From, women's health network

As many women enter perimenopause
(approach menopause), they often find
themselves experiencing unexplained weight
gain and/or changes in fat distribution —
especially around the waist. Methods of weight
management that worked for them for years
may now be oddly ineffective. In fact, weight
gain in the abdomen is one of the most
common complaints of perimenopausal
women. Yet most women have been told that
an extra 10–20 pounds is simply a ‘rite of
passage’ at this time of life and they should
just accept their “middle-age spread” as part of
the natural aging process.
But you don’t have to. There is no reason why
you should settle for anything at this stage of
your life, let alone weight gain. Sure, things
may get a little more complicated during
perimenopause. Hormonal fluctuations,
changes in thyroid function, and even long-
term toxin exposure can result in some extra
weight and a spreading waistline. But it
doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with it. Weight
gain with menopause can challenge our self-
esteem and sense of well-being, and abdominal
fat actually carries with it some significant
health risks. The sooner you can get on top of
these tendencies, the easier time you’ll have
over the next several years.
Menopause weight gain
The same metabolic set point holds true for
your post-menopausal body as it did before
“the change.” Menopause weight gain is just
another symptom resulting from your system
being out of balance. To restore balance, you
need to figure out what is going on at the core
of your physiology and emotions.
One of the blessings of menopause is the
stripping away of the masking effects of
estrogen. While this process may produce
symptoms, it becomes much easier to get a
handle on underlying individual susceptibilities
and what’s not functioning well for you. Many
women have conditions such as insulin
resistance or adrenal fatigue that have been
developing for a long time, but it’s only after
estrogen levels dip that the symptoms become
noticeable. Once apparent, it becomes easier to
know what to do about it.
Why does weight gain occur so easily for
women as they age? It depends on the
individual, but there are a few causes that are
very common. Worldwide, the prevalence of
obesity has doubled since 1980. Because this
is most notable in developed countries, much of
this trend can be traced to a sedentary lifestyle
and consumption of highly-processed foods.
Also, your fat cells and your hormones are part
of a system-wide biofeedback network that
orchestrates your appetite, metabolism, heat
regulation, digestion, and detoxification. Any
chronic disturbance in the crosstalk among
systems has the potential to produce weight
gain (and a host of other menopausal
symptoms, like hot flashes and food cravings).
The causes of unexplained weight gain
Abdominal fat accumulation: One of estrogen’s
actions in women is to deposit fat around the
hips, rather than the waist. When your ovaries
stop producing estrogen in menopause, this
effect stops as well. The result is a
redistribution of fat from the hips to the belly.
Once ‘pear-shaped,’ we may now find
ourselves becoming more ‘apple-shaped,’ even
if we haven’t necessarily gained extra pounds.
The prevalence of abdominal obesity increases
dramatically during the menopausal years, but
it’s not inevitable.
Insulin resistance: This increase in belly fat
increases our ‘metabolic risk.’ This means that
insulin resistance can form, blood glucose and
insulin levels can increase, metabolic syndrome
may develop, and our risk of type 2 diabetes
can skyrocket. With these changes come
cardiovascular risks. While metabolic
imbalances are more common in menopause,
only the women with expanding waist lines are
at significant risk. Genetic predisposition can
also tip the scales, as can diet. For years, many
women followed the conventional low-fat, high-
carbohydrate diet, with lots of refined carbs and
sweets. Over time, this kind of diet, alone, can
reduce insulin sensitivity. When you’re insulin-
resistant, your body converts calories into fat
more easily — even if you’re dieting. The result
is that while you are gaining weight, your cells
are actually starving!
Low thyroid function: The incidence of
hypothyroidism increases as women enter
menopause. Why would this be? One reason is
that autoimmunity increases, in general, with
aging, including autoimmune thyroid disease
(also called Hashimoto’s). One of estrogen’s
actions is to help our immune system tolerate
the body’s own cells, including the thyroid. As
estrogen plummets, thyroid autoimmunity can
develop in genetically-susceptible women,
causing thyroid function to become
imbalanced. Low thyroid activity results in a
lower metabolism and easier weight gain
(along with a host of other symptoms).
Loss of lean body mass: As women enter
menopause, they commonly lose some of their
lean (muscular) tissue. The good news is that
this results primarily from exercising less as we
age (an easy fix!). Regular exercise and
maintenance of muscle mass supports insulin
sensitivity, boosts your metabolism, and
stimulates your body’s natural appetite-control
signals. The net result of all of these actions is
easier weight management. Aerobic exercise
preferentially targets abdominal fat, and
resistance exercise helps preserve that lean
muscle tissue, especially during weight loss
diets.
