33. How to Manage Your Hormones for Menopausal Weight Loss

Are you wondering about how your hormones change during menopause?

In this episode, we learn how hormonal changes, particularly declines in estrogen and progesterone, affect muscle mass, abdominal fat, and mood, and discover practical steps you can take to counter these effects.

From increasing protein intake to engaging in resistance exercises, we share evidence-based strategies to help you maintain a healthier, more balanced lifestyle during this transformative phase.

This episode goes beyond the basics of weight management to explore the intricate relationship between nutrition, hormones, and menopause. Discover how simple lifestyle changes—like regular walking, stress reduction techniques, and mindful eating—can effectively manage insulin levels and combat insulin resistance.

We offer practical dietary advice, including the benefits of intermittent fasting and the importance of avoiding hidden sugars, to help you maintain balanced blood sugar levels and support overall well-being.

Finally, we delve into the critical roles of cortisol, leptin, thyroid hormone, and testosterone in regulating body function and weight. We discuss how chronic stress and refined sugars can disrupt these hormones, and gain valuable tips on stress management, from meditation to professional help.

Learn how maintaining balanced hormone levels through self-care can transform menopause into an opportunity for growth and renewal.

Join our community and connect with us for more resources, tips, and support as you navigate through menopause!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, my friends, welcome, welcome. In today's video, we will be talking about hormones, specifically how to balance your hormones for weight loss. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Dr Enaka Yembe. I am a board-certified family medicine physician. I work full-time in the emergency room and part-time doing weight loss in the clinic, and I also have an online bootcamp which I run every single month, and the bootcamp for this month is into week number two. So today we'll talk about how to balance those hormones. I'll give you very, very quick tips on what to do, what not to do, in order to help balance your hormones. You know what not to do in order to help balance your hormones.

Speaker 1: 0:44

You know, back in the days, we used to think that being overweight was just a result of eating too much and not exercising. Today we know that there's a whole lot more to this equation. Weight gain can be a result of genetics. It can be a result of your age and other factors such as stress, lack of sleep and your lifestyle, as well as your habits. So, again, we'll just be touching on the hormones. There are so many other hormones. There's so many other mechanisms, but for the purposes of today's video, I'll make it nice and short and just give you the key points and some things that you can do to change things. So if you're struggling to lose weight, and especially if you are a female in menopause, listen, listen, listen closely.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Welcome to the Thriving Through Menopause Podcast, Dr Inaka Yembe, your host, is dedicated to helping you navigate the transformative journey of menopause and perimenopause, particularly focused on achieving menopausal weight loss and reducing belly fat. As a postmenopausal physician herself who has helped thousands of women experiencing the significant life stage, she understands the unique challenges you face. Listen in as we explore a wide range of topics aimed at supporting you in your health and wellness journey. Hopefully, the practical tips and strategies offered potentially help you adopt an empowering approach towards menopausal weight loss and belly fat reduction. And now here's your host, Dr Inaka Yembe.

Speaker 1: 2:22

All right. So let's kick things off with hormone number one. The biggest one for those of us in menopause is estrogen. But before I touch on the topic, let's understand what are hormones. Hormones are chemical signals. They are produced in one part of your body and they cause a specific action in another part of the body. So just imagine if you have a remote control, for example. You press it here, that signal goes over there to the TV and something happens. That's basically, in a nutshell, what hormones do. So hormone number one is estrogen For those of us who are in menopause.

Speaker 1: 3:04

For the female who gets past the age of 35, you are in perimenopause if you haven't had surgery, and so the estrogen levels start to drop. When you hit 45, late 40s and 50s, then your estrogen levels take a nosedive, and when you haven't had any menstrual cycles for 12 months, naturally you are officially in menopause. So what happens when your estrogen levels drop? The first thing that happens is you start to get the symptoms heart flashes, mood swings, can't sleep, all those things. But in your bodies there are a few things that happen. That will make sense when I tell you what you can do to change things. Number one a decline in estrogen levels cause a decline in your muscle mass. It also causes a redistribution of your body fat, so you're no longer storing fat in the thighs and in the butt, the fat comes up to the belly area, and so you start having an increase in abdominal fat. There's so many other things that happen, but what can you do to change things? Number one think about that decreasing muscle mass, and so you just don't want to let your body just fall through. Based or just change. Based on the hands of time, you can take control.

