WTF, Body?  I haven’t changed a thing.  Why the squishy middle and extra ten pounds?

Here’s the deal.  The menopause transition is a hormonal roller coaster, and these hormones affect every system of your body.  Once everything settles, your hormones are entirely different from where they started.  

That is a whole lot of change.  That is why even if your health behaviors have stayed the same, the results within your body will be different.  

One big change is the way our body breaks down, and uses or stores, the food we eat.  Here are some of the biggest changes:

1. We do not use all of the protein we eat.  As a result we need to eat more protein to get what we need to build and repair muscle and bone.
2. Carbohydrates have a harder time being used by the body.  So, simple carbs, especially liquid carbs, or too many carbs at one time are more likely to be stored as fat.
3. We will be more prone to inflammation.  Bloated bellies, extra gas, or an extra three pounds that shows up overnight are common signs of inflammation.  Foods that used to be no problem, might now be causing these annoying symptoms.

These changes can be frustrating and confusing. Rather than throwing up your hands in surrender, it is time for action!  It is time to learn this new body.  

Now is the time to test new habits, listen to feedback from your body, and find ways to create new long-term habits that work.  You can write yourself a new maintenance manual that will set you up for your best health moving forward. 

What your Body is Telling You

You aren’t happy with your body right now. Those bothersome symptoms? That is your body saying it is not happy either.  Your hormones have changed, so your body’s needs have changed, and your old habits are not filling those new needs. 

In perimenopause, our bodies tend to lose muscle and bone while gaining fat.  These changes are driven by our changing hormones and they are a powerful current to work against.  

It is possible to help fill the changing needs of our bodies to reverse or minimize these physical changes with specific strategies on what we eat and how we move.  

Consider the Perimenopause Powerup Seminar to learn exactly what changes will help you the most right now.

How to Listen to Your Body

Your body will communicate in a couple of ways:

1. Lean tissue like bone or muscle will be gained, lost, or maintained.
2. Fat will be gained, lost, or maintained.
3. Energy levels will be high, low, or neutral.
4. Your sense of well-being will vary.

Energy level and well-being are best tracked with journaling.  Take notes on days when you feel low or days when you feel better. This allows you to look back and identify patterns as you change your health habits

Measuring bone, muscle, and fat is quantifiable, but also can be emotionally hard for many women.  We have a history with our numbers and seeing an undesirable number on the scale can be disheartening.  It is important to set aside any emotional attachment to these numbers and see them as data points that will let you know if what you are doing is working or not.

An at-home scale that measures weight, body fat, muscle, and bone (like the Renpho) can be very handy.  These rely on the conduction rate of electricity passing through the body to generate a detailed report that shows your data on an AP on your phone.  

These scales can be affected by the amount of water in your body, so on a dehydrated day, you will get different results than when you are well-hydrated.  Although this method might not be 100% accurate, if you take your weight on a routine day and under similar circumstances, it should give numbers that allow you to compare and see trends.  For example, if you always weigh yourself first-thing Thursday mornings after a pretty regular schedule Monday through Wednesday, your results will be as consistent as possible.  

Once you have these measurements, you can use them to determine if what you are doing is working or not.  Here is a very simple way of looking at these results:

1. If your Fat and Muscle are both increasing – You are eating too many calories overall.  Or too little during active times and too much when you are more sedentary.
2. If your Fat and Muscle and bone are all decreasing – Your calories might be right for weight loss, but you are NOT eating enough protein to maintain lean tissues.  Increasing protein here is the answer.
3. If your Fat is decreasing and your Bone and Muscle are staying the same or increasing, you have NAILED IT!

NOTE – In order to gain muscle or bone, exercise – especially strength training – is required!

What to Do About It

To change your health, you have to change your habits.  To create lasting change, you need work to find new habits that you can live with long term.  

I have worked with many clients who started out fearful of change and in four months had dropped 10-15 lbs, felt their energy renewed, and couldn’t even remember the foods they used to eat and thought they could never live without.

Some of you will be able to take this information and run with it.  Others will need more help folding these changes into your life.  Consider Powerup and Reset for more information and support on how to clean up your eating in a way that preserves lean tissue, decreases fat, and teaches you how to make long-term, successful health changes.

It is absolutely possible to learn how to care for this new body and build a new best state of health to last the rest of your life. 

Read why it is so important: How Your Actions in Perimenopause will Determine your Health for the Rest of your Life.

Your Body is not Broken….It Might be Sugar…..Or Alcohol

Why Eating Enough Protein is Vital to Powerup Perimenopause

You might also like: 

• The Mental Toll of Perimenopause
• Why it is Scary to Make a Health Change
• Why Action Creates Motivation
• Heath Planning is Not for Wimps
• Are you Really Ready to Hire a Health Coach?

If you are over being frustrated by your body, are tired of being tired, and feel like everything you do makes things worse rather than better, it is time to learn how to take care of your body NOW!

Let me help. 

If you are deep in the Perimenopause transition, you need to REWRITE YOUR SELF-CARE MANUAL with How to Powerup Peri/menopause: the Complete Guide 

Or 

If you are Perimenopausal or menopausal and feel like you are constantly struggling with inflammation, bloating, exhaustion, constipation, and sudden weight gain.  It is likely you suspect it is due to what you are eating, but don’t know what or how to change.  You need the Powerup and Reset Program.

In perimenopause and menopause our hormones are totally different, so our approach needs to be different too.

Best news is, the approach we need does NOT include:

• Punishing amounts of exercise
• Starvation
• Unrealistic goals that take you way out of your comfort zone.
• Fasting
• Keto

It DOES include:

• Feeding ourselves the BEST foods on a regular basis to assure out body it is fed and cared for.
• Editing our exercise to make it efficient and effective so we don’t waste time spinning our wheels.
• Learning to apply easy and strategic self-care to help our hormones settle down.

Have you tried and failed to change your health in the past?  Consider this:

1. Now is the time to take your health seriously.  What we do RIGHT NOW decides if we will spend our golden years sick and broken or thriving and enjoying life.  

2.  Just about EVERYTHING you read or see in Health Media is NOT designed for women in Perimenopause or menopause.  Our hormones are DIFFERENT than men and younger women.  Things that work for other people are likely to make things WORSE for you right now.  

3.  We cannot afford to waste time with-fast fix weight loss schemes that will likely cost us precious bone and muscle, cause us to gain belly fat, and can even cause us to become more at risk for heart attack and stroke. 

Everything in How to Powerup Peri/menopause: the Complete Guide and the Powerup and Reset Program are designed for women in Perimenopause and Menopause to:

• Help you feel better RIGHT NOW
• Find your best health and make it last a lifetime
• Lose stubborn fat, especially in the belly
• Increase or preserve bone and muscle, the key to aging well
• Keep our cortisol levels down
• Decrease inflammation

If you have previously struggled to make real health changes stick, these are the programs for you. 

Instead of presenting a bunch of information and leaving you overwhelmed, with no idea how to apply it to your life, BOTH COURSES are filled with BEHAVIOR CHANGE strategy, tips and tricks, and realistic advice that walk you through how to apply everything successfully into your life and maintain it for the long term. 

These programs have been changing the lives of so many women.  Why not let it be you?

Click here to take a look at these two programs

Select the course you want to know more about and click on FREE PREVIEW to read and watch lessons from the courses and see which one is right for you!