Risk of Obesity Caused By Menopause

Menopause goes with aging. As you age, your metabolism will decrease and you will not be able to burn all the calorie intake you have in a day without doing anything.

Weight gain during menopause is a natural process in your body, you cannot avoid weight gain but you can control it. Do not take for granted the additional pounds you will gain each year, especially when you are in the “mid-life” stage of life because it can lead to obesity.

Control your weight gain to prevent overweight and risk of obesity. Unfortunately, you cannot totally avoid weight gain during menopause because this phenomenon is natural and inevitable. However, you can control weight gain. This can be made possible by adapting these three  major healthy ways –proper and regular exercises, eating balanced diet, and avoiding stress.

Proper and Regular exercises can help you build more muscle that can easily burn more calories than fat. Exercises increase your metabolic rate, thus, promoting weight loss. Pelvic floor exercises are great during menopause in order to strengthen your pelvic floor and can assist in stress incontinence. Stress incontinence is characterized by the leaking of small amount of urine with exertion such as laughing, counting, sneezing, lifting heavy objects, or during physical activities.

You should have a healthy balanced diet every day and eat healthy foods in proper amount. This can be made possible by planning your menus ahead of time. Make your sure that your menu comprises of nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables. Limit your sugar, salt, and calorie intake per day. Do not eat bulky, but eat in small frequent feedings. Keep in mind that do not let your self become hungry all the time because hunger is a stress that can stimulate your appetite to eat large amount of food.

A person under stress, tend to gain weight because of increase appetite and most of us tend to cope with stress in a way of eating. Therefore, avoid stress and make your mind relax all the time. Make a list of stress management that can be applicable to your lifestyle. Try simple stress reduction techniques such as yoga, massage, aerobics, reading books and magazines, watching movies, singing, and many more.

Controlling weight gain during menopause is not that difficult, you will just need to focus in having a healthy lifestyle –stop your healthy habits, increase you activity, and avoid stressful situation. With these simple strategies, you will surely have an optimistic view in the natural aging process.

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How Does Stress Contribute to Menopausal Weight Gain

Stress is a contributing factor in weight gain during menopause. When you are under stress, you may find it difficult to keep up healthy eating habits because you are emotionally unstable. You have emotional needs that you think can be fulfilled through eating. As a result, you tend to eat high-calorie foods during times of stress, even when you are not hungry.

The stress hormones will then signal your body to go into storage mode. The calories you have gained from your large food intake will just be stored in your body and converted into fat. During menopause, there would be unequal fat distribution. Bulky fat on abdominal area, hips, and thighs are noticeable during menopause.

Menopausal weight gain has to do with cortisol –a stress hormone that is responsible in the fight and flight response of the body during periods of stress. Cortisol tends to rise under stress to help our body cope by giving us energy to fight back stressors. However, when stress becomes chronic, our body will become exhausted. As a result, the cortisol stimulates our appetite to eat more foods in order to gain back our energy.

Chronic stress results to consistent increase of cortisol levels. Too much cortisol slows down metabolism, causing more weight gain than you would normally experience. You would likely crave for sweets, processed foods, and other foods that are not good for you. These foods are typically less healthy and lead to increase weight gain. Hence, when you are under stressed, dieting is more difficult.

Prolonged stress can alter your blood sugar levels, causing moods swings, fatigue, and hyperglycemia. There could be a decrease insulin resistance when you are in chronic stress, making you at risk for Diabetes. Too much stress has even linked to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of health concerns that can lead to serious health problems.

Stress can be prevented and lessen through stress management techniques such as yoga, massage, sports, singing, and many more, depending in your preference on how can you be relaxed. Avoid also stressful situations and be positive all the time. Without stress, you can easily control weight gain.

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Menopause and Natural Weight Loss

Weight gain is common during menopause because it goes with aging. There are many ways to control weight gain during menopause. Some of the ways are synthetic or artificial, just like hormone replacements.

When you wanted to have sudden weight loss during menopause, there are diet pills and cosmetic surgeries. However, you may possibly suffer from the consequences of your sudden weight loss because most of the diet pills and cosmetic surgeries have side effects that can harm your body.

The best way to lose weight during menopause is the natural way. These natural way cannot give you a sudden effect but can assure you an effect that will not harm your body.

