Hormonal Changes and Menopausal Weight Gain

Menopausal weight gain seems to be a great concern for women as they age. It seems that gaining some weight during this period in life seems inevitable. Some women may even be puzzled as to why they seem to pile up weight even though they eat the same amount of food. There are many reasons for this.

Women go through menopausal weight gain because their body is going through changes during menopause. The reason for the weight gain may stem from the hormones themselves. During menopause, normal estrogen levels in the body seem to go down. Estrogen is the female sex hormone that is responsible for a woman’s monthly ovulation.

Low estrogen levels during menopause causes the female body to stop ovulating. As the ovaries of the woman produce less estrogen, her body tries to look for other means to get its estrogen supply. One of the means that the body can be supplied with the estrogen hormone is through the fat cells. So the body tries to convert as much of the calories it is supplied with into fat to be able to produce the much needed estrogen. Unfortunately, the fat cells are not as effective in burning calories as much as muscles do. This causes women to pack up additional pounds.

Progesterone is another hormone that may be the cause of weight gain during menopause. Just like estrogen, women undergoing menopause also experience their body’s progesterone levels go down. This causes weight gain on women on a different way. Low levels of progesterone in the body are associated with water retention and bloating, giving one the appearance of getting bigger and heavier. But this effect usually only happens for a short time and will disappear in just a few months.

Another hormone that may be responsible for weight gain during menopause is the male sex hormone androgen. Menopause brings about an increase of androgen levels in women. This hormone becomes responsible for sending the gained weight into the abdominal area or the middle section of the body. This is the reason why weight gain during menopause is also referred to as the “middle age spread”.

Another hormone that may be responsible for weight gain during menopause is testosterone. This hormone helps the body to create lean muscle mass out of the calories that the body takes in. Muscle cells are better at burning calories than fat cells and helps in increasing the body’s metabolism. During menopause, the level of this hormone drops which then results in a gradual loss of muscle. This also means that metabolism in the body slows down, causing the body to burn calories slower.

Women become frustrated and concerned when they suddenly find themselves gaining weight during menopause. No matter how careful they are on maintaining their eating habits and even adding up a dose of exercise into their daily habit, they still can’t seem to maintain their weight. Women must understand that it is because of the changes in the body during menopause that makes maintaining their weight even more difficult. Losing weight even becomes a more challenging undertaking than ever before.

Women must remember that it is not entirely their fault that they are gaining weight during this stage in their life. Menopausal weight gain is a normal occurrence due to the fluctuations in the hormone levels in the body. These hormones will also have a big impact on one’s appetite and the body’s ability to metabolize calories and store fats.

The better that women understand what goes on with their bodies during menopause, the less frustrated they can become when faced with weight gain.

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Weight loss surgeries are not a cure. . . but a tool

Weight loss surgeries are not a cure for obesity. In fact you only have a few years to enjoy the sole benefits of weight loss surgeries.

Permanent weight loss is not assured through weight loss surgeries; rather it is about a change in lifestyle. Obviously weight loss surgeries do not constitute a lifestyle change.

Types of weight loss surgeries:

There are basically three types of weight loss surgery procedures;
(i) Restrictive weight loss surgery
(ii) Mal-absorptive weight loss surgery
(iii) Restrictive and mal-absorptive (Combined) weight loss surgery.

Restrictive weight loss surgeries are procedures that reduces the size of the stomach such that you are forced to eat less by restricting the amount of food you stomach can hold at a time hence the term restrictive surgery. This is usually done in two main ways, either using staples or using a band.

Both procedures reduce the size of the effective stomach by creating a small pouch out of the main stomach using either the band or staples.

Mal-absorptive weight loss surgeries on the other hand do not limit food intake. It inhibits absorption of calories. The procedures involve eliminating a substantial length of small intestines from coming in contact with the digested food.

The logic behind mal-absorptive surgeries are that though one may eat a lot of calories, fewer calories are absorbed into the blood stream due to a significantly shorter small intestines, the site for nutrient and calorie absorption.

Combined weight loss surgeries are a hybrid of the other two procedures. It has become more common as it is found to be more effective to restrict both calorie intake and absorption.

