Menopause and Weight Loss

Menopause marks the end of our fertility and a new phase in life. However, many of us also face unwanted weight gain—especially around our waists. But we’re not doomed to this weight gain—and getting rid of it doesn’t require calorie-counting, restricted eating, hunger and deprivation.

TrimDownClub, Jul 27, 2014
 

Estrogen and Fat: It’s Complicated

We think of estrogen as the hormone responsible for the fat that most women store in our breasts, hips and thighs, giving us our classic shape. But it’s more complicated than that.

• Estrogen drives fat gain in women because pregnancy and nursing require enormous calorie reserves. This is why healthy women require a much higher minimum level of body fat (about 15%) than healthy men (about 5%).
• Estrogen balances thyroid function. Both the ovaries and body fat produce estrogen. When a woman is overweight, her excess estrogen can suppress thyroid function. If you are already overweight, or have had difficulty losing weight or maintaining a healthy weight, have your thyroid checked.
• Estrogen is an anabolic (muscle-building) steroid, just like testosterone, and your body produces both steroids naturally. Estrogen is vital to building and maintaining healthy muscle and bone in men and women alike.
• Estrogen is why women’s muscles recover faster than men’s from intense workouts.
• Finally, estrogen suppresses women’s appetites and, during exertion, directs the body to burn stored fat, rather than the glycogen (a type of sugar) stored in the muscles and liver that is the brain’s preferred fuel source.

So Does Menopause Make Women Fat?

The answer is: our bodies are trying to produce all the estrogen they can to protect our muscles and bones. Strong muscles and bones used to be a matter of life and death and they are still critical to our quality of life. But post-menopausal weight gain is more complicated than that.

Muscle burns far more calories than an equivalent mass of fat. Both men and women lose muscle as they age. However, estrogen is women’s main muscle-building hormone and both estrogen and testosterone decline suddenly in women.

Therefore, women lose muscle more rapidly than men do—and, biologically, women have less to lose. Culturally, women are discouraged from physical fitness, especially from strength training, so normal, age-related muscle loss is far worse for the average woman than the average man.

The result? A horrible chain reaction:

1. Less muscle mass means a slower metabolism so you have to eat less to avoid gaining weight—at the same time you lose the appetite-suppression effect of estrogen.
2. Increased hunger also slows the metabolism.
3. Hunger is also a stress that increases cortisol production.
4. Cortisol increases your appetite, especially for sweets and refined carbohydrate comfort foods. The body easily converts these foods to high levels of blood sugar.
5. High levels of blood sugar are poisonous, so your body stores this excess sugar as fat.
6. This makes you hungry because your body isn’t getting the energy it needs.
7. This extra fat produces estrogen that may further suppress your thyroid even as it protects your remaining muscle.

Reversing Post-Menopausal Weight Gain

There are several steps to losing fat after menopause.

Nutrition

Getting this right makes losing fat much easier. It will also improve your general health—and it never involves hunger or deprivation. Getting it wrong can make losing fat impossible because your diet is your fuel.

We really are what we eat, so eat a diet high in lean proteins, healthy fats (favoring omega-3s and omega-9s over omega-6s), fruits and vegetables, and unrefined grains (favoring these over refined carbohydrates, including added, hidden sugar).

When you eliminate the refined carbs and hidden sugar, you stabilize your blood sugar levels in a healthy range. This means your body does not have to store your food as fat, but can use it to fuel you and your brain.

You should be sure to eat the entire recommended daily amount of protein. Although women often avoid eating enough protein when trying to lose weight, protein preserves muscle mass and protects your metabolism, ultimately helping you lose weight. And protein satiates you, so you are not as hungry as often.

Learn more about delicious, healthy foods that kickstart your metabolism.

General Lifestyle

Drink enough water and limit your alcohol to boost your metabolism. Alcohol is not just high in calories, it can trigger hot flashes—as can caffeine—and both will disturb your sleep cycle even without hot flashes. (Valium)

Poor sleep is a known factor for weight gain and women have poorer sleep quality than men, especially after menopause.

Rebuilding Muscle (without Estrogen)

Yes, estrogen is important for building muscle. However, it is possible for women to regain at least some muscle after menopause. Doing this requires strength-training. But there’s nothing to be afraid of!

