MyMT™ Blog

The conversations in my private coaching group are amazing. Women from around the world learning that, for years, our menopause symptoms have been looked at in isolation, rather than from a ‘total body’ approach. “This makes so much sense” is the typical astonishing cry that I read in the group.

I totally understand how they feel. When my doctoral studies sent me down this path of understanding myself, I began to realise that when it came to lifestyle solutions for us during our menopause transition, nobody was placing these in the context of women’s ageing studies, nor were they ‘connecting the dots’ between menopause insomnia, weight gain, sore joints, palpitations and our hot flushes!

During the time of my studies, I was 15 kg overweight. My breast size had expanded considerably that I could almost balance a cup of tea on them, as my grandmother used to do! You can see what I mean in the inset image above. I was on Menopause HRT, exercising daily, trying to eat well, but despite the medications and supplements, there were three things which eluded me.

1. A good night’s sleep and
2. Joints and muscles that no longer ached
3. An ability to put a stop to the weight gain. 

I had no idea that these symptoms were linked to the menopause transition as well as insomnia, muscle loss, fatty liver and excess oestrogen storage in fat cells. Nor did I understand that BODY TYPE matters when it comes to our symptoms.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that numerous books, opinion articles and television documentaries have appeared about menopause. There have been a few here in New Zealand too. This is a great relief to me, as menopause is finally being bought into the limelight, However, I can’t help but reflect that as I watch, read or listen, what I’ve noticed is that many of the so-called new ‘menopause authors’ are thinner and leaner.

They aren’t overweight. They don’t seem to have the central obesity that can arrive during our menopause transition. Most also don’t appear to have large, heavy breasts as I had. They look to me to be thinner and leaner. Furthermore, hardly ever is there a mention of sore joints, aching muscles, restless legs at night, palpitations, weight gain or having to get up night after night to pee! It’s intriguing.

We all know that women differ in body-type don’t we? Some are larger, some are smaller. It was the same when we all went through puberty. I still remember the envy I felt when my friends didn’t get larger breasts nor did they put on weight.

But here’s the thing, how we respond to our menopause transition is exactly the same as our experiences in puberty. Some women put on weight, some stay the same weight, or even lose weight. This often depends on their stress levels, as well as their sleep, liver and thyroid health. 

Women differ in the response to menopause symptoms depending on body-type, stress levels, sleep and of course, our past lifestyle matters to how well we transition through menopause too.

Many of you with excess body fat may respond to menopause HRT positively and lose weight and there is a body of research that suggests that this is one area of weight management to explore for women transition menopause. (Fenton, 2021).

But perhaps the most important issue in terms of managing weight gain during menopause, is to sort out sleep, which many of us already know, is adversely affected by hormonal changes during menopause. Sleep may be interrupted by night sweats and having to get up in the night to pee or for many women who do put on a lot of weight, obstructive sleep apnea can be the cause of waking up as well.

Then of course, when we feel tired, we don’t do as much and often turn to the wrong types of food and beverages. Sleep deprivation is also associated with lower levels of physical activity. Hence, studies tend to show an association between low levels of sleep and greater weight gain during the menopause and post-menopause years. [Davis et al, 2012].