Natural Weight Loss strategies include regular exercises, well balanced diet, stress management, and herbal medicines or food supplements.

Exercise is one of the best ways to lose weight and will improve your body functions as well. When you have regular exercises, you tend to build up muscles and enhance bone strength. Muscle burns calories more than fat. Thus, when you eat high caloric foods, make sure to increase your daily activities to burn those calories.

Having a well balanced diet is very important during menopause because your are experiencing hormonal changes.  Eat highly nutritious food everyday and make sure to have enough meals. Reduce you sugar and salt intake because these can contribute to weight gain. Eat foods rich in calcium, protein, and fiber to maintain good body function and prevent further complications during and after menopause.

Stress, can cause weight gain because when you are under stress, your appetite tend to increase.  So, formulate your own stress-reduction strategies that are applicable to your lifestyle. Best stress-reduction strategies are yoga, massage, watching movies, playing sports, cooking, painting, and many more, as long you will be relaxed.  Avoid stressful situations and develop positive thinking all the time.

Taking herbal medicines and food supplements are better ways to lose weight than diet pills. Herbs and food supplements have no harmful effects because these can only enhance body functions but will not add synthetic or artificial substances to you body in order to lose weight.

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Modern Ways to Cope with Menopause

The average age for women to have their menopause is about 51, but it is still normal for menopause to occur from age 40 to 59. You are not really through menopause until you have not experienced period for 12 consecutive months.

Many women experience emotional symptoms during menopause. These symptoms include mood swings, irritability, sadness, and anxiety. The hormonal changes during menopause are the cause of these symptoms.

Menopause goes with aging. As the woman age, there are possibilities that she will experience emotional disturbances because she may feel as if like she is a different person now.

Most of the menopausal women tend to be sad because of the changes happening in their bodies. During menopause, they will notice skin changes such as dryness and wrinkles. Some women, are very conscious when it comes to their skin, they will really find ways to make their skin looks young.

Since menopause is not an avoidable phenomenon, good coping mechanisms are the best ways to prevent severe emotional symptoms of menopause. These coping mechanisms are effective in lessening the symptoms of menopause and promoting optimism towards aging.

Modern ways to cope up with menopause are mostly related to stress, dry skin, wrinkles, weight gain, and decrease bone capacity. Here are the modern coping strategies during menopause:

Stress Management

Stress can only aggravate the symptoms of menopause and can surely increase your craving for food. In coping with menopause, you should avoid stressful situations and perform stress reducing techniques such as yoga, massage, sports, singing, and many more, depending in your preference on how can you be relaxed.

Treat Your Dry Skin

Dry skin is common during menopause because of the low estrogen level. Dry skin can be treated with moisturizers such as Aquafor, a petroleum-based product which can keep the moisture of your skin. There are also lotions and creams that are specifically made fro dry skin.

There are also natural ways to treat dry skin during menopause. Hydration is the first natural way to attain skin moisture, drink plenty of water every day. Other ways are skin cleansing twice a day, incorporating healthy oils in your diet, avoiding too much sun exposure, and getting rid of stress.

Get Rid of Wrinkles

The formation of wrinkles is normal in menopause because of the loss collagen in the skin. Your skin will tend lose its elasticity, resulting to a senile skin. When you are really conscious with your skin and wanted to have younger looking skin even you grows old, you can try to undergo surgical stretching of the skin –face lift is the most common cosmetic surgery for aging women.

Controlling Weight Gain

Weight gain is common during menopause because it goes with aging. There are many ways to control weight gain such as decreasing your caloric intake, regular exercises, and stress management. You can also try liposuction to attain a sudden decrease of weight.

Preventing Bone Loss

Low estrogen levels after menopause speed bone loss, increasing your risk of osteoporosis. So, increase your calcium intake during menopause to avoid further complications when you will reach the post menopause stage.

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Causes and Symptoms of Menopause

Menopause is a natural process where woman’s menstrual cycle will stop. The ovaries will stop producing the three important hormones responsible in menstruation, ovulation, and pregnancy. These hormones are estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. Therefore, there would be no menstruation, ovulation, and pregnancy during menopause.

You may experience menopause in your mid-life –early 40s to late 50s. Menopause is a gradual process; it will take years to be totally completed.

