What exactly is Menopause?
As women we are all going to hit Menopause sooner or later. ..the big M as some of my friends call it! Some will suffer from severe symptoms and then others not so severe but all of us females will battle with weight gain and or struggle to lose any weight, at this stage in our lives.
Even those ladies who have always been slim and at a comfortable weight all their lives will be affected. Even if you are really careful eat healthily and exercise regularly this can and in most cases is still a problem.
It’s a time in your life when it can become troubling and confusing when it comes to losing weight and regaining your youthful energy.
Oh boy being a woman really can be extremely challenging …after childbearing years just when you think you have this parenthood Aced and you starting to relax and enjoy some me time the body decides it’s time for even more change. All of a sudden this seems to creep up on us and boy oh boy can this be a pain in the neck!
Mood swings and a mixed rollercoaster ride of emotions, hot flushes, insomnia, and weight gain Just to name a few.
Fortunately, not everyone suffers severely and there are a lucky few who don’t really have symptoms but nine out of ten women will have a problem regarding weight gain.
Here is the problem and what you need to understand regarding Menopause. Once you hit the crossroads of Menopause and your estrogen and Progesterone levels begin to fall, that changes the way your metabolism works. What happens at Menopause is your ovaries stop producing Estrogen and estrogen falls pretty significantly and Progesterone also falls.
So what this means is not only do you have low estrogen and progesterone from a total perspective, but you have an excess level of estrogen compared to Progesterone at Menopause. And this is important to understand.
So actually what does this all mean?
One of the things that happen is now we know we have lower Estrogen levels than normal at Menopause and Estrogen is unfortunately sort of anti-carb or anti-insulin. In other words, it helps us become more insulin sensitive and less carb reactive. And so when you have enough Estrogen, you handle carbs and insulin much better.
Estrogen is also an anti-stress or anti-cortisol therefore when you have plenty of estrogens, you most definitely can handle stress far better. We also know that stress is very damaging and has a negative impact on insulin.
So as your Estrogen goes away or is depleted, you will now become more carb reactive and have more insulin and more of the cortisol effects which are all going to eventually lead to issues with weight gain, especially around the midsection. It’s not middle age spread but rather the big M – Menopause.
So What Happens then with Progesterone?
Progesterone has the very same impact that Estrogen has on cortisol. It is an anti-cortisol agent, but when you are going through Menopause, you end up having positive cortisol effects which means more stress.
Now here’s the tricky thing that happens with Menopause. Estrogen levels fall because the Ovaries are no longer making Estrogen anymore, but you can still make Estrogen in several places
- Your Fat Cells make Estrogen.
- You can get estrogen like compounds in your diet for example from the plastics that you store food in.
- Through Pesticides
- From coffee
So, in a nutshell, there are tons of different estrogen mimicking compounds in the environment, however the same cannot be said for Progesterone as there is almost no Progesterone mimicking things in the environment.
The only place your body is Going to get Progesterone from after Menopause is through your adrenal glands, which are your stress glands. (Or through natural compounded Herbal Creams)
So I’m sure you can see what begins to happen here. Not only do you have a natural Estrogen excess and a progesterone deficiency that happens due to Menopause, but then you also have this environmental factor also playing a big part and leading to higher amounts of estrogen and lower amounts of progesterone.
As Progesterone is definitely one of the major ways that your body combats extra stress, stress really becomes a major issue here and so does adrenal support.
It is therefore very important and beneficial to support the adrenal glands with herbs and a specialized no to very low carb diets that make a difference to help balance this effect and this is where the HCG Diet protocol plays a very important role in helping the body to balance all of these symptoms and effects.
This problem as explained by the ratio of estrogen and progesterone is one of the main reasons some women have such a tough time with hot flushes and gain or struggle to lose weight. Diets and exercise that may have worked for you in the past when you were younger and not Menopausal simply just don’t work anymore no matter how hard you try.
The major reason why these diets no longer seem to work for you is one of the major influences on whether you can burn fat or not carbohydrates and insulin. Now that you have reached this stage Pre-Menopausal or full blown Menopause with decreased Estrogen levels that make you less insulin sensitive or more carbohydrate reactive, the results you achieved in the past don’t happen anymore.
The once low carbohydrate amount that once helped you lose fat is now not enough and you will need to lower the carbohydrates even lower. So in short you will have to go down in carbs even more.
“Oh no,” you are thinking how can I possibly overcome this and eat even fewer carbs? Now you have to forget this whole idea of what was once healthy for your body and helped you lose weight you have to change to something that is more weight loss conducive for you which is more protein and veg based on a limited amount of fruit in order to give your body the best balance.
Our HCG Diet Program is perfect for those women who have been going through Menopause and together with our help you can navigate through Menopause and at the same time lose that weight that you have been struggling to lose.
Call Alexis at 0763660325 or Helen at 0720643948 to find out more or click here to visit the HCG Diet System website