34. More on Hormones: How They Impact Weight Gain in Women Over 35 and Strategies to Combat It
Jun 26, 2024
Host Dr. Enaka Yembe
Ever wondered why the scale keeps tipping upwards as you move through your 30s and beyond?
Today, we demystify the hormonal labyrinth that significantly impacts weight management for women over 35 in our latest episode of Thriving Through Menopause.
We guarantee you’ll gain a deeper understanding of estrogen’s pivotal role in muscle mass and fat distribution, and walk away with actionable strategies to combat menopausal weight gain. From mastering portion control to increasing protein intake, you’ll learn how to calculate your daily protein needs and make mindful food choices that support muscle retention and overall wellness during these transformative years.
But that’s not all—we zoom in on the critical aspects of insulin resistance and cortisol management, which are key players in the battle against menopausal weight gain.
Discover how excessive carbohydrate consumption can lead to insulin resistance and belly fat, and why avoiding processed foods is essential. We also tackle the often-overlooked issue of stress-induced weight gain, offering practical tips to manage cortisol levels effectively.
Tune in to arm yourself with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate hormonal changes and maintain a healthy, balanced lifestyle through menopause!
10:21 Day Weight Loss Boot Camp - Cycle 48 has just started. You don't want to miss it! Click here to sign up NOW.
Ever wondered why the scale keeps tipping upwards as you move through your 30s and beyond?
Today, we demystify the hormonal labyrinth that significantly impacts weight management for women over 35 in our latest episode of Thriving Through Menopause.
We guarantee you’ll gain a deeper understanding of estrogen’s pivotal role in muscle mass and fat distribution, and walk away with actionable strategies to combat menopausal weight gain. From mastering portion control to increasing protein intake, you’ll learn how to calculate your daily protein needs and make mindful food choices that support muscle retention and overall wellness during these transformative years.
But that’s not all—we zoom in on the critical aspects of insulin resistance and cortisol management, which are key players in the battle against menopausal weight gain.
Discover how excessive carbohydrate consumption can lead to insulin resistance and belly fat, and why avoiding processed foods is essential. We also tackle the often-overlooked issue of stress-induced weight gain, offering practical tips to manage cortisol levels effectively.
Tune in to arm yourself with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate hormonal changes and maintain a healthy, balanced lifestyle through menopause!
10:21 Day Weight Loss Boot Camp - Cycle 48 has just started. You don't want to miss it! Click here to sign up NOW.
Hello, my friends, welcome to my channel. In today's video we will be talking about hormonal imbalances and how those can affect our weight and what we can do about it. Especially, if you are a female above the age of 35 and you're struggling with weight loss and with belly fat loss, then this video will be for you. Even if you are a male, some of these things we'll talk about, some of the hormones are for you also. So we'll be talking about the main hormones for women and those that can affect our weight as we age. There's three main ones I'll just touch on today. We can do a deep dive in later on videos, but we'll touch on today because my goal is to give you some information. So at the end you should be able to develop a small action plan that you can go with from here on.
Speaker 2:
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 post menopausal 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:
Hi. So number one, the very first hormone we'll talk about is estrogen. When we are younger females, estrogen does a sex hormone. It helps develop our breasts, our thighs and also our fatty tissue. The estrogen is a metabolic hormone also. So when you get past the age of 35, usually for most women naturally your estrogen levels start to drop. And with that drop of estrogen, the female hormone, comes a few changes. Number one your muscle mass starts to decline, especially when you hit menopause, that time where you have not had any cycles for 12 months. You're in menopause now. Or if you had your ovaries surgically removed or if you had some medicines that stopped your ovaries from working, then your estrogen level is very low.
Speaker 1:
Low estrogen with age causes a few changes. Number one sarcopenia, which is a natural decline in muscle mass. So when you eat you want to be thinking about these things. You no longer have the same muscle mass like you did before. So what does that mean? Automatically, we need to be eating less. Portion control is key. We cannot continue to consume the same amount of food like we did when we were in our 20s. So very important change that has to happen. Number two when you think of declining muscle mass with age.
Speaker 1:
How do you nourish yourselves More protein? Why? Because protein breaks down into amino acids and those are the building blocks for your muscle mass. So anytime you hear people or coaches talking about high protein, high protein, high protein. This is one of the biggest reasons why, as we age, how much protein should we consume If you're trying to lose weight?
Speaker 1:
How much protein should you consume If you're trying to be healthy? How much protein should you consume? Really, the formula, a good formula to go by, is one gram of protein per pound of your ideal body weight. Go to a BMI chart. Go to a BMI chart. Those are not 100% accurate, okay, but they do give you a starting point. You have to start from somewhere. One gram of protein per pound of your ideal body weight. So how do I know that I'm consuming one gram of protein? How do I know? Look at the packaging of the food that you purchase, or go look it up in Google and it will tell you a portion size of whatever you're consuming and how many grams of protein there are in whatever you're eating.