There are two causes of menopause, the natural and artificial cause. The natural cause is the most common cause of menopause –it is the hormonal changes in our body due to aging. While, artificial cause is the surgical related cause of menopause, where the cause of menopause is the surgical removal of ovaries due to other reproductive diseases.

When you are in your 30s, your egg supply begins to decline in number and quality. As a result, your hormone production changes. You will have shortened menstrual cycle and some Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) symptoms that you have not experienced before.

In the long process of menopause, you will undergo with three phases –perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause. Each phase comprises of different changes in your body functions, these changes contribute to the symptoms of menopause.

In perimenopause, your egg supply continues to decline, making your ovulation and menstruation irregular. Your ovaries are sometimes producing too much estrogen and progesterone and at other times too little. This will start in your early 30s to late 50s, until you will reach the stage of menopause.

Spotting, irregular menstruation, heavy bleeding, and mood changes are the common symptoms that may appear in this phase. Before the total stoppage of menstruation, blood spotting may occur. Sometimes when you  have no menstruation for many months, you will likely experience heavy bleeding as your period comes back. Mild mood changes also may appear in perimenopause because there is already hormonal changes happening in your body.

Menopause is the cessation of your menstrual cycle for a period of one year or more. In this phase, the estrogen decreases, that is why menstrual cycle stops.

In this stage, many symptoms may appear such as hot flashes, night sweats, genital changes, urinary problems, joint/muscle pain, and dry skin.

The last phase is post-menopause, which you will not experience menstruation again in your life. There will be no menstrual cycle, ovulation, and pregnancy. Your ovaries will stop releasing egg cells and your estrogen drops at a certain point.

The drop of estrogen causes many symptoms such as bone loss, dry skin, tooth and gum changes. Low estrogen reduces your cancer risk  because it is linked to some types of cancerous cell growths. Decrease amount of estrogen may lead to low collagen, which is a building block of skin connective tissue. That is why, dry skin and wrinkles skin are common after menopause.

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Control Weight Gain during Menopause

Menopause goes with aging. As you age, your metabolism will decrease and you will not be able to burn the entire calorie intake you have in a day without doing anything.

Weight gain during menopause is a natural process in your body, you cannot avoid weight gain but you can control it. Do not take for granted the additional pounds you will gain each year, especially when you are in the “mid-life” stage.

Control your weight gain to prevent overweight and obesity. Unfortunately, you cannot totally avoid weight gain during menopause because this phenomenon is natural and inevitable. However, you can control weight gain by adapting these three major healthy ways –proper and regular exercises, well balanced diet, and stress management.

Proper and regular exercises can help you build more muscle that can easily burn more calories than fat. Exercises increase your metabolic rate, thus, promoting weight loss. Pelvic floor exercises are great during menopause to strengthen your pelvic floor and can assist in stress incontinence. Stress incontinence is characterized by the leaking of small amount of urine with exertion such as laughing, counting, sneezing, lifting heavy objects, or during physical activities.

Have a healthy balanced diet every day; eat healthy foods in proper amount. This can be made possible by planning your daily menu ahead of time. Make your sure that your daily menu comprises of nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables. Limit your sugar, salt, and calorie intake per day. Do not eat bulky, eat in small frequent feedings. Do not let yourself hungry most of the time because hunger is a stressor that can stimulate your appetite.

A person under stress, tend to gain weight because of increase appetite and most of us tend to cope with stress through eating. Therefore, avoid stress and make your mind relax all the time. Make a list of stress management techniques that can be applicable to your lifestyle. Try simple stress reduction techniques such as yoga, massage, aerobics, reading books and magazines, watching movies, singing, and many more.

Controlling weight gain during menopause is not that difficult, you will just need to focus in attaining a healthy lifestyle –stop your unhealthy habits, increase you activity, and avoid stressful situations. With these simple strategies, you will surely have an optimistic view in the natural process of menopause.

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Effective Weight Loss Tips during Menopause

Majority of women gain weight during menopause. Menopausal weight gain is not primarily attributed to hormonal changes. In fact, aging is the primary cause of weight gain during menopause.

As you age, the caloric needs decrease because the aging process slows down your metabolism. Aging naturally causes replacement of muscle with fat.