According to American Society of Bariatric Surgery, about 170,000 people in the year 2005 had weight loss surgeries. Most of these procedures were dome on adults 65 yrs old and younger who had been immobilized by their weigh and related medical conditions.

Weight Loss Surgeries are an extreme support structure:

It is important that weight loss surgeries is understood. They are not a cure for obesity they probably will never be. The only known cure for obesity is a change in lifestyle to a healthy diet and increased physical activities.

As so appropriately suggested by surgeon Harvey Sugerman professor emeritus of Virginia Commonwealth University and a past president of American Society of Biatric Surgery, weight loss surgery “is a tool”. Indeed it is an extreme tool only for extreme cases.

Among the top 4 reasons you fail in losing weight is lack of weight loss support structures. Weight loss surgeries are support structures. Weight loss support structures are physical means that are designed to aid your physiology as well as psychology in the pursuit to lose weight healthily and safely.Among the characteristics that weight loss surgeries exhibits support include the fact that weight loss surgery jump stars weight loss.

This is a similar characteristic you will find in a liquid diet or an appetite suppressing weight loss pill. Both can be used under a watchful eye to assist in losing weight. Similarly weight loss surgeries should be handled as weight loss support structure. They are not a cure.

Menopause and Weight Loss

During menopause, many women report that the challenge of weight loss becomes even more difficult. The need to lose weight haunts women most of the time, and now more men are reporting the same struggle. When women hit menopause, weight gathers around the waist and hips; despite our best efforts to diet and exercise.

What we know is that this additional body fat is linked to your hormones. Most women follow a conventional low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet with lots of processed foods. Eventually this diet creates a condition known as insulin resistance; see Dr. Schwarzbein’s book on the book list. When you are insulin resistant, your body converts calories into fat even when you are dieting. Menopause feels like a losing battle, but it doesn’t have to be.

When you are stressed, as the body typically is during menopause, stress hormones block weight loss. Despite adequate food, the body acts as if it’s in a famine and stores all spare calories as fat.

This leads to a metabolic disorder called adrenal fatigue.

Many women combine a high-stress life with a low-fat, high-carb diet which creates a powerful hormonal imbalance which causes us to gain weight. Yo-yo dieting exacerbates the problem.

Also, when a woman is on a high-carb diet she is often barraged with a craving for sweets. The body can’t maintain optimal blood sugar and serotonin levels, so you snack and drink caffeine to feel better. That makes your insulin resistance worse and the vicious cycle of gaining weight is accelerated.

During perimenopause, women lose estrogen which is an added factor to this problem. As estrogen decreases, the body needs extra fat resources. Other factors that play into this problem, are unresolved emotional issues, food sensitivities, digestive issues such as yeast, and even heavy metal toxicity.

So what do we do?

The most important step is to GET HEALTHY!

Follow an eating plan like the one in the Schwarzbein Principle or the Zone Diet

You need protein at every meal, low carbs, very little to no processed food, and lots of fruit and vegetables

Drink plenty of water

Take nutritional supplements

Try Supplements Designed for Menopause

Stop weighing yourself, use your clothes as a gauge (focus on your health not your weight)

Start exercising – walk 4-5 times a week for 30 minute (it boosts metabolism)

Get help for emotional eating – you have to face your fears to get through them

Reduce the stress in your life, make time for fun and relaxation – strive for BALANCE

Learn to love yourself during menopause and accept who you are and at what stage in life you find yourself

Menopause can make weight loss even more challenging for both women and men. But with the right knowledge and some hard work, it can be done.

The information in this article is for educational purposes only, and is not intended as medical advice.

Weight loss and weight-lifting:

When I determined that I would write this weight loss article, I figured I wouldn’t turn to “experts”, doctors or classical philosophers. So, I turned to that veritable sage of expert insight and real-life savvy…Miss Piggy. Her “weight loss” counsel? “Never Eat More Than You Can Lift.”

I am not a weight loss therapist. Granted. But, as a Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeon for over three decades, I’ve done my share of weight loss “counselin (Surgeon unknown)

Actually, by the time they needed to come to see me, my “counseling” was very simple: “If you want to live, you better start some sort of weight loss plan…immediately.”

