Here's the Truth: Menopause Does Not Cause Weight Gain

In this episode, we take a closer look at one of the biggest myths circulating online: that menopause itself is the main cause of midlife weight gain. We unpack why this message has gone viral, what the research actually says, and how wellness marketing often oversimplifies a much more complicated picture.

We explore the science behind body composition changes in midlife, including findings from the SWAN study on fat distribution, and explain the difference between hormonal changes, abdominal fat, and overall weight gain. We also talk about the real drivers of weight gain in your 40s and 50s — aging, muscle loss, lower activity levels, stress, poor sleep, alcohol, and lifestyle shifts that often happen during this stage of life.

In this conversation, we discuss:
• menopause and weight gain myths
• the truth about estrogen and belly fat
• midlife metabolism changes
• wellness misinformation targeting women over 40
• body composition changes during menopause
• SWAN study research on menopause and fat distribution
• how stress and sleep affect weight in midlife
• strength training and muscle loss in menopause
• practical nutrition habits for women over 40
• walking, resistance training, and healthy aging
• hormone therapy conversations for menopause symptom relief

We also share realistic, low-cost strategies that can support your health and help you feel stronger and more in control of your body, without falling for wellness hype or fear-based messaging.

If this episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you. You are always welcome to email me — I personally read and respond to every message.

