Empowering Women in Their 40s

Navigating Menopause with Confidence and Vitality

As a woman journeying through my 40s, I find myself facing a myriad of changes, both physically and emotionally, as I approach menopause there are a lot of concerns to take into consideration.

One of the most significant concerns for many of us during this time is weight management. The hormonal fluctuations that accompany menopause can lead to shifts in body composition, making it challenging to maintain a healthy weight. However, by understanding the interplay between hormonal health, gut health, you're your dietary habits, we can navigate this stage of life with much more confidence and vitality.

Menopause marks a significant hormonal transition, which is characterised by a decline in oestrogen levels. This natural hormonal shift can contribute to changes in our metabolism, redistribution of body fat, and increased insulin resistance, all of which can make weight management more challenging.

To effectively manage weight during menopause, lets look an approach that addresses not only hormonal health but also lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management.

We have had it drummed into us about getting our five a day, but what if I told you to that those five a day could potentially be doing more harm than good. Because of the chemicals sprayed onto a lot of our fruit and veg, this can be disrupting our endocrine system, the system that manages a lot of our bodies functions, through hormones. Therefore, pesticides and herbicides are being found to add toxic load to our bodies, which has a detrimental effect on our hormones.

Washing fruit and veg gets rid of a little but not a great amount, so it is worth considering the clean fifteen and dirty lists that you can find via https://www.pan-uk.org/dirty-dozen/

Phase eating, where we eat different foods to aid and balance our hormones throughout the month is a great way to help with any weight issues. The idea is to keep insulin low when Oestrogen is rising, to support gut health and liver health when Testosterone & Oestrogen have peaked and to slightly raise our glucose levels when our progesterone is peaking. I introduce all perimenopausal and menopausal clients to phase eating to manage, support, and balance hormones as well as an effective approach for weight management, whether they work with me 1-1 or within my women-only hormonal health membership.

We have been told for years that cardio is the way to support weight loss and to keep us fit and healthy. As we mature this way of thinking needs to change as too much cardio can have the exact opposite effect, due to the extra stress it can put on our body. I implore all ladies to start taking up weight training, if they are physically able. Our muscles give support to our bones and as our bones can potentially weaken, the muscle will be the ally we need to support our bone strength.

Stress management and sleep go hand in hand, and I reckon are a blog on their own, but for now, to start your stress management journey, observe how you breath. I can see the eye rolls now, another specialist telling us we are breathing wrong. Your breath can put you and keep you in a stress response and if not observed and changed, will keep you in a stress response which means less sleep, more weight and higher anxiety.

So, do yourself a big favour, check in when you wake up, when you go to lunch, when you go to sleep, and even when you check your emails are you breathing from your chest, if so, start breathing from your stomach. Lay a hand on your stomach so you can feel it fill and deflate with air and get used to the feeling. A few minutes of belly breathing, several times a day will see a big difference in your stress levels and an improvement in your sleep.

To find out more about phase eating, what exercise is best at different times of the month, and how to work smarter not harder with your cycle, join my women-only hormonal health membership here where we understand the full spectrum of our hormonal health and harness its power to make our life bloody brilliant!

Join here now

My womens only membership