“I hired a Personal Trainer online for the first time during the pandemic. I was really enjoying the sessions, but I have to admit, I didn’t lose any weight whatsoever – in fact my clothes are now tighter and I feel swollen and bloated.
He has also put me on a high protein diet and I just feel heavy and bloated all the time. I’ve been reading your newsletters and I’m realising that menopause may have something to do with it. I’m 50 years old, have a full time job and have two teens at home as well – I do feel busy and over-whelmed.” [Andrea, New Zealand]
Whether your clients followed Jane Fonda’s workouts or Bill Phillip’s prescriptive ‘Body For Life’ in the 1980s or not, exercise has always entered the mind of women who want to lose weight.
In the 1990’s when personal training arrived in New Zealand, workouts moved towards an emphasis on strength and conditioning training. As I was a PT at the time, I saw this ‘shift’ in exercise prescription away from the Jazzercise focus in the aerobic studio.
As new pathways in fitness education also emerged over the past 2-3 decades, many Trainers not only have backgrounds in body-building, but also strength and conditioning of athletes.
Studying the role of Personal Trainers in supporting lifestyle change was part of my Master’s thesis, so I got to talk to quite a few as part of my interviews – hence, understanding their backgrounds in various sports as well as strength and conditioning for athletes.
This was the knowledge they bought into the fitness environment for their clients – not much was known about a woman’s menopause transition and the propensity she may have for putting on weight, despite all the exercise – especially for those women who have a heavier build. Hopefully this perspective is changing now!
Working in the exercise-education environment for over 30 years and going on to educate numerous PTs throughout New Zealand, not once in my weight loss lectures did I mention ‘oestrogen dominance’ – a term that, whilst controversial, I use in the context of localised fat storage and oestrogen production in fat cells.
This is known to occur in women who are overweight or obese, with increased abdominal and diaphragmatic fat.
When it comes to exercise and nutrition for women going through menopause, there is still an emphasis on heavy weight training and eating large amounts of protein to turn over muscle. I regularly see this on social media and in other channels.
But if women are already overweight and carrying a lot of abdominal fat as well as not sleeping, these training regimes may be difficult to maintain for women who are exhausted and experiencing a changing hormonal environment.
As I found myself, inadequate sleep may lead to NAFLD and poor muscle recovery. In turn this can contribute to Restless Leg Syndrome, a known symptom of menopause.
Furthermore, high intake of protein for building muscle is often seen as the ‘go-to’ nutrition for women who work-out, however, the ageing liver, kidneys and pancreas may struggle to process the higher amounts of amino acid intake.
If the protein is mainly meat or other animal products, then this may also be problematic to their ongoing cardiovascular health and the risk of coronary plaques in middle-age and older women. (Bernstein, Qi Sun et al, 2010).
According to new research on fat metabolism and health during and after menopause, for women aged 50– 65 years, weight gain is one of their major health concerns (Marsh, Oliveira et al, 2023).
This is understandable as obesity is one of the most common disorders globally, and its prevalence in post-menopausal women is increasing. World-wide, the prevalence of obesity has more than doubled since 1980 – not so long ago for most of us to remember.
It is well known in Type 2 diabetes research that the hormonal changes across the perimenopause and menopause years, substantially contribute to increased abdominal obesity, which leads to additional functional and health challenges with age, including changing cardio-metabolic health.
The term cardiometabolic health refers to overweight or obese status leading to Type 2 Diabetes.
And according to the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health [ALSWH], high blood pressure, lack of physical activity and low cardio-respiratory fitness, smoking, high perceived stress and income concerns, are the main factors leading towards overweight status in midlife. [Baneshi, 2024].
The analysis of nearly 13,000 women in the ALSWH studies on the cardiometabolic health of this cohort of Australian women, indicate that both obesity and hypertension in middle-age, leaves women with a substantially higher risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease than women without these potentially preventable conditions. [Baneshi, 2024].
As I often say, women don’t become overweight or obese overnight. It’s something that goes on for years. Menopause hormonal changes, also may accelerate the trajectory into worsening cardio-metabolic health too. Therefore, helping clients to untangle the determinants of the multitude of factors impacting their weight gain, is important.