Read About the Studies

The SWAN study click HERE

The Menopause Journal click HERE

The Menopause Society click HERE

Transcript

Why Weight Gain Gets Blamed

What Research Says About Weight

Abdominal Fat And Menopause Symptoms

Aging Muscle Loss And Lifestyle

Strength Training And Moving More

Sleep Alcohol And Food Habits

Hormone Therapy And Closing Message

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Real Food Stories Podcast. I am your host, Heather Carey, and I want to talk about something today that is so controversial in the world of social media right now that I can't ignore it. I have to say it. And I'm curious to know what you all think about it as well. I don't know if you know this or if you've been listening for a while, but a good part of my time lately has been focused on setting the record straight, on scammy wellness hype on the internet, because I know how many women are going through so much change with midlife menopause. I mean, it's it's an exorbitant amount of just physical and mental change. And I can see all the gurus and the influencers and even some doctors, well-meaning doctors, circling the wagons, seeing this as an opportunity to sell you something and make tons of money off of you. It is getting so out of control and so out of hand. And I feel obligated to make sure you are getting the correct information so you can make informed choices. Because I have my own philosophies around health and wellness, and it doesn't cost a lot of money. And I'm going to talk about that in a moment. But I want to know that you are making your best and most informed choices. And the whole thing is just kind of wild to me. I mean, I used to have to look skeptically at maybe the latest diet, you know, there was the paleo diet and then the keto diet, and there always seemed to be a diet of the moment. And that was my big thing I had to go against to set the record straight. And now it is just out of control. That's just how I see it. There's so much unregulation, peptides, random supplements that you absolutely do not need, microdosing GLP1s, fitness products. I mean, it is just crazy. And there's most of the time, there is absolutely zero science behind them. And if you know me, you know that I like science. I like evidence. Okay, do not throw me something and tell me this is going to change my life unless you have well-meaning intention behind it and you have well-meaning evidence. Okay, so I'm going to tell you something that I have been seeing lately. Because once you start seeing it, you almost cannot unsee it. All right. Because I know something about you. I know something about my listeners because I because I am in the same camp as you, because I have been through perimenopause. I am in the throes of menopause right now, just like you. Okay. I am my body is changing. I'm trying to figure things out. I'm looking at the bigger picture of my life, all of it. Okay. And I know for one thing that there are so many women, just like you, who are desperate for a reason why you are gaining weight in your 40s and 50s. Okay. And the one conclusion that I think a lot of people come up with is that it has to be menopause. Because after all, perimenopause started right in our probably our late 40s, if you're average, and then the weight gain happened. And they came at the same time. So one and one must equal two or three, or you know, like one has to equal the other. Because if perimenopause is happening and we're going through so much life change, and we gain weight at the same time, even though we've been doing exactly the same things we claim we have been doing, we haven't changed anything. Well, then it has to be the perimenopause menopause hormones. And I don't blame you for thinking that. I don't. Because it's really distressing to all of a sudden be going along with the program your life, and you see five to ten pounds kind of creeping on, and you and you can't figure it out, right? And for many of us, we're used to then dieting it away, going on some strict diet. And for many of us, we're used to going back and forth on diets, right? Losing some weight, gaining some weight, losing some weight. So our bodies in menopause can just go through some really profound life-altering changes. And when you go on the internet, because now you are kind of desperate, right? Because you want to know how to figure this out, and you start to look around, there is plenty of validation from every influencer out there who is catering to women just like you and me in our 40s and 50s, who are going through menopause and going through a lot of life changes. So, this is what's happening on social media that I am seeing on repeat and that I cannot look away from. The word is weight gain is a menopause problem, which then turns into the dreaded insulin resistance you must have, and then morphs into that stubborn belly fat that you cannot get rid of, and on and on, right? This is a menopause problem, according to the internet. And we're sort of doomed because we have to go through menopause, we have no choice. So, therefore, we have to just gain weight. So, unless we start following their rules because they have solutions for you, they're you're doomed, pretty much. Okay, you are gonna be living a life of misery. Now, here's what I want to argue with you that weight gain that you gained and the insulin resistance you think that you have have nothing at all to do with menopause. All right, weight gain in midlife has nothing to do with your hormones. Okay, I don't know, should I say that again? Because I think some people just absolutely do not believe me when I say this, but weight gain has nothing to do with menopause. And that's good news. I'm gonna tell you that right now, and I'm gonna explain that later, but that is good news. Now, if you don't believe me, because I haven't given you my evidence yet, and I know that you very badly want a reason that why you just look at food, you feel like you just look at food and you gain weight. It becomes not a you problem, right? It becomes an estrogen problem, right? And all the influencers are saying that. It's your menopause that's doing it, not you, it's