Menopause is a significant phase in a woman’s life that often leads to various physiological changes, including weight gain. The British Menopause Society has reported that weight gain is a common concern among menopausal women, with various studies suggesting that approximately 60-70% of women experience weight gain during menopause in the UK
Factors Contributing to Weight Gain
Hormonal Changes:
- The decline in oestrogen levels during menopause is a key factor that contributes to weight gain and changes in fat distribution, often leading to an increase in abdominal fat.
Metabolic Changes:
- Metabolic rate tends to decrease with age, and this is often exacerbated by menopause, leading to a lower calorie requirement and easier weight gain if dietary habits are not adjusted.
Lifestyle Factors:
- Decreased physical activity and changes in diet during menopause can also contribute to weight gain.
Psychological Factors:
- Stress, mood swings, and other psychological changes during menopause can affect eating habits and physical activity levels, further contributing to weight gain.
Did you know oestrogen can be produced quite efficiently by your fat cells?!!
When you are in perimenopause, and you start to miss periods and they become irregular; If ovulation doesn’t happen, your progesterone skyrockets which means oestrogen is high in comparison to progesterone. One of the first symptoms of weight gain is oestrogen dominance, and whenever you have more oestrogen in your blood, (which you do whenever you start to skip periods because you don’t have the progesterone spike) then your body starts to store weight in the thighs and the hips.
As you go into late perimenopause which is signified by miss periods until your last menstrual cycle, your body is producing less progesterone, which causes more oestrogen, which causes more fat cells to accumulate on your thighs and your buttock! Then, as you move further into menopause, your body stops storing the fat cells on your thighs and your buttocks, and it moves them to your stomach.
So, the question is why does your body produce more fat cells or want to store more fat whenever you are heading into menopause?
It’s all about how your body produces oestrogen; when your ovaries stop producing as much oestrogen, your body is not ready to give up on this very important female hormone. It still wants to have oestrogen in the system, therefore because your body is super smart, and it doesn’t know that you’re on a diet, or you want to remain a size 12, its looks for a secondary source of oestrogen production and this is your fat cells!! Your body starts to pack on more fat so that it can keep producing oestrogen, and therefore keep the balance of oestrogen in your blood.
The reason for this is simply your body’s main goal is to keep you alive, to keep you healthy, keep you safe, but also to create a homeostatic norm, that’s why your body raises and lowers your metabolism. That’s why, if you’re on a diet and you drop your calories, pretty soon, your body will slow everything down to account for the drop in calories, because your body does not want you to enter starvation mode. Your body wants to keep everything at a super optimum level. That’s your body’s main goal.
Overweight women generally have more problems during menopause than very lean women, because they have more fat. When they have more fat, it means that your body will produce more oestrogen. This happens outside of menopause as well, so if you’re younger and you’re not anywhere near menopause, and you’re more overweight, you will tend to be more oestrogen dominant, and you will tend to be more insulin resistance.
Many of the menopausal symptoms that we experience can be alleviated simply through a diet and lifestyle change
Menopause causes a perfect storm for weight gain, because changes take place in our body that changes how our body metabolises food and calories, and decreased sex hormones cause a drop in metabolism, which means less of a demand for calories. So the next thing that happens in menopause because your decreased sex hormones is your metabolism slows down, which means your body is not running as efficiently as it used to!
However, your metabolism just doesn’t need as much fuel to keep it going as we age, therefore that means that there’s less demand for calories. therefore, if you continue to eat the calories that you have always eaten, and you don’t change the calories in any way, your body will start to store those extra calories as fat because it doesn’t have as much of a need for them in the metabolism.
For anyone who has been following or has seen me speak, I always mention as we get older and we move into menopause, one thing we NEED to do is to have to eat less and exercise more. You can’t do what you’ve always done and get what you’ve always got!
