Menopause Weight Gain: Understanding the Connection
Menopause weight gain: Can understanding the Connection Help with The Emotions of Gaining weight in Menopause?
Even though I follow a non diet approach, I understand how frustrating menopause weight gain can be. Some women describe it as “appearing overnight” and others say their menopause weight gain has been a steady climb.
Many women try diet after diet, and say the menopause weight won’t budge.
It is a huge source of angst in midlife.
Let me just say that this article is not about weight loss, ok?
I am all about body autonomy, and if you want to lose weight in menopause, I see you.
As a non diet nutritionist, I do not feel that spending time talking about caloric restriction, or diets, or shrinking in this article serve anyone on a path to health in menopause. Health is SO much deeper than this.
I DO think that we as women need to spend more time talking about WHY we feel so awful about this weight gain, and what weight loss ACTUALLY means to us.
Before we talk about the struggle with weight & body image in menopause, it’s important to uncover the connections in menopause weight gain.
When I ask clients to identify their top priorities for their health, in perimenopause and menopause, the most important are:
I want more energy.
I want to lose weight.
I have awful anxiety.
Things like joint pain, blood sugar control, and brain fog, fall farther down on the list.
Menopause Weight Gain and Body Changes Can Go Hand In Hand.
Menopause weight gain is a common concern for women, even in perimenopause. In fact, approximately 90% of women gain some weight during menopause.
The weight gain associated with menopause typically occurs around the waistline, but as we all know, weight gain can occur anywhere.
We can feel bloated, and puffy all ‘round. But WHY?
What Causes Menopause Weight Gain?
Several factors contribute to menopause weight gain.
These factors include hormonal changes, age, energy levels and even lymph system changes.
Hormonal Changes and Their Impact on Menopause Weight Gain
These hormones play a role in regulating metabolism and body weight. As hormone levels decrease, the body’s metabolism slows down, and women may experience an increase in body fat, particularly around the waistline.
The focus in perimenopause seems to be on estrogen and progesterone. There are other hormones at play, including FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) and a hormone called inhibin (1).
Sex hormones in Menopause Weight Gain
During menopause, yes, levels of estrogen and progesterone decline.
This link between reproductive function and body weight control is largely mediated by the female sex steroid hormones, particularly estradiol and progesterone (1).
Estrogen, or estrogens, as there are three notable types, get a lot of attention in menopause. It has an effect on many body systems, and the change in weight is also connected to estrogen changes.
Estrogen is inversely linked to weight gain, meaning that the lower estrogen gets, specifically estradiol, the higher the potential for weight gain. Estradiol is linked to metabolism and weight.
Estradiol exerts its regulatory effect on the body by influencing food intake and energy output (1).
Menopause Weight Gain and Thyroid hormones
Many women see their thyroid function change in perimenopause and through the transition to menopause. This can be due to thyroid hormones relationship to estrogen. Too much estrogen affects thyroid hormone by making it inert. This is where thyroid function can lower.
Weight gain can be a “side effect” of this.
The incidence of hypothyroidism increases with age (2)
Thyroid issus and “ovarian dysfunction” can look the same:
anxiety
heart palpitations
sweating
gaining weight
insomnia
If you can, ask your Dr. for a thyroid panel, if you suspect any thyroid issues.
The thyroid itself changes over time, flattens and the size of its follicles diminish, while there is an increase in fibrous connective tissue (2).
The size of the thyroid may change as you age, along with it’s production of thyroid hormones.
Menopause Weight Gain and Adrenal Glands
There is no argument to the fact that midlife can be a stressful time. Whether that stress comes from lack of nutrients, events happening in life, chronic inflammation, lack of sleep, this stress plays a role in hormone changes, and weight related changes.
You may have heard that your adrenals are responsible for cortisol.
Cortisol gets a bad rap, and it is needed in the body for survival, by the way.
Your adrenals are also responsible for some sex hormone production in menopause. If cortisol is high, which it can he higher in menopause and post menopause, your body “holds on” to fat.
This is because of the mechanism of “survival mode.”
Estrogen also increases vagal nerve action, and reduces sympathetic nervous system action. This means that as we lose estrogen, our nervous system can increase in the fight, fight, fawn or freeze response.
Increase in sympathetic nervous system activity may be correlated with a decrease in insulin sensitivity (3)
Blood sugar and insulin levels
Transitioning into Menopause can see a rise in blood sugar issues like insulin resistance (IR). IR is a changed response to insulin. Tissues that utilize insulin’s action have decreased sensitivity to it, meaning those tissues don’t respond like they used to. Here, you may see increase in blood sugar, and even lipid levels, as this comes from the liver.
Weight changes, or redistribution of weight, can show up in the abdominal area.
We make a hormone called adiponectin, and this is important to metabolizing glucose (sugar) and fatty acids. It helps cells of the body be “sensitive” or use, insulin. This is important in the muscle cells and liver cells.
Your liver plays a large role in blood glucose, or blood sugar stabilization.
