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Menopause Weight Gain Or Is It Your Lifestyle

I can’t tell you how many women come to me with the belief that menopause has caused their weight gain, and there’s nothing they can do about it. Wrong!
Some claim hormone therapy made them fat. Others are certain that the loss of estrogen caused their weight gain. One thing’s for sure, they say: Something is making us fat, and it is worsening with age.
Is menopause to blame?
Mid-life weight gain can partly be explained by an alteration in fat cell biology that seems to promote fat deposition in the abdominal area. But other triggers are your food and alcohol consumption. And here, you are still in control.
There are five major causes for weight gain during menopause:
Being overweight to start. Often, women enter menopause already 20 pounds overweight. It is harder to slim down after a steady weight gain accumulated over decades.
A sedentary lifestyle.With less activity, you burn fewer calories. Regular exercise increases body mass and raises the metabolism rate.
Unmanaged stress. In stressful times, the levels of cortisol — a hormone produced in the adrenal glands — rise, which increases appetite and triggers fat accumulation in the abdomen.
Sleep deprivation.We don’t sleep the recommended eight hours a night, which in turn alters our metabolism. It causes a decrease in leptin levels in the blood (the hormone that signals the brain that you are not hungry) and an increase in ghrelin levels (this hormone stimulates hunger).

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