The perimenopause weight loss myth you need to stop believing
If you’re in perimenopause and have found your weight creeping up (especially around your middle!) then you are absolutely not alone! But what can we do about it? The answer might not be what you think…..
When I hit my forties, I noticed that I’d started changing shape. I hadn’t done anything differently with my exercise programme, or changed my diet, but I’d put weight on around my middle and suddenly my clothes didn’t seem to fit properly anymore.
I’ll be honest, I lost my body confidence and resorted to buying leggings in a bigger size and wearing loose fitting tops whilst I tried to figure out what was going on.
I tried running more and eating a bit less as this had always helped in the past, but, if anything, things seemed to be getting worse, not better.
In truth, I felt a bit embarrassed, especially as several of my clients seemed to be experiencing the same thing and at that time, I didn’t have an answer for them. If only I knew back then what I know now. Fast forward a few years (and a whole lot of time spent educating myself in between!) and I am definitely not hiding away in baggy tops!
The trouble is, we are sold the myth throughout our lives that the answer to weight loss is as simple as calories in vs calories out, and to a certain extent, this works in our younger years.
But it really isn’t as simple as that in perimenopause, and this is why:
Weight gain, particularly around the tummy, is actually hugely common in perimenopause. At least in part, it’s due to our fluctuating hormones, particularly the drop off in oestrogen that we experience in these years. This impacts us in many different ways (we have oestrogen receptors all over our bodies) but the key things you need to know in relation to weight gain in perimenopause are that:
it affects the way our body distributes and stores body fat (we make a switch from storing around our hips, thighs and bum to around the waist).
it becomes harder for us to build and maintain muscle.
because oestrogen helps to regulate cortisol (one of our stress hormones), when oestrogen drops, cortisol can become elevated and, guess what? Persistently high cortisol can lead to excess fat being stored around our waistline, too!
The fact that our hormones are behaving like they’re performing an interpretive jazz piece means that the usual advice, which might have worked very well for us before, to eat less and exercise more is not the whole picture.
Reading what I’ve just written, you might be mistaken for thinking that weight gain in midlife is inevitable for us as women. But I don’t believe this is the case - there is so much we can do, we just need to be a little more strategic.
So, if we’d like to do something about it, what can we do?
Well, there are loads of different factors which can play a part here (and I cover them all in my online programme, the Perimenopause Reboot), but for now, I want to focus on the role that exercise can play, as this is something you can put into action right away and it has so many other benefits too, from boosting your mood to helping you sleep as well as improving your long term health. There is no such thing as a magic pill, but exercise is the closest thing to it!
If losing weight from around your stomach is one of your goals this year, then my advice would be to shift the focus of your exercise plan. But first, a word of caution. For women who are already exercising consistently, the answer is not simply to do “more”.
For many of us, “more” might look like an extra run or cardio class at the gym, but actually, these “hard but not that hard” workouts can increase the cortisol we were talking about above and leave it in an elevated state afterwards, which can actually lead to our bodies going into energy conservation mode (like the battery saving mode on your phone!) where they tend to hang on to those extra few pounds of weight “just in case” and can lead to further disruption of our hormones which are already pretty precarious in perimenopause.
Instead, rather than doing more, I would look at what your current exercise routine might be lacking, namely:
HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)
As well as being a great mood booster and a great workout for your cardiovascular system, the short sharp bursts of high intensity work you do in a HIIT workout are highly effective at triggering changes in body composition in perimenopause (that is, the ratio in your body of fat: muscle).
Not only this, but because it is hard work, we experience a peak in cortisol when we’re in the middle of our workout, which then drops when we finish our workout and have recovered and refuelled, which is what we should be aiming for in perimenopause, rather than the sustained high cortisol level we talked about before which can be problematic.
HIIT has also been shown to improve insulin sensitivity (which in turn stops us storing as much body fat, as we are using the energy we consume more effectively). We know that perimenopause can make us less insulin sensitive so this makes HIIT a really useful tool in our kit! Interestingly, HIIT seems to be particularly effective at reducing visceral fat, the type of fat that accumulates around our organs and is linked to increased health risks, particularly as we get older, so it’s an all-round win.
Strength training
Strength training is also really important. Muscle is a metabolically demanding tissue as it is constantly working and using energy, even when you’re resting, so it makes sense to build as much of it as we can. Muscle mass starts to decline naturally from our late 20s onwards, so sadly if you don’t use it, then you lose it! Strength training in the perimenopause years is a highly effective way to counteract this process, plus building strong, toned, defined muscles helps you to feel amazing and get that body confidence sky-high.
If you’re reading this and thinking “erm…. Carly, don’t you teach HIIT and Strength classes? That’s a bit of a coincidence!” then I would say this: it isn’t a coincidence! This is exactly why I teach HIIT and Strength classes to women over 40 (this and the myriad additional benefits these two types of training provide to women in perimenopause and menopause!).
When I hit my perimenopause years, I couldn’t find an exercise programme which ticked all the right boxes for me, so I created one myself. It forms the bedrock of my training every week and it works. I still love running, it’s my headspace and great for all manner of other reasons but for my body, it’s the HIIT and Strength and that makes a difference.
I’d love for you to join me for a HIIT or Strength class online - you can read all about them here.