The muscle burns more calories than fat. When you have less muscle mass, your metabolism rate is low, leading to weight gain. Weight gain during menopause is apparently seen in hip, thigh, and abdominal area.

The excess weight contributes to an increased risk of breast cancer, stroke, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Hence, it is very important to prevent excess weight gain by performing ways to lose weight.

So, how can you achieve weight loss during menopause? Here are some effective tips that can help you attain weight loss during menopause.

Exercise

Women who exercise regularly and even in just two hours a week results in weight loss, as well as reducing their risk for cardiovascular diseases. Exercise helps in maintaining cardiovascular functions; it enhances oxygen distribution all over the body, and contributes in muscle building.

When you exercise regularly, you will be able to build muscle than fat. The more muscle you have, the more you bun calories. Thus, you will be able to have an increase metabolic rate that will constantly help in reducing weight.

Change Bad Eating Habits

Many of us are used to eat unhealthy foods because we think that these are tastier than healthy foods. It is fine to eat unhealthy foods but it should be in small amounts only. Make sure that the healthy foods you eat outweigh the unhealthy foods.

Water

Increase your water intake to replace some of the sodas you are likely to drink in the day. Instead of drinking sodas, drink natural flavored drinks such as lemon and lime juice. Sodas are high in calories that can contribute to weight gain.

Eat Lean Meat and Poultry

Fat contains more calories than protein does. So, eat foods high in protein such as lean meat, poultry, eggs, etc. in oder to reduce calorie intake. You can also use olive oil or sunflower oil when cooking because these oils are healthy for your body.

Do Not Eat Three Meals A Day

Small frequent feedings is an effective way to attain weight loss, instead of having three or less than three meals a day. Eat more than three meals a day, about five to six times, but in small amounts to promote fast and easy metabolism.

Cut Dietary Fat

High fat foods are loaded with calories, leading to weight gain and increase your risk to cardiovascular diseases. To lose weight and prevent cardiovascular diseases, limit your fat intake to 25 to 30 percent of daily calories.

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Diet Pills During Menopause

As menopause begins women experienced many changes in physiological and physical aspects due to fluctuation of hormones –estrogen and progesterone. These hormones may drop and sometimes may rapidly increase.

The metabolism of women begins to slow as they age, particularly in early 40s and late 50s. This is part of the natural process of aging. However, this process is depressing to women because low metabolism results in weight gain.

Weight gain in mid –life is noticeable because fat depositions are not evenly distributed. Women begin to have body fats on hip, abdominal area, and thighs. In fact, most women become bloated during menopause especially when they lack control with their health.

Any weight issues experienced during menopause are often blamed on the menopause itself, but it is a misconception –aging together with lifestyle are the main causes of weight gain. Menopause is linked to weight gain because it goes with aging and hormonal imbalance.

Women deliberately look for ways to lose weight, some preferred natural ways in losing weight such as regular exercises, well balanced diet, herbal supplements and stress management. However, there are women who wanted to lose weight in a short period of time.

Weight loss can be attained in a matter of few weeks through artificial or synthetic ways such as diet pills and cosmetic surgeries. Diet pills are mostly used to attain weight loss during menopause because it can be easily obtained, some diet pills are over-the-counter drugs.

Unfortunately, pills specifically aimed at reducing weight during menopause are misleading. There are many diet pills on the market but not of them is specific to menopause. They are just typical standard dieting pills from one of the many manufacturers.

There are pills on the market that have more effect in burning fat but should not be taken due to various substances that may potentiate the wide ranging uncomfortable symptoms of menopause.

Diet pills with caffeine content should be highly avoided during menopause because it can heighten menopausal difficulties and create another set of irritating side effects.

If you want to lose weight during menopause, it is better to engage in natural ways rather than taking diet pills. Instead of taking diet pills, have a healthy well balanced diet. Consume moderate amount of healthy food and regular exercises.

A healthy diet lowers blood cholesterol levels and provides just the right energy required for the day. While regular exercises increases your metabolic rate and lower stress, resulting to weight loss.

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Causes and Symptoms of Menopause

Menopause is a natural process where woman’s menstrual cycle will stop. The ovaries will stop producing the three important hormones responsible in menstruation, ovulation, and pregnancy. These hormones are estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. Therefore, there would be no menstruation, ovulation, and pregnancy during menopause.

