Weight Gain in Menopause

"women and men may be closer in size than the males and females of some other great apes not because men have been freed of the selective pressure toward enlarged body size but because women have been under some pressure to become fairly large themselves. Assuming that women have been selected for enhanced longevity - a long life after menopause - it helps to have a respectable body mass to persist through the decades. Large animals generally live longer than small animals. Many factors besides lifespan influence the evolution of a female's body size, including habitat, method of locomtion, diet and the demands of pregnancy and lactation....but it is possible that in the triangulating, negotiatingt process of adaptive change, women's physiology has seen a modest thrust toward maximizing body size while still remaining with the developmental constraints of reproductive demands. 

Afer all,women are the second largest female primates on the planet, bested only female gorillas who weigh an average of 185 pounds, compared to our nonobese norm of 125-130 pounds. Women are bigger than female orangutans, who weigh less than 100 pounds an dconsiderably bigger than female chimpanzees or bonobos. By comparison, men, with their standard weight of 160 pounds are much smaller than male gorillas, and smaller too than male organutans who average 200 poundes.

....what I am doing is offering grist for the argument that women need muscle mass more than men do, and that ... we must take the hint and make the most of our long-lived vessel. We need muscle....we have an extraordinary capacity for strength, the more impressive given our comparatively low levels of testosterone....Women are workhhorses in most of the developing world (carrying loads on ther heads or backs for miles and miles).  If the world's women went on strike, the world of work would effectively stop...."

The gist of her argument is that.. in the West, longevity has increased while the need for physical strength has declined. We are living longer....and we need muscle more than ever to protect our health. If we exchange muscle for fat as we age, we having nothing to shield our bones and weather illness.

fascinating book, by Natalie Angier, Woman, An Intimate Geography,

Befriend you body, find your core balance

Today I heard something new from my cleaning lady Georgia about weight gain and menopause. She said her doctor told her that with the increase in male hormones, women start gaining weight on the upper part of their body, from the waist up.

I have experienced the opposite, everything flowing downwards. Maybe this is explained by genetics and body shape - apple being round on top, with thin legs, and pear shape tending to be heavier around the bottom and thighs.

Whatever shape you have, your weight may change during menopause. I am actually losing weight, partly due to going gluten-free. Thyroid problems can also cause weight gain or loss, so I am definitely going to have this checked at my annual check-up in May.

Whatever you do, first thing is to accept your body and love it - before you can make any changes, you need to stop being critical of yourself. It's an odd fact that when you begin to accept and love yourself, then changes can come, resistance is lowered.

My favourite website for factual information on medical issues for menopause is http://www.womentowomen.com/. They recently sent me an interesting article about weight gain.


"whether a woman is overweight or underweight, the first thing she can do for herself is befriend her body. Women are often too critical of the weight level that their bodies find most comfortable. Whether you look in the mirror and see yourself as “too much” or “too little,” obsessing about the extra curves (or the lack of them) is a major obstacle to finding your healthy weight."

"We can hold extra weight — or be unable to gain weight — during periods of hormonal imbalance, adrenal fatigue, digestive disorders, neurotransmitter imbalances, toxicity, and inflammation, just to name a few. Weight gain or loss can also be related to imbalance in our life choices. Exercising too much or too little, over — or under — emphasizing specific food groups so that we don’t have a balanced diet — even imbalances in our relationships or emotional lives can affect our weight!

Whether your goal is to lose weight or gain it, a key starting point is to recognize where your life and health are out of balance."

So ladies, find your balance and your weight problems may be over.
It is not as simple as just going on a diet - find out where in your life you need a make-over -

what do you need less of? what do you need more of?

are you stressed and over anxious? are you giving yourself any time alone, just to be still?

are you living at a pace that's too fast? or too slow?

take a few moments and write in your journal every day/week, about how you feel, where you are going, how you are doing, and maybe throw in some self-love, compassion and kindness instead of harsh self-criticism.

See if a little self-love and befriending will help you find balance,

nameste
musemother

Weight Gain and Menopause, a poem

Rose hips

In yoga class, surrounded by three walls
of mirrors, I cannot avoid my hips,
forty-nine-year-old bulging handles
wide at the wrong spot.

The truth about my hips: I find them
sturdy looking, square, front on,
but sideways they spread like sponges,
abundant woman fat, thick as butter on sliced
bread or baguettes bulging in the oven.

Bone on bone cracks as
I raise my legs, lying flat on the back.
Should soak these creaky hinges
in salt foam waves,
let my rose hips rise
like Aphrodite from the sea.

Perhaps a bath will perform some magic,
transform me into Venus
of Willendorf. Is it too much
goddess, to ask you
to bless my hips?