Speaker 1: 4:20

First thing you want to do is increase your protein consumption. Women, if you're my age and older, you want to intentionally increase your protein consumption. Like what? Poultry meats, lean meats, eggs, things like protein supplements. I do take some of those. Other things that you can do is consume healthy fats and also other lifestyle changes that you can make. Number one exercise. Resistance exercises will help you maintain that muscle mass, and that's for estrogen. Another thing, though, when it comes to lifestyle, that you definitely want to stop is consuming processed foods. Why Remember? Just because you're in menopause? Now your estrogen levels are dropping, your muscle mass is declining, and so your basal metabolic rate, or the amount of energy that you need is also going to drop. So we need to cut back on those portion sizes and stop eating junk food. Also, stop drinking alcohol every single day. I did not say stop drinking alcohol completely, don't want to get all that feedback, but stop drinking alcohol every single day. It is empty calories, no vitamins and just energy on its own.

Speaker 1: 5:46

The very next hormone that we want to worry about is progesterone. That is another female hormone. Its levels decline again during menopause. And what happens then? Or how do you feel? You start to have increase in your weight. You start to have this brain fog Like why can't? I think? Clearly Some women start to have mood swings and actually get depressed just because of declining estrogen levels. I mean progesterone levels. It will also cause your skin to change and then you start having this saggy skin, poor sleep All of those are a result of declining progesterone levels.

Speaker 1: 6:26

What can you do? The very first thing is exercise. Yes, resistant exercises will help counteract the effects of declining estrogen levels, but progesterone I mean. You can just walk. Walking is great exercise. You don't need any equipment, just wake up every single day and walk. If you're in my bootcamp, we are walking at least two, three times at home, two, three times a week. So walking helps. Decreasing your stress levels, will help with progesterone, and another thing that you can do is consume more protein, consume nuts and seeds.

Speaker 1: 7:04

All right, moving on to the next hormone. Again, I'm just giving you a very, very summarized version here of the hormones that can affect your weight. All right, the next one is the big one insulin. Insulin is a fat storage hormone. Insulin its job is to come here anytime that you consume carbohydrates. Insulin its job is to come here Anytime that you consume carbohydrates. Insulin is released from an organ in your abdomen called the pancreas and its job is to metabolize carbohydrates into glucose so that they can be used by your muscles and your brain.

Speaker 1: 7:40

Now, if you consume too much carbohydrate over time, now, your insulin levels slowly go up and then your muscles and your brain they don't feel it. Next thing you know your insulin levels are too high and your glucose levels are too high. At that point it is called insulin resistance. Now we made in menopause. The declining levels of estrogen cause you to be insulin resistant. And if you're in menopause and you're consuming too much junk food and too many carbohydrates refined carbohydrates you're causing more damage to the equation by making yourself even more insulin resistant. So insulin resistance causes weight gain. It causes a slow increase in your blood sugars. Next thing you know, you go to the doctor, your blood sugars are high and you can become a full-blown diabetic just based on what you've been eating every single day. So food is medicine. The way you eat is medicine.

Speaker 1: 8:39

What you eat can also help you with several conditions, including balance your hormones. So what do you need to eat? Number one leafy greens. They're low in calorie. Healthy carbohydrates, because they have high fiber. They are absorbed very, very slowly. Do not cause those insulin spikes. Next thing is proteins. You consume proteins, of course, will help with the estrogen. It also helps you not to have those insulin spikes. Why? Because proteins are absorbed into the system. What do they become? Amino acids, all right. The next thing that you can do is consume healthy fats, fatty fish like salmon and others, and also nuts.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Now, when it comes to the insulin levels, one of the best things that you can do, especially women in menopause, is intermittent fasting. Now, intermittent fasting is time-scheduled eating, meaning you don't eat during a certain window and you eat during a certain window and during those times that you're not eating. Guess what's happening to your insulin levels? It is slowly, slowly dropping. So you can actually balance your blood sugars and balance out those insulin levels with intermittent fasting, all right.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Other things that you can consume fruits. Fruits are great Low glycemic index fruits. We'll talk about the glycemic index, but basically use your taste buds. If it's sweet, if it is too too sweet, don't consume too much of it. Fruits are great, but just don't consume too much of it. It is too sweet. Watermelon is in season now, so don't eat the whole watermelon because it is healthy. It's just a little slice, it's okay, but the sweet fruit can increase your blood sugars and cause your insulin levels to be high. Again, insulin is a fat storage hormone. All right.

