By Emma Seville
Upper body weight gain is frequently a symptom of perimenopause. You may be exercising as you have always done, or maybe even upping the cardio, trying to run off the extra weight, even eating less but to no avail. This is probably related to changes in your metabolism, due to the effects of insulin.
Insulin is the hormone that stimulates cells to take up glucose.
You may have heard of insulin resistance, also called pre-diabetes or metabolic syndrome. It is a cause of weight gain in women over 40 and can lead to a host of health issues later in life. But it is also easily fixed.
Insulin resistance can worsen almost any perimenopausal symptom!
Our bodies change shape in perimenopause, muscle and bone loss are accelerated, fat is re-distributed. Anxiety and stress levels rise due to hectic lives and lower levels of progesterone, which impacts the calming brain chemical GABA. We end up spending too much time in flight or fight response, which causes the release of glycogen into our bloodstream to give us fast energy—to run from the perceived threat, even if it is just a thought. This gets stored as fat when we aren’t moving, hence the link between stress and weight gain.
Meditation, yoga, breath work, and walking—anything that promotes feelings of happiness and contentment, and boosts feel-good brain chemicals such as oxytocin are great ways to deal with stress and turn off the flight or fight sympathetic nervous system response.
Sleep is often affected by lower progesterone too, and we can lose sync with our circadian rhythm. Both factors, stress and low-quality sleep, cause chronic inflammation, which in itself acts as a stressor, raising insulin levels and leading us to turn to snacking on mood enhancing sugar, highly processed foods, alcohol, and refined carbs, which also raise insulin and inflammation. We also produce less estradiol, the sort of oestrogen we rely on in peri-post menopause, because gut health also suffers.
High insulin is a driver of inflammation
The aim is to have good insulin sensitivity. In time we can have so much insulin in our system that the overloaded cells become less sensitive to it, which leads to chronically elevated levels, causing metabolic and mitochondrial dysfunction.
Mitochondria are the energy power houses in our cells, so if they aren’t working properly, we feel more tired, want to move less, and so feel worse.
Abdominal and upper body weight gain is the most common symptom of insulin excess, but some women only show other symptoms, such as fatigue, sugar cravings, high cholesterol, skin tags, and fatty liver.
So, what can we do?
● sleep well
● exercise, the right way
● lower cortisol by managing anxiety and stress
● raise oxytocin levels—sex, hugs, massage
● eat right
● get enough protein
● gentle intermittent fasting
● an anti-inflammatory diet
● supplement to support our bodies
● get in line with your circadian rhythm
Emma Seville, Complete Wellness MOE, ITEC Menopause specialist
The Clinic:
