Holistic Fat Loss

This is such a common area of concern amongst my female clients, that it deserves its own page and explanation, especially when looking at it through the lense of hormones.​

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Our hormones exist in a delicate balance, one that cycles evenly month to month in an ideal scenario. But illness or high levels of stress can impact our levels of these hormones, as well as the transitions we go through as women from puberty to peri menopause and through to post menopause.

When we’re in our regular cycling years, the fluctuations between estrogen and progesterone that happen with our monthly menstrual cycle give us a bit of an “edge” when it comes to building lean muscle and lowering unwanted body fat.

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When we enter peri menopause, things begin to shift and change.  This is the life stage where you may first have noticed your body not responding as easily as it did before. That might be when you started to struggle with your energy or weight, mood, sleep, period irregularities and/or body temperature. It might also feel like you have PMS symptoms that just last for ages. Since peri menopause often coincides with a very busy time in our lives (aging parents, work commitments, young/teenage children), you might attribute your symptoms to just “having more stress” in your life, or “not getting enough sleep,” or blaming yourself for “not exercising enough” or “not dieting enough.” Nope – it’s perimenopause.

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That regular cycle of estrogen and progesterone that used to fluctuate back and forth consistently kept everything on an even keel. Higher levels of estrogen earlier in life meant we recovered a bit more easily from our workouts, had more resilience to training more frequently, could regulate our body temperature more easily, and had an easier time rebuilding muscle.  We were also much more sensitive to insulin, which meant that our bodies could efficiently utilise glucose for energy, maintain stable blood sugar levels and effectively allow weight management to be much easier.

Higher levels of progesterone earlier in life meant we had more support for bone remodelling (supporting our bone density), and more buffering for our cortisol (supporting our stress levels) among other things.

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We have receptor sites all over our bodies for these hormones, and they impