Weight Gain/Loss
Nutrition plays an important role throughout ones life. It is essential to be educated about the relationships between nutrition, aging, hormonal changes and its effects on acute and chronic diseases. We provide instruction and support.Did you know that perimenopause and menopause tend to lead to weight gain, and cause bloating? Around 90% of menopausal women, between the ages of 35-55, experience some weight gain from 12 to 15 pounds, gradually, about a pound a year, during perimenopause. Instead of distributing itself evenly throughout a woman's body, it generally accumulates around the abdomen because of the hormone androgen. Most women see their body change shape from pear-shaped to apple-shaped. Hormones affect factors of weight gain, like appetite, metabolism and fat storage. Among other factors involved in menopausal weight gain are stress and insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is when a woman's body mistakenly turns every calorie taken in, into fat. Stress hormones called cortisol can signal the body to go into a storage mode, also known as the "famine effect", where the body, when thinking that it won't get food for a long time, stores every calorie it takes in.
Weight gain as hard as it may be to accept, can be good for the body. It can help lessen other symptoms related to menopause, and can prepare you for the future, against osteoporosis and other illnesses. To be healthy and active can just be eating a balanced diet, avoiding crash diets, limiting caffeine/nicotine/alcohol, and staying active. Excessive weight gain can be that something is wrong with the hormone levels or blood sugars, however, so make sure to get checked out by the doctor if the weight gain during menopause is uncontrollable. Perhaps hormonal replacement therapy could help.