Speaker 1:
So, naturally, if I'm trying to lose weight or if I'm struggling with menopausal belly fat, I want to be consuming pure, natural, healthy proteins. Most of the time. Hear how I said most of the time, don't look for perfection, because when you're trying to be perfect then that makes it so difficult. I want it to be 80% accurate. So I will be consuming foods like chicken. See, chicken is just chicken. It's not processed, not the chicken that's processed, just plain chicken. Chicken, not chicken nuggets. Chicken, turkey, fish, beef, ground meat, burgers those foods, healthy proteins, that have one ingredient in the package. All right, I get you. If you're vegan, yes, ma'am, go for the high protein vegan foods. I do have a list for those of you who are in my bootcamp go to featured posts in our bootcamp page and you see a list of healthy proteins for vegans and those who are not vegans and not vegetarians. So take an example If I'm going to consume one serving of 99% lean ground turkey, if I look on the package, it tells me four ounces contain 100 and give me 120 calories, and they contain 28 grams of protein. So I want to add those grams of protein throughout the day to give me my protein consumption. For me personally, it is 155 to 160 grams of protein per day. That's how you add up your proteins to hit your protein goal, because I know I'm 56, now I am in menopause, I need to keep up with my protein consumption Very important.
Speaker 1:
So back again to that hormone estrogen. We've talked about the protein, just touched on it here. What does estrogen do? Also, it changes your body fat distribution. When you were younger, estrogen was high. You were storing fat in your breasts and your hips. Now, when we are older, that changes. So now I no longer store fat in those places. It seems like my fat storage becomes more centralized. Now I'm storing fat in the belly area more when I am in menopause. In fact, studies do show that belly fat can make up 15 to 20% of the total body weight in a menopausal female, compared to 5 to 8% of your body fat when you were younger. We need to be really careful about belly fat. Why? Because it's highly inflammatory. It causes fatty liver. It also causes problems like hypertension, heart disease. So now that we are older, yes, low estrogen can put us at higher risk of developing major medical complications.
Speaker 1:
So now back to the diet. What can we do to help us get rid of that belly fat? Listen very carefully. We need to clean out the diet. So we need to get rid of processed foods.
Speaker 1:
Processed foods are those that are taken from the natural state, which most of them are really genetically modified for massive production. Take out those processed foods and replace them with healthy foods, as natural as possible. So if it is from the ground or if it eats off the ground, then you know that it is mostly unprocessed. Or if you look at the packaging and it has less than three ingredients, then the processing is a lot less. If you look at something and it it has less than three ingredients, then the processing is a lot less. If you look at something and it's got so many things in there that you cannot pronounce, I don't read, I don't know what they are. That's processing. What they do is they take out all the good things like your vitamins, some of your proteins. I mean it's so modified to increase palatability, to make it taste good. It's modified to make it easily accessible to you. So foods of convenience and those are highly inflammatory and cause you to store belly fat. Most of the processed foods have a few things that you don't want in your body Too much salt, too much sugar and too much unhealthy fats. So if you're struggling with belly fat, one of the things you want to do is replace these processed foods with those that are lightly processed.
Speaker 1:
All right, so let's get back to the hormonal story. Also, low estrogenic state. What does it also do? It makes us unmotivated. Yeah, it makes us have all these mood swings. It makes us have hot flashes. I'm 56. My hot flashes started when I was about 47. So nine years now I've been struggling. The sleep is disrupted. We are just in a bad mood all the time.
Speaker 1:
So now that you know that low estrogenic state will cause you to be unmotivated to do anything, especially to take care of your weight prep, all these meals go exercise. So how do I combat that? Do not wait for motivation to come. Yes, it may be there sometimes. Most of the times, now that you're in menopause, you may feel unmotivated. Don't wait for it. Go for discipline. In our bootcamp we did a walkathon so fast walking, I hit almost three miles at home. So don't wait for that motivation. I did not feel like doing it, but I did it anyway. When you start having some results from the discipline that you put in, yes, those results will motivate you some. And even then it's not always going to be there. So I wanted to think about discipline, discipline, discipline for healthy lifestyle, not motivation, because it's not there all the time.
Speaker 1:
So back to the hormone story estrogen the very last thing I'll talk about with estrogen and tie that up to the next hormone insulin. That low estrogenic state will make you more insulin resistant. We've heard about insulin resistance already. Most of the things that I'm telling you you've heard about, but you just need to take action now. Only action changes things, and you want to be consistent with your action. That's where discipline comes in. So low estrogenic state makes you more insulin resistant.