I can’t emphasise this enough.
Abdominal fat is changing during menopause:
Abdominal fat is now considered to be an endocrine organ – it is responsive to hormonal influence and has the capacity to secrete adipokines.
These are important regulators of appetite and satiety (fullness), energy expenditure, inflammation, blood pressure, endothelial function influence, insulin sensitivity, and energy metabolism in insulin-sensitive tissues, such as liver, muscle, and fat.
Adipokines also help to regulate insulin secretion from the pancreas. Hence, increased storage of fat in fat cells can lead to inflamed fat cells, increased presence of cellulite under the skin and over time, contribute to metabolic health chaos.
Although weight gain per se, cannot only be attributed to the menopause transition, the changes in hormonal levels make women more susceptible to the deposition of abdominal fat in many organs, not only just around the abdominal region and under the diaphragm.
That’s why mid-life weight loss needs a multi-dimensional approach. If you are a Personal Trainer or Health Professional, I talk about this in my certified Menopause Weight Loss Coach Course.
One of the problems with women doing too many intense workout, including heavy weight lifting, to try and lose weight during menopause, has to do with their sleep quality and quantity.
In Sport and Exercise Science, it is well known that exhausted female athletes who aren’t sleeping, very quickly develop adrenal fatigue – which can, as I’ve mentioned numerous times, increase cortisol levels causing even more metabolic chaos.
So, if you are frustrated with your changing weight and body-shape in menopause, then here are just some interventions for you to focus on, that I cover in more depth in the MyMT™ Menopause Weight Loss Coach Course too:
- Restful Sleep: women can add 1-2 kg a week during menopause when insomnia is chronic.
And we know this thanks to a Swedish study of 400 middle-aged women who recorded shortened sleep duration and weight gain. The problem is that this is what changes our health as we age – my mother included.
When women lose their precious deep sleep between 2-4am, then much of this weight becomes dangerous fat that goes on our belly and under our diaphragm.
As I often say to women who are trying to exercise off their weight gain, “If you aren’t sleeping, then you aren’t losing.” So, change your exercise to more restorative, aerobic exercise, until you sort out your sleep.
- Manage a condition known as ‘Oestrogen Dominance’: Fat cells can store excess unopposed oestrogens.
These may be in the body due to our dietary choices, as well as our exposure to hormone-agents in the environment. When this happens, there is more oestrogen stored in adipocytes (fat cells) and this ‘dominates’ the internal environment.
As oestrogen becomes the dominant hormone and our liver isn’t clearing excess oestrogen (or cholesterol) efficiently, oestrogen storage may cause progesterone to lower.
It’s why liver health is important to all women as they age. We clear excess oestrogens via our liver and during menopause, our liver changes in structure and function as part of our normal biological ageing of our organs.
- Focus your clients on reducing blood sugar and insulin spikes, especially after meals (this is known as post-prandial hyperglycemia).
Maintaining a healthy blood sugar level throughout the day is important, not only to heat regulation and hot flush management, but also to weight gain. As the hormonal environment changes during the menopause transition, insulin production and secretion changes too.
With better control of insulin surges from the pancreas, clients have better control over energy levels, moods, hot flushes and weight. Unstable insulin production in the pancreas can create inflammatory changes in the body as women then move into post-menopause and this contributes to weight gain, even despite the exercise.
Over time, this may lead to Type 2 diabetes and changing cardio-metabolic health, especially if women aren’t doing enough aerobic exercise. Dose-response aerobic exercise prescription according to the American Heart Association, is 30 – 60 minutes, on at least 5 days per week, with 1-2 more intense, vigorous sessions (if tolerated).
When aerobic fitness declines, the risk for chronic disease status increases. [Carrick-Ranson et al, 2023]
- Monitor Vitamin D levels – Low oestrogen levels in the skin may cause low Vitamin D levels in the body. This increases fat storage.
Our skin is our largest organ and is full of oestrogen receptors. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin and is produced in the skin with the help of oestrogen. Therefore, many women are at risk of low vitamin D levels and because Vitamin D is now recognised as a hormone, low levels have an effect on other hormones in the body too. This is due to the feedback system that operates with all of our hormones.
