We all know that it becomes harder to lose weight as we age, and this is especially the case for women once they hit menopause. That’s because menopause starts a cascade of effects on the body.
This includes hormonal fluctuations that lead to increased fat storage, reduced muscle mass due to leading a less active lifestyle, lack of sleep due to fluctuations in weight, as well as increased insulin resistance that makes it doubly hard to lose weight.
While you can’t reverse menopause, you can optimize your weight loss efforts to improve efficacy and help you keep the weight off:
- The older you get, the less calories you burn, thus reducing the effectiveness of low-calory diets. Instead, women going through menopause are recommended to adopt healthy diets like the Mediterranean diet, a vegetarian diet or a low-carbohydrate diet. These diets have been shown to work really well to keep weight off during menopause.
- Exercise is even more important for women going through menopause, especially aerobic or cardiovascular exercise. Combined with proper nutrition, this type of exercise has been shown to help maintain muscle mass and reduce belly fat during weight loss.
