Updated: Sep 23, 2021
As we age, it becomes seemingly harder to maintain your usual weight. The truth is that most men & women start to experience weight gain during the transition to menopause. While it may take some hard work there are options to avoid or reverse weight gain associated with hormonal imbalance & get back to your normal weight.
When most people think about losing inches they turn to fast-fad diets. While these may band-aid the problem the real results come when you start managing your metabolism. In simple terms, your metabolism is how much energy your body burns while at rest. Constant sitting, desk jobs, or decreased lack of exercise are to blame for slowing your metabolism. In addition to lack of physical activity, each year those who do not strength train reduce their metabolic rate by 3% - 5%!
What is it about menopause that makes it easy to pack on pounds but impossible to lose them?
Estrogen is a hormone that helps to control body weight. Reduced estrogen can result in a reduced metabolic rate causing for inevitable weight gain. The lack of estrogen in the body may also cause your body to use blood sugar less effectively. This in turn would increase fat storage and make it harder to lose weight.
As we age the more active we are the less likely we are to gain massive amounts of weight. Exercise becomes even more important as we get older. You naturally lose muscle mass with age which can slow down your metabolism. Lifting weights for example can have a positive impact on your metabolism because strengthening your muscles will make you into a more efficient calorie-burning machine, even when you're resting.
Some evidence suggests that estrogen hormone therapy increases the resting metabolic rate. This might help slow weight gain.
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