“Hormones…Perimenopause…Weight?”
HORMONES…This is a HUGE topic so for this entry we will deal with the hormones involved with females during the Perimenopause stage of life. The stage just before menopause(cessation of menses for a full year). This stage usually lasts from 2-15yrs and begins for some in the mid 30’s. I personally know many, many women who will benefit from this information, so read on. And yes your weight and your ability to gain/loss weight is directly affected by your hormones.
The three hormones involved in this change are Estrogen, Progesterone and Testosterone. Some facts about these hormones. “Hormone Levels Decline with Age” (excerpt from) “The Hormone Survival Guide for Perimenopause” By Nisha Jackson Ph.D.
Estrogen – A 30% drop occurs by age 50 with significant fluctuations during the 40 and often the early 50’s. In the first 5 yrs. of menopause, the levels drop sharply.
Progesterone – A 75% loss occurs from age 35 to 50 and continues to decline
Testosterone – A 50% loss occurs from age 25 to 50, and another 50% loss takes place by age 80.
So you might be asking yourself, “How do I know if I am in Perimenopause?” Great question. You can go to your Doctor and get your hormones tested and I recommend that you do. Each of us is unique and we live our own lifestyles that affects how are hormones respond and there current levels. If you noticed I wrote we all have our own lifestyles (ie. stresses, food choices, exercise or lack thereof) and THAT AFFECTS OUR HORMONES. Plus our own genetic make-up and so on.
A little over a year ago I was in a very, very stressful situation. My husband went into the hospital and they could not find out what was wrong with him for three full weeks. He just kept getting sicker and weaker everyday and none of the Dr’s knew why. Leading up to this I lost both my parents in a 1 year time span. My Mom had passed away 10 months before my husband went into the hospital, my Dad passed almost a year prior to my Mom and to say I was stressed is an understatement. I was still grieving and with my husband in the hospital I basically stopped taking care of myself and started eating convenience foods and didn’t exercise at all. Just trying to get through the days.
At one point after visiting my husband in the hospital I came home and got on the computer and looked up symptoms of Perimenopause because I was convinced that I was smack dab in the middle of it because it surely had to be something that was creating all these symptoms that I NEVER had before. And I was correct. Yes I was still grieving my parents and dealing with my husband’s situation and it showed… when I took that test I had 20 out of 30 symptoms and they came out of nowhere. From just dealing with a 1 or 2 symptoms to having 20 symptoms was an eye opener for me. Here is a partial list of symptoms you may be experiencing. This was my list.
1. weight gain around the middle
2. adult acne
3. Depression, anxiety and irritability
4. Chronic fatigue
5. Bloating
6. Hot flashes, night sweats or cold flashes and clammy feeling
7. rapid heart beat
8. Sudden tears
9. Feeling of dread, apprehension, doom
10. memory lapses
11. Itchy, crawly skin
12. Breast tenderness
13. Headaches
14. Difficulty concentrating
15. Trouble sleeping
16. Hair loss or thinning
17. Increase in facial hair
18. Gum problems
19. Dizzyness, loss of balance
20. Tittitus: ringing in ears
When you look over the list it is just incredible that all these feeling/reactions in your body can be caused by an imbalance in your hormones. Yes that is what perimenopause is…an imbalance between estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. Many, many things cause this imbalance with stress and how you eat right up there.
This blog would be way to long to go into all the detail of how these imbalances occur but it is always between these three and the functions of your liver, kidney and other organs. While reading up on this while I was experiencing these symptoms what became obvious to me was the correlation between how I took care of myself and the degree of my symptoms. After my husband started to rebound and get better (which wasn’t for certain to happen but Thank You God it did) I went back to cooking again and paying attention to what I was eating. Gave up the convenience foods and sugar and simple carbohydrates. Started slowly doing cardio and weight training and slowly all but 1-2 symptoms are still with me. And do you know what else, you can turn your symptoms around too. Get that sugar and white flour carbs out of your life and stuff will happen.
An excellent book on this topic besides the one mentioned above is “Dr. Bob’s Drugless Guide to Balancing Female Hormones.” By Dr. Robert DeMaria.
Would love to hear your feedback.
God Bless You,
Evey