They usually didn’t like my counsel. I assured them, they would like my surgeon’s knife even less.

It got worse. I would then tell them: “The plain fact is this: If you are overweight, you are in danger.”

People can take only so much comforting.

Why so direct, you ask? Hum…In case you didn’t get it before, I’ll say it again slowly… “If… you… are …overweight, then …YOU… are…IN…DANGER.” That is the first of four principles about weight loss you must learn.

If the conviction in your soul doesn’t have “stopping power” – no “pause” in eating beyond safety – then you are not convinced about the danger sufficiently to save your own life. I know. I’ve seen it a thousand times in the patients of colleagues as well as my own, in hospitals all over Illinois.

Every weight lifter, for example, knows lifting weights, whether for fun, sports training, or competitive advantage, can cause serious injury or death. Every weightlifter knows that the only, really healthy part of the weight-lifting regimen is the part when you rest. That is when the body repairs itself.

If you are overweight, you are almost never resting your body from the weight you are lifting…the weight attached to you.

That is the second point to learn about “weight loss.” If you are overweight, then you are always lifting weight (yours)… and your heart is always working to carry that weight. And your bones, muscles and ligaments are always carrying more then they were designed to lift or carry. And there is little rest for your body. The only solution for you is weight loss…or worse.

What can I say to make you understand how dire this issue really is?

The weight loss plan that always works…ask any doctor.

Go ahead…ask any doctor. See if I am mistaken. There is a weight loss plan that always works. Ask your doctor about it.

I can tell you are curious to know what it is. Don’t be. No one is ever really interested in it. So, why bring it up? Because it is the only way you will lose weight. No matter what you do to lose weight, this is what you must do to get results.

Weight loss plan: Take into your body less energy than you use. That’s it. If you use more energy than you take in, your body must burn off the weight to create the energy you need.

Hum…It’s called basic mathematics. Take in less, use up more. Subtract weight. Works every time. No exceptions. But, that’s not the third lesson to learn. No. The Third lesson is this is. Taking into your body less energy than you use is the only solution given to us. No matter what you do, fail in this, no loss of weight will occur.

I’ll just bet you’re having a charismatic experience over that one.

Yet, people would prefer to spend lots of money and exasperation on any of the following:

- weight loss pills…including rapid weight loss pills…
- weight loss diets of all sorts…
- weight loss programs – often ingenious but taxing upon the body…
- weight loss products so diverse it’s unimaginable…
- weight loss supplements promising wonders…
- weight loss spas…
- weight loss with acupuncture…
- weight loss exercises …
- weight loss nutrition…
- weight loss counseling…
- weight loss clinics…
- weight loss medications…
- weight loss recipes …
- weight loss walking…
- weight loss patches…
- weight loss drugs…
- weight loss surgery, for those who just can’t endure the problem much longer…

There’s even …. “weight loss hypnosis.”

Another solution?

No. But, there is a Lesson Four here. There is something you should take to protect yourself since you are not going to take the simple weight loss plan given above.

Indeed, we should all be taking a new nutrient which, for two decades, scientists suspected did exist but took three Nobel Prizes in the nineties to prove. Glyconutrition.

Weight loss is often undertaken in a compromised manner. For example, some of us exercise heavily. Did you know that free radicals are multiplied heavily as a direct result of your workouts? Glyconutrition is designed to absorb the free radicals while limiting their scope and damaging effects.

So, if you are working out heavily so as to lose weight, get on a glyconutrition regimen immediately.

Are you cutting back on meals or other dietary restraints? Glyconutrition must be present for your body to utilize the nutrients you do ingest, make necessary tissue repairs, and eliminate the toxins you need be rid of.

If that doesn’t happen, you may be weakening yourself unknowingly. If so, you may be losing weight, but incurring danger to your tissues or organs elsewhere inside you.

Like I said, if you are overweight, you are in danger…in more ways than one.

Glyconutrition, incidentally, helps the body lose weight through proper cellular communication …but that for another article.

So… if it you’re overweight…Listen to Miss Piggy.

“Never eat more than you can lift.”