Weight Management in Menopause: Why you need a new approach

Aside from hot flushes and night sweats, weight gain in menopause has got to be the number one stress women experience. I’ve had many clients who have told me that what they are doing to try to move the weight is not working, and they are at a loss as to how to approach the menopausal years.

Most are not happy with their changing body, but continuing to do what you’ve always done, aka, dieting and hitting the gym to burn those calories is not the approach to take at midlife. Most of us in the menopause years were teenagers in the eighties and nineties – the height of so many fad diets where losing weight was discussed among friends frequently, all trying to fit into societal standards.

We are now decades on from that time, and now understand and know that diets don’t work as they are not sustainable long term and are more detrimental to your health over time. In fact, we now know more about the human body, the effect of the environment we are in, our thought patterns and self talk and the effect of the busy lifestyles we have – all these have an effect on our health, weight and menopause experience.

We need to widen our view when it comes to health and weight and understand the changes happening in our body during menopause and the effect of ageing. All with self kindness, self respect, no judgement and acceptance. That is a critical step, and then we can start taking a holistic approach to managing our health.

Why does weight gain happen in menopause?

The “calories in, calories out” theory doesn’t work because our body goes through many changes simultaneously that affect weight, fat deposition, muscles and metabolism. In order to address health and weight concerns, we need to take a holistic approach – understand what is happening in our body and the influence of other factors that influence our weight.

Hormonal changes such as declining oestrogen have a major impact on many systems in the body. In regards to weight issues, lowered oestrogen:

Causes a redistribution of fat from the hips and thighs to the waist
Results in higher testosterone and other androgens which have an effect on hunger hormones making it difficult to regulate hunger and satiety commonly leading to overeating
Increases muscle loss resulting in diminishing strength and bone loss, increasing the risk of osteoporosis
Affects metabolism by slowing it down due to muscle loss (muscle is metabolically active)

Oestrogen and other hormones aren’t the only culprits in this scenario though.

Couple all this with:

a westernised diet high in processed foods containing high amounts of salt, sugar and fat that are low in fibre, vitamins and minerals
alcohol intake
smoking
lack of sleep
stress from all the rushing around in our busy lives and,
being more sedentary

You can see that it is more than “calories in, calories out”. It’s complicated.

Taking all this into consideration, a cookie cutter approach to helping you is doing you a disservice, as your individual circumstances are exactly that, individual to you.

Let’s look a little further into this.

Some considerations for your health and weight concerns

You may not be happy with your changing body and weight gain around the middle, but the very first step to making changes is to accept what is happening. Being unhappy and negatively talking to yourself is not going to change anything. Fully accept midlife’s changes and show gratitude for your body and what it has done for you throughout your life. Following are some questions to ask yourself to determine the possible areas that need addressing:

Nutrition

Consider what types of foods you eat often – do you eat out a lot or have takeaway often? Would you consider your diet to be high in processed foods? Are you eating mainly fresh, whole foods? Are you drinking enough water?

Joyful Movement

What types of physical activity are you doing? Do you really love it, or are you doing it “to be good?” Are you mixing up movement with aerobic, strengthening and balancing exercises? How often are you exercising?

Stress

Do you feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day? Are you rushing from the minute you get up to the moment your head hits the pillow? Do you feel like you are constantly multitasking and not coping with it? Do you constantly have things on your mind that worries you?

Sleep

Do you sleep all night? Do you feel tired during the day? Do you wake up tired? If you aren’t sleeping well, what may be causing this?

Connection to self and others

Do you feel that you are in tune with your body? Do you listen to your body cues and respond accordingly? Do you have a group of friends that you see regularly?

As you can see, the weight issues experienced in menopause are multifactorial. It would seem that the weight gain is an orchestrated set of changes happening simultaneously. To consider living a healthier life and managing weight issues, it needs to be looked at through the lens of a whole lifestyle approach, which considers more than “calories in, calories out”.

If you are wanting help with your menopause health and weight concerns connect with me and book a Discovery Call to learn how I can help you.

References:

1 Australasian Menopause Society, Maintaining your weight and health during and after menopause

https://www.menopause.org.au/health-info/fact-sheets/maintaining-your-weight-and-health

2 Better Health Channel, Menopause and Weight

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/menopause-and-weight-gain

3 McCarthy D & Berg A, Weight Loss Strategies and the Risk of Skeletal Muscle Mass Loss, Nutrients, July 2021, 13, 2473

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8308821/pdf/nutrients-13-02473.pdf

4 Sakshi C et al, Weight Management Module for Perimenopausal Women: A Practical Guide for Gynaecologists, J Midlife Health 2019 Oct-Dec; 10(4):165-172

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6947726/