You may experience menopause in your mid-life –early 40s to late 50s. Menopause is a gradual process; it will take years to be totally completed.

There are two causes of menopause, the natural and artificial cause. The natural cause is the most common cause of menopause –it is the hormonal changes in our body due to aging. While, artificial cause is the surgical related cause of menopause, where the cause of menopause is the surgical removal of ovaries due to other reproductive diseases.

When you are in your 30s, your egg supply begins to decline in number and quality. As a result, your hormone production changes. You will have shortened menstrual cycle and some Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) symptoms that you have not experienced before.

In the long process of menopause, you will undergo with three phases –pre-menopause, menopause, and post-menopause. Each phase comprises of different changes in your body functions, these changes contribute to the symptoms of menopause.

In perimenopause, your egg supply continues to decline, making your ovulation and menstruation irregular. Your ovaries are sometimes producing too much estrogen and progesterone and at other times too little. This will start in your early 30s to late 50s, until you will reach the stage of menopause.

Spotting, irregular menstruation, heavy bleeding, and mood changes are the common symptoms that may appear in this phase. Before the total stoppage of menstruation, blood spotting may occur. Sometimes when you  have no menstruation for many months, you will likely experience heavy bleeding as your period comes back. Mild mood changes also may appear in perimenopause because there is already hormonal changes happening in your body.

Menopause is the cessation of your menstrual cycle for a period of one year or more. In this phase, the estrogen decreases, that is why menstrual cycle stops.

In this stage, many symptoms may appear such as hot flashes, night sweats, genital changes, urinary problems, joint/muscle pain, and dry skin.

The last phase is post-menopause, which you will not experience menstruation again in your life. There will be no menstrual cycle, ovulation, and pregnancy. Your ovaries will stop releasing egg cells and your estrogen drops at a certain point.

The drop of estrogen causes many symptoms such as bone loss, dry skin, tooth and gum changes. Low estrogen reduces your cancer risk  because it is linked to some types of cancerous cell growths. Decrease amount of estrogen may lead to low collagen, which is a building block of skin connective tissue. That is why, dry skin and wrinkles skin are common after menopause.

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What Happens to the Body during Menopause?

Menopause is a term that literally means the ‘late menstrual period’ –the time around the last menstrual period, both before and after. This body process is a normal event in women’s life that typically occurs in mid-life, between late 40s and early 50s.

The experience of menopause varies widely from woman to woman because the symptoms of menopause depend in the woman’s body condition, own personal emotions, attitudes, and lifestyle. However, all women undergo the same basic hormonal changes during menopause.

A woman’s ovaries produce three hormones –estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. These three hormones play an important role in menstruation, ovulation, and pregnancy. During menopause, the ovaries will stop producing these hormones, leading to a decrease amount of these important hormones in the body.

The menopausal process is gradual, taking a number of years unless the ovaries are surgically removed or affected by radiation or chemotherapy.

Hormonal depletion during menopause causes many symptoms. Some of the menopausal symptoms are mild, still can affect the everyday living of a woman.

The menopausal symptoms are hot flashes, menstrual irregularities, genital changes, sleep disturbances, urinary problems, skin changes, and joint/muscle pain. Other symptoms are commonly attributed to menopause, not necessarily caused by menopause itself. These symptoms are depression, forgetfulness, anxiety, irritability or other mood changes and weight gain.

Weight gain is not actually associated with menopause but rather with the natural decrease of metabolic rate that occurs with age and sedentary lifestyle.

Aging naturally causes the gradual replacement of muscle with fat. The muscle burns more calories than fat. Hence, the body’s metabolism rate continues to decrease, leading to weight gain. During Menopause, fat will be distributed to hip, thigh, and abdominal area.

Weight gain enhances when a woman tend to have sedentary lifestyle. Therefore, during menopause, a woman should increase her activity. An increase activity can build up muscle that burns more calories than fat.

Primarily, a woman should be aware of the symptoms of menopause and how the symptoms can be lessen. There are many ways to lessen these symptoms such as exercise, balanced diet, stress management, Hormone Replacement Therapy, and other alternative therapies.

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