menopause, it's estrogen. And how do you blame them? I mean, you look at those women on Instagram, they're in their 50s, they're youthful looking, they're fit, they're strong, they're lifting weights, they're doing reels, lifting, lifting heavy weights and and eating barely a thing, and they look amazing. And they have said it too, that they were struggling with stubborn belly fat. And then thankfully, they discovered a miracle. They discovered microdosing, a GLP1, or they or they discovered peptides that they can inject, or supplement, or whatever questionable, non-researched coming from a compounding pharmacy substance, they discovered. Like they discovered a secret, and they want you in on it because it was so successful for them that they decided to join the business that's selling the stuff and sell it to you with zero credentials required. Now, if you start looking around at some of these wellness influencers, they have absolutely zero credentials. They're not a doctor, they're not a nurse, they're just a health coach, or they're just a really nothing because you can sell this stuff without any credentials. And there is also a lot of well-meaning, I'll put them in that category, doctors who are also selling you a whole bunch of nonsense. But that's another story. At that point, you're might you're probably desperate, right? And instead of taking this, though, as an opportunity to learn new behaviors, because weight is not a menopause problem. We want to maybe start shifting how we're living. Okay. Maybe it is something that we're doing. And so before you start to learn that and finally get out of that diet mindset that we have all been trained to be in. I, for me, I was started at 11 years old. I was trained to go on a diet and then go off a diet and on a diet and off a diet and gain weight and lose weight. That's how I was, that's how I grew up. But there's an easier solution, right? Because these women on Instagram are telling you there is. And you want to be like them. And I understand that. I do. Who doesn't want to look amazing at, you know, at 55 and strong and fit? And I'm telling you though, you can look amazing and strong and fit without all of that nonsense. Okay. And we'll talk about that in a minute. Because I'm going to say this again, on top of all that we women go through during our lifetime, and we go through so much physically, emotionally, mentally, after all of that, then we have to withstand menopause. I mean, seriously, like what is going on here in the world? And for some of us, it can completely rock our worlds. Menopause causes a severe dip in our estrogen, and estrogen affects us from head to toe. Literally from head to toe. I mean, let's start with hot flashes and night sweats, vaginal dryness. How about mood changes? How about your sleep, your bone density, your heart health, your skin, your sexual function? I mean, it's on and on. It doesn't end. I mean, we estrogen really, we I we know now, like just affects everything in your body. And when we have that dreaded dip in estrogen, we can get really rocked. But the one thing that it does not affect is weight gain. Okay. Menopause has nothing to do with that. And I know that's hard to hear. Now, if you don't believe me, I have some studies, okay, that that I that can prove this. And you are more than welcome to go look them up. I can link them in my show notes. I've also done a whole SubSec article on this, and I have the links in there as well. But one of the longest-running menopause studies in the world, which is called the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation, the SWAN study, has been following women through menopause for decades. Now, what researchers have found is that as estrogen declines, women tend to store more fat around the waist instead of the hips and thighs. Okay. Now that's important because it explains something women notice all the time, but they are often really confused about. So your body may absolutely change shape in midlife. I'm not disputing that. Okay. All of a sudden you feel like you have a belly when you always had a flat stomach. I totally get that. Your waistline may change, your clothes may start to feel different, your body composition may shift, but that does not automatically mean that you have gained weight or that you will gain weight. Okay, because your weight might shift and you may gain weight for other reasons, like being less active. Maybe you're eating a little more. Okay, our metabolism starts to dip also as we get older. We start losing muscle. Okay, so we have to be even more careful around this age with what we're eating. We have to up our activity, up our strength training, okay, and really focus on our food. We got to stop drinking alcohol every night, okay, if that's what you're doing at nighttime. That just adds hundreds of extra calories. Okay, we got to consider calories. All right. You got to start moving more. I mean, I know for me, when I was younger, I had always thought because I was probably taking like really brutal like boot camp classes and just like killing myself in exercise class, hating every second of it and not enjoying exercise at all because I had felt like I had to like beat myself into submission or something. But I always thought, wow, when I get older, I can stop doing some of this stuff. I can stop moving as much. Can I finally sit and just sit? But no, okay. I mean, I've learned a lot about exercise. I'm always I'm I'm full force. Do something that you enjoy. Period, the end. Do not go to boot camp class if you absolutely despise boot camp classes, or like, don't do something that's gonna like kill you. Do something you love and lift weights, okay, lift heavy. We need our muscle for so many other reasons, but you have to keep moving, right? And a lot of us sit for most of the day at a desk job, or we just sit at our computers, on our Instagram, right? I mean, we're we're just not moving enough. Okay, and we have to really focus on our food, like I said, and we have to start thinking about what we are eating. Really get honest about what we are eating. How much sugar, how much, how much dessert are you having at nighttime, how