Have you hit that time in your life where your cycles are fluctuating, your brain is foggy, energy at an all time low, maybe night sweats, flushes and just generally feeling miserable? Me too!

A positive aspect of this age of oversharing, is that we can talk more freely about previously taboo subjects, and menopause is one of them. It was not so long ago women were regularly put into mental institutions because men didn’t understand what was happening…and neither did they!

However it's still, like most female issues, not widely talked about apart from many comedienne’s routines and with coffee (or wine) at your friends.

Its great to laugh at our cycles whether pmt or menopause but when you are actually living and breathing it day in day out, then it becomes a little less funny and more frustrating.

Although there are many facets to menopause and what happens to us, I want to tackle just one thing predominantly today. This is something I hear about a lot  (and concerns me too!).

Weight gain

A woman will gain weight during and after menopause and there's nothing we can do about it.

Does that worry you? Are you resigned to the inevitability of it?

This thought is quite frightening in all honesty. Loving your body ala naturalle is all very well, but I don’t know anyone who actually likes being overweight…honestly…

.. and the reason for not liking excess weight is not just aesthetics, (although thats a lot of it, lets be honest), but either consciously or subconsciously we know the real reason for keeping our weight down is health and longevity related….. your body knows this even if you are not yet aware…. If you want the best chance for a healthy, full, long life then keeping your fat levels on the lower side is a very important factor.

During perimenopause the female body starts slowing the reproduction cycle down. Progesterone production slows years before oestrogen declines, leading to 

• Breast swelling and tenderness

• Mood swings

• “Fuzzy thinking”

• Irritability

• Trouble sleeping

• Water retention

• PMS

• Weight gain

 Testosterone also decreases and it shows often with these symptoms:

• Loss of sex drive

• Decreased sexual response

• Decreased sensitivity in your erogenous zones

• Decreased sense of well-being, energy, and ambition

• Depression

• Loss of or thinning pubic hair

Resting metabolic rate lowers, muscle is broken down at a faster rate, bones become brittle and insulin sensitivity decreases.

Estrogen levels drop towards the end of menopause and this has its own list of symptoms including:

• Hot flashes

• Night sweats

• Vaginal dryness

• Decreased energy and ambition

• Depression or mood swings

• Dizziness

• Headaches

• Mental confusion

• Urinary incontinence

• Recurrent urinary tract infections

• Increased susceptibility to vaginal infections

When menopause hits, a year after your last period, these issues tend settle as the hormonal holocaust subsides and steadies out.

This hormonal madness you have experienced is basically responsible for that spare tyre and more. Many women gain fat during peri menopause, and it doesn’t often change with time. The older you get, the faster the muscle loss etc. Not only do these factors mean our body doesn’t look and act like it used to but it also impacts our neural networks,  weight gain and loss of muscle mean the brain is unable to repair and grow new nerve cells and connections like it used to.

This doesn’t sound good does it?

Is it out of your control?

NO

Thank goodness!

Although women have been taught to dread menopause, this life stage ushers in the springtime of the second half of life and is often accompanied by surges in creativity, vitality, newfound ambition, and the need to be of meaningful service to the community in a larger way. Dr Christiane Northrup

From the Mayo Clinic:

The hormonal changes of menopause might make you more likely to gain weight around your abdomen than around your hips and thighs. But, hormonal changes alone don't necessarily cause menopause weight gain. Instead, the weight gain is usually related to aging, as well as lifestyle and genetic factors.

Lets tackle those factors that will make a difference

Sleep

Sleep is also another staple that is affected during this time. Even if you weren’t going through a hormonal upheaval, lacking restorative sleep alone will prevent that weight from going and encourage more fat storage. When we don’t sleep well our cortisol levels are generally unreasonably high and stay high for much of the day when they should be naturally lowering. Living in this high stress world doesn’t help this either. With high cortisol, and increases in blood glucose and insulin insensitivity, it is no wonder that weight gain tends to be a standard part of menopause.

Fortunately there’s power in knowledge.

We know these things occur so let's look at what will balance them out.

