Worried about weight gain in menopause?
Do the strategies that used to help manage your weight, such as eating less and increasing cardio, no longer work?
Weight gain is a common complaint of menopause and has a lot to do with hormonal changes. After menopause, you experience lower levels of estrogen and are more prone to the weight gaining effects of high cortisol and insulin resistance.
The good news is that there is a lot within our control to support hormonal balance that boosts metabolic health, even in menopause.
Estrogen is critical for women’s health. Yet, the conversation tends to focus on estrogen production, levels, and balance. We don’t hear much about what happens to estrogen after we use it. Still, estrogen detoxification is another crucial piece to the estrogen conversation and helps women achieve optimal hormonal health..
When we talk about hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause, estrogen gets the most attention. However, estrogen’s “partner,” progesterone, plays an important role. If you are in perimenopause, it likely hasn’t been since puberty that you’ve experienced such a wild hormonal ride!
Considering Transitioning from Bioidenticals to Amata Life?
This is a question we hear over and over again. Many, many women are on bioidentical hormones—meaning various combinations of estrogen, progesterone, and/or testosterone. Some have done well with this for many years. As a matter of fact, Dr. Northrup was a pioneer in bringing the benefits of bioidentical hormones to the attention of women world wide way back in the 1990’s.
Women often ask their doctor: Is it me or is it my hormones?
The answer is…..Yes!
It’s not one or the other.
You are your hormones, and your hormones are you.
There’s no distinction.
Some women say they don’t recognize themselves at various times of the month or life cycle, as if their hormones make them into someone they are not. Many go to their OB/GYN when they are in perimenopause hoping that their hormones are the reason for their irritability, brain fog, and hot flashes, and hoping that hormone replacement therapy can “fix them.”
Do hot flashes make you wonder if you’ll ever feel like yourself again?
Perhaps for the first time in decades, you are unsure how to dress. Burning hot one minute….shivering the next…..hot flashes and their “first cousin” night sweats can be very disruptive, affecting your sleep and peace of mind.
Even though hot flashes are so common that roughly three in four women experience them, the medical community hasn’t fully determined what causes them. Doctors and researchers know that when the blood vessels in the skin of the head and neck open more than usual, called vasomotor flushing, it causes a rush of warm blood to flow to an area.
A woman’s immune function is naturally more robust than a man’s. Why…..? Estrogen! It’s well documented that women have stronger immunity than men, & This fact may contribute to why women tend to live longer than men. With immune health increasingly on everyone’s mind these days, primarily because of COVID-19, does it make sense to follow universal recommendations for boosting immunity? Or, do women……..and especially menopausal women……have special considerations when it comes to immune health because of hormones? Absolutely!