You wake up in the morning and look in the mirror as you prepare
to shower. The upper arms aren't what they used to be. The belly that
used to be flat has betrayed you. Somehow cottage cheese that should be
in the refrigerator found it's way to your thighs. Seemingly
overnight you went from being hot to having hot flashes. You exercise
and eat right but suddenly it's not working. The rules have changed.
Possibly, you've never really had to exercise or watch what you eat and
now you find yourself wondering what to do about unexplained weight
gain.
The abundance of conflicting diet and exercise information available is baffling. It's enough to either send you straight to a short course in burpees and bootcamp eating bacon and pumpkin seeds or leave you too confused to make a choice.
Here are the essential considerations when you're wondering where to start.
If
you're looking to lose weight remember that you want to lose fat not
just weight. Diets you've tried off and on in past decades didn't work,
at least not long term or you wouldn't be here. Repeating what got you
here in the first place is a sure formula for failure.
Most diets
fail. Only 5% of people have that work out for them. The other 95% fail
to lose or do lose and 66% regain the weight, in fat weight. So if
you've had a history of diets over the years and had losses and gains?
You have potentially gotten fatter. After the age of 50, the time most
women are affected by hormonal changes losing weight and changing shape
gets harder. Here's why: your hormones more than your calories are to
blame.
Weight loss is really not an intuitive game any longer. You
would naturally think eat less and exercise more. Create a calorie
deficit and lose weight over time. The problem is that this only works
if your hormones are playing well together. If they're in balance it can
work. If they're not the very actions you take to reduce intake and
burn more calories can also make you store more fat.
You read that right. Your diet and exercise could make you more fat.
Whether
you exercise by jumping into a bootcamp six days a week or start
walking a modest three days a week for 20 minutes, the question is, how
in balance is your body when you start? An imbalance in your body's
hormone levels are caused by a domino of factors.
It starts with
stress. Then you can add estrogen, progesterone and testosterone in. A
woman whose having a decrease in estrogen and progesterone is probably
finding it harder to snap her skinny jeans. If she's also got cortisol
in abundance due to chronic stress she is buying new pants. Cortisol
tends to deposit belly fat, especially if you're driven by stress
cravings to eating more sugar or starches.
Let's distinguish
between two types of belly fat. First, there's the firm deep belly fat
that can't be pinched. Second is the pinch-an-inch kind of fat around
the middle or the upper arms. You could store both, not a double bonus,
but usually one or the other is more prominent in clients I work with.
That's
important to you for a good reason. The hormones mentioned above, as
well as a few others, affect how your fat is both stored and burned.
Remember the comparison of bootcamp to walking. You can help yourself
lose weight more effectively if you choose the right steps based on your
fat storage.
Deep belly fat is easier to burn and more responsive
to exercise than the pinchable or subcutaneous fat just under the skin.
That's good news given the link to heart disease is higher with
visceral belly fat.
That nasty set of bat wings is more resistant to exercise. It takes a stricter adherence to high quality nutrient-dense diet.
For
both types of fat, however, to burn optimally you have to balance the
system first. If you're under emotional stress and not only your sex
hormones from peri-menopause or menopause are gone crazy, but you've got
cortisol causing problems, your weight loss won't happen. These
hormones need to be calmed down and balanced first.
Exercise
lighter and less often. Try yoga or meditation. Eat the healthiest foods
you can find: those rich in color, leafy green vegetables, grass-fed
beef, free range chicken and eggs. Organics are worth it. You want to
decrease exposure to toxins and begin healing your body and hormones
from the inside out. Rest and pamper yourself. Breath deeper several
times a day.
The idea is that if you're stressed already
emotionally your body has plenty of cortisol already. If you add to that
strenuous exercise and the strain of decreasing calories it could all
backfire. You end up with more stress and with inflammation that will
push your goal further away.
Assess yourself physically about
where you deposit fat. Assess your stress level. Assess your current
nutrition habits. Using the combination of these determine the first
steps in your plan. Add exercise to the mix that starts slowly and
progresses sensibly.