Speaker 1: 10:26

Other kinds of fruits now get this question a lot. What about homemade juice? What about preserved fruit? All right, of course they are better than sodas, they're better than eating the candy. But just imagine, remember most fruits are preserved with sugar. Once again, you may be consuming fruit and behind it is coming a whole lot of carbohydrates. So be careful with that.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Again, fruit juice you want to be careful? I would say no. No, if you're trying to lose weight. Not even the homemade juice. Why To make a glass of apple juice, for example, just the juice, I may need about 15 apples. It's too much of a good thing. And too much of a good thing always, always, can backfire and cause you problems.

Speaker 1: 11:07

So now, what do we need to avoid? You need to avoid refined sugars. And what are refined sugars? Or refined carbohydrate? It simply means somebody, a manufacturer, took that carbohydrate like wheat. They took out all the good stuff, like the fiber, and all the vitamins and the minerals that were in the natural state. They stripped that and took it off. Not only that, they added sugar to it high fructose corn syrup and 76 other kinds of sugars. They may pick one of those and add it now. And that is a refined sugar product. What happens to it? They're simple sugars, so when you consume them, they quickly enter your bloodstream, and that's what we talk about when we mean a blood sugar spike. So if your blood sugar is spiking, your insulin level is spiking behind it. So now you're storing fat, so you want to be careful with that. So again, exercise will also help decrease those insulin levels.

Speaker 1: 12:10

All right, let's move on to the next hormone called cortisol Cortisol I look at that hormone as my fight of light hormone. It is produced in the adrenal glands. These are two glands that sit on top of light hormone. It is produced in the adrenal glands. These are two glands that sit on top of your kidneys. They're there to protect your body against stress, meaning, if a gun fires, I can run away because of adrenaline, and cortisol did its job because it quickly metabolized glucose and energy sources from somewhere give me an energy boost and I was able to run away. So that's what cortisol does. It's great, it's a good hormone to have.

Speaker 1: 12:48

The problem is if we overstimulate that axis and what can overstimulate it? Number one things like stress can cause make your body feel like it's struggling or it has to fight something all the time. So your cortisol levels can slowly go up, and cortisol is a fat storage hormone. Specifically, it causes storage of belly fat, so that's not a hormone that you want hanging around. In addition to that, cortisol has receptors everywhere on your blood vessels, on your brain, just everywhere. So it causes fluid retention, it causes increase in your heart rate, it causes you to have increased blood pressure and that can put you at risk of having a heart attack and a stroke simply from just being chronically stressed and struggling with anxiety and lack of sleep. That will do it. That will bring your cortisol levels up. Okay, so, now that I've told you what causes it, how to prevent it, just go ahead and think about what causes it.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Stress is a big factor, huge, huge factor for us nowadays. I'm not saying that the stress will magically go away. I'm just saying I can take action to decrease my stress levels. Things like meditation, positive affirmations, because sometimes the condition or the situation will not change. But I may just feed and feed and feed my own self with what I'm thinking. And so just give yourself some positive affirmations, spend some downtime to stress, to de-stress, to rest, to meditate, do some deep breathing, relax with friends.

Speaker 1: 14:24

And if you have a problem, I mean you can process it in your brain, but don't over process it, because that overthinking may not be helping you. Giving yourself a lot of negative thoughts can also just make you stressed. And if the worst comes to the worst, please seek help. If you're just overly stressed and it's decreasing your ability to function in your daily activities, go ahead and get help. There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes there's just too much happening to us at a specific moment that we lose the ability to cope, and that's where you need a professional to come in and help you. All right Things that you need to do to avoid your cortisol levels from going up too high. So just overstressing about everything Other things like fried foods, those will do it to you. And again, alcohol All right, go ahead and send me all the messages you want, and send me all the messages you want. Constant and daily consumption of alcohol is not good for us, especially those of us women in menopause Reserve. It maybe for a weekend, that's okay, one glass is okay, but not a glass every single night. It will cause you lots of problems.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Next hormone is the hunger hormone. This is another big one Ghrelin for growl. Ghrelin is the hunger hormone. It is produced in the stomach. It is produced when your stomach shrinks, so its level goes up and it tells your brain feed me, feed me, all right. As you eat, your stomach's walls start to stretch and the ghrelin levels drop and the signal goes up to the brain that, okay, she's full. This is when you stop eating, okay. So what do we need to do to stop those ghrelin levels from being unbalanced? Just imagine it's produced when my stomach is small, tells my brain, stomach is empty, stomach stretches. Then your stomach is full because it's stretched signal goes up. It says I'm full, ghrelin shuts off, I'm no longer hungry.