• Try Maca and black cohosh to balance the sex hormones (menopause combination tablets generally have a mix of these in them and I have spoken to some women who swear this reduced their night sweats)

Other herbs for cortisol balancing:

• Rhodiola

• Ashwagandha

Blood sugar balancing:

• Berberine

• Bitter Melon

• Apple Cider Vinegar

Exercise

Exercise is one of the best things that anyone can do to improve everything. It will help you sleep well, balance hormones, slow bone loss, improve cognitive health and reduce fat and inflammation. Best of all you only need around 20 minutes daily to gain these benefits

We have higher morning cortisol so adding a walk every morning will use this cortisol and leave you with energy for the day. You don’t really want to thrash yourself, using up the energetic cortisol first thing in the morning. Maximise the fatty oxidation by doing the light exercise on an empty stomach. Deep breaths also are shown to be important.

In the afternoon try a little intensity with weights or a tabata workout. You don’t want to over fatigue but you do want to work hard enough to create a temporary lift in cortisol, that can then subside for evening. 

To HRT or not?

I wanted to put in a mention regarding hormone replacement therapy.

Is HRT safe?

When I was first aware of HRT many years ago, it was apparently the miracle product and women around the globe raced to their doctors to demand this pill that promised balanced hormones (younger skin!) and more energy. Several years later there was a swing in the opposite direction. Suddenly HRT caused breast cancer and was ‘bad’. Add a few more years, more studies and importantly, longer studies, and there seems to be decent evidence to say that its very helpful and if you maintain your body in a healthy state you should not be of extra risk for the negative effects. 

After listening to a wise woman who prescribes them to her very happy patients and self, I decided to take the plunge and ask my doctor whether it was worth going on it. So I am now trying it. For me so far the effects have been minimal. Other women I have spoken to are extremely adamant about how much it has benefited them, their lives and their happier families (anecdotally it seems particularly for those experiencing night sweats)

One thing I was very worried about was gaining weight, as if I might blow up over night. Fortunately their are plenty of studies showing no weight gain on the HRT (such as here, here  and here). So when I started mine I watched myself carefully. I found when I started mine that my hunger or more precisely, my urge to eat, increased a bit. Not huge, but enough to worry me. I wrestled with this for a few days and then thought logically about it The tablet itself will not magically put weight on me. More food = weight gain. I was able to temper this urge completely by increasing my vegetable and fibre intake. For example I added psyllium husk or glucomanann to my vegetable soups. What a huge difference that made! A daily serve of this keeps my bowels regular and also eliminates my urge to over eat. In full disclosure, I don’t limit the amount of soup at all and some days I need more than on others. I still snack, but I can keep it from becoming a daily habit with this technique.

ROSEMARY CONLEY, 55-year-old diet and fitness guru: from this article
I started taking HRT four years ago and can honestly say it's one the best decisions I've ever made. 

Before I started going through the menopause I was convinced it wouldn't affect me. 

I was fit, ate healthily and had an extremely positive outlook so I presumed I was mentally and physically equipped to deal with it. 

I was wrong. 

Like most women, my menopausal symptoms really started to affect my life. I became tired, lethargic and miserable. 

It was such a horrible feeling knowing I was firing on two cylinders. 

I knew I couldn't live that way so I went to my doctor to enquire about HRT. 

He was really helpful and suggested that I try an HRT patch which is stuck on the lower abdomen. 

He did warn me there was a minute risk of developing breast cancer but I felt that the benefits - a normal happy lifestyle - outweighed the dangers. 

HRT has had a really good effect on my life. 

Not only is it helping lower my risk of heart disease, it is also maintaining the health of my bones which lowers my chances of developing osteoporosis. 

I weigh less than I did before I started wearing the patches even though I haven't changed my diet or exercise regime. 

Before my menopause I really felt my age. But now I've recaptured the energy I had in my youth and feel 20 again.

So is weight gain inevitable?

I hope you can see now that it really isn’t.

Is it harder? Well, the body is going through or has gone through huge changes and unfortunately it slows all the pathways that make weight loss easier. However, it does NOT make it impossible or unbelievably hard. Feeding your body the right foods, avoiding sugar and moving everyday is the key to life long health, and doing that fortunately results in a healthy lean body. Consult your doctor, your naturopath, your fitness trainer, be proactive and embrace this inevitable change and make these following years the best of your life.