Why is it so darn hard to lose weight after 40??? WHY WHY WHY??
In a nutshell, it’s frequently due to our delicate balance of hormones and our body’s ability to detoxify. Let’s dive into this, shall we?
During perimenopause, the 10+ year transition from our fertile years to the glorious post-fertile years (don’t listen to the media, these ARE glorious years), our body is going through a major transition.
Basically, we go through reverse puberty.
But, our bodies have lived a little (or more than a little) in the 30+ years since puberty, and so this transition isn’t always so smooth (and really, puberty wasn’t exactly smooth for most of us, was it?)
Today, perimenopause symptoms like, anxiety, exhaustion, fibroids, breast tenderness, mood swings, and hot flashes are super mega common…but they weren’t just a few generations ago.
(oh, we might also have an overwhelming urge to blow up our lives…which is also pretty normal according to Dr. Christiane Northrup).
As we progress toward menopause, our ovaries reduce their production of estrogen and progesterone. To aid in this transition, our adrenals (should) take up some of the slack and produce some extra estrogen and progesterone.
But…our adrenal glands aren’t very happy living in today’s go go go world, and they’re usually pretty burned out by the time we hit our 40s.
Stress and Perimenopause
Our adrenal glands are small triangle shaped organs that sit on top of our kidneys. They make all of our stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, as well as they kick out some estrogen and progesterone as needed.
They also manage our very delicate balance of progesterone in our body. Progesterone helps with pregnancy (pro-gest) and our body doesn’t really want us to get pregnant when there’s big stress threatening our life.
Our body, in its miraculous wisdom, gave cortisol (long-term stress hormone) and progesterone the same precursor. This means, our body makes EITHER cortisol or progesterone, and it’s our adrenals that decide which hormone is made.
Lots and lots of stress = lots of cortisol made and less progesterone.
Lots and lots of glorious relaxation, meditation, and hot baths = lots of progesterone made and less cortisol.
The trouble is, the stress in our lives is now constant but it’s not life-threatening. In general, there’s plenty of food and shelter in our lives. Instead, our stressors are much more often lifestyle stresses, like work, family issues, and constant stimulation.
But, our body can’t tell these stressors apart, so our body is unnecessarily making more cortisol and less progesterone.
This imbalance in progesterone can be felt during our fertile years as many of the PMS symptoms that are common in our lives. Like cramping, painful periods, and breast cysts. But, during perimenopause, we can get MANY more symptoms.
Want to know how your adrenals are doing? Grab the Adrenal Fatigue Quiz here :)
Balancing Estrogen Dominance & Low Progesterone
Many perimenopausal symptoms, especially in the earlier years, are due to high estrogen, otherwise known as estrogen dominance. High estrogen causes our uterine lining to grow more readily, causing fibroids, heavy periods, bloating, and can even cause anxiety.
Although, what can feel like high estrogen may, in fact, be low progesterone. These two types of hormones need to be in a very delicate balance, and if your body is making too little progesterone (maybe due to high stress), then you’ll feel like your estrogen level is high.
Bottom line is – if your body is making too much estrogen, too little progesterone, or both, you’ll feel symptoms. MAN! Will you ever feel symptoms!
How do you know where your hormones are? Well, you can test them. My favourite hormone test is a DUTCH test, which you can order yourself and do at home.
But, if that’s not in your budget, that’s okay too. Working on balancing your hormones is helpful, even if you’re not 100% sure your hormones are out of whack.
How Do Hormones Affect Weight?
Your body is constantly trying to keep your body balanced and happy. Your liver has an amazingly complex job to do, and two of its seemingly endless items on its to do list are detoxification and hormone balance.
There’s so much to detoxify in our world today. The day-to-day function of our body creates lots of end products that need to be moved out of our cells. Add to that all of the newly created chemicals that we slather on our skin, breath into our lungs, and eat in our food, well…our liver has a lot to do!
Our liver also plays an important role in our hormone balance. It’s constantly watching the hormones that are moving through our bloodstream, and when it sees a hormone that’s been used up, it grabs it and moves it out of the body.
If our liver is overwhelmed or if the pathway to move out these toxins and old hormones are blocked, then our liver has a backup plan. It takes all of the extra toxins and hormones that it can’t move out in the normal way and moves them into our fat cells. Our fat cells become storage for the liver.
Yes…those fat cells we’d like to shrink might be chockfull of old toxins and used up hormones. And, our liver won’t let those toxins and hormones be released from our fat cells until the normal pathway is opened up again.
How to support your liver and empty those fat cells –
1.Support your liver’s daily detoxification with a lovely glass of water with a squeeze of fresh lemon every morning.
Each night your liver moves the toxins its eliminated into the gallbladder to be flushed out of the body. The sour taste of the lemon triggers to gallbladder to squeeze out those toxins into the colon. Wait 15 – 20 mins before eating or drinking anything but water.
2. Add some ground flaxseeds to your day.
Ground flaxseeds are a source of phytoestrogens, which can naturally lower the estrogen load in your body. Plus, they create a gelatinous fibre in your colon that traps any toxins or old hormones your liver is trying to eliminate so they don’t get reabsorbed.
3. Follow the Hormone Balancing Pathway.
If your body needs some extra help through this hormone transition, the Hormone Balancing Pathway will guide you through the steps needed to balance your entire body, including your hormones, and open up your elimination pathways properly.
You’ll get immediate access to the full Hormone Balancing Masterclass inside Your Beautiful Life.
You’ll learn more about the stages of your cycle and how they affect your energy as well as more about perimenopause and menopause. Plus, you’ll get the exact steps needed to get your hormones balanced so your body can start to release those pesky pounds!
