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
49. Your Guide to Losing Weight Sustainably During Menopause
Today, we tackle the often dreaded subject of weight gain during menopause. Is there anything we can do about it?
Having navigated this path myself, I share personal insights and actionable strategies that will empower you to manage weight effectively during this pivotal life stage.
Discover how hormonal shifts, particularly the decline in estrogen, contribute to that stubborn belly fat and decreased muscle mass. I spotlight practical dietary adjustments, such as prioritizing protein intake and reducing refined carbs, to combat insulin resistance and foster sustainable weight loss.
Beyond tackling weight, we delve into approaching menopause with confidence and embracing it as a period of growth and self-care. Menopause is not merely a challenge to endure but a time of renewal and empowerment.
Join our community on social media, where we share resources and support each other through this journey. Your feedback is invaluable, and I am grateful for your support.
Together, let’s redefine menopause as a stage of vibrant transformation and look forward to thriving through it with shared wisdom and camaraderie!
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Just in case you missed it:
Join my10:21 Day Weight Loss Boot Camp, to be apart of our vibrant community and kickstart your journey!
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Hello everyone, welcome to my channel. In today's video, we will be talking about menopause, weight gain, and my goal is to give you two tips two of the most important tips to help you lose belly fat, to help you lose the weight in a healthy and sustainable manner, and these tips you can implement right away. First of all, if you're a female approaching menopause or perimenopausal at the age of 35 and above, you will notice that your clothes start fitting differently, your belly starts to get a little bit bigger and then it gets more difficult for us to lose the weight. While menopause is real, these changes do not have to be your reality.
Speaker 1:My name is Dr Inaka Yembe. I am a 56-year-old physician, so I am in menopause and I have struggled with my weight all my life. My passion now is to help women lose weight in a healthy and sustainable manner and not make the same mistakes like I did. I have been on my journey for almost 15 years now. So the changes that you make I want you to understand that you're going to make these changes and continue life long.
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 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 Yenbe.
Speaker 1:So what happens during menopause? Why is it that we gain this weight? Why is it that, even if we don't change anything, we notice that our belly, the waistline, starts to get a little bit thicker? It's because of hormonal changes. The main hormone here is estrogen. Estrogen starts to decline in most women, naturally after the age of 35. With that declining estrogen, other hormonal changes occur. Progesterone also declines. Women have a little bit of testosterone. That level also declines and with that decline comes decrease in your muscle mass.
Speaker 1:I want you to remember that one. Your muscle mass will decrease. So later on, towards the age of the 60s, your metabolism starts to decrease. It starts to get a little bit slower. With declining muscle mass, of course, it makes it easier for us to gain weight. Now, and estrogen, when it declines, your body fat distribution also changes and so your body now stores more fat in the belly area. We cannot control where we lose or where we gain fat. However, one of the biggest needle drivers that will help you is to change the things that you do in order to preserve muscle, because you have control over your muscle, and when you implement these two things that I'll tell you, you're going to notice some change as early as 30 days.
Speaker 1:I want you to make small changes. The very first thing that you need to change is your nutrition. Why is that? Because declining estrogen levels not only does it make us lose muscle mass, it also makes us more insulin resistant. With insulin resistance, our overall insulin levels are a little bit higher, so our body tends to store fat. Also, declining estrogen causes you to have more cravings. It gives you all the symptoms that we know about Hot flashes, irritability, mood swings. It will also make you unmotivated. So, when it comes to nutrition, what is it that we need to change? Number one let's prioritize consuming protein. Why? Because we need to maintain that muscle mass. Even if you're at your ideal body weight and you don't have enough muscle, studies do show that you will be at higher risk of developing major medical problems. So how do I preserve my muscle as a menopausal female?
Speaker 1:Number one what you eat. You want to clean out the diet and eat less foods that are as less processed as possible Natural foods. So for proteins, you're thinking about things like beef, grass-fed beef, things like chicken, eggs, seafood, fish, shrimp and things like that. Prioritize protein. How much protein? Generally, the studies are showing that one gram of protein per pound of your ideal body weight per day is ideal. How does that break down into my daily nutrition? Just make sure for every single meal that you consume you have at least 30 grams of protein. So, basically, anytime that you eat whether it's breakfast, lunch, dinner or even a snack make sure you're consuming protein. Yes, you can snack on proteins things like yogurt, cottage cheese there's just so many Nuts seeds. Those have healthy fats and protein. However, you want to prioritize your protein.
Speaker 1:Remember how I talked about declining estrogen will cause you to be more insulin resistant. So if you continue to consume carbohydrates, especially the refined carbohydrates, then you're going to have higher insulin levels and your body will be storing more fat. What are the sugars or the carbohydrates that we want to avoid? The processed ones. Remember if anything comes in a box that's preserved or if it is made in fast food. Those things are created by food scientists. They do two things. Number one they take out all the good things, like the fiber and all the nutrients, and they replace those with things that taste good. So they change your taste buds some and they also affect your brain chemicals. They trigger those pleasurable centers, and so you want these processed foods all the time. We need to get rid of those as we approach menopause or as we get older or if we're trying to lose weight, because continued consumption of refined carbohydrates will just keep your insulin levels high and the weight is not going to go anywhere.
