Menopause and Weight Gain

For most women, increases in weight begin during perimenopause — the years leading up to menopause. On average, women gain about a pound a year during this time. Reversing course to lose unwanted pounds requires strict attention to healthy eating habits, an active lifestyle and diligence to keep it all on track.

Causes of weight gain after menopause

Changing hormone levels associated with menopause aren't necessarily the cause of weight gain. Aging and lifestyle factors play a big role in your changing body composition, including:

• Exercising less. Menopausal women tend to exercise less than other women, which can lead to weight gain.
• Eating more. Eating more means you'll take in more calories, which are converted to fat if you don't burn them for energy.
• Burning fewer calories. The number of calories you need for energy decreases as you age because aging promotes the replacement of muscle with fat. Muscle burns more calories than fat does. When your body composition shifts to more fat and less muscle, your metabolism slows down.

Genetic factors may play a role in weight gain as well. If your parents and other close relatives carry extra weight around the abdomen, you may be predisposed to do so, too.

Weight gain can also have serious implications for your health. Excess weight increases your risk of high cholesterol, high blood pressure and insulin resistance, which can lead to type 2 diabetes. These factors also put you at increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

There's also evidence that weight gain after menopause increases breast cancer risk. Women who gain in excess of 20 pounds after menopause increase their breast cancer risk by nearly 20 percent. On the other hand, losing weight after menopause can reduce breast cancer risk.

What you can do to prevent or reverse weight gain

There's no magic formula for avoiding weight gain as you get older. The strategies for maintaining a healthy weight at any age remain the same: Watch what you eat and get moving.

The most effective approach to reversing weight gain after menopause includes a combination of the following:

• Increase your physical activity. Aerobic exercise boosts your metabolism and helps you burn fat. Strength training exercises increase muscle mass, boost your metabolism and strengthen your bones.

  You can become more physically active even without starting a formal exercise program. Just spend more time doing the things you love that also get you moving. Do more gardening and dancing. Take longer walks or try out a bike. Make it your goal to be active for a total of 30 minutes or more a day on most days.

  Increased physical activity, including strength training, may be the single most important factor for maintaining a healthy body composition — more lean muscle mass and less body fat — as you get older.

• Reduce calories. Pay attention to the foods you're eating and slightly reduce the amount of calories you consume each day. By choosing a varied diet composed mainly of fruits and vegetables, you can safely cut back on calories and lose weight. Be careful not to cut back too drastically on calorie intake, or your body will respond by conserving energy, making extra pounds harder to shed.

  Because your metabolism slows as you get older, you need about 200 fewer calories a day to maintain your weight as you get into your mid- to late 40s. This shouldn't be a problem if you eat only when hungry and only enough to satisfy your hunger.

• Decrease dietary fat. Eating large amounts of high-fat foods adds excess calories, which can lead to weight gain and obesity. Limit fat to 20 to 35 percent of your daily calories. Emphasize fats from healthier sources, such as nuts and olive, canola and peanut oils.

Useful Steps to Fight Obesity

1. Make a commitment

Permanent weight loss takes time and effort. It requires focus and a lifelong commitment. Make sure that you're ready to make permanent changes and that you do so for the right reasons.

No one else can make you lose weight. In fact, external pressure — often from people closest to you — may make matters worse. You must undertake diet and exercise changes to please yourself.

As you're planning new weight-related lifestyle changes, try to resolve any other problems in your life. It takes a lot of mental and physical energy to change your habits. So make sure you aren't distracted by other major life issues, such as marital or financial problems. Timing is key to success. Ask yourself if you're ready to take on the challenges of serious weight loss.
2. Get emotional support

Only you can help yourself lose weight by taking responsibility for your own behavior. But that doesn't mean that you have to do everything alone. Seek support when needed from your partner, family and friends.

Pick people who you know want only the best for you and who will encourage you. Ideally, find people who will listen to your concerns and feelings, spend time exercising with you, and share the priority you've placed on developing a healthier lifestyle.
3. Set a realistic goal

When you're considering what to expect from your new eating and exercise plan, be realistic. Healthy weight loss occurs slowly and steadily. Aim to lose 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kilogram) a week. To do this, you need to burn 500 to 1,000 calories more than you consume each day, through a low-calorie diet and regular exercise.