Speaker 1: 16:29

So imagine the things that just throw off your ghrelin are the processed foods. Those are big ones. For example, if I sit here and start eating a packet of Oreos, I mean I can consume quite a few Oreos and my stomach into my bloodstream is not significantly occupying any volume in my belly, so the granule levels are still here, just telling me I'm not full. So eat, eat, eat. In addition to that, you're stimulating that pleasure center that's telling you this is nice, so keep eating some more.

Speaker 1: 17:03

So in order to balance that hormone out, we need to really eliminate the daily consumption of junk food. I'm not saying that a 100%, you can eat this a specific way, healthy. I'm just saying at least 80 to 85% of the times you want to be eating healthy foods. What do you need to do to balance that hormone? Also to regulate it? Green leafy vegetables, things that have fiber. And if you just really think about it, one good rule of thumb to tell yourself is that if I'm going to consume carbohydrates, it should have some fiber with it in the same food.

Speaker 1: 17:40

So just things like vegetables. Those are great. Imagine if I had a whole big bowl of spinach. It's going to stretch my stomach and so the ghrelin level is going to drop, tells myself I'm full. In fact, a great way to order your meals or to eat your meals is to eat the vegetables first. Actually, backtracking go ahead and drink a bottle of water about 30 minutes before you eat, then eat your vegetables, see how your stomach lining is already somewhat stretched, and then, after those vegetables, eat your protein, like meat, chicken and those kinds of things, and eat your carbohydrates last, your stomach will be already stretched to a certain point. That signal of ghrelin is already coming down. There's only little space that you can consume, even the carbohydrates, even if it's unhealthy, and so that's the good order to eat things. That's one good thing you can do Always drink water. Always drink water 15 to 30 minutes before you eat every meal.

Speaker 1: 18:40

Another thing that you can do to regulate your ghrelin levels actually is sleep. The hormone ghrelin, and the very next one, leptin those are balanced out and produced while you're sleeping. So people who don't sleep enough tend to have chronic elevations of ghrelin levels. They stay high, high, high and make you want to eat, eat and eat. All right, moving on to the next hormone, which is leptin.

Speaker 1: 19:04

Leptin is that hormone that tells your brain I'm full, I'm full, so stop eating. It is actually stored and produced in the fat cells. That's how mother nature made us. It's producing the fat cells, so it's kind of like a long-term look at this one, leptin, as a long-term energy balance system. So when your body has enough fat, it says, hey guys, we have enough energy, so we don't really need to eat that much.

Speaker 1: 19:30

So why is it that those of us who are overweight, we tend to eat even more? We develop a condition called leptin resistance. So what that means is I have built up too much fat, my leptin level is too high, my brain is not seeing it anymore and I can just eat and eat and eat. It can become pretty dangerous. This is why people who are super, super, super obese can wake up and eat two loaves of bread and two bottles of Coke. Now, first of all, they stretch their stomach, so they got a lot of room in there and, by the way, no matter how much they eat and no matter how much adipose tissue they have on their bodies, they don't feel it, because their brain no longer senses the leptin that is floating in their bodies. So it's too, too high and they can just continue to eat and eat. Don't let that happen to you. You want to regulate your leptin levels, so the best way to do that is to decrease overall body fat. All right, we're back to the same. See how all of these things just have their same way to regulate things.

Speaker 1: 20:31

Number one eat green leafy vegetables. Number two eat your proteins, whole foods, whole grains. Number three exercise. Number four sleep at least seven to nine hours. Most of the time you want to avoid junk food, food that is devoid of any kind of nutrition, but it is just plain junk. Don't do that to your body. If you went out there and purchased a Mercedes, you wouldn't just drive it and put some water in the gas tank, will you? Why do we treat our bodies this way? Just throw in any kind of junk and think our bodies will function normally. Don't do that. Don't do that to yourself.

