Thriving through Menopause Podcast
Welcome to the Thriving through Menopause Podcast. We are dedicated to helping you navigate the transformative journey of menopause and perimenopause with grace, confidence, and empowerment.
Together, we'll explore a wide range of topics aimed at supporting your physical and emotional well-being during this significant life stage.
Each episode, we'll provide practical tips and strategies that you can adopt and implement.
Listen in and join me on this empowering journey.
Thriving through Menopause Podcast
45. Can Losing Weight and Maintaining Muscle be Made Easy Even After the Age of 35?
What if you could navigate the challenges of perimenopause and menopause while maintaining muscle and losing fat?
This episode promises to equip you with essential strategies to tackle the effects of declining estrogen levels on your body.
Learn the importance of a high-protein diet, with recommendations to consume 30-40 grams per meal and 15-20 grams per snack.
Discover how to include protein-rich foods like yogurt, eggs, chicken, beef, and nuts into your daily routine to boost metabolism and support muscle retention.
We also provide insights on managing increased insulin resistance by focusing on unprocessed, protein-rich foods to help regulate blood sugar levels and combat pre-diabetes.
Tired of stress and poor sleep sabotaging your weight loss goals? We've got you covered with practical tips for stress management and establishing consistent sleep patterns.
Explore meditation, relaxation techniques, and even professional counseling as effective ways to reduce stress and avoid the temptation of comfort foods.
Understand the profound impact of sleep on your hunger hormones and how maintaining a regular sleep schedule can prevent late-night snacking.
Finally, we shed light on the critical role of hydration, recommending you drink half your body weight in ounces of water each day.
By nourishing your body and focusing on muscle maintenance, you can achieve sustainable weight loss and enhanced well-being!
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Welcome to my channel. Today we're going to talk about one of the best ways to lose weight during perimenopause or menopause proper. As you know, if you're a female above the age of 35, you know that you get to a certain point. It seems like you're doing all the same things but the weight just starts to pile on. Or you're trying to lose weight and you're not really making progress. That's the reality for most of us in perimenopause and menopause. So before we even talk about what we need to do to get healthy and to get the weight off, let's look at a few reasons why this happens.
Speaker 1:Number one after the age of 35, most women naturally start to have a decline in the hormone called estrogen. Estrogen is our metabolic hormone. It's the hormone that gives us power. It's the hormone that keeps everything revved up. It's the hormone that also determines how your body stores fat and how much muscle your body holds onto. So when you get to that age of 35 and above, declining estrogen levels will cause you to lose some muscle mass and with the muscle mass loss comes a change in your basic metabolic rate. Comes a change in your basic metabolic rate. Declining estrogen levels also cause a change in your body fat distribution, and that's the reason why you start to notice you have a little more belly fat now. That's the belly fat that we are all struggling with. So, in order to get rid of belly fat because your body is one whole unit if you pour energy into your body, your body, naturally nature determines where you store it, and now that you're in menopause, we cannot automatically think about getting rid of the weight in the belly that our body has stored in different places. Naturally, we cannot get rid of the belly fat without thinking about getting rid of the total body fat. So one of the biggest things that most weight loss specialists, most longevity specialists, are now causing us to think about and I wanted to think about the same thing is how to preserve your muscle, because when you preserve your muscle, your metabolic rate is higher, and studies have shown that people with a better muscle profile, who maintain their muscle, have a longer life and a healthier life too. So if you're a menopausal lady, instead of thinking about how do I get rid of body fat, how do I get rid of belly fat, I want you to think about the things that you need to do to maintain your muscle mass and when you do that, your body will also naturally get rid of extra body fat also, and belly fat in the process. So there are two things that help us maintain muscle mass. Start thinking about your body composition, your muscle. How am I going to maintain my muscle? Two things.
Speaker 1:Number one what you eat, which is protein. Yes, yes, yes. The story about protein is true. Most of us females in menopause, we're really trying to eat healthy. So we go for vegetables, we go for fruit. Yes, that's good, but I want you to prioritize protein instead. Let's shift our minds and tell ourselves I want to get enough protein in and continue to eat your vegetables and some fruit also. So, going to protein, the question is how much? Right now, most studies have gone I mean, the information is here, there and there. However, if you think about consuming one gram of protein per pound, so if I'm eating, say, three meals a day, I want to get at least 30 to 40 grams of protein every single time that I sit down to eat.
Speaker 1:A meal Mistakes You're familiar with menopause. You wake up, you have a bowl of fruit, drink some coffee, go to work. That was healthy. However, where's the protein? Change it Now. I want to have some yogurt with a boiled egg and a little bit of fruit. See how you have some protein. Now, one boiled egg has about six grams of protein. Yogurt depending on what it is, I mean, you can have up to 18 grams of protein. And there you are already. You have about 22, 24 grams of protein and if you have two boiled eggs, you're hitting your 30 grams of protein.