Make your goals "process goals," such as exercising regularly, rather than "outcome goals," such as losing 50 pounds (23 kilograms). Changing your process — your habits — is the key to weight loss. Make sure that your process goals are realistic, specific and measurable, for example, you'll walk for 30 minutes a day, five days a week.
4. Enjoy healthier foods

Adopting a new eating style that promotes weight loss must include lowering your total calorie intake. But decreasing calories need not mean giving up taste, satisfaction or even ease of meal preparation. One way you can lower your calorie intake is by eating more plant-based foods — fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Strive for variety to help you achieve your goals without giving up taste or nutrition.
5. Get active, stay active

Dieting alone can help you lose weight. Cutting 500 calories from your daily diet can help you lose about a pound a week: 3,500 calories equals 1 pound (0.5 kilogram) of fat. But add a 45- to 60-minute brisk walk four days a week, and you can double your rate of weight loss.

The goal of exercise for weight loss is to burn more calories, although exercise offers many other benefits as well. How many calories you burn depends on the frequency, duration and intensity of your activities. One of the best ways to lose body fat is through steady aerobic exercise — such as walking — for more than 30 minutes most days of the week.

Even though regularly scheduled aerobic exercise is best for losing fat, any extra movement helps burn calories. Lifestyle activities may be easier to fit into your day. Think about ways you can increase your physical activity throughout the day. For example, make several trips up and down stairs instead of using the elevator, or park at the far end of the lot.
6. Change your lifestyle

It's not enough to eat healthy foods and exercise for only a few weeks or even several months. You have to include these behaviors in your lifestyle. To do that, you have to change the behaviors that helped make you overweight in the first place. Lifestyle changes start with taking an honest look at your eating habits and daily routine.

After assessing your personal challenges to weight loss, try working out a strategy to gradually change habits and attitudes that have sabotaged your past efforts. Simply admitting your own challenges won't get you past them entirely. But it helps in planning how you'll deal with them and whether you're going to succeed in losing weight once and for all.

You likely will have an occasional setback. But instead of giving up entirely, simply start fresh the next day. Remember that you're planning to change your life. It won't happen all at once, but stick to your healthy lifestyle and the results will be worth it.

Obesity as Psychological Injury

As you could already guess, this article concerns an overwhelming disease that touches absolutely all social layers. It bothers many people irrespective of their sex, age and their hobbies. So, we will talk about obesity. There is a huge number of reasons and consequences of its manifestation. You could get all the necessary information from this article.

So, let's start. Obesity is an excessive storage of superfluous fat in the body of a person. This accumulation of fat results, naturally, in occurrence of a superfluous weight of the body. Fat during obesity accumulates in the hypodermic fatty cellular tissue and around of internal parts of a body.

There are some basic types of obesity. If the major part of fat has collected in the abdominal region and above, then this kind obesity is referred to an upper type. It is sometimes named as male obesity. If fat starts accumulating in thighs and buttocks, then this obesity is of a lower type. It can also be called as a "female" adiposity.

The most frequent and main reasons of obesity are overeating and an inactive way of life. We all know that to gain an excess weight is very easy, and here, to get rid of it can be a difficult challenge. Very often people start to absorb food simply to cheer themselves up or to snack in a stressful situation. Often enough, we eat with zest simply sitting in front of the TV or a computer. There are also people who prowl at night imperceptibly to a refrigerator. However, the majority of people simply love to eat a tasty food.

A plenty of people most of their day spend basically in a sitting position. They do not do jogging in the mornings; do not go in for sports and do not do make daily physical exercises. All this finally leads to the excess of a reasonable weight limit.

One more reason for obesity is the age. It plays a very important role in the storage of fat in the human body. All medical personnel confirm that the senior a person is, the greater is the probability for obesity. It occurs because of deterioration of the metabolism and infringement in the activity of the appetite center in the brain. With years, as a rule, a person is required more food to suppress a usual feeling of esurience.

Obesity is, first of all, a psychological injury for a person. For this reason before eating a greater portion of fat meal and to rise at ten o'clock instead of seven, think what such a way of life can result in. Probably, the thought of future obesity will stop you in a necessary moment. Try to include fruit and vegetables into your diet. Go in for sports instead of sitting in front of the TV. Rise up in the morning, half an hour earlier and do some exercises. Believe, all this helps to struggle with obesity.