The Truth About Perimenopausal Weight Gain
Weight Loss Strategies
If you want to maintain your weight or get back to where you were before perimenopause changed things, then the key to doing so is to give your body the support it needs so that it can stay balanced and will not need to resort to protective measures. With most of my patients, it comes down to one of three main imbalances: hormones, adrenals or insulin.
If you have a stressful life, if you feel tired all the time or find you are wired from the stress and the daily to-dos, you most likely need adrenal support. Our Adrenal Health Products for tired or wired will help your body restore balance, reduce cravings, and manage your energy.
If you are experiencing other perimenopausal symptoms, then your body is likely struggling to balance its hormone ratios. Our Menopause System by Women to Women may be just what you need to restore hormonal balance and fill in the nutritional gaps that your diet may reveal during this time of transition.
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If you are struggling to maintain or lose weight, you may have insulin resistance or insulin sensitivity. As we age, the impact of empty calories and high levels of simple carbohydrates are cumulative and become even worse for our bodies. If you know your diet includes lots of processed foods, sugar or white flour, you’ll want to add more protein, reduce sugar levels and take a high-quality multivitamin to bridge your nutritional gaps. Women to Women offers these high-quality, pharmaceutical grade supplements to enhance your health.
Even if you have a healthy organic diet, we still see women benefit from nutritional support. Like any other intervention, if you are doing well, you can begin to transition off over time. But getting a boost of nourishment and support may be just what you body needs to get back on the right track. Because if you are seeing symptoms, whether it’s weight gain or something else, that is a sign of imbalance. That means despite your great effort, your diet is most likely not giving your body everything it needs.
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Weight isn’t just going to fall off if you are eating poorly and not exercising. But while it will be beneficial to increase your metabolic function through weight training, and exercise and regular movement are important long-term health and weight management strategies, the answer to weight loss isn’t working out for several hours a day either. If your weight is not where you want it to be despite your best efforts to eat well and exercise, then there is an underlying imbalance of some kind that you will want to identify.
While it’s most likely hormonal imbalance, insulin sensitivity or resistance or adrenal fatigue, in some cases it could also be a neurotransmitter imbalance, leptin resistance, or inflammation (high C-reactive protein levels) due to food sensitivities. The key is to work with your practitioner to identity the underlying concern so that you can resolve it and return to your desired weight.
Weight loss is also not about having more willpower: we now know willpower is like a muscle that can fatigue, just like your abs after too many sit-ups. Weight loss is not about calories in vs. calories out. That too is a myth perpetuated by the diet industry to keep us stuck. The type of calories and the quality of calories matters far more than the total amount we consume.
The answer to weight loss is also not avoiding fat – that will likely cause our bodies to store extra fat in compensation. We need fats for brain function, cell function, and hormone synthesis. A balanced diet with lots of healthy fat, combined with grass-fed meat protein and wild deep-sea fish, and complex carbohydrates such as fruits and vegetables that color the rainbow is a great start. But if you are transitioning there, or even if you are there but you are experiencing symptoms, you will need additional support. Our nutritional supplements can help.
Nutrition and supplementation, balancing hormones, sleep, stress relief, dealing with your emotions (not pushing them away) and finding balance in your life are all key components to avoiding perimenopausal weight gain. It happens to so many women because so many women are out of balance – their lifetime of bad habits finally catches up to them in menopause. But that does not have to be you. If you become proactive, rather than inactive or reactive, you can change the trajectory and maintain a healthy happy body through menopause and beyond.
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