Speaker 1:Think about the protein every single time. If you're losing weight on the weight loss program, you're losing weight. Most of the time. We think we're losing body fat. That is not the case. In most people you could be losing muscle and fat and water. So when you weigh yourself, you just don't know the difference. Change things and think about getting that protein. In your next meal you're going to have some healthy, unprocessed protein like chicken, beef, shrimp, those kinds of things, with your vegetable Heat at least 30 to 40 grams of protein every time that you sit down to eat a meal.
Speaker 1:The same thing goes for snacks. You know we go get snacks. A few pretzels, a few crackers here no, no, no. Change that salt. A few crackers here no, no, no, change that. Also, think about in my snacks I want to get at least 15 to 20 grams of protein, even if it's a snack. So if I want to eat an apple, there I go again. I'm gonna have it with some yogurt. If I want to eat a crackers, hopefully you're not eating crackers, because those are highly processed and all they do is give you extra carbs that you don't need. So if I'm going to eat a snack, I'm going to have some nuts with I don't know, a smoothie that's made of protein powder and almond milk that already gives me 30 grams of protein. Think about that every single time you sit down to eat.
Speaker 1:Another thing that happens with us women in menopause as we get older that declining estrogen level makes us more insulin resistant. This is the reason why you're healthy. You're healthy. You're getting a little bit of weight. You go to the doctor, your blood sugar is a little bit high and those of us old women now they tell you you are pre-diabetic. Now you can reverse that. It's not a death sentence. Don't allow yourself to become a full-blown diabetic. You can change the trajectory of nature if you just adjust what you're eating and how much you're eating. So processed foods are usually processed, meaning the good stuff is mostly taken out, like the fiber and the vitamins and things like that, and then we make it more tasty by adding oil and salt and sugars that we don't need. So eat natural foods.
Speaker 1:Thinking about insulin resistance, that makes us more prone to storing body fat. What does that mean? Insulin resistance simply means that I've eaten too many carbohydrates over time. The hormone insulin that's produced to break down these carbohydrates. Because I'm consistently eating carbohydrates, my insulin level is now too high, and when you have high insulin levels, it causes your body to have a fat storage environment on the inside.
Speaker 1:So it's so important to go back to proteins. Why? What does protein got to do with insulin resistance? Listen, if you consume enough protein per meal, it's going to help you curb your appetite. It's going to keep you full longer. We naturally tend to want to just keep eating if our bodies have not consumed enough protein. This is the reason why I want you to change the focus of the scale. I want to lose weight, I want to lose belly fat and think, hey, what am I nourishing my body with? So protein first, number two make it so. Protein first, number two. Make it unprocessed. Don't go to the deli and get slices of ham. Hey, listen, there's no problem with doing that once in a while, 20% of the time. But for your daily meals, eat the protein that's well-seasoned, that's unprocessed with the veggies, that's unprocessed with the veggies. So what's the formula here for just really maintaining the proper body composition that will help me to have more muscle and less fat at this point? Number one think about consuming the protein. Number two exercise.
Speaker 1:Walking is such a good way to reduce or to change that insulin resistance. Just so important, just walking. Why? Because your muscles are good landing pads for the carbohydrates. Okay, and I don't have to run out and walk for three hours or two hours. I just want to think about just walking first thing in the morning. Every time I have a meal like lunch. Your lunch is one hour. Yes, have your lunch and go walking for the last 30 minutes In the evening. Have your supper and make it a habit of just going out walking with the spouse, with the children. Walking is great.
Speaker 1:I love the concept of 10,000 steps every single day. However, some of us are not there. So just check how many steps are you normally walking per day and do more. If you were doing 2,000 steps a day, how about you do 4,000 and you just get better from there. Actually, you do want to try to shoot for over 7,000 miles. Sorry, 7,000 miles, 7,000 steps a day, but you can take your time if you're not there yet. If you are already doing 7,000 steps a day, why not push it a little bit to 10,000 steps? Track it If we don't track things, we just don't know how much. But hit that daily protein goal every single time.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm getting some questions about what about the carbohydrates? I want to be smart about carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are not the demon. Let's not demonize any foods. However, there are smart carbohydrates and there are some of those that are not so smart. My muscles and my brain do work off of carbohydrates To stay alive. You need those, but make them smart. But again, make them unprocessed or lightly processed. So your vegetables, green vegetables, colorful vegetables, they are all great.
Speaker 1:I personally consume one cup of cooked vegetables per meal breakfast, lunch, dinner, doesn't matter what meal it is one cup of cooked vegetables or two cups of raw vegetables. Why is that? I saw the question also. Yes, ma'am, you need the fiber. So if you're consuming enough vegetable, chances are you're hitting your daily fiber goal, which should be at least 30 grams of fiber per day. You do want to consume that at least. Also, very next thing that we want to think about in order to maintain my muscle mass, change that body composition. So I'm consuming the protein, the fiber, I'm walking.
Speaker 1:What about other kind of exercise? Resistance exercises will help you. Yes, because you're naturally losing some muscle mass. No, I don't want to continue losing it and have my body, even if I'm the correct size or weight, you could have more fat than muscle. Now I don't want that. I want to change things because I want to have more muscle now that the studies show will help me with good health and with longevity. So resistance exercises are what comes into play here. Very important Do the dumbbells, do the bodyweight exercises and you can look those up and do those at least three times a week. Resistance exercises and don't work with two-pound dumbbells or five-pound dumbbells. Those may not be serving you well. Go for eight pounds, go for 10 pounds. Separate your body into body parts upper body, lower body. That way you make sure that you are doing the exercises per body part, because that's what's going to help you maintain the muscle.