A fitness trainer who knows how to train for increased muscle mass and who understands and is sympathetic to the hormonal issues women face, can be extremely helpful. There are different types of weight lifting, so your trainer can help you find the one you enjoy.

Good music and a high-energy, positive instructor can turn a hard workout into an intense, sweaty party, especially if you are in a class. The more you enjoy lifting, the more you will do it.

And you don’t have to worry about turning into a body builder. Bodybuilding requires a strict diet and training regimen: even the cleanest, most elegant body builders do not get that way by accident or fast and the grotesque look requires artificial steroids.

Regaining muscle will cause a positive metabolic chain reaction:

1. You will be less hungry because more muscle means you can eat more without gaining weight.
2. Your body will speed up your metabolism because it no longer has to conserve energy to protect you from hunger.
3. Your body will produce less cortisol because you have removed the stress caused by hunger.
4. You will eat less sugary and starchy comfort foods because you have far fewer cravings.
5. You will lower your blood sugar levels because you’re eating fewer of these refined carbs.
6. This means the food you eat fuels your body and brain—not your fat—also reducing your hunger levels.

Adding Hormone Therapy (HT) to the Mix

Good nutrition is good for everyone. And weight-lifting is great, as long as you do it the right way. HT is more individual. Research indicates that HT may slightly increase the risk of some cancers, heart attacks and strokes in some women.

On other hand, the result is often a far better quality of life that goes well beyond weight loss. There are benefits and risks, so you should talk to your doctor about it. In terms of weight loss, the following benefits have been found in clinical research:

• It helps maintain your muscles and bones because the estrogen (and progestin, if you have an intact uterus) is an anabolic steroid.
• You may have more energy and be less hungry because your body can get the estrogen it needs to protect your muscle and bone from the HT, rather than by converting food into fat.
• Your thyroid function may improve because your body is storing less estrogen-producing fat.
• You will be more likely to have the healthier female-pattern fat deposition in your hips and thighs, rather than unhealthy male pattern in the abdomen, if you use HT.

Some women have experienced similar effects by using plant sources of female hormones, known as ‘phytoestrogens’. One of the most popular sources is soy, which is also a source of good-quality protein. Soy has been shown in postmenopausal women to enhance metabolic rate and muscle gain when combined with exercise—especially a combination or resistance exercise (i.e. weight training) and cardiovascular exercise (i.e. walking). Note that when selecting soy products, organic unprocessed is best, and sprouted and/or fermented is very important to maximize the benefits.

HT should be the last part of your post-menopausal fat-loss program because it is not a miracle cure and it may have some risks. However, a healthy lifestyle based on great food (like the Trim Down Club) and a weight-lifting program works for almost everyone, almost every time.

Learn more about the Trim Down Club here.

References

• Stevenson JC, Panay N, Pexman-Fieth C. Oral estradiol and dydrogesterone combination therapy in postmenopausal women: review of efficacy and safety. Maturitas. 2013 Sep;76(1):10-21.
• Shi H, Kumar SP, Liu X. G protein-coupled estrogen receptor in energy homeostasis and obesity pathogenesis. Prog Mol Biol Transl Sci. 2013;114:193-250.
• Gesing A, Lewiński A, Karbownik-Lewińska M. The thyroid gland and the process of agingwhat is new? Thyroid Research 2012;5:16-20.
• Beccuti G, Pannain S. Sleep and obesity. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2011 Jul;14(4):402-12.
• Trevisan MC, Souza JM, Marucci Mde F. Influence of soy protein intake and weight training on the resting energy expenditure of postmenopausal women. Rev Assoc Med Bras. 2010 Sep-Oct;56(5):572-8.
• Castel H, Harmanl-Boehm I, Shapira N. Nutrition-Related Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Dietary Intervention in Middle-Aged and Older People: Is There a Gender Connection? In: Research Trends in Nutrition (Urster JP, ed.). pp. 57-132. ©2008 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. ISBN: 978-1-60456-147-0.Chahal HS, Drake WM. The endocrine system and ageing. J Pathol. 2007 Jan;211(2):173-80.