How Hormonal Imbalances Affect Weight During Menopause

Losing weight is almost never easy, but during menopause, it can be particularly difficult to lose weight. Genetics and lifestyle can both play a role in weight gain that happens in the years leading up to and during menopause, but hormonal imbalances can contribute to weight problems as well. Of course, you can’t change genetics, but altering certain aspects of your lifestyle can impact your hormonal levels and help make it easier for you to lose weight.

Exercise

One of the first and most important lifestyle changes that you can make right away to begin losing weight is to kick-start your exercise program! If you don’t already exercise on a regular basis, it’s definitely time to start. A good exercise program can increase your overall health in a big way. Weight-bearing exercises like walking or jogging, for example, can help you build bone mass, which can help you prevent the development of osteoporosis. Exercise can also help build muscle mass. This is important because during menopause, muscle mass tends to deteriorate. You need muscle to burn calories so exercises that help build muscle mass will help you lose weight.

Healthy Eating

Eating healthy is also extremely important during menopause. After menopause, your risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol increases. Regular exercise and eating healthy can help you maintain a healthy circulatory system while keeping your blood sugars under control. Eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. Try to avoid refined sugars and trans fats whenever possible. And cut back on the number of calories you consume each day. When you hit menopause, your body stops metabolizing calories like it did when you were younger. You can prevent weight gain by exercising regularly to burn calories and diminishing your caloric intake each day.

Balance Your Hormones

If you’ve been working out regularly for months, and eating healthy and you’re still not seeing any progress toward losing any weight, you may need to seek out help to balance your hormones. Hormones play a major role in how the body manages fat stores. As such, if you’re having trouble losing weight and you’ve religiously stuck to a healthy diet and regular exercise, a course of bioidentical hormones may be just the help you need to jump start a weight loss program. Bioidentical hormones can bring your hormones back into balance. Hormone replacement therapy in combination with regular exercise and a nutritional diet can help you keep that balance after menopause, which will make you feel better about yourself and maintain good health into old age.

Make the necessary lifestyle changes and stick to them for at least 3 months. If you don’t see any progress, then it may be time to seek out a bioidentical hormone doctors to help out.