Are you struggling to see results with weight loss as you hit your forties? Here are some reasons your hormones are causing you to not lose weight.
It’s really common for women over forty to struggle to lose weight.
One of the main reasons this happens is down to the physical and hormonal changes that women go through as they get older. These changes can make it easier to gain weight around the middle and more difficult to lose it again with normal dieting.
The good news is that there’s a quick and easy way to escape from this situation! And it usually comes down to a few simple mistakes that people make, which stop them from getting the results they want.
Over the next few blogs, we’re going to go through the most common reasons that women over 40 struggle to see movement on the scales. Plus, we’ll clue you into our most effective strategies to get the scales moving, drop a couple of dress sizes in the next few months, and feel amazing in all your favourite clothes!
Here is part one of our blog series, all about how your hormones are causing you to not lose weight in your forties.
You can also listen to our podcast episodes for more details!
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)
In the early 2000s, HRT got a lot of bad rep in the news. Yet, a lot of these ideas are out of date and unfounded. According to menopause experts, for most women, the risks of not taking HRT are far higher than taking it.
Oestrogen deficiency during menopause can lead to up to 50+ symptoms, many of which make it hard to stay fit and healthy. Symptoms include the ‘middle age spread’ – caused by relatively higher testosterone levels compared to oestrogen levels, achy joints, low mood and motivation, brain fog, and more.
Low oestrogen can make it hard to stay motivated to exercise and eat well. Often, GPs mistakenly prescribe antidepressants when it’s the lack of oestrogen that’s the problem – which HRT would solve.
Brain fog also makes it hard to work effectively, and people end up working long hours to compensate, meaning less time for exercise and healthy eating. All of this combines to make it more of an uphill battle.
Often, people don’t even know they’re experiencing symptoms due to perimenopause. But, we’ve seen many clients feel themselves again after getting the right help with HRT!
We have a menopause expert Bev Thorogood inside our program who helps people get the right help they need from their GP.
Birth control
A lot of women are taking different types of birth control, even in the run up to menopause. This can have a big impact on how you look and feel, both in and out of your clothes.
Whilst the scientific conclusion is that birth control, on average, doesn’t cause weight gain, this is a simplification. It doesn’t consider the changes in body composition, i.e. the amount of muscle and fat people have. Someone with more muscle and less fat will look FAR more firm, toned and youthful, as well as being a LOT slimmer – even at the same weight.
The birth control that has the most negative effect on this is early stage progesterone, containing birth control known as the first and second generation progestins.
The type of birth control that seems to have the least negative effects is the IUD, which either contains no hormones at all, or progesterone only, but it’s topical progesterone meaning it only acts on a local area where it’s fitted.
It’s important to consider how your birth control might be impacting your efforts to lose weight.
Cortisol and stress levels
Hormones change in the run up to menopause. The average age for menopause occurring is 51, but this is an average, and hormonal changes start to happen up to 10 years prior to this, so often in the early 40s!
These changes don’t just lead to menopause symptoms like hot flushes, low mood, achey joints or brain fog. They also have an affect on the way the body reacts to stress.
When you are subjected to a source of stress, cortisol, the stress hormone is released. This is called the stress response. This increases with age, but most significantly it increases 3x more for women than for men with age.
Sources of stress not only include things like work and family life, but extreme dieting and exercise approaches, lack of sleep and other factors like caffeine and alcohol can also significantly stress the body.
If cortisol levels are too high for too long, it can trigger the Weight Gain Triangle, causing changes in your hormones, including:
- Leptin resistance – increased cravings, especially for comfort foods
- Insulin resistance – increased fat storage, especially around the middle
- Thyroid deregulation – slower metabolism
This makes it harder to lose weight and easier to gain it, which is exactly what you don’t want when you’re aiming to lose a load of weight to feel great on your holidays!
So, extreme diets and workout routines like HIIT training, spinning, keto, shakes and sticking to low calories, can make it really hard to see progress.
What we recommend instead is following an eating and exercise approach which keeps cortisol levels low, but still means you can drop 2 dress sizes over a 12 week period.
To find out more about how Trinity can help you see the results you deserve, simply click here.
