Struggling to lose weight after hitting menopause? Here’s how stress levels can cause menopause weight gain, and what to do about it.
We’ve worked with so many women who were struggling to lose weight after hitting menopause. They weren’t seeing any movement on the scales no matter what they tried.
These women were trying all the things which worked in their 20s and 30s, but they were stepping on the scales at the end of the week and seeing ZERO movement!
For many of these ladies, this was starting to have a big impact on their confidence and self esteem – making it difficult for them to enjoy life to the fullest.
But despite all of that…
We helped 1000s of these women to remove the barriers that were blocking them from seeing results! We’ve helped them to quickly and easily get the scales moving, lose the excess weight, and regain their confidence!
In this blog, we reveal how cortisol causes menopause weight gain, and how to avoid it.
We share our top strategies which have helped over 6,000 women in their 40s and 50s to drop 1-2 dress sizes, fit back into all their favourite clothes, and feel incredible wearing anything they like in just 12 weeks.
You can also listen to this blog on our podcast.
Understanding menopause hormones
Changes in the female sex hormones oestrogen and progesterone can have a significant impact in the run up to menopause. This can lead to symptoms like:
- Hot flushes
- Joint aches and pains
- Night sweats
- Brain fog
- Weight gain
However, what actually causes that weight gain around menopause?
There’s a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones for women in their 40s and 50s is related to another hormone: cortisol.
Is cortisol good or bad?
In short bursts, triggered by short term stress, cortisol is actually beneficial. For example, if you exercise, cortisol is released and this helps to build muscles stronger and release fat from fat cells.
It also helps to form memories, which is why we tend to remember stressful events more than happy times!
However, if cortisol is elevated all of the time from long-term stress – also known as chronically elevated – there are a lot of negative side effects. For example, it triggers:
- Insulin resistance, which encourages fat storage, especially around the middle
- Leptin resistance, which makes you feel hungrier and have cravings for “comfort foods”
- Thyroid function decreases, which causes a slower metabolism (making it harder to lose weight)
We call this the weight gain triangle, and it makes it harder to lose weight and easier to gain weight for women around menopause.
What causes cortisol levels to be chronically elevated?
Cortisol levels can be elevated for a number of reasons. For example, constant work stress or a busy family life.
But it’s not just the obvious things that make cortisol levels higher. Things that make it worse include:
- Getting older, as you’re more sensitive to stress
- Female vs. males: females have three times the stress response in than men during ageing
- A lack of sleep
- Alcohol can raise internal stress levels
- Low calorie dieting
- High intensity exercises like HIIT or spinning
- Caffeine
- Dehydration
All of these contribute to higher cortisol levels, making it easier to gain weight and harder to lose it.
How to avoid the cortisol trap?
Inside our Fit Over 40 program, we work with our client’s changing hormones, rather than against them.
When it comes to exercise, we make sure our clients avoid high intensity exercise like HIIT, spinning, gym classes or crossfit. Instead, they stick to low-impact strength training just three times a week. This minimises the stress response and builds muscle to combat bone losses.
Combine this with an increase in NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), and you’re on your way to a better lifestyle. For example, keeping step count up is a good, low-stress form of exercise that’s gentle on the body and joints.
For nutrition, we help our clients avoid extreme approaches like super low calorie diets, shake diets, or cutting out whole food groups. This can over-stress the body, leading to chronically high cortisol levels and triggering the weight gain triangle.
We also help our clients to implement hormonally balanced eating. We work through a Diet Makeover, which kickstarts fat loss and helps to get cravings under control.
You can find out more about how we help clients here!
