Staying in shape is challenging enough but tack on sleep struggles, memory loss, anxiety, muscle loss, and weight gain…
Sounds like an uphill battle, right?
This condition is actually something more than half of the population goes through!
It’s menopause.
In this article, we dive into a few simple, proven methods for staying in shape through and after menopause. If you’re a woman who wants to avoid experiencing the many negative impacts that menopause can have, keep scrolling.
Menopause is defined as a “biological process,” but it might also be appropriate to describe it as a “challenge” or “health issue.” Menopause produces a number of stressful outcomes, including sleep disturbances, hot flashes, increased urination, poor memory, and anxiety.
Following menopause, women are susceptible to a number of fitness- and health-related issues. Postmenopause, women are also likely to gain weight, lose muscle, lose bone, and are more likely to develop heart disease.
Other health concerns at this time are the worsening of a few heart disease risk factors, including the rise in insulin resistance (a precursor to diabetes), blood glucose, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure.
Unfortunately, menopause isn’t avoidable. However, the issues following menopause are avoidable!
Strength training is an especially important part of maintaining health after menopause. There are several reasons why strength training helps.
How Strength Training Can Help Post-Menopause
Health and Fitness
As mentioned, menopause is often followed by a loss of muscle, bone, weight gain, and a number of health issues. Strength training reverses all of these trends. Specifically, postmenopausal women can gain muscle, strengthen bones, lose fat, and increase metabolism (fighting against weight gain) with strength training.
Weight lifting is also shown to combat all of the health concerns, leading to healthier levels of blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, and insulin resistance. As a whole, strength training can help women reduce their risk of developing heart disease.
Hot Flashes
Hot flashes are known for causing lost sleep, nausea, headaches, anxiety, and weakness. Frequency varies, but some women can have them as often as every hour!
While this is not a commonly known benefit, strength training can actually reduce hot flash episodes. One study showed that twice-weekly strength training led to a 44% decrease in hot flashes! Strength training raises endorphin levels, which might fight against some of the internal changes that occur before a hot flash.
Other Ways to Maintain Post-Menopausal Health
Exercise is most effective for post-menopausal fitness when combined with dietary changes. Specifically, exercise and diet changes combined can maximize fat loss, maintaining or building muscle, and enhancing measures of health. Specifically, two approaches are especially helpful.
Calorie Deficit
Reducing calories is an effective way to lose fat and maintain a healthy level of body fat and inflammation. When combined with exercise, calorie control is an effective way to specifically reduce midsection body fat, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose, and blood pressure.
In research, a few strategies were effective for reducing calorie intake. Among the effective strategies were working with nutrition coaches, tracking their own behaviors (food journaling, etc.), learning strategies for changing behavior, receiving social support and accountability from others, and documenting daily weigh-ins.
One thing to avoid when going after a caloric deficit is crash-diets or fad-diets that cause you to eat extremely low calories (under 1200 calories). You want to lose weight AND protect your metabolism so you can maintain muscle and energy. Nutritional needs are different for each person, so if you’re not sure where to start reach out to us to work with one of our 1 on 1 coaches.
High Protein Diet
Calorie restriction that includes a low daily intake of protein leads to a large amount of muscle loss. Eating a “high-protein diet” while restricting calories can greatly reduce the amount of muscle lost during weight loss. A desirable protein intake for maintaining muscle during weight loss or weight maintenance is around 0.7-1.0 grams/lb of body weight per day.
For example, if you weigh 200 lbs and your goal is to maintain that weight, you should consume 140-200 grams of protein per day.
In Conclusion
If no intentional actions are taken, women might gain weight, lose muscle, and experience a big decline in health during menopause. Thankfully, a few actions can help women stay in shape during and after menopause.
Strength training helps women maintain muscle, avoid weight gain, and reduce the frequency of hot flashes. Eating in a calorie deficit, using strategies such as working with a coach and using a food journal, can lead to fat loss or maintain your desired weight. Combining exercise and calorie restriction can ensure great health, including maintaining healthy levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, and blood glucose.
Menopause can wreak havoc on a woman’s body, but that havoc is not inevitable. Strength training and calorie-reducing habits can lead to great health and fitness well beyond menopause.
