “Susana,” it read, “I’ve been doing keto for three months. I’m cooking everything in avocado oil like the American influencers say. But my joints ache more than ever, I’m exhausted, and the scale won’t budge. What am I doing wrong?”
My heart sank because I knew exactly what was happening. She’d fallen into the same trap I did seven years ago when I started my journey from 100kg to health. The olive oil vs seed oils debate isn’t just about cooking fat—it’s about inflammation, hormones, and why some of us over 40 can’t seem to catch a break with our symptoms.
Let me tell you what nobody told me at the beginning, and what I wish I’d understood before I wasted months feeling worse instead of better.
The Seed Oil Trap That Kept Me Inflamed
When I first started keto, I was living in London, shopping at Tesco, and following mostly American keto advice. Everyone was raving about avocado oil, grapeseed oil, and “high smoke point” oils for cooking. They seemed healthy. They were expensive. They must be good for me, right?
Wrong. So incredibly wrong.
I was cooking my vegetables in avocado oil, making salad dressings with grapeseed oil, and wondering why my knees hurt, why I couldn’t sleep, and why my face looked puffy every morning despite eating “clean keto.” My weight loss had stalled at month four, and I felt like I was doing everything right.
Then I moved to Spain. My neighbor Rosa, a 68-year-old woman who’d never counted a calorie in her life, invited me over for lunch. I watched her pour what seemed like an obscene amount of olive oil over everything—roasted vegetables, grilled fish, even just bread for dipping. Dark green, fragrant, nothing like the pale yellow oil I’d been buying.
“This,” she said, tapping the bottle, “is why we don’t have your American health problems.”
I thought she was being dramatic. Turns out, she was absolutely right.
What Makes Olive Oil Different From Seed Oils
Here’s what I learned that changed everything. The difference between olive oil vs seed oils isn’t just about fat content—it’s about what happens inside your body when you consume them regularly, especially when you’re over 40 and your hormones are already playing havoc with inflammation.
Seed oils—sunflower, safflower, corn, soybean, canola, grapeseed, even that trendy avocado oil—are incredibly high in omega-6 fatty acids. Your body needs some omega-6, but here’s the problem: most of us are getting 20 to 30 times more omega-6 than omega-3. A study from the University of Maryland in 2023 found that this ratio imbalance directly correlates with increased inflammatory markers in perimenopausal women.
When I saw those numbers, everything clicked.
Olive oil, particularly extra virgin olive oil, is different. It’s primarily monounsaturated fat (omega-9), with minimal omega-6. But more importantly, it contains polyphenols—powerful compounds that actually reduce inflammation rather than promote it.
The Inflammation Connection Nobody Talks About
My friend Marta, who’s 52 and a teacher in Barcelona, sent me a voice message last month that perfectly captures this. “Susana, I switched out all my cooking oils for olive oil like you suggested. Within two weeks—TWO WEEKS—my hip pain was gone. I thought I was imagining it, but my physiotherapist even commented that my inflammation markers looked better.”
This isn’t coincidence. It’s biochemistry.
When you consume high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils, your body converts them into inflammatory compounds called prostaglandins. These are the same compounds that cause period cramps, joint pain, and that general “everything hurts” feeling so many of us experience in perimenopause.
Research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism in 2024 showed that women over 40 with higher omega-6 to omega-3 ratios experienced more severe hot flashes, worse joint pain, and significantly more brain fog than women with balanced ratios.
I wish I’d known this when I was struggling through my first year of keto.
My Three-Week Olive Oil Experiment
After Rosa’s comment, I decided to do something radical. For three weeks, I eliminated every seed oil from my kitchen and replaced everything with extra virgin olive oil. I’m talking about real Spanish olive oil—the kind that’s slightly bitter, peppery at the back of your throat, dark green or golden.
Week one: I noticed my evening hunger disappeared. I wasn’t reaching for snacks at 9pm like I used to.
Week two: My sleep improved dramatically. I was still waking up occasionally with night sweats (perimenopause wasn’t going to let me off that easily), but I was falling back asleep instead of lying awake for hours.
Week three: The puffiness in my face was gone. My rings fit properly again. And most shocking of all—I lost 2.3kg without changing anything else about my diet.
That’s when I became a true believer in the power of olive oil vs seed oils for women like us.
The Smoke Point Myth That Keeps Women Sick
I know what you’re thinking because I thought it too: “But Susana, everyone says you can’t cook with olive oil at high temperatures. The smoke point is too low.”
This is one of the most damaging myths in the health world, and it’s keeping women from healing their inflammation.