The abdominal distribution of fat that happens with this change is associated with a decline in adiponectin. Having low adiponectin is associated with metabolic syndrome and IR. (3)
Changes in body composition
There is a shift that happens in menopause, where we lose lean muscle and gain fat. This is associated with estrogen, particularly that estradiol.
This is your most potent estrogen.
Skeletal muscle fibres have specific estradiol receptors that promote regeneration of muscle (4).
There is a change in the cells of the muscle, and we can lose strength too.
Sarcopenia is the term for loss of strength and muscle as we age. This is why weight bearing exercise is so important as we age, to maintain strength, muscle and balance.
Fatigue
There is much evidence on the internet that lack of physical activity contributes to the changes in our bodies in menopause. Many women experience such a drop in energy, that their regular fitness activities are difficult to keep up.
Perimenopause and menopause fatigue has many factors, including gut health, stress, hormone fluctuations and even emotional connections.
If you feel your menopause weight gain is due to lack of energy, grab my FREE Mini Course here.
NO DIET REQURED.
You’ll get 5 tips to boost your energy in midlife, that have nothing to do with losing weight. When you FEEL more energetic, you want to DO the things that make you feel healthy!
Menopause Weight Gain and Lymph Flow
Your lymph system runs along side your cardiovascular system and all throughout your body. It’s called the sewer system, but it really is a fantastic immune and transport system that affects your whole body health.
It transports nutrients, lipids (important connection to your cardiovascular system here), and also immune cells to sites of infection.
If your lymph system is sluggish, you may find that you are feeling “puffy.” this can happen in your face, or all over the body.
Women look at weight gain in so many ways, including a number on the scale, how their pants fit, and even the puffiness of their face.
What are you really measuring besides the mass of the body overall?
Muscle?
Fluid retention?
This is why you cannot rely solely on weight numbers or the BMI.
Menopause Weight Gain: What to Do From a Non Diet Focus.
I bet after reading all this your mind is saying, “OK, I need to go on a diet.”
It makes sense, if you’re looking at the information here, and relating weight to calories in and calories out.
You might also be saying, “I need a sugar detox.” Again, when reading about the changes in insulin sensitivity in menopause, this can make sense.
The problem is that many menopausal women diet to no avail. The weight doesn’t budge.
Another issue is that there is a strong body of evidence that diets have limited long term “success” meaning that there is almost always rebound weight gain.
So what DO you do?
✅ Get you basic blood labs done. While basic labs can’t tell you everything, you can check certain nutrition status markers, lipid levels, basic thyroid and blood sugar levels from an allopathic focus.
Information about your body is important.
You can always move to more comprehensive thyroid testing, or DUTCH testing, if needed.
✅ Focus on healthy activities and behaviours, not calories in and calories out.
Everyone’s interpretation of what a healthy behaviour is will vary.
The key is identifying what a healthy behaviour is for YOU. The word health can mean different things to all of us.
Here are my top 3 areas to focus on to take the focus off intentional weight loss as the ONLY way to be healthy in menopause.
Use the add in approach to your food and diet.
Eating according to your OWN body signals.
Look at your stress levels and resilience.
This is not a definitive list. My goal here is to make menopause health and nutrition easier. Health is easier, when you start simply.
Adding in foods like complex carbohydrates, making sure you have enough protein and eating in a way that combines protein fat and fibre with meals is a start to improving your diet.
Tuning in to your own body signals, and eating according to your own needs, is another way to gain information about yourself, and how your body feels with certain foods.
If you can do only ONE thing to support yourself through perimenopause, menopause and into post menopausal years, it would be to look at your stress.
How much stress do you have in your life?
How resilient are you?
How much do yo allow yourself to destress?
Do you have the tools to do this?
Truly, I’d like to add: Explore your desire to lose weight.
Many say they desire to lose weight in menopause for health reasons, when it really is about body image.
Understanding what is behind your desire to lose weight is key. There is a lot of pressure to lose weight, and remain youthful, from so many areas, including our own heads.
Perhaps it’s time we stopped pathologizing menopause, and weight gain, and look at it from another angle.
Our bodies are smart, and adaptable. They change according to what we need. Isn’t that amazing? The checks and balances that the body is capable of can manifest into menopause symptoms, including menopause weight gain.
However by focusing on overall health. wellbeing, and feeling good, you can take the energy you put toward measuring and calorie counting, and put it towards creating health behaviours that fit YOUR life.
How does that sound?
Your Menopause Deserves BETTER.
xo
Sources:
Heshmati HM, Taleb M, Turpin G. Inhibine: origine, nature et rôle [Inhibin: its origin, nature and role]. Presse Med. 1983 Jun 18;12(26):1663-5. French. PMID: 6224151.
C V SB, S B, A S. Analysis of the degree of insulin resistance in post menopausal women by using skin temperature measurements and fasting insulin and fasting glucose levels: a case control study. J Clin Diagn Res. 2012 Dec;6(10):1644-7. doi: 10.7860/JCDR/2012/4377.2646. Epub 2012 Dec 15. PMID: 23373019; PMCID: PMC3552195.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.682012/full