Menopause is an important transition in women's lives, often accompanied by weight gain, particularly around the mid-section. This article explores the reasons behind menopausal weight gain and highlights the best exercises to help women manage their weight and maintain overall health during and after menopause.
Why Menopause Can Lead to Weight Gain
Many women notice weight gain during perimenopause due to hormonal shifts. As estrogen levels decline, a cascade effect occurs, making it harder to keep weight off. Declining estrogen contributes to muscle loss, which in turn affects metabolism, increases fat storage, and weakens bones. Estrogen appears to help control body weight. With lower estrogen levels, women tend to eat more and be less physically active. A drop in estrogen may also lower metabolic rate, the rate at which your body converts stored energy into working energy. Moreover, lack of estrogen may also cause the body to use starches and blood sugar less effectively, which would increase fat storage and make it harder to lose weight.
Changes in Fat Storage
When estrogen levels drop during menopause, this affects how your body stores fat. Before menopause, fat in women is usually found around the pelvis, buttocks, thighs, and breasts, which helps provide energy during pregnancy and breastfeeding. But this changes when ovulation and menstruation stop, and you're more likely to store fat around your belly.
Other Age-Related Factors
As women age, other changes happen that play a role in weight gain, including:
- Decreased physical activity: About 60% of adults aren’t active enough, and this increases with age.
- Loss of muscle mass: This lowers your resting metabolism and makes it easier to gain weight.
- Decline in energy expenditure: The rate at which you can use up energy during exercise declines.
- Sleep and stress: Menopause often brings poor sleep and higher cortisol levels, which both contribute to weight retention and cravings.
Menopause weight gain usually starts a few years before menopause, in a period known as perimenopause and typically levels off about two years after your last period.
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The Importance of Exercise
The more active you are, the less weight you’re likely to gain. Exercise improves metabolism, reduces fat buildup, builds muscle mass, and improves insulin sensitivity. A National Institutes of Health review showed that people who did aerobic activities every day for 10 or more minutes had 6 fewer inches around the waistline than people who didn’t exercise. And exercising while you’re in the process of losing weight - as well as after you’ve lost it - may be critical to maintaining weight loss.
Benefits of Exercise After Menopause
Exercise has many perks aside from weight loss, including:
- Lower risk of osteoporosis
- Lower risks of metabolic syndrome, heart attack, and other cardiovascular diseases
- Keeps joints and muscles strong
- Helps your bowels work well
- Can help ease depression and anxiety
- Improves overall health
Best Exercises for Menopause Weight Loss
Any kind of movement helps with health, but some exercise choices can be especially helpful with menopause weight gain. The best exercise is the one you do, but experts recommend 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity and two days of muscle strengthening per week.
Strength Training
Strength training, or a weight-resistance exercise program, helps build muscle mass and improve metabolism. It also helps you maintain bone mass, which is critical as you lose muscle mass with aging. Aim for two or three times a week, using weight machines, dumbbells, exercise bands, yoga, and even gardening. Lifting weights builds muscle, increases strength and even helps with balance and agility.When you try to lose weight without strength training, some of the pounds you lose may be in the form of muscle mass. Adding in a few weightlifting sessions per week will help you maintain muscle while losing fat instead.Examples of strength exercises include:
- Reverse Lunge and Twist: A lunge with an upper body rotation that engages the whole body and strengthens the legs and core muscles. Using a dumbbell, reaching out, lunge back.
- Plank pull-throughs
- Flamingo shoulder presses
- Squats: One of the most intense exercises for increasing bone density.
- Shoulder press: Lifting a barbell straight over your head, also increases bone density.
- Lat pull down: Exercises the lats, biceps, and forearms.
- Leg press: Tests the strength of the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves.
- Seated row: Exercises similar muscles to the lat pull-down, but also uses the lower back and glutes as stabilizers.
Low-Impact Aerobics
Low-impact aerobics are good for your heart and lungs. Walking, for example, is one of the best choices, as you can do it anywhere, anytime. Other examples of aerobic exercises include cycling, aerobics, tennis, and dance. Exercise moderately for at least 30 minutes most, if not all, days of the week. Taking a walk, dancing or playing a game of pickleball can all help keep your bones healthy.
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Swimming
Swimming is a non-weight bearing exercise that can give you a good cardio workout without taking a toll on your joints. Research has found that swimming also helps combat menopause-related symptoms like anxiety, mood swings, and irritability.
