Menopause and Exercise

For a woman that's peri-menopausal or in the menopause, exercise plays an important part during this time of your life, it can help ease some of the symptoms you may be experiencing, along with preventing weight gain.

Keeping yourself moving and active will help with joint health, bone health and muscle mass. You may also find it helps with maintaining a good sleeping pattern, anxiety, brain fog and general irritability.

Being active will prevent excess calories to be stored, which due to the decline in estrogen decide to sit around the tummy area and back rather than being equally distributed around the body. All activity and movement is good, do what you enjoy could be a brisk walk, yoga, zumba, using weights or body weight exercises, strength training has the added advantage of increasing muscle mass which will prevent the bum and shapely thighs disappearing.

A good regular exercise routine will support your body in producing energy to ensure you're burning calories effectively and prevent your metabolism from slowing right down.

Energy Levels

The most common symptom and I think is the one people (myself included) struggle with most at this time of menopausal life, is general energy levels. Its a bit of a vicious circle. You may be struggling to sleep well therefore waking up tired, each day seems a struggle to get through with energy levels just being so low. A good healthy diet may go out of the window because it just feels like too much effort to put a good well balanced meal together, therefore reaching for the quicker alternatives and you may be starving or picking throughout the day. Which will play a massive part in metabolism slowing down, so you then don't have any energy because your body isn't producing much, however it will be storing those calories due to lower estrogen levels as well as a slower metabolism, so you wake up the next day exactly the same and so it continues. So how do you break the cycle....

Get moving

Initially you need to get moving, this needs to be your first priority. Any exercise is good and increasing daily activities will all add up and I'm talking general stuff. Parking further away from the shops, taking the stairs instead of the lift, taking the dog out for a slightly longer walk etc all that kind of stuff. Ideally you also need to incorporate some specific workouts into your weekly routine. You can start with one a week but this needs to be planned not just as and when you have the energy cos as we've just established those energy aren't there at the moment! planning it in will also allow yourself to mentally prepare for it and by scheduling it in it becomes a set activity which means you're more likely to stick to it.

Metabolism

As you increase your activity you will naturally start to speed up your metabolism, your body will begin to convert calories consumed into energy because it now needs it. As this process starts to kick in which will only take a few days you will naturally start to experience higher energy levels. The calories that were being consumed and just found a comfy place to spend the rest of their lives are now being converted to energy.

Calorie Deficit

Then if you consume slightly less calories than you need those excess calories that have been sat there for some time suddenly get called upon also for energy and this is what is meant when you hear about being in a calorie deficit. How many calories your specific body needs will depend on a few factors but as long as you are eating healthy, well balanced, small portioned, regular meals you should be on a winner.

Energy

Skipping breakfast or lunch will slow your metabolism so don't do that! Eating loads in the evening because you haven't eaten all day also wont work because if your metabolism slows back down your body wont convert the calories to energy in the evening because your body simply wont need to, so it will go to fat stores. Keeping a consistent eating pattern and keeping to healthy choices will be an amazing place to start and kick start your metabolism.

Sleeping

Once you nail this you would've broken the pattern of no energy and suddenly you're buzzing (well almost) during the day which then means..... Those sleeping patterns improve because you're using more energy during the day and now your body actually needs to recover and repair so it naturally rests and sleeps better which means you wake up the next day with more energy because you're well rested!

Hunger Hormones

And most importantly what else happens during this time, your body has natural hunger hormones called Leptin and Ghrelin (one controls satiety, one controls hunger) when these get balanced you naturally crave less food. So that eating pattern becomes so much easier to maintain because you're not reaching for picky foods because you 'think' you're hungry.

Healthy Eating

Which then also means you crave more protein, veg and carbs and with your new found energy, you start cooking better meals and with this your energy levels just take a huge step in the right direction because this healthy food means its so much easier to be converted to energy.

Complicated and a lot to take in but it's important to understand how your food intake plays a massive part in your energy levels. When you sort this, exercising becomes less of a chore and something to look forward to.
 

Loss of muscle

Menopause, lack of estrogen little or no exercise means very gradually your muscle mass diminishes. They quite simply waste away.

This can cause joint issues due to the muscles not being there to support the body movements. Also general strength will become less, so everyday tasks such as carrying shopping, gardening etc generally become a bit more difficult. You may also start to notice your bum getting flatter and losing the shape around the arms and thighs due to the muscles disappearing.

This can be reversed! and this is why I absolutely shout about strength training. So many women say to me they wont do strength training because they don't want to become a body builder! I can promise you, you will not become a body builder if you don't want to!! That's a whole different ball game. Strength training results depend on your workout intensities and frequency.

Many women also say to me, they just want to tone up. Toning up is 'building muscle' and losing fat.

Building muscle is the best thing you can do for your body. It supports your joints, allows you to carry on and perform everyday tasks comfortably this can be simple things such as walking up and down the stairs. 

It also is one of the best exercises for calorie burn. Not only do you burn calories while working out you continue to burn extra calories for up to 72hrs after a workout. So if you do just 2 workouts a week your body will pretty much be in a higher calorie burn all week.

I also need to tell you!

Your body will burn more calories, even when resting, if you have more muscle on you!