Speaker 1:The same thing with alcohol. If you drink alcohol, I'm not saying eliminate it completely. However, I want you to understand that alcohol is just empty calories. Alcohol is actually a toxin and if you drink every single day, of course it's going to make it so much harder for you to lose weight. So basically, look for foods that have one, two or, at the most, three ingredients when you go shopping. So basically I personally just shop either in the fresh food aisle or in the fresh and frozen aisles for things that have one single ingredient.
Speaker 1:The very next thing that you want to think about when it comes to your nutrition is eating in a restricted window. Time-restricted eating is also called intermittent fasting. It's going to help you drive those insulin levels down, so your body is going to lose weight even a little bit easier. Generally, you can fast for 12 hours or 14 hours and eat in a restricted window of either 12 hours or 10 hours, but studies show that most of us eat all day long, and when I'm talking about eating, I'm talking even about snacking. If you restrict your eating and eat just fresh and healthy, unprocessed foods, you will notice they keep you full longer and they help reduce those cravings that you have. Proteins will do that. Proteins are very satiating, they help decrease cravings, they keep you full longer and they're going to help you get rid of that belly fat. Very important.
Speaker 1:Those are the key nuggets that I want to share with you when it comes to your nutrition. And remember, I want you to take action, because only action changes things, and I want you to start today. Don't postpone it to tomorrow, don't postpone it to the new year. Start today because you can see changes, especially if you change your nutrition. You'll see these changes in seven days. Lastly, when it comes to nutrition, I saw a question right there. Fruit Now fruit is healthy, especially in its natural state is healthy. However, when you juice fruits, what you're doing is taking away the fiber, taking away some of the good nutrients, and you're consuming just the pure fructose part of the fruit, which is also a sugar, but, however, it is just too much sugar in fructose. Even homemade juice, fruit juice has too much sugar, that's gonna keep your insulin levels high and it's going to make you store body fat easily. So that's it when it comes to nutrition. Take action right now.
Speaker 1:The very next thing I want to talk about is your movement. That's the second middle driver when it comes to losing menopausal belly fat and menopausal weight movement. What do we mean when we talk about movement Exercise? So there's three different kinds of exercise that I want you to think about. All of them are important. The most important one to maintain that muscle, to keep you healthy, is resistance exercises. You can do this with your body weight, as in push-ups, squats, lunges. You can do this with dumbbells, barbells, resistant bands or even using household items. If you're staying at home, you can pick up a gallon, empty gallon loaded with water. That gives you, I think, five to seven, five to eight pounds Gallons of dishwashing liquid. I saw a lady who took a pillowcase, filled them up with books, and that gives you some resistance to work with. Resistance exercises will give you the most bang for your buck when it comes to losing menopausal belly fat.
Speaker 1:You want to do these resistance exercises three, four times a week. You don't have to do them for an hour no 30 minutes is just good enough. However, for an hour, no 30 minutes is just good enough. However, this is what I tell people If you have five minutes, do something. Do something, because you will notice, after doing any exercise for five minutes and after two, three days, you feel like doing it even longer. So habits are built and stacked together when you start small and you can grow from there. So don't worry about the time. You make time for the things that are most important for you.
Speaker 1:Resistance exercises are most helpful. There's also cardiovascular exercises like walking. Walking is so beneficial. You don't have to go out and jog. However, if you're menopausal female, we may not feel like jogging. Our knees hurt, ankles hurt, back hurts. Walking is for everyone. You can walk around the house. You can walk outside the house. Go walking first thing in the morning. Go walking last thing in the evening, when you come home, eat your dinner, go walking for 10 minutes. That would help you. When you walk, you're using your muscles, you're improving your cardiovascular health and your burning calories, and walking is one of those things that almost everybody can walk. So why not walk? Even if you have a job where you have to sit all day long. Take a few breaks every couple of hours and just walk for one, two, three minutes. It would help you All right, the last kind of activity I'll talk about is NEAT N-E-A-T Non-exercise activity thermogenesis and this is the energy that we use.
Speaker 1:That is apart from exercise. So it's walking around, parking your vehicle away from the entrance and walking into the entrance, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking around the grocery store, dancing at home like I do almost every single morning, rearranging your house, doing chores, going outside for hobbies just movement, even if you're in your vehicle, just dance to your music. That amount of energy that you use outside of a structured exercise is NEAT, and some studies have shown that you can burn as many calories throughout the day if you're active as you burn during structured exercise. So resistance exercises, cardiovascular exercises and NEAT will all help you lose weight, especially in menopause. So I hope I've given you a few tips and I need you to take action, because only action changes things.
Speaker 1:This morning we had the first exercise in my online bootcamp program and if you're struggling, please hit the link in my bio and come to my online bootcamp program. That's where women in perimenopause and postmenopause, we are together in the community and we learn how to eat healthy, what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, and we marry that with a structured program. We have a weekly program for workouts that we do five, six times a week. All right, my friends, I hope this helped you. Thank you, thank you and I will see you in the next video. Bye, 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. 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,