Speaker 1: 21:11

Next hormone I think this is the last one, so I have all my show notes here. That's what I'm looking at all right here, so I don't miss anything. The very last hormone is the thyroid hormone this is a serious one. So, for example, if you're doing all the right things and you're struggling, and you're eating well, you're exercising and you're doing the right things, you know, I always say, oh, I've seen this quote on the internet and it said staying on a healthy lifestyle is almost like being in a marriage. You cannot cheat on it and expect it to work well. So you can't be cheating on your healthy lifestyle all the time and expecting to see some results. So you see, what you do is going to show up on your body Anyway. So the thyroid hormone this is a serious one.

Speaker 1: 22:00

If you're struggling, doing all the right things, this thyroid hormone is responsible for your body's metabolism, so its level can decline. Just sometimes we don't even know why. Some people can have an autoimmune disorder, meaning that their bodies can work against certain organs or work against it, and the thyroid is one of those. So your thyroid hormone levels can decrease for no reason. So if you're lethargic and you're tired all the time, you're gaining weight, especially if your voice starts changing. The thyroid gland sits here in the neck. So if you start having some swelling here, voice changing, nails are getting brittle, your hair is falling off, you don't know what's going on.

Speaker 1: 22:43

This is when you go to the doctor and get a blood test. Now, if your thyroid hormone level is low, it can cause your metabolic rate to decline and it can cause your body to hold fluid. So I get all these questions all the time in the clinic. My thyroid is not working well, it is out of balance and it's making me gain weight. That's true, but the amount of weight gain from decreased thyroid hormone levels is very small. Most of the time it is just fluid retention. So all is not lost. Once your doctor has that level checked and they are correcting it most of the time with some medicine you will lose that water that you've been holding on to because the thyroid hormone was not working well, and the rest of it is just body fat that you need to deal with by changing your lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 23:31

All right, what can you do, actually, other than getting a blood test? You want to consume things that have iodine, like iodized salt, and some people say, okay, if you've got high blood pressure, you don't want to go out there and start consuming a whole lot of salt, because it will make your blood pressure go up even higher. So other things like seaweed does help. Oysters, that's a good one, and then vitamin D, that's a big one. So if you're at home all day and not enjoying this beautiful sunlight that's out there for at least 30 minutes a day, your vitamin D levels could be low, could be low. Go ahead and get a blood test. And, of course, you want to stop consuming refined foods?

Speaker 1: 24:14

All right, I've got one more to talk about, and this is the hormone called testosterone. It is a male hormone, it is a steroid hormone, meaning that, like many other hormones, its basic structure is cholesterol. Most women think they do not have testosterone. All right, we do have testosterone. Testosterone in small, small amounts. It is a natural hormone produced in your ovaries, but for in the females, and it is responsible for maintaining your bone health and your muscle mass.

Speaker 1: 24:47

And so with age those of us who are in menopause our testosterone levels start to drop and then our bones can get thinner, so we lose our bone density, we lose some muscle mass, our basal metabolic rate decreases just because of our age. You've got estrogen working against us, and now the testosterone level is low, working against us. So now what can you do? Testosterone level is low, working against us, so now, what can you do? The first thing that I tell women is you can no longer do the same things that you were doing, say, 20 years ago. Why is that? Because your estrogen level is low and your testosterone level is also low. The very first thing that we need to consider doing is decrease those portion sizes. We get tired of hearing about portion sizes all the time, but that's the truth. You can no longer wake up and eat a whole plate of whatever you were eating, like you were when you were 30 years old. We want to change that. Decrease those portion sizes. Increase the protein consumption. See again, we heard that with the estrogens. Same thing with testosterone 30 to 35 grams of protein per meal, assuming that you are eating three times a day.

Speaker 1: 25:58

Another thing that significantly helps those testosterone levels or balance its effects is exercise. Exercise, walking, resistance exercises will also help you. Other things that you can do is consume healthy fats. Healthy fats, as in salmon. They give you protein. They give you healthy fats also. And then things like grains whole grains they help you. Nuts and seeds also help you. I think that was actually actually the last one. So I hope this information just gives you something, some points on which you can take action and not allow the hands of time to control how your body ages.

Speaker 2: 26:44

Thank, you Bye. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Thriving Through Menopause. We hope you found valuable insights and practical advice to support your journey. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast, share it and review. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Remember, menopause doesn't have to be a challenge. It can be an opportunity for growth, renewal and self-care. Connect with us on social media, where we share additional resources, tips and advice to help you along your path. Once again, thanks for listening in and we hope you'll join us again on the next episode of Thriving Through Menopause. Until then, Thank you.