For many women, menopause is a challenging period of transition in the reproductive years into the post-childbearing decades. Menopause occurs when female hormones naturally decline, and a woman’s body stops causing egg yolks to grow each month in preparation for pregnancy.
Menopause
Menopause is considered complete one year after a woman’s last menstrual period. Unfortunately, menopause can be difficult for many women because of its frequently uncomfortable symptoms.
These may include hot flashes, insomnia, night sweats, mood swings, vaginal dryness, loss of interest in sex, and irritability. Unexpected weight gain is another frequent effect of menopause. Sometimes women who gain weight during menopause have not made any changes in their eating habits or exercise routine.
This may be frustrating, prompting women to wonder what caused this sudden and unexpected weight gain. Other times, weight gain is a result of hormonally triggered overeating. Another cause of weight gain is that the natural metabolic slow-down that occurs as people age.
Hormones
This slower metabolism means excessive calories or an unbalanced diet will have a much greater impact on menopausal women. Body fat and estrogen have a distinctive complementary role. Body fat helps modulate the production of estrogen, the female hormone that declines dramatically in menopause. Sometimes, the body will struggle to hold on to fat in a bid to stabilize estrogen levels.
Hormones and body fat also interact with one another in complicated was that influence weight reduction through changes in appetite, digestion, and metabolism. Rather than turning to prescription hormone treatment, which increases the risk of breast and reproductive cancers, there are a variety of natural remedies girls are increasingly using to resist weight gain and other symptoms of menopause.
Treatments
Some of these treatments include black cohosh and lavender, to regulate hot flashes; chasteberry, for moodiness and general hormonal imbalance; evening primrose oil, widely utilized to alleviate PMS through perimenopause and control moodiness in menopausal women; and St. John’s Wort, a natural antidepressant and stress alleviator. While these remedies have proven beneficial for many women, they don’t operate in a vacuum. Many women make the mistake of believing that these treatments will prevent weight gain and other menopause symptoms by themselves.
The reality isthe best thing you can do to stop or reverse weight gain in menopause is through healthy diet and exercise. Regulating hormone balance naturally by eating a nutrient-dense, whole-foods diet is a much more effective approach than herbal remedies.
Herbal Help
While herbal remedies can help supplement a good diet and workout program, many women find that a healthy lifestyle will relieve symptoms without needing to spend money on those nutritional supplements and herbal preparations. Eating a nutritious diet entails avoiding bad fats, and instead eating heart-healthy fats in moderation. Whole grains, fruits, and vegetables should form the majority of the diet, supplemented by lean protein and dairy foods (or non-dairy foods that have calcium).
Avoid food alcohol, spicy foods, and caffeine if those aggravate your menopause symptoms, and needless to say, avoid fatty or fried foods, excess sugar, and crap generally. Add eight glasses of water daily and about half-hour of exercise as many times per week as you can, and you could be on your way to significant weight reduction, even in the face of the hormonal hurdles of menopause.
Conclusion
You’re also likely to see an improvement in other menopause symptoms as a healthy diet and exercise program starts to stabilize hormone levels.