Vitamin D is such a powerful hormone for women to monitor in menopause because it is also implicated in melatonin production. This is our sleep hormone, and when Vitamin D levels are low, our insomnia increases and our mood hormone, serotonin, is reduced.
Serotonin works with dopamine to help our mood and motivation. So, if you are on menopause-related anti-depressants, then ask your Doctor to also check your Vitamin D levels too. Restoring Vitamin D and sleep is crucial to your ongoing health, depression management and your weight.
- Help client’s to manage stress levels – In menopause and post-menopause, changes to adrenal gland function impacts higher resting levels of cortisol. Hence, blood pressure, heart rate and temperature rise more readily when women are overwhelmed with feeling stressed and if they aren’t aerobically fit.
Some stress is good for us, but the problem in our menopause transition is that too much stress (and this includes from not sleeping and/ or over-exercising), may increase cortisol levels leading to adrenal fatigue.
Cortisol is a powerful stress hormone which works in conjunction with melatonin, one of the sleep hormones. Too much stress (emotionally and physically) interferes with sleep.
When women don’t sleep, insulin levels stay high and overnight fat-burning is affected. It’s a vicious cycle as so many women exercisers discover in their frustration with not losing weight despite all the exercise.
Elaine in the UK was the same. She soon learnt that sleeping all night and managing her insulin levels, comes before too much heavy exercise. Her story is HERE.
I know full well the weight loss struggles that many of your clients may be facing. I was the same.
It’s my privilege to help Practitioners understand that weight management in midlife, is not only about menopause HRT or supplements, it’s about sleep, liver health, gut health, sensible eating and 5 days minimum of aerobic exercise with a small amount of resistance training too.
Dr Wendy Sweet [PhD] Member: Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine
References:
Baneshi MR, Dobson A, Mishra GD. Transition between cardiometabolic conditions and body weight among women: which paths increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases? J Hum Hypertens. 2024 Jun 12. doi: 10.1038/s41371-024-00923-4.
Belanger MJ, Rao P, Robbins JM. Exercise, Physical Activity, and Cardiometabolic Health: Pathophysiologic Insights. Cardiol Rev. 2022 May-Jun 01;30(3):134-144. doi: 10.1097/CRD.0000000000000417.
Bernstein, A., Qi Sun, M., Hu, F., Stampfer, M., Manson, J., & Willett, W. (2010). Major Dietary Protein Sources and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Women. Circulation, AHA, 122(9), 1-8.
Muscella A, Stefàno E, Lunetti P, Capobianco L, Marsigliante S. The Regulation of Fat Metabolism During Aerobic Exercise. Biomolecules. 2020 Dec 21;10(12):1699. doi: 10.3390/biom10121699.
Davis, S. Castelo-Branco, C. Chedraui, P., Lumsden, M., Nappi, R., Shah, D. & Villaseca P. (2012). The Writing Group of the International Menopause Society for World Menopause Day 2012. Understanding weight gain at menopause, Climacteric, 15:5, 419-429,
Jehan, S., Masters-Isarilov, A., Salifu, I., Zizi, F., Jean-Louis, G., Pandi-Perumal, S. R., Gupta, R., Brzezinski, A., & McFarlane, S. I. (2015). Sleep Disorders in Postmenopausal Women. Journal of sleep disorders & therapy, 4(5), 212.
Manco, M. ,Nolfe, G. , Calvani, M., Natali, A., Nolan, J., Ferrannini, E., Mingrone, G. (2006). Menopause, insulin resistance and risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Menopause, 13 (5), 809-817
Marsh ML, Oliveira MN, Vieira-Potter VJ. Adipocyte Metabolism and Health after the Menopause: The Role of Exercise. Nutrients. 2023 Jan 14;15(2):444. doi: 10.3390/nu15020444.
Patni, R., & Mahajan, A. (2018). The metabolic syndrome and menopause. Journal of Mid-life Health, 9(3), 111–112.
Weickert M. O. (2012). Nutritional modulation of insulin resistance. Scientifica, 2012, 424780.