It doesn’t matter if you’re pre- peri- post- or actually IN menopause, for most women, the hormonal flux makes maintaining or losing weight a LOT more challenging. Women come to me all the time saying that they feel their weight is out of control. Many report that they’re eating less and exercising more, and the pounds and belly fat keep piling on. Never mind the hot flashes, night sweats, fogginess and mood swings!
I’ll get to my top solutions in a bit, but I think it’s really important to understand WHY this happens so that you’ll be able to stay ahead of it.
First of all, let’s shift our mindset about menopause. Similar to puberty, menopause is a natural, inevitable life stage – it’s not ‘all downhill’ from here!
Instead of sex hormones dialing up as they do in puberty, in menopause, sex hormones dial down – because, duh – no more babies – it’s ME time now! So the work that our ovaries have done for the past 30, 40, 50 years transitions to other glands – most notably our adrenal glands.
Menopause is not the end, but rather the beginning of a new hormonal life. There’s no more menstrual bleeding, because our need to fertilize eggs no longer exists. We could view this as good or bad. I choose good!
This stage of life means that the focus is no longer on motherhood and taking care of others, but finding more of who WE are and nurturing that which we set aside in order to nurture our families in our younger years.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we skip town and leave everyone in the dust, but as we get older, our kids do too – and their need for more independence grows as their need for US diminishes. This is a beautiful, natural, necessary thing! If we keep doing for our children what they are more than capable of doing themselves, THEIR growth is stifled. It’s really quite selfish and detrimental to THEM (and you) to perpetuate this dynamic.
Love them, YES. Encourage them, YES.
Enable them, NO. Take on their stress as if it’s your own. NO <this is hard, I know!
But all living things grow through stress. If we don’t allow the stress, they ain’t gonna grow.
This is natural law.
(OK Menopause Motherhood pep talk over.)
Let’s say you don’t have kids. Well, you may notice in this stage of life that the patterns you used to have in your career, business or relationships start to shift too. It’s a different dynamic than growing children, but it’s really the same theme. The focus shifts from doing everything for everyone else, trying to please everyone else, to fulfilling and honoring your own truth and needs. This is also a beautiful thing <but super hard to change too, I know!
Some women going through menopause just allow the ebb and flow to naturally occur – while some women resist it…they have a harder time letting go of the way they’re used to being. It’s all OK. We all have different journeys and our own growth path. Just be aware that there are consequences.
From a physiological standpoint, as the ovaries stop producing our sex hormones: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHEA – and the adrenal glands pick up the slack, the first area of trouble occurs if we have too much stress in our lives. (This especially includes taking on the stress of others! see above.)
The adrenals’ primary role is to regulate our stress hormones (cortisol primarily) and blood pressure. This exquisite design and function ensures our survival. The stress, blood pressure and sex hormones and precursers ramp up during menopause so that, along with hormones produced in fat tissue, we make estrogen, progesterone along with the androgens, DHEA and testosterone in the adrenal glands.
The body HAS to prioritize the stress hormones because they are vital for life. In other words, without cortisol, we would DIE. So guess what happens when we have mental, emotional, physical and even spiritual stress running in the background all day, everyday?
(< See Infographic) You got it. The hormonal cascade converts progesterone into cortisol to meet the stress demands. The production of cortisol not only steals from progesterone and pregnenolone, but it HAS to take precedence over DHEA too which is the precursor to estrogen and testosterone.
This is where ALL the hormones can be low (which was my hormonal profile for a while).
How does this effect our weight? The main culprits are:
- Dysregulated Cortisol = High Blood Sugar = High Insulin = Increased Fat storage and Decreased Fat Burning
- Low Estrogen/Progesterone further decreases insulin sensitivity while also decreasing gut motility and metabolism.
- Low DHEA/Testosterone decreases muscle growth and favors fat storage particularly in the belly region.
OK, so here are my top three solutions to reverse these effects, balancing weight and hormonal symptoms through ALL the stages of peri/post menopause:
#1 Decrease stress – Emotional stressors, as I elaborated earlier, are a biggie for women in peri/menopause, but most of us also need to work on reducing physical stressors such as over/under exercising, poor sleep, toxin exposure, nutrient deficiencies, inflammatory foods/substances, etc..
#2 Decrease Carbohydrates – Since cortisol AND carbohydrates raise blood sugar and low estrogen/progesterone decrease insulin sensitivity, you can minimize the impact of the hormone flux in menopause by decreasing your carbohydrate consumption – especially refined carbs, but you may also have to reduce whole foods based carbs like fruit, grains, starchy veggies and beans.
#3 Increase Fat – See in the chart above how I circled CHOLESTEROL? It’s SUPER important for hormonal health and not something to be feared or avoided. Cholesterol is the precursor for ALL the adrenal sex hormones as well as cortisol, so increase your dietary fat ratio – especially if you’ve been no-fat/low fat brainwashed since the 80s like I was! You could try keto or just increase your fat consumption as you decrease those carbs.
Once you nail these three things down, if you’re still not feeling better, you can start to go deeper into hormonal testing, supplements/adaptogens, bio-identical hormone replacement (if necessary), but for most women, these simple diet, mindset and lifestyle shifts will beautifully reset hormones – and weight!
If you need more support with your hormones, simply contact me and I’ll put you on the waitlist for my upcoming guided group program: The KETO-FIX FORMULA for MENOPAUSE. In this 6 week, 6 module program you’ll get direct nutritionist support to master all of the above and more in any stage of menopause. It starts after Easter and will get you summer ready just in time for Memorial Day. Women in my scaled down 28 day Beta program lost up to 15 lbs in less than a month! Most importantly, most have made new connections and habits they’re still loving and plan on continuing forever! This is a balanced, sustainable, life changing approach that’s not available anywhere else for those of us in the peri/menopause stage of life – that’s why I created this more in depth program! More info is coming soon so get on the waitlist by contacting me HERE!
xo,
Ev