Speaker 1:
What is insulin resistance In a nutshell? It's not that your insulin is not working. It's just that you've consumed too many carbohydrates with time, that your blood sugars have slowly increased with time, and because insulin is a fat storage hormone, now you are storing fat in your body, because your insulin levels are high because of habits. Now I cannot change my estrogen levels unless I'm taking hormones Now. Even then, the hormones are truly made for the side effects like hot flashes, mood swings, but I cannot take a hormone and expect my weight to change because of that. So because the estrogen makes me more insulin resistant, I know that and because I'm overweight, I am most likely insulin resistant. Also, how does this translate into my habits?
Speaker 1:
What is insulin? Insulin is the hormone that's here responsible for metabolizing the carbohydrates that we eat. Carbohydrates are things like bread, cookies, juice, granola, cereal. All those things, including carbohydrates, are found in natural foods like dairy products, bread, potatoes, plantain, coco, yams, and in your vegetables. Some natural foods have a few more carbohydrates, some have less, but the processed foods have too much carbohydrates and those get into our system quickly and spike our insulin. So we don't want that, because having these high insulin levels in your body cause you to store fat quickly in your whole body and especially in the belly area. So, remember, you're in menopause or perimenopause. You're most likely insulin resistant.
Speaker 1:
So how do I change my habits? What do I need to do? Number one back to the processed foods. Remember how they have too many carbohydrates, yes, yes, we need to get away from eating those and eat more natural foods, even even for snacking time. Make your snacks as natural as possible. All right, what are my snacks that could be as natural as possible? Okay, vegetables. Remember how I said. Vegetables are snacks, could be eaten as snacks and they are carbohydrates. Yes. Fruits are carbohydrates. Yes, because those could be eaten as snacks. Also, don't go for the processed foods, all right. So how do I think about that in real life? So, number one we need to stop things like mindless eating.
Speaker 1:
Example you're at work. Somebody just brings you a box of cookies as a gift. Try to stay away from that story, because my estrogen levels are low, my insulin levels are high. If I just break up a cookie and say I'm trying to be healthy, I'll just take a little little bite. Yes, that little cookie. The glucose from it gets into your system quickly and spikes your insulin.
Speaker 1:
Other things like I went to the bank. There was a little piece of candy. I ate that. I went to church, I had a few mints. I picked up my grandkids from the school. I went through McDonald's. I got a couple of French fries for them. So I only ate one from each. So we have these tiny little snacks throughout the day that we don't even take into account. Those things keep your insulin levels high. Even though we think we are on a healthy lifestyle, which we most likely are eating just natural things, we didn't pay attention to the small mindless snacking. Now other things that we do mindfully but are inadvertently consuming too many carbohydrates are eating things like store-bought granola. Granola has too much sugar. Special K run away from that stuff. It has too much sugar. So the cereals not for you, maybe, except just the plain Cheerios. Run away from the rest of them. Protein bars that's another one.
Speaker 1:
Some of them unless you look really carefully, have too much sugar. Yogurt is another healthy food, but if it has fruit on the bottom or if it has flavoring, I want you to look in the container. If it has six or seven grams of carbohydrates, that's more natural. If it has six or seven grams of carbohydrates, that's more natural. If it has 29, 30 grams of carbohydrates, you know that the rest of the carbohydrates in that yogurt is from added sugars. So when you look at your food labels, I want you to go to the carbohydrate and look where it says added sugars. If that added sugar is more than two, stay away from it. Two grams, stay away from it. I generally will just tend to go for the ones that have zero added sugars. Stay away from those, all right.
Speaker 1:
Even when we are eating our foods remember how we talked about cutting back on portion sizes. So even if I'm eating something healthy, like a starchy food, like potatoes, those are healthy. However, I want to be mindful of my portion size. I cannot eat just any amount of a healthy food and expect that I will not gain weight and I will keep the belly fat away. Portion control is key and important, even for healthy foods. Keeping your insulin level high happens when we don't pay attention to the small intakes of carbohydrate, high carb foods throughout the day in snacks, or when we don't pay attention to our portion sizes, even if the highest with the normal carbohydrates. I said that backward, anyway. Other things like juice, run away from juice. I said 100% natural juice. Yes, ma'am, it's 100% sugar going to your liver and that will also cause you to store belly fat.