What also happens whenever you get older is you can start to suffer from sarcopenia which means muscle wastage. This is another wonderful thing that happens as we get older; our body starts to drop a small percentage of muscle every single month, which is why I am an advocate for strength training, at least three to four times a week., because the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism, the more calories your body is going to burn, the more food you can eat, the less fat your body will store, the less oestrogen your body will produce, the less which means you will not be oestrogen dominant, which means that you will have a much, much easier menopause.
So, what else happens whenever you get older or you get into menopause? Well, your body becomes insulin resistant, this means that your cells resist your body’s attempt to give them energy, so that energy stays in the blood,
The decline in oestrogen during menopause can lead to increased insulin resistance, where cells, especially muscle and liver cells, become less responsive to insulin. This leads to elevated blood glucose and insulin levels, promoting fat storage in adipocytes (fat cells). The changes in fat distribution and increased abdominal fat during menopause further exacerbate insulin resistance, creating a cycle that can contribute to metabolic syndrome and other health issues.
insulin is a storage hormone and whenever you eat and the calories hit your stomach it triggers your pancreas that food is coming. Your body breaks down the food into calories, these are then absorbed through the small intestine into the bloodstream very quickly which means your blood sugar raises, your body wants to lower your blood sugar very, very quickly so your pancreas secrete insulin into your blood to picks up all the calories, sugar, and stores them wherever they can go.
Because your body is a is a regenerating machine It wants to primarily, first and foremost, feed your cells, your body wants to regenerate and rebuild your liver and your lungs, your digestive system and it wants to feed your muscles. However, when cells are consistently exposed to high levels of glucose and insulin, they downregulate their insulin receptors, a condition known as insulin resistance.
This means cells become less responsive to insulin, leading to higher levels of glucose in the blood as it is not efficiently taken up by the cells. Your cells literally say “no, I’m sorry we’re all full up here, we don’t want any more energy” and this leading to higher levels of glucose and insulin in the bloodstream. This condition is closely associated with changes in how and where the body stores fat, particularly in the abdominal region and the menobelly!!
Prevention and Management:
Diet:
A diet low in refined carbohydrates and sugars and high in fiber, lean proteins, and healthy fats can help manage blood glucose levels and reduce insulin resistance.
Foods with a low glycemic index are beneficial as they cause a slower rise in blood glucose and insulin levels.
Exercise:
Regular physical activity increases insulin sensitivity, helping muscles to use glucose more effectively and reducing the burden on the pancreas.
Both aerobic exercises (like walking, running, cycling) and resistance training (like weight lifting) are effective.
Weight Management:
Losing excess weight, especially visceral fat, can significantly improve insulin sensitivity.
Even modest weight loss (5-10% of body weight) can have substantial health benefits.
Lifestyle Changes:
Adequate Sleep: Aim for 7-8 hours of quality sleep per night to help regulate hormones that control hunger and metabolism.
Stress Management: Practices such as mindfulness, meditation, or deep-breathing exercises can help manage stress, which is linked to weight gain.
Regular Monitoring: Keep track of your weight, diet, and exercise routine to stay accountable and make necessary adjustments.
Hypnotherapy, CBT (recognised by NICE) and coaching are other holistic alternatives to navigating menopause and supporting your weight loss and menopause journey.
Implementing lifestyle changes early on in your menopause transition will not only help you sail through menopause right away, but it will also help the future you!
Future Proof your body!!
- We only have one body, and it amuses me how we expect it to just keep working at full speed, in brilliant health, whilst we give little time to actually invest in our body our health… in ourselves!!!
- We then spend the latter part of our life in ill health, in pain, not feeling good, beating ourselves up as we don’t have the body we want, we become restricted on what we can do, we become less mobile, we become disgruntled, and we start living a lesser unfulfilled life.
- Female life expectancy is around 82.8 years, of which 20.1 years (24%) would have been spent in poor health!! Madness right!?Especially when we are doing this to ourselves, and it can mostly be prevented!!
“We don’t stop moving because we get old, we get old because we stop moving.”
– George Bernard Shaw
We need to future proof our bodies and our minds, and make time for it “us” now; If you do not make time for your wellness and health now, you will be forced to make time for your illness in the future.
