Weight Loss for Women Over 40

Many of our clients are women in the 40-60 age range, so I frequently get asked about weight loss for women over 40. The foundation may be the same as for anyone else, but there are some distinct differences. So I decided to film a quick, but information packed, 6-minute video that explains the particulars of weight loss for women over 40.

In the video, I cover:

– Why it’s actually desirable to gain 4-10 pounds of body fat during menopause
– How hormones affect weight loss
– How does body fat change with age?
– How to lose weight, stay toned, and have great energy levels during menopause and beyond.

And heck, if you’re not a woman over 40, you likely know a woman over 40 who would appreciate this video. Feel free to send that to her. But do it diplomatically. Not in a way that will get you killed.

Transcript

If you prefer to read, rather than watch or listen, here is a transcript of the video:

 

If you are a woman over 40 who is trying to lose weight, get toned, and have more energy, you’re going to want to pay attention to this video, because here we are going to cover:

  • Why it is actually desirable to gain between 4 and 10 pounds of body fat after 40
  • How body fat changes over 40, as well as
  • How hormones affect your body fat.

Finally, we are going to talk about how to get toned, have great energy levels, and stay lean over 40 and during menopause.

So let’s get to it.

My name is Igor Kkibanov, and I’m the CEO of one of Toronto’s premier personal training companies called “Fitness
Solutions Plus”, as well as the author of this book, called STOP EXERCISING! The Way You Are Doing it Now. Which, by the way you can get for free at www.stopexercisingbook.com.

So let’s talk about how hormones affect your body fat.

It’s no surprise, and I always say this in public speaking engagements, that hormones affect your body fat far more than calories. Let’s use an example. The person who is a type 1 diabetic, in other words people who need to inject themselves with insulin, they can eat 5000, 10000, 100,000 calories per day and still not put on body fat. In fact, they won’t put on any muscle mass either. Why? Because they don’t have insulin unless they inject it. So, without it, they will just wither away and die.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have the person who has a slow thyroid or very drastic hypothyroidism. This person can eat 800 calories per day and still put on body fat. Now, why is that? Why is it that’s one person can eat 800 calories per day and another can eat 5000 and get drastically different results? It’s not the calories, it’s the hormones. So that’s how hormones affect your body fat.

And, after 40 there is a very careful interaction between hormones like cortisol, insulin, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and others.

Now let’s talk about how body fat changes after 40.

You may have noticed that before 40, your body fat might have been stored around your buns and thighs as well as the back of your arms, your triceps.

Now after forty you might notice of shifting more so to your belly. So you’re starting to get more of an apple shaped, as opposed to a pear shape.

Original source: here.

And why is that?

Because where you store your body fat tells us about your hormonal profile. So it’s a signal of changing hormones.

With our clients, what we do is we use an assessment called biosignature profiling to figure out what does the location of body fat say about a person’s hormonal profile.

Now, why is it desirable to gain between 4 and 10 pounds of body fat during menopause? Well, there are actually three organs that can make estrogen: the ovaries which we know about, but also the adrenal glands as well as body fat.

The adrenal glands are an almond-sized gland that sit on top of the kidney, and they release hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, aldosterone, and one of them is also estrogen. And body fat also releases estrogen. Now, what do the ovaries no longer do after menopause? They no longer make estrogen.

The other two organs which make estrogen are body fat and the adrenal glands. So women who actually do gain between 4 and 10 pounds of body fat during menopause find that they have an easier menopause.

They have:

  • Better sleep
  • Better skin quality
  • Better energy levels
  • Fewer hot flashes.

Now, you should gain 4 to 10 pounds of body fat during menopause, on condition that you are not overweight to begin with. If you were overweight to begin with it’s probably a good idea not to gain an extra 4 to 10 pounds.

So that’s all well and good. You know how your hormones affect your body fat, you know how your body fat changes over 40, and you know that it’s actually desirable to gain 4-10 pounds of body fat during menopause, so what do we do about it? What’s the bottom line? How you get to stay lean, toned, and have more energy?

Well, let’s talk about that.

What we do with their clients is we will take them through a very thorough, 321-symptom questionnaire to figure out where is their body at, where is there physiology at at this present point in time. Now, in a video I can’t really do that, so I’ll give you more of a generalized routine.

Strength training becomes particularly important after 40. Why? Because after 40 you start to lose bone mass, and you start to lose muscle mass. All under the influence of lowered estrogen levels. Estrogen supports bone and muscle mass, and you don’t have as much of that after menopause. So this becomes particularly important.

The only way to increase muscle mass is strength training. You can’t do that with cardio. You can’t do that with walking. You can’t do it with stretching, or yoga. It has to be strength training.

Original source: here.

And by the way, when I frequently ask clients “do you do strength training?” they will say “yes, I do Body Pump classes.”

Let me tell you: Body Pump is not strength training. Not that it’s bad for you, but it’s not strength training. The only way to get toned is through strength training. So that becomes particularly important.

What else we do is we have to identify a person’s food sensitivities. Sensitivities and allergies are not the same thing.

We know what we are allergic to, but we rarely know what we are sensitive to. So we have our clients identify that, and take that out of their diet.

Lastly, we use certain supplementation strategies to support the body’s physiological systems during this time of your life. What do we use? We use the nutrients are depleted more so during times of stress and times of menopause then during other times.

What are those nutrients?

They are the B complex. This includes b1, b2 B, b3, and all the B forms of vitamins. B5, b6, and so on. So that’s a very important one. In addition to that, we use higher dosages of vitamin C. As much as 2000 to 6000 milligrams per day. And lastly, magnesium.

So this is a very generic version of what we do with our clients. We will of course tailor that, depending on who we are working with. After all, each woman has her own unique experience over 40, so we will tailor her nutrition, supplementation, and exercise strategies based on that. But, as a general starting guide this is pretty good.

Again, my name is Igor. I am the author of STOP EXERCISING! The Way You Are Doing it Now, which you can download for free at www.stopexercisingbook.com, and if you would like to apply to work with us personally, one-on-one you can do so by visiting our website at FitnessSolutionsPlus.ca.

Thank you very much.