Three surprising facts about perimenopause and weight gain

There are a lot of surprising facts about perimenopause and weight gain we get wrong, so let's speak some truth to what is a very normal experience for many women.

It’s not about your metabolism.

Your metabolism doesn’t actually slow down that much as you age - maybe 1-2% over your adult lifetime from age 20 until 90.  Weight gain during perimenopause is more about body composition changes and lifestyle changes.  

As women age, we tend to lose muscle mass both from hormonal changes and lack of activity. The decrease in muscle impacts our body's ability to burn calories as effectively which can have an impact on our metabolism so ensuring you're maintaining muscle density is our best bet for ensuring our physical bodies.  

Women have long been conditioned to focus on cardio vs weight lifting, but we know now that muscle density actually plays a bigger role in weight management and bone health than cardio.  Weight lifting is not limited to power lifting either - you don’t have to push yourself to exhaustion or injury to get results.  20 reps at 5lbs can be as good as 5 reps at 20lbs. Whatever it is you choose to do, finding an activity you enjoy is the "secret" to making lasting heathy habits.

Gaining weight isn’t always a bad thing! 

Does weighing yourself tell you if you're healthy?

When your ovaries stop producing estrogen it’s actually your fat tissue that becomes the source of estrogen for your body - suddenly that weight change starts to make a bit more sense, doesn’t it? More importantly, weight gain has more to do with individual genetics than diet and exercise alone. 

There are even studies that show being slightly overweight has a higher life expectancy as well as less fractures in aging. In other words, if you do find you’re gaining weight, that might not be so bad in the long run.  This might be the most surprising fact about perimenopause since there is so much noise around weight gain in mid life, but the reality is that weight, alone, is not an indicator of your overall or future health outcomes.

Hormones don’t stop weight gain.

Hormone therapy isn’t going to stop weight gain, BUT it can help you sleep better and improve your mood and energy levels so that you are able to move more and make better dietary choices.  There are a lot of factors that impact your quality of life - good sleep and managing stress are the best things you can do for your body.  

Bonus 4th fact: 

Hormonal birth control is a form of Hormone Therapy and often a first course of action for perimenopause support so congrats if you’re already doing it and not realizing!  It’s easy to think of HT as this big scary thing, but the reality is that many women are already supporting themselves with hormones.  

If hormone therapy is the answer for you, great!  If you’ve found other modalities work for you, keep doing that.  Focus on HOW you feel and doing things you love.  Gaining weight isn’t necessarily a sign that anything is wrong. And it certainly doesn’t have to stop you from having a life you love.

A lot of women start to hide themselves and their bodies in mid life partly because society shuns older women, but also because we don't feel comfortable in our bodies anymore.  But, in my world, feeling comfortable in your body is completely separate from how it looks.

I know that if I restricted my calories and exercised more I could lose weight, but I also know that the energy and effort required to maintain that weight loss is simply not sustainable for me.  (I’ve been there!  I know!)  I’m stronger, more capable, and in less pain now than I ever was when I was in a smaller body.  And, in turn, I have so much more love and confidence in my body - for what it does, for how it carries me through the day to day, and for how it continues to do more than I could ever imagine.

The simple truth is when you no longer have shame around what aging bodies do naturally, there's so much more time to focus on the things you love - your family, your career, your life!  Which is the healthiest thing any of us can do!

Were these three facts about perimenopause and weightgain surprising to you? Which one was most surprising?

This is the part of my practice I love the most: helping women see the magic already inside of their bodies! Helping you find a path that works with your body and how it's intended to function instead of feeling like you have to fight it every step of the way. I work with women in both one-on-one and group settings to simply speak truth to the experiences the are already having and help them find an easier path forward.

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