much wine are you drinking? No, that's the food and exercise. We also need to consider our stress levels. Okay, stress and weight gain absolutely go hand in hand. And I don't know about you, but you know, 40s and 50s, like our stress levels kind of go up. We're in like a big transition period with our kids, with our aging parents. And the final thing I want to mention is sleep. I cannot stress enough how important sleep is for your weight. It is the one of the most important things. I would make it your highest priority to get a good night's sleep every night and do what you have to do. And I'll talk about that again a little more at the end. But what you should not do about your weight gain is blame it on estrogen, okay, because it's not the culprit. Okay, so this is another study that I found that that is um even, I think even more interesting. This is published in 2026 in the journal Menopause, and it looked at more than 1,100 women from that swan study. And it found that women with more abdominal fat, right, that deep belly fat, the kind that wraps around your organs, right? This is like the unhealthful kind of fat. So more abdominal fat in women. These women reported more severe menopause symptoms, more night sweats, more hot flashes, more forgetfulness, more irritability, sleep disturbances, more dizziness, more palpitation. I mean, that all alone can be extremely stressful, which then can lead to less quality sleep and on and on. You know, this is kind of a side note, but yes, belly fat matters, right? We don't want fat accumulating around our bellies. It matters for your heart, for your liver function. It matters for insulin sensitivity, for inflammation. And according to this study, it could also make menopause just overall feel harder. But I want you to notice what they did not say. It did not say menopause caused women to gain weight. It didn't say your hormones suddenly overrode the basic laws of physiology. And it also did not say your body started storing fat because your ovaries retired and stopped producing eggs and the estrogen link. All right, so the menopause society, which is the governing body for menopause information, if you don't know about this website, I would strongly suggest you taking a look at it. It has a ton of really good information and it is the gold standard for any menopause guidelines, information, and standards. So in 2024, there was a review on weight gain in midlife, and it pointed somewhere far less dramatic and honestly far more empowering. Research concluded that aging-related declines in muscle mass, lower energy expenditure, reduced physical activity, and lifestyle changes appear to be major drivers of weight gain in midlife. So the menopause society is saying it very plainly. Aging, not estrogen, but aging is the primary driver of weight gain. Okay, not menopause. So we're getting older, and age, unfortunately, works against us. And it's not just women, by the way. This is this is for men too. But somewhere along the way, women started being sold a different kind of story, one that may sound kinder on the surface because it's saying it's not your fault, and not and it's none of it's your fault, right? We don't want to, we're not playing a blame game here. But I think this narrative of its menopause can make us victims of our own circumstances. The story that it's not your fault, it's your hormones, I think leaves us vulnerable to these wellness influencers and gurus trying to sell you something. Okay, or the story that your metabolism is broken, or that your body is just working against you, like it's you against your body, and the only way out is through a shot, a peptide, a powder, a whatever the wellness industry is pushing this week. And I'm not having it anymore. Okay, so that's why I am screaming this from the rooftops. I am yelling about it. And I sometimes I can't believe that this has become really a huge part of what I do is to debunk some of this stuff because women are confused. But I just want to really, I want to talk about food and like good, healthy food and cooking and everything, but I can't help this. I mean, I this like sort of is always the blockade that gets in the way because I don't want you falling victim for things that are just going to cost you a lot of time and money and that are at the extreme can be very dangerous. And also, I just believe that this disempowers women and makes them fall victim to a false belief they feel like they have absolutely no control over. And you do have a lot of control over your weight and your body. Because if your body is changing because you're not exercising as much and you're losing muscle, and your sleep is just terrible, and you're under daily chronic stress, or you're sitting half the day, and your fat has been redistributed, like they're saying, or you're still keeping up with years of lifestyle habits that no longer serve you, then you are not powerless. In fact, I think the opposite is true because you can change these things. You have control over so many of these things. So I want to just point a couple out, okay, just just just to start. But there is so much that we can be doing rather than not doing, and we don't have to lean back on some questionable peptide that you find on the internet that has absolutely no regulation and has not been studied. All right, so here's a couple that I want to just suggest to you. The first one is to start strength training. Strength training is probably one of the most important habits that you can get yourself into right now. Okay, and let's start slowly. If you haven't even lifted a one-pound weight in years, start slowly and continue to build this just over time because muscle matters more than anything in midlife for our metabolism, our energy to prevent falls. I mean, the list goes on. This is not just about vanity, right? But we want to focus on just being able to live happily, right? And not fall and be able to take our suitcase and lift it over. Our shoulders to get into the overhead bin, right? I mean, we want to be able to like use our bodies. And strength training is number one the best way to start doing that. The next one is to