Speaker 1:
All right, the very last hormone I'll talk about today is cortisol. That is one hormone that's common to you and I. Cortisol is our stress hormone. It's a good hormone to have because that's what helps bring up that natural defense for fight or flight. Example our ancestors used to go out to hunt their food, yes, and so they had to run away from the lion or whatever was chasing them. Cortisol kicks in adrenaline. It helps slow down the belly processes, recruits your energy so you can run and escape Other things. So that's a short burst of increased cortisol or increased adrenal hormones. Those help us with fight or flight. So those are natural and that's good.
Speaker 1:
But what now causes problems is if you have low levels of chronic stress that lasts for a long time. So increasing cortisol that stays here and doesn't go back down like it did for a fight or flight situation. That high cortisol causes a few problems, though Causes you to retain fluid, causes your heart rate to go up, causes your blood pressure to go up. Cortisol receptors are present throughout our bodies. Sometimes you may feel my hands are puffy, and if you stress all the time, you may notice that your belly stays out here and then it's not where you think it needs to be.
Speaker 1:
Now, cortisol is also a belly fat storage hormone, so that's one thing you want to consider. How do you lower your cortisol levels, naturally? So think about stress, low stress. We want to lower our stress. We want to self-care, one of the biggest things. I want you to consider two big things. Number one self-care is important Recognizing your stressors and addressing them. If you can, and if you are unable to address those stressors that you personally face, this is a good time to go get some help, because long-term chronic stress can cause so many problems, not only physically, with increased belly fat storage and increased insulin levels and increased total body fat storage. Stress can also cause psychological problems. You can get anxious now.
Speaker 1:
You can get depressed, so anxiety and depression can actually cause you to have poor judgment in your food choices, because some of us, if you're like me, I tend to really just stabilize my mood with food that's what we've done for a long time but, most importantly, just having depression, anxiety can be catastrophic for some people, and this is when there's nothing wrong in getting help to help you. Getting help, seek help for somebody to help you address your stresses so that you can be healthy Very important. The very last thing I'll tell you about especially those of us women. I have seen this all the time. I've had women dog me out and they tell me you've had plastic surgery? You've had a surgery to remove skin from your abdomen? No, I have not.
Speaker 1:
So what happened with me? I used to be over 300 pounds. I have been working on my health for about 14 years now. January of 2010 is when I started. I had a big belly, and so when I lost the weight, I have not much belly fat, and so I have just very thin skin that just hangs down over my hips. It looks like a surgical line, but it is not. I can pick it up and there is no scar under there.
Speaker 2:
Now, how does that affect?
Speaker 1:
me personally when I look at myself in the mirror. The very first thing that I do now is accept my body the way it is. It's so important for us women to not tell ourselves so many negative things. This will help you with your mindset. This will help you to do the things that you have to do. I can show you right here.
Speaker 1:
So if I stand up now if you're listening to this on my podcast you're not going to be able to see so if I stand up, say I've got a little pouch here. This is natural for women who have bare uterus. You have not had a hysterectomy. Having a little bit of you know, a little bit of a pouch right here is natural. You got to accept your body the way it is. We have a curve back here and we have a tiny little pouch here. This is normal. If you look to the front, yes, you may be able to see some muscles. Sometimes you see them, sometimes you don't. It's not a problem.
Speaker 1:
I want you to accept, learn to accept your body the way it is, because guess what, whenever you lose the weight, losing weight is not going to make you love yourself consistently as much as you think. Accept your body, whatever size or whatever weight. It is what I want you to focus on. Take the focus away from your body and focus more on getting healthy, on eating the right things to nourish your body, because your body is precious. We want to nourish it the correct way. That's it, women. Don't dog yourself. Anytime that you ask yourself a negative question, like what is wrong with my belly and why are my arms so flabby, your mind is naturally going to look for a negative answer and deliver it to you. And here you are. You're just going to feel so much worse. So, in addition to the hormonal imbalances that we have all day long, last thing you need is to add to that struggle a negative conversation. Have a positive conversation with yourself. Tell yourself hey, sister, I'm doing my best. Listen, today I'm going to focus on eating the vegetables with all my meals. Today I'm going to increase my protein consumption. Today I'm going to go out walking. That's all I need to do and that's it.
Speaker 1:
Do not attach negative comments and negative thoughts to your body. You got to work on that. Also, look at the positive part of yourself and if you keep looking at positive things, those crowd out the negative and stop focusing on the number on the scale, because my goal every day is not to shift that number. It's too stressful. I'm better off just thinking about eating the healthy things that I want in my body. I'm better off thinking about drinking more water, addressing my stress, compared to looking at the number on the scale. It did not shift today. Oh, my goodness, it went up. It's just a number. Don't let it control your mindset, please. All right, that's it for today. All right, everyone. Thank you. Thank you and have a fantastic week ahead. Thank you, bye.
Speaker 2:
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. 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.