Chronic stress: Stress can be emotional or
physical (e.g., inflammatory disorders,
infection, or allergies). Any of these make our
adrenals pump out extra cortisol to help us
handle the stress. This is a normal response
but designed to be short-term. Most of us are
under a tremendous amount of stress —
sometimes more than we realize. Unrelenting
stress can result in persistently high cortisol
levels. Besides having adverse effects on
several aspects of our health, high cortisol from
chronic stress makes us crave junk food—the
very type that piles on extra fat. It also
contributes to that expanding waistline. Why?
Because extra cortisol receptors in deep
abdominal tissue cause our bellies to form
more fat in response to stress.
Inadequate sleep: Quality sleep can become a
challenge in perimenopause if you’re one of the
many women out there who experience hot
flashes and night sweats during this transition.
Chronic stress can also cause us to go to bed
at night with a noisy head that interferes with
quality slumber. Sleep is important for weight
regulation because of its effects on leptin and
ghrelin—two appetite-regulating hormones.
Release of leptin, which tells your brain that
you’ve eaten enough, depends on getting
enough sleep. Meanwhile, sleep suppresses the
release of ghrelin, a hormone that makes us
crave sweet and high-fat foods. When both of
these hormones are imbalanced, we can find it
difficult to stop eating, especially the foods that
are so bad for us.
Chemicals and toxins add to the problem
When it comes to weight control, artificial
sweeteners are not a solution, but rather part of
the problem. Although they boast zero-caloric
content, they fail to stimulate appetite-control
peptides that are normally stimulated by
natural sweeteners. They also encourage the
development of insulin resistance. One large
study found that drinking more than 21
artificially-sweetened beverages per week
doubled the risk of being overweight or obese.
High-fructose corn syrup (added to soft drinks
and other foods) is even more dangerous,
exacerbating insulin resistance and
cardiovascular risk that are already challenges
in menopause.
Adding more artificial chemicals to your body at
this time can exacerbate the “toxic load” you
are carrying. By midlife, most women have had
years of cumulative exposure to allergens,
pesticides, plastics, chemicals, heavy metals,
bacteria, and other poisons and irritants.
Artificial and biological debris that can’t be
eliminated gets stored in our fat cells.
Over time, a woman’s system can get so
gummed up by toxins that it just can’t function
well — and it is often the case that the more fat
cells she has, the more toxins she has stored.
When a woman begins to lose weight
dramatically, as on a crash diet, these toxins
get released into the body in a flood and can
cause miserable symptoms as the body
attempts to expell them. The body at this point
just wants to get back to homeostasis (even if
what it interprets as normal isn’t healthy), and
will sabotage even the best intentions to lose
weight.
The toxic load may be just one part of a
broader pattern of inflammation — which often
shows up during menopause. Dysbiosis, yeast
and food sensitivities, and an immune system
imbalance can short-circuit weight loss.
Toxicity triggers the immune system to be on
full alert, as do any unaddressed food allergies.
Many women have been sensitive to certain
foods for decades but only realize it after they
lose estrogen’s soothing effect on the digestive
tract.
The truth about weight loss during
menopause
So the truth is, weight loss is not just about
willpower or ‘calories in/calories out.’ Both are
myths given to us by the diet industry that
doom us to failure. Fad diets simply don’t work
— over 95% of dieters gain back the weight
they lose and more — because they
oversimplify a very complex process.
The links between hormonal balance, insulin
resistance, inflammation, toxicity and body fat
aren’t the only factors that block weight loss.
Unresolved emotional issues are often at the
root cause of unhealthy eating habits — they
might be considered their own kind of toxin!
Finding all the support you need to address
‘emotional eating’ will make weight
management in menopause a much easier
process for you.
We have learned that you have to get healthy
before you can lose weight and keep it off.
Once you establish baseline health, your body
will naturally seek and maintain its ideal
weight. The first step is to follow the approach
we suggest in our nutritional and lifestyle
guidelines –our more detailed guidelines are in
the e-guides of our Health Programs.
Shifting into menopause is no reason to accept
someone else’s idea of what your limitations
are — in fact, the opposite is true! There is no
better time than now to begin building a
stronger health foundation. This is the time in
your life to discover the best in yourself,
including your power to finally deal with the
core issues that may have hindered earlier
weight loss efforts.