The Metabolic Hormones That You Need to Know About if You Are A Woman Over 40

Do you feel like it is harder to lose weight as you’ve taken trips around the sun?

As you’ve added candles to the ‘ole birthday cake, you’ve noticed that what used to work to keep your weight in check like exercising a bit more or eating a bit less, just does not work anymore.

Well, today I’m going to connect the dots for you and help you see that you’re not crazy, you’re actually absolutely right.

Weight control for women over 40 is different than at any other time of our lives and is different than it is for men as well.

Women over 40 do not respond to caloric deficits or exercise for weight loss as well as younger women or men of any age.

Weight Watchers, the number one weight loss program in the world is aimed directly at women over 40. 90% of Weight Watchers customers are women and the average age is 48 years old. [1] They have an entire program targeted to women based on calories in vs. calories out with a little bit of low-carb theory thrown in when we know that this approach is very unsuccessful and unsustainable for women over 40.

I’m not just trying to harp on Weight Watchers either, I taught the exact same thing for years in the clinic.  The difference is, I saw that it didn’t work and went on to dig deeper into the problem, and Weight Watchers got Oprah as an investor and a spokesperson and doubled down on an app.

Again, the main message sent to women over 40 is that we are eating too much and not exercising enough. We should be tracking our food and steps obsessively and weigh ourselves every day.

Weight Watchers, Noom all those low-calorie diet apps, will simply spin you out, never really repairing the problem.  The weight will always, always come back.

I’m here today to show you a better way.  A better way is based on science, not control or shame.

 The Players in Weight Control Over 40

There are two main players in our weight control as women over 40.

And I’m sure this comes as a surprise to no one, they are both hormones.

Notice, I didn’t say calories.  I said hormones.

I’m not saying that calories don’t matter at all, I’m saying that without the hormones we are about to talk about, controlling your calories matters a lot less than you’ve been told.

Player One is the hormone INSULIN.

Insulin is a hormone that turns on when you eat food or taste sweetness. Insulin's job is to take the food we eat and get to our cells so our cells can make energy and we can think, breathe, grow hair, and type on our computers.  Insulin also helps us store energy to use for later.  Insulin is the main hormone that controls fat accumulation.  We store extra food as body fat so we can use it later.

The more insulin we have in our bloodstream, the more fat we will accumulate. The more insulin we have in our bloodstream day in and day out, the less fat we are able to burn.

Too much insulin is the first part of metabolic damage and we call this, insulin resistance.

Insulin is a powerful hormone and most women over 40 are experiencing rapid weight gain and lack of weight loss due to metabolic damage that is insulin resistance.

Because the higher and longer your insulin stays on, the worse your metabolic damage gets. It becomes a cycle that you have trouble escaping because eating less and exercising don’t fix this insulin problem.

So you feel like you are trying so hard and nothing is happening. Because you are trying to fix a broken engine by getting new tires.  It’s never going to work for us women over 40.

Player Two is ESTROGEN

Estrogen is protective against too much insulin.  Estrogen is a mercurial mistress with our weight.  In puberty, when estrogen turns ON, our weight goes up.  In perimenopause and menopause, estrogen turns OFF and our weight goes up.

The relationship between estrogen and our body fat is not clear or concise.

One thing we do know is that around 40 our estrogen starts to be quite erratic and then with menopause, decreases drastically.  One thing that estrogen did was protected us from too much insulin.  Remember the insulin that we just talked about?

So, we have erratic or decreasing estrogen and increasing insulin. 

Plus a lower metabolism due to years of dieting… more on that later…

Which leaves you with excess stubborn belly fat.

Interestingly, 22 excellent gold standard clinical trials were grouped together in 2000 and the review found that replacing the estrogen and progesterone in post-menopausal women did not create any weight loss.  So, hear me clearly, that supplementation of estrogen is good for many things, but not weight loss.  Testosterone pellets are also not supported for weight loss.

Only insulin control is associated with weight loss for women over 40. 

Weight that won’t come off no matter how much you exercise.

Weight that won’t come off no matter what diet you choose.

Plus, bonus, you likely have Increased sugar cravings and hunger! Woohoo!

All due to this perfect metabolic storm.

So let’s connect the dots between your weight problem and your broken metabolism. The reason you feel like it’s harder to lose weight after 40 is that it is due to your metabolic changes.

You can’t address your hormonal changes by eating less.

You can’t address your lower metabolic rate by eating less.

You can’t address your inflammation by exercising more.

Yet, that is what most of us are trying to do, because we don’t know about the Metabolic Damage triad that is the real root cause of our suffering.

If you are a woman over 40 that wants to lose weight, achieve glowing health, and put an end to dieting, you need to focus on repairing your metabolism.  Weight Watchers, Noom all those low calorie diets, will simply spin you out, never really repairing the problem.  The weight will always, always come back.

Approaching the whole system with a focus on restoring your metabolic hormonal balance, repairing your metabolic rate, and reducing your inflammation.

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