Every year my gym holds a contest for its members called “Hold it for the Holidays.”  The idea being that with all the holiday temptations, simply maintaining weight during the month of December is an achievement.  Could this same principle be the wisest approach to surviving the perimenopause transition in the best health possible?  Or is it possible to look and feel better?

In Perimenopause, the usual state of our hormones is that there is no usual state of hormones.  They swing from too high to too low and spend less time in that sweet spot where everything is normal, balanced, and working as intended.  These fluctuations set our bodies up to do a couple of things:

1. Lose Bone Mass 
2. Lose Muscle Mass 
3. Gain Fat, especially around our middles

These physical changes go way beyond vanity.  The loss of bone and muscle makes us more frail and likely to sustain injuries that will severely affect our quality of life as we age.  Sure the belly fat makes us feel bad in our clothes, but it also increases our chance of developing heart disease, which is still the number one killer of women. 

Doesn’t this mean we should jump on any passing health bandwagon so we can workout and diet like crazy?  Yes and no.  

Yes, it is clear that health-forward self-care is more important than ever.  No, in that some approaches will make things worse rather than better.   

Many solutions that work well for men or younger women may actually accelerate the bone / muscle loss and belly fat gain for a woman in perimenopause.  

To really place our long-term health at the forefront of our goals, stopping and reversing the loss of bone and muscle should come before anything.  The right health-forward approach might also result in fat lost, but attaining a specific number on a scale is not worth it if that number is made up of a loss of the lean tissues we so badly need to preserve at this time. 

Estrogen is a key hormone in building muscle and bone.  Once we are post-menopausal, our flow of estrogen slows down to a drip.  During perimenopause, our estrogen is wildly fluctuating high and low, creating bothersome symptoms, but it is present and sometimes in excess.  

This creates an opportunity.

Having estrogen around will allow us to strengthen and build our lean tissues.  It is absolutely why perimenopause is the time to powerup and fortify our bodies for our best long term health. 

Often during perimenopause, how our bodies react to our health endeavors is frustrating and out of our control.  

• Our sleep is off.
• Our water weight fluctuates.
• Our stomachs are bloating.
• We are often low on energy and would rather crawl back in bed than hit the gym.  

This is the time to lock in on the behaviors that will help and not harm our health right now.  

The right approach will:

• Help with bothersome symptoms
• Increase lean tissue
• Allow time for rest and repair
• Nourish rather than deprive
• Make you feel and look better even if that scale number refuses to budge

Just like the “Hold it for the Holidays” contest, sometimes maintenance is progress in itself. 

Choose the right health habits, put your head down and nail them with relentless consistency.  

When it feels as if you are treading water, just think, “if I feel like I am making no progress, what would it look like if I were not doing this?”  I guarantee it would not look good, feel good, or help you snorkel with your grandkids in twenty years.  

Read this: Gaining Fat?  What Your Peri/menopausal Body is Telling You

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

Consider signing up for Powerup and Reset to learn more about the best approaches to maintaining and building your health in Perimenopause and beyond. 

Think you need coaching? Check out this article to help you decide!

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!