Ladies, did you know that hormonal weight gain often ranging somewhere from 10 to 15 pounds on average is a very common side effect and symptom of menopause?
No doubt those women who have already begun to experience the beginning or early stages of menopause will agree with the reality of this slow shift in body weight as they watch (often in horror and frustration) their waistlines slowly thicken and increase in circumference without what seems any probable cause!
In fact both past and recent research studies that were carried out on the changes in the endocrine system and women's hormones during peri-menopause and menopause; in particular hormonal weight gain, estimates that at least 80% or more women will inevitably gain some excess poundage throughout their menopause years regardless of whether they change their calorie intake or not.
Does this sound familiar to you in any way? Have you found yourself confused and frustrated with watching your waist circumference slowly increase in spite of not making any changes to your daily diet plan?
Just to be clear, this isn't a sudden change that just happens overnight, but rather a slow, progressive change in the distribution of your body weight and where body fat tends to plant itself.
Unfortunately, it seems that the stomach, the hips and the waistline tend to be the most favoured areas for extra body fat to be stored for most women, much to our dismay.
Calories taken in are not the culprits here either, so reducing your calorie intake has little effect in maintaining your hourglass figure of yesterday.
In fact, fad diets that endorse a near starvation calorie intake of less than 1,200 calories daily can actually exacerbate the problem and be dangerous to your health!
Rather, hormonal weight gain is a direct cause and the thickening effect that follows as a result of fluctuations and shifts in a woman's hormone levels - in essence, your hormones are to blame for that excess belly fat.
There's no question that hormones and weight gain are very intricately linked and there are actually four key hormones at play here, each having its own unique role in how and where your body stores body fat.
Diet and exercise are the first two main factors that can influence the state of your hormones.
Stress, sleep and nutritional supplementation are three important factors too and also play an important role in influencing the state of your hormones and maintaining a healthy body weight as well.
Knowing what NOT to do can be helpful too.
For example, cutting back or avoiding excessive caffeine, alcohol and other stimulants is also important.
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