prioritize your sleep. I said this before, and you really have to like just make this a priority to really focus on getting about eight hours of sleep a night. I mean, and that means no more binging on Netflix until 2 a.m. while you're scanning Instagram and you have your computer in your lap with Facebook open. And I mean, the the noise coming at us 24-7 is is out of control. And that keeps us alert and awake and hard to sleep. So we really want to try to get eight hours of sleep for the sake of your health, your brain function, your metabolism, your energy. We cannot live without a good night's sleep. Sleep, a lack of sleep means more cravings for food and for sugar, and and I mean, I don't know, you know, like if you've if you haven't slept well in a couple of days, suddenly you're just craving like maybe more junky food or or more desserts, or it just so you you know how it is. And so really this needs to become a priority. The next one I want to talk about is getting rid of some bad habits. Okay, I said this before. If you are drinking a nightly glass of wine or two because you're so stressed out, or you've had, you know, every night you're in a habit of like pouring a glass of wine, getting the chips out because you feel like you deserve it, because this is how you relax, because you're going on another girl's night out, and you want to go like, you know, drink a bunch of drinks. Then I mean you got to think about like, and and then you're wondering why you can't lose weight, or you just look at food and you gain weight. Well, this could be one of the reasons. Alcohol counts as calories. I mean, not only is it completely unhealthy and toxic for you, but it's it's like just calories that you do not need. So let's start to think about some of those habits like alcohol that then lead into over-snacking and overeating, and those calories add up. Okay, a little bit here, a bite here, a taste here, an extra glass of wine there. Okay, these can add up. I mean, if we've learned anything from being on a GLP one like Ozempic, the way that you lose weight on GLP1s is by eating less. You're eating less calories, nothing else. Okay, no one's changing their habits and starting to eat more broccoli. You're just eating less food. So we have to think about how you can start cutting out some calories. And I have a feeling that this is one of the reasons why you feel like you have gained weight and it's because of menopause. All right, so my next one is we don't need to start exercising like we're in that boot camp class again, right? And killing ourselves. We don't need to like overly expend ourselves and kill ourselves, but we do need to go move. All right, besides weight training, we need to go just go take a walk. I mean, some people I know, some clients I have, I mean, don't even get up out of their chairs day after day after day. Even if it's five minutes, go get some sun, go go see nature. Okay, this helps with our stress levels. So important for our mental health. Just go take a walk. Let that walk turn into a 10-minute walk and then a 20-minute walk. And before you know it, you feel like you can't live without the walk. All right, my next one I want to talk about is starting to cook a little more. I have seen such a decrease in cooking lately out on the internet. It's really kind of alarming to me because I think so many people are on GLP1s and no one's eating really. People are just either not eating, they're not cooking, or they're so interested in some supplement that they can take. But we have to focus on our food first. Okay, this is how we stay healthy and well. Okay, and it can be super, super simple. We do not have to become gourmet chefs, we do not have to cook for five hours a day in our kitchen. But this is the ultimate form of self-care as I see it. And then finally, if your hot flashes and your night sweats and everything are keeping you awake and you can't sleep well and that's stressing you out, I want you to consider having a conversation with your doctor about getting on hormone therapy. I am not advocating it. This is out of my scope. I just want to tell you that there are a lot of benefits that you can see from going on hormone therapy. Okay? It can cut your hot flashes down to zero. You'll finally sleep. It can help with your moods, all right? It can help with so many things when it comes to our well-being. So I think the takeaway is menopause may initially change your shape. It might change your body composition, but it does not get to decide your future, nor does a desperate uh situation where you have to start injecting peptides and other questionable things. You have the ability to lose weight without the help of injections or questionable supplements. You are not in hormone jail. Trust me, I know this. You are not in hormone jail. You are in control, not your hormones. So I want to just end with one last thing. Did you notice a pattern with the things that I suggested? All these steps to less weight and menopause, these cost you almost nothing. Nothing. Lifting weights, getting a good night's sleep, stopping wine, going to take a walk, cooking some healthy food, getting in hormone therapy, they don't cost you a thing. Maybe a copay to your doctor, but they don't cost you a thing. You know what costs you a lot is buying those really ridiculously expensive supplements or those peptides. Those cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month. And you end up taking stuff on like whatever doctor's website for like super expensive fiber and and vitamin D. I mean, just ridiculous things that you absolutely do not need. There is nothing that's going to replace you, okay? And you empowering yourself to take charge of your life. Okay. So go take charge. Go do those free things. Start small and learn to empower yourself right now around this time of our lives. Okay, I'm gonna get off my soapbox now, and I would love to hear your feedback and see what you have to say about it. You are always welcome to reach out to me, email me. I will I answer every email that I receive, and I would love to hear from you. So have a great day, everybody. Happy spring, and I'll see you next week.