If you talk to many 50-something age women, it won’t take long to learn menopause andweight gain seem to go hand in hand for most of them. It’s a common complaint among women in that age group.
What they don’t usually understand is why now they’re gaining weight in different parts of the body, typically the stomach area, even though they may have noticed it mostly in their hips when they were younger.
Hormonal changes have a lot to do with it, although it’s still a mystery in some areas. When a woman reaches menopause and stops ovulation, the body produces significantly lower levels of estrogen. Low estrogen has caused weight gain in laboratory animals and it can be fairly safely assumed that this is why the female body changes shape.
During childbearing years, fat is stored in the lower body. After menopause, women store more fat in the abdomen, just like men. The danger of abdominal fat is a greater risk of heart disease.
To compound the problem, unless you maintain regular exercise that includes strength training, both men and women lose muscle mass as they age, and the metabolism slows down. If you continue to eat the way you did when you were ounger, weight gain is inevitable. You simply don’t need the same number of calories at 50 or 60 as you did at 30 or 40.
Hormonal therapy is often suggested to control some of the side effects of menopause. Contrary to what you may have heard, it typically does not cause weight gain. You may have some water retention and subsequent bloating, but this is normally a temporary condition, and is not indicative of added fat.
But a debate still rages around hormone therapy, primarily due to the results of some studies that show an increased risk of breast cancer linked to the use of hormone therapy.
So do you have to settle for being fat and fifty? Absolutely not! There are steps you can take to minimize the effects of menopausal induced weight gain that don’t involve adding hormones back into your system.
1. Don’t stop eating. Just make better choices. Eat the foods you know are good for you as part of a low fat diet. Get plenty of fiber and stay away from sugar and refined flour products.
2. Exercise regularly. Your metabolism is not the only thing that slows down as you age. Work is often less demanding physically, you’re not running around chasing kids, your vacations are probably not as active as when you were younger, and in general you just do things a bit more slowly than before. You’d be amazed at what just 30 minutes of moderate activity every day will do for you.
3. Maintain your muscle mass by lifting hand weights or adding ankle weights when you walk. Of course, you should check with your doctor first before starting any exercise program if you’re currently being treated for any medical conditions.
4. Love yourself. Even if you’ve put on a few pounds and your waist is thicker than it used to be, try to be okay with that. Like Mammy told Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, “You ain’t never gonna have an 18 inch waist again!” Accept that and appreciate your life.
Another alternative is to try my Weight Loss Breeze plan. It consists of a few simple exercises that take mere minutes a day to do and makes losing weight at any age easy and almost effortless.