Why Can't I Lose Weight?
Are you noticing that the numbers on the scale are slowly starting to creep upward? Is your clothing not fitting quite the way it used to? Or has your 'winter weight' decided to stick around all year? Your once lean belly started to big as big as some of the men in your life.
Maybe you have noticed this. So you did the things that used to always work - reduced some sweets, moved a little more... but this time, it's not having the same effect. When you were younger, it was more predictable that you would lose weight when you stuck to your plan. Now that you are in your 40's or 50's this is not the case and it's beyond frustrating! Why is this happening?! Not only does this affect our self-esteem but more 'android' or torso fat also has negative cardiovascular outcomes for women.
It's not in your head and it's not due to a lack of willpower. Some research shows that in the 8 years before your last menstrual period you may start to notice annual weight and fat mass increases. These changes will slow after you become post-menopausal (the FMP or final menstrual period in the graph below from the SWAN study).
When we are younger than our 40's, we kind of know that the below items can impact our weight:
Resting Energy Expenditure (or your base metabolic rate): what you burn just by eating, breathing, and non-exercise being.
Daily energy expenditure (physical activity)
Energy intake
Sleep & Stress (have their own metabolic effects, mostly relating back to numbers 1-3 on this list)
Unavoidables - medications, genetics, age, race.
How does Menopause affect these things?
I consider the following the main culprits in weight management issues in those 40 years old and older:
Age itself - man or woman, age is affecting your weight gain.
Activity level
The hormones, of course, have an impact here.
Let's talk about each one in more depth, and their influence on Energy Intake and Energy Expenditure.
How Age Impacts Weight Gain
Aging itself has a huge hand in weight changes. Our metabolisms do slow down as we get older
Our bodies also get worse at using protein from our diets. In research this is called "anabolic protein resistance". This relative deficiency lowers our daily energy expenditure as well as increases our energy intake due to less satiety cues. We also start to naturally lose muscle mass as we age, at a rate of 3-8% per year from your 30's and onward. Lean muscle mass has a big impact on our base metabolic rate (BMR). So we aren't as good as building muscle with the same amount of nutrients in our diets, and we are better at breaking down muscles (catabolism). You may look the same, or a little softer from the outside but this is a big change to your body from the inside perspective.
How Activity Level is Impacting Your Weight Gain
For most women we are at a point in our lives where we are not as physically active as we used to be. It's just how it goes. We are less likely to be chasing after small children and more likely to be sitting at a desk, or keeping our typical daily movement to a minimum. Even though playing with an active child is not a cardio workout, that type of constant activity impacts your energy expenditure. Eating the same thing today that you would have eaten 10 years ago may net you more calories because of this type of change in lifestyle.
How Menopausal Hormonal Changes Impact Weight Gain
Alright this is the big one and the one you may have scrolled down the previous part of the post for. And it's a big one. Estrogen really does have some impacts on how and why we gain weight. To start off with, estrogen inhibits hunger signals which prevents excessive caloric consumption. Estrogen also has a hand in insulin secretion and energy usage by the body. When estrogen is high (like in your 20's in the follicular phase of your menstrual cycle) your body is really good at burning fat at lower intensity exercise and burning sugar at higher intensity exercise. I thought this was really interesting. Lower estrogen leans the body toward more insulin resistance - you aren't as good at fat burning and your body preferentially stores fat. If you've increased your walks or jogs in hopes that this would positively impact your weight and you have not found that then this could be why. Longer duration cardio training is less beneficial here because your body prefers to burn sugar instead of fat and your body is more catabolic.
Estogen also naturally impact