If you are perimenopausal, menopausal or post-menopausal, nature has a twisted surprise for you.
As if hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, mood swings and wrinkles were not bad enough, you are now noticing an ever-expanding waistline. Your clothes don’t fit you anymore. You start cutting back on your calories. You stop eating a handful of M&Ms before bed. You skip dessert at the potluck, and control your urge to get a second helping of your home-cooked delicious casserole. But nothing helps. Your metabolism is practically nonexistent.
You get frustrated and break down, go shopping and buy just a few comfortable pieces of clothing and vow to lose the excess weight. You start walking during your lunch break but still cannot lose a pound. All you can do is to maintain your weight. You begin to get depressed, and, in a moment of desperation, you give up and binge eat. Sounds familiar? Well, you are facing one of the most inevitable challenges of perimenopause and menopause, weight gain.
- Slower Metabolism
Evidence suggests our metabolism slows down as we get older. In order to lose weight, you have to either reduce your calories or ramp up your exercise. Better yet, do both.
- Drop in Estrogen Level
As your estrogen drops, your brain starts to look for other sources of estrogen in your body. Fatty cells produce estrogen. So, your smart brain orders the body to hold on to the fatty cells to make estrogen for you. The problem is that you have to store an awful lot of fatty cells to make a significant enough amount of estrogen for you. Therefore, despite your efforts, this underlying mechanism keeps adding to your weight. You may want to consider Bio-identical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) to stop the vicious circle.
- Changes in muscle mass
As your hormones take a dive, and especially if you are not exercising, your muscle mass declines and gets replaced by fat. Fatty tissue burns fewer calories than muscle. For example, the less muscle you have, the slower your metabolism gets. Have your testosterone level checked, and ask your hormone specialist if you need to use testosterone.
- Cortisol Connection
You have heard of stress and weight gain. Stress causes the release of cortisol, the stress hormone. Normally, cortisol helps regulate your metabolism, but the excess and untimely production of it may lead to weight gain. The condition called Adrenal Fatigue is becoming more well-known and can cause dysregulation of cortisol. Excess cortisol production usually contributes to weight gain, especially in the mid-section of the body. You may want to watch my videos on YouTube about adrenal fatigue.
- Medications and Other Factors
Other factors affecting our weight can be related to sleeping difficulties, lack of motivation and stamina to exercise, and certain medications, such as antidepressants or steroids, which are used to treat allergies and asthma.
Dr. Sharzad Green has been a pharmacist since 1990. She has Western training with a twist of Eastern medicine. She specializes in bioidentical hormone therapy and natural alternatives. Contact her at (480) 264-7600 or via email at azhormonehelpers@hotmail.com. You may read her blogs at greenbalancerx.wordpress.com.