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) features short bursts of intense activity followed by periods of rest and recovery. You can do a complete workout this way in just 30 minutes. This can help with your cardiovascular health while boosting your metabolism and reducing belly fat. A HIIT workout can be adapted to any fitness level. If you typically walk for exercise, mix in several 30-second spurts of speed walking.
Mind-Body Exercises
Mind-body exercises such as Pilates, yoga, and tai chi combine movement with breathing and mindfulness. These exercises have been found to help increase bone health and quality of sleep while also decreasing anxiety and fatigue in women before, during, and after menopause. Pilates focuses on core strength, which is where menopausal weight deposits.
Incorporating Activity into Daily Life
Whenever you can, add activity to your day. Wash the car, play hide and seek with your kids or grandchildren, get in a game of ping pong, etc. Weighted hula hooping is also a great thing to do every day to get your heart rate up. Because it’s weighted, you have to really work at keeping it up. And it’s fun! You can also try adding weights to your daily walk with an Upper-Body Indoor Walking Routine.
Getting Started with Exercise
Before beginning any new exercise program, consult with your doctor. Choose activities you enjoy, as this will help you stick with your workouts. Consider finding an exercise partner to help you stay motivated.
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Tips for Starting and Maintaining an Exercise Routine
- Allow at least 10 minutes to warm up before starting to exercise rigorously. To do this, choose an activity that gently works major muscles.
- Before you work out, put your muscles through full but gentle range of motion, without stretching them to the max.
- If you have any new pain while exercising, stop and let your doctor know.
- Gradually increase the distance, length, or intensity of your workout.
- Mix it up. Do different exercises to keep from getting bored and to keep your body challenged.
- Walk with purpose: kick it up a gear and walk faster.
Nutrition and Menopause Weight Loss
For the best fitness results, combine your exercise efforts with good nutrition. The Mediterranean diet has been shown to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, osteoporosis, dementia and certain cancers, in addition to supporting a healthy balance of gut flora to help with digestion. The plant-forward diet, filled with anti-inflammatory foods, limits sugar, sodium, processed carbohydrates, trans and saturated fats, and processed foods. It includes whole foods rich in nutrients, fiber and antioxidants that work together to optimize health and maintenance of a healthy weight.
Nutrition Tips
- Choose whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and lean protein.
- Stay away from processed foods.
- Keep a food diary, or explore programs for your computer or apps for your cell phone, to help you track how many calories you eat.
- Don’t eat too late in the evening.
- When you eat out, take half the serving home.
- Eat smaller amounts but more often.
Other Considerations
It’s always a good idea to inform your doctor about any health changes, including menopause-related weight gain. Be sure to talk to your doctor if weight loss is sudden or seems to be unexplained. Reach out if weight gain goes hand in hand with fatigue, mood swings, poor sleep, or has an impact on other health conditions.
Hormone Therapy (HT)
Hormone therapy (HT) will not help you lose weight, nor is it indicated for weight loss. It also won’t prevent hair loss, stop wrinkles or halt the aging process. HT may actually contribute to a little bloating in the midsection for some patients. Although HT will not cause weight loss, there is some evidence that it can help redistribute fat from the midsection to the peripheral sites, thighs and gluteal region.
Weight Loss Drugs
Weight loss drugs may be appropriate if body mass index (BMI) is greater than 30kg/m2 or 27KG/m2 with other medical comorbidities like diabetes or hypertension. Moreover, these drugs can be associated with troublesome side effects, including nausea and diarrhea. Plus, for most people, they’re not affordable. Even though you may experience weight loss while taking the medication, once it’s stopped, it’s likely you’ll gain the weight back.
Vitamins and Supplements
“There’s no magic vitamin that melts fat, but there are key nutrients that support hormone balance, metabolic efficiency, and body composition regulation - all critical to addressing midlife weight gain,” says Ferdinand. Make sure to eat a balanced diet so you get critical nutrients that can help get the best results with exercise, sleep, and healthy eating. Talk to your doctor before adding any vitamins or supplements. Ferdinand suggests considering vitamin D3 combined with K2, which helps with bone health; magnesium that affects insulin sensitivity; and B-complex vitamins for energy and neuro health. Omega-3 fatty acids can help brain and heart health, while probiotics and prebiotics work toward estrogen metabolism.