First, the smoke point of extra virgin olive oil is actually around 190-207°C (374-405°F)—plenty high enough for most home cooking. Second, and this is crucial: smoke point isn’t the only factor that matters. Oxidative stability matters more.
A 2023 study from the University of Barcelona tested various cooking oils heated to high temperatures repeatedly. Extra virgin olive oil produced the fewest harmful compounds, even when heated past its smoke point. Seed oils, despite their higher smoke points, oxidized quickly and produced inflammatory byproducts.
I was on a call with a client—let’s call her Carmen—who pushed back on this hard. She’s 49, a chef, and she’d been taught her entire career that olive oil was only for finishing dishes. When I sent her the research, she was skeptical but willing to try.
Three months later, she told me her chronic shoulder pain (which she’d attributed to years of kitchen work) had improved by 70%. “I feel like I’ve been lied to my entire professional life,” she said.
What Happened When My Community Made The Switch
After I shared my olive oil transformation in my Facebook group, dozens of women started reporting back their experiences. The patterns were striking.
Lisa, 44, from Manchester: “Joint pain in my hands reduced within ten days. I’d been blaming it on typing all day, but it was inflammation from the rapeseed oil I was using.”
Someone in my perimenopause forum wrote: “I switched from cooking with sunflower oil to olive oil and my hot flashes decreased by half. HALF. My doctor was shocked.”
Anna messaged me: “The brain fog lifted. I can actually remember why I walked into a room now. I thought this was just my life from now on.”
These aren’t isolated incidents. When you remove inflammatory seed oils and replace them with anti-inflammatory olive oil, your body can finally start healing instead of constantly fighting fire with fire.
The Mediterranean Secret We Forgot
Living in Spain taught me something profound: the Mediterranean diet isn’t just about what you eat—it’s about what you don’t eat. Traditional Mediterranean cooking never used seed oils. They didn’t exist until industrial processing made them cheap and available.
My neighbor’s mother is 91 years old. She’s never had a hot flash severe enough to mention. She walks two kilometers every day. Her mind is sharp as ever. And she’s consumed olive oil—lots of it—every single day of her life.
That’s not genetic luck. That’s the protective effect of a lifetime without inflammatory seed oils.
Research from the PREDIMED study, which followed over 7,000 people for five years, found that those who consumed the most extra virgin olive oil had significantly lower inflammatory markers and better cognitive function, especially among postmenopausal women.
How To Make The Switch (Without Going Crazy)
When I tell women to ditch their seed oils, I see panic in their eyes. “But I have three bottles of avocado oil! And grapeseed oil was expensive!”
I get it. But here’s how I suggest doing this without overwhelm:
Step One: Stop Buying Seed Oils
Don’t throw away what you have if that feels wasteful (though honestly, I did). Just stop replenishing them. Use up what’s there if you must, but don’t buy more.
Step Two: Find Good Olive Oil
This matters more than you think. Not all olive oil is created equal. You want extra virgin, cold-pressed, in a dark bottle. If it’s cheap and pale yellow, it’s been processed and refined—you’ve lost most of the beneficial polyphenols.
I buy mine from local producers here in Spain, but if you’re elsewhere, look for harvest dates on the label (fresher is better), and don’t be afraid of the peppery bite. That’s the polyphenols—exactly what you want.
Step Three: Use It Generously
This was the hardest adjustment for me. I’d been trained to use oil sparingly, measuring every tablespoon. But Mediterranean women don’t cook like that, and their health outcomes are vastly better than ours.
I now use olive oil liberally—for roasting vegetables, pan-frying fish, making salad dressings, even drizzling over finished dishes. My fat intake didn’t increase dramatically because I was already doing keto, but the quality of that fat changed everything.
Step Four: Read Restaurant Menus Differently
This one surprised me. Once you start paying attention, you realize how many restaurants cook everything in cheap seed oils. I now ask. Sometimes I get eye rolls, but my joints don’t ache the next day, so I’ll take the eye rolls.
The Perimenopause Factor
Here’s why this matters even more when you’re over 40: declining estrogen already increases inflammation in your body. That’s why perimenopause comes with joint pain, brain fog, and mood swings for so many of us.
When you add inflammatory seed oils on top of that hormonal inflammation, you’re pouring gasoline on a fire.
But when you switch to anti-inflammatory olive oil, you’re giving your body a fighting chance to regulate inflammation despite the hormonal chaos. You’re working with your biology instead of against it.
I saw a post on Reddit last week that broke my heart. A 47-year-old woman wrote: “My doctor says all my symptoms are ‘just perimenopause’ and there’s nothing I can do except wait it out or take HRT. I feel hopeless.”
I wanted to reach through the screen and tell her: there IS something you can do. The olive oil vs seed oils choice alone won’t cure perimenopause (nothing will), but it can make the difference between suffering through it and managing it.
