We all know that preventing obesity which is classified as having a BMI above 25kg/m2 and/or a waist circumference for women should below 80cm and for men below 94cm because this has the potential to significantly decrease the risk of certain health conditions, and for women as we approach menopause the increased risk of cardiovascular disease increases even more due to hormonal changes.
The physiological change initiated by menopause alters the level of risk, primarily through the preferential deposition of fat abdominally due to oestrogen deficiency. Therefore, weight gain prevention in pre-menopausal women seems to be important.
Research has shown that weight loss can be achieved through a variety of different ways, but long-term maintenance of lost weight is much more challenging. Obesity interventions typically start with rapid weight loss followed by a plateau and progressive weight gain over time.
Long-term weight management can be extremely challenging due to interactions between our biological behaviour, and the obesogenic environment. Also, hormonal, metabolic changes and decreasing muscle mass after the age of 40 years of age makes it difficult to lose weight. There is not a “one size fits all” weight loss solution as everyone’s hormonal changes will be different and other factors to consider are diet, lifestyle (including stress and sleep) and your DNA (genes).
What happens in the metabolic process during the hormonal changes?
Metabolic changes
Your metabolism is the process of your body getting energy from food. Changes to this process can affect how easy it is to gain or lose weight. Also, the way you metabolise foods changes as you age particularly in females.
Muscle loss
Muscle loss naturally declines as we age, and this can be a factor in a lower metabolism which is why physical activity is important as we age, particularly weight-bearing exercises. When your metabolism slows down this means your body burns fewer calories at rest which can make it harder to lose weight. This can all be because as I mentioned earlier a combination of factors such as sedentary lifestyle, diet factors, chronic health conditions and genetics.
One of the reasons why muscle mass declines as we age is due to two hormones “growth hormone” and “insulin-like growth factor 1”. These hormones increase as we hit puberty but unfortunately decline slowly each year, as these levels drop this then causes a drop in our muscle mass. Additionally, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), a steroid hormone which makes other hormones, including our sex hormones start to decline each year after a person reaches their 30s. Lower DHEA levels are linked to lower muscle mass and increased body fat.
Then there is the menopause!
The stage leading up to it is called “Perimenopause” and can happen typically in your 40’s but for some women can start earlier. This involves many hormonal changes and because of these changes, your body composition shifts to where you store fat. The decrease in oestrogen and progesterone can contribute to weight gain.
Oestrogen is a hormone that helps regulate body weight by affecting fat storage and metabolism. Decreasing levels of oestrogen can contribute to an increase in body fat, particularly in your abdomen.
Weight gain during menopause can also stem from lifestyle and environmental changes that are happening at the same time. Therefore, it is important to feed your body to support hormonal changes and not focus on calorie counting, Sins or points systems.
Lifestyle factors in relation to hormones, metabolism and muscles affect everyone differently. Also, we tend to become less active as we get older which can also contribute to weight gain. Our diets and eating habits also tend to change over time and not in favour of what our hormones need.
Other factors
Other factors also to consider as we mentioned are our genes, some increase the likelihood of weight gain and lifestyle factors such as our sleep patterns, and getting less sleep can lead to poor blood sugar responses the next day and make us gain weight more likely in some people. Blood sugar spikes are linked to increased hunger. Going to bed earlier is better than trying to catch up on sleep.
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