Speaker 1:All right, the last part of my story here is the one that's also most common, two ones that are most common. Number one is stress. Stress, yes, in small doses, is helpful. The stress hormone that's produced, that circulates in your body when you're stressed out cortisol, adrenaline, all those hormones a little bit of stress helps you for fight or flight, to save ourselves. That's how nature made it so back in the days when our ancestors had to run away from the tiger that was chasing them. Adrenaline is high. It recruits blood sugar from different places, gets into the muscles and gives you energy to run. Your heart rate goes up. Everything is revved up. That was a stressful time. For a short amount of time, though, they ran away and they were safe. However, low levels of chronic stress will do just about the same thing. It's going to keep your cortisol levels high. Your body is constantly ready for fight or flight. The blood sugar is circulating. Cortisol is causing body fat to be stored, in the belly area mostly, and it's also doing other things like increasing your heart rate, increasing your blood pressure. It's just not, overall, healthy.
Speaker 1:What I want you to do is well, of course, you cannot magically wake up and think your stress is just poof gone. It doesn't work like that. But I want to acknowledge my stress and find some strategies that I can use and implement to work on my stress levels. Things like meditation to work on my stress levels. Things like meditation, prayer, relaxation, the hot bath, listening to music yes, those help. And if they are not helpful, speak to someone. You can speak to a specialist, like a counselor. Those can also help you. So do the things to take action to decrease your stress levels, because I could be here doing all the things to get rid of my body weight and it's not working because I am so, so, so stressed out and I used to be over 300 pounds, okay. So if you're like me, I know, I know where you're coming from.
Speaker 1:When I was so stressed out, my body naturally went to look for the food that could make me feel good. That's what happens when we are stressed out. We lose the ability at that time to make good judgment when it comes to what I need to eat. My body just says give me something, give me something, give me something. It's going to be something sweet, something oily or something salty. Why? Because those are the ones that trigger the pleasure hormones and make us feel good. Work on your stress is going to help you lose weight.
Speaker 1:The last one that I talk about is the sleep. All right, why is that? How does sleeping affect your body weight? Number one the hunger and the satiety hormones, leptin and ghrelin. Those ones are balanced when we are sleeping. So if we don't sleep enough, chronic lack of sleep will cause those hormones to be unbalanced. So you get the snacking monster. The little snacking monster is sitting up here and talking in your ear all the time, so you are unconsciously snacking and you don't even realize how many calories you could be consuming just with your snacks. In addition to that, if you're like me, it seems like my snacking behavior was really predominant at nighttime. So, instead of sleeping, now I have more time for my body to search the pantry, to go in the refrigerator or to actually cook something at night time, because I'm staying awake too long. Work on your sleep. It's going to help you, and I'm going to do a sleep video at some point, because we need to work on our sleep.
Speaker 1:Set an alarm. Our bodies and our minds work so well with alarms. Remember how you wake up. I know, I know I'm guilty. When my alarm goes off, I hit the snooze button. So I tend to set three, four, five alarms. Why is that? Because the first one, I hit snooze. Second one, I hit snooze, but, however, I'm going to wake up to my alarm. Also, set yourself a sleep alarm. What time do you want to go to sleep? Go to sleep at 8 pm, 9 pm, 10 pm, whatever time you choose. Set that alarm because your brain is going to learn. Alarm goes off. Okay, go to sleep. If you do that often enough, at a certain point, you don't even need an alarm. Remember how we just naturally wake up sometimes because we're used to waking up at that time. Your body's also going to get used to going to sleep at that time.
Speaker 1:Okay, I got a question about water.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma'am, it is true, our bodies need water to thrive. Actually, we are made up of so much water. Now, if you're dehydrated, not drinking enough water, yes, yes, yes, it will also slow down your weight loss. If that's your goal, it's just important for you to drink enough water. So, how much water is the next question that I see? No, it's not a gallon or two gallons. What I really do is drink my body weight in water. So, if I am my body weight in pounds, take half of that. I said that wrongly, sorry If my body weight in pounds. So if I am 160 pounds, I'm going to drink at least 80 ounces of water per day Generally. If you don't want to think about that, just think about drinking at least two and a half liters of water every day, and so that's five small bottles of water every day. If you're working in the heat or if you're working out, you want to also, in addition to that, consume half a liter of water at least per hour. All right, my friends, I hope this helps you.
Speaker 1:Last message let's round things up and to tie it all together Instead of thinking about focusing on weight loss, weight loss, weight loss I want to get some weight off. Think about changing my body composition now, nourishing my body with the things that are going to help me maintain my muscle mass that I have currently, and it would help me overall get a better body composition and the weight will naturally come off as a side effect. I hope that helps you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much and you have a fantastic day. Bye.