What The Science Actually Says
I’m not a doctor or a scientist, but I’ve read enough research in the past seven years to know this isn’t wishful thinking.
A 2024 study from Harvard’s School of Public Health tracked dietary patterns in over 4,500 women going through perimenopause. Those who consumed primarily olive oil instead of seed oils had 34% fewer severe hot flashes and 28% better sleep quality.
The mechanism is clear: olive oil’s oleic acid and polyphenols actively reduce inflammatory cytokines—the signaling molecules that worsen perimenopausal symptoms.
Meanwhile, the omega-6 fatty acids in seed oils do the opposite. They increase those inflammatory signals, making every symptom worse.
The Questions I Keep Getting
“But isn’t olive oil expensive?”
Compared to what? The supplements you’re buying to manage inflammation? The pain medication for your joints? The sleep aids because you can’t stay asleep?
Good olive oil costs more upfront, yes. But I spend less on health products now than I ever did before. It’s an investment that pays dividends in how you feel every single day.
“What about coconut oil?”
Coconut oil is fine occasionally—it’s a saturated fat, not a seed oil. But it doesn’t have the anti-inflammatory polyphenols of olive oil. I use it sometimes for baking, but olive oil is my daily driver.
“Can I mix olive oil with other oils?”
Why would you? If you’re trying to reduce inflammation, adding inflammatory seed oils back in defeats the purpose. It’s like saying “Can I have a little cigarette with my health food?” Just commit to the olive oil.
What Changed For Me (And What Might Change For You)
Seven years after losing 40kg, I can tell you that switching from seed oils to olive oil was one of the top three changes that made everything sustainable. The others were embracing real food over keto products and learning to work with my cycle instead of against it.
My inflammation markers on blood tests are now in the optimal range. My doctor commented on them last month: “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”
My joint pain is gone. I sleep through most nights now, even with occasional night sweats. My brain fog cleared up so much that I was able to build this entire Olive&Keto community while working full-time.
But beyond the measurable stuff, there’s something else: I don’t feel like I’m fighting my body anymore. For years, I felt like I was in a constant battle—with the scale, with my energy levels, with my mood. Switching to olive oil felt like calling a truce.
The Truth About Olive Oil And Weight Loss
I need to address this because I know it’s what many of you are thinking about. Will switching to olive oil help you lose weight?
Here’s my honest answer: not directly. Olive oil is still fat, still caloric, still needs to fit within your overall eating pattern.
But indirectly? Absolutely yes.
When your inflammation decreases, your cortisol levels can normalize. When cortisol normalizes, you stop holding onto stress weight, especially around your middle. When your sleep improves, your hunger hormones regulate better. When your joints don’t hurt, you move more naturally throughout the day.
I lost those stubborn last 8kg only after I made the switch to olive oil exclusively. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
You’re Not Imagining Your Symptoms
Can I be honest about something? The thing that makes me angriest about the seed oil situation is how many women are suffering unnecessarily and being told it’s all in their head or “just aging.”
You know that feeling when you wake up and your hands are stiff and swollen? When your knees hurt going up stairs? When you can’t think straight by 3pm? When your face looks puffy no matter what you do?
That’s inflammation. And a huge part of it is coming from the oils in your kitchen and in restaurant food.
You’re not imagining it. You’re not weak. You’re not overreacting. You’re responding normally to inflammatory compounds that your body wasn’t designed to process in such high quantities.
The good news? You have control over this. You can’t control your declining estrogen (well, not without medical intervention), but you can control which oils you cook with.
Start Where You Are
If you take nothing else from this article, take this: buy one bottle of good extra virgin olive oil. Use it for one week in place of whatever seed oil you normally use.
Notice how you feel. Notice your energy, your joints, your sleep, your mood.
I’ve been part of this community long enough to know that most of you will notice a difference. Maybe not dramatic, maybe not immediate, but enough to make you curious. Enough to keep going.
That’s how I started. That’s how Marta started. That’s how hundreds of women in my community started.
The olive oil vs seed oils debate isn’t just academic nutrition science. It’s about whether you want to feel inflamed and exhausted, or whether you want to give your body the tools to heal while you navigate these hormonal changes.
Seven years ago, I was 100kg, inflamed, exhausted, and convinced this was just how life was going to be from now on. Today, I’m writing this after a morning walk along the Mediterranean coast, feeling strong and clear-headed at 46.
The olive oil didn’t do it alone. But it was a crucial piece of the puzzle—one that I wish someone had told me about years earlier.
Now you know. What you do with that information is up to you. But I hope you’ll give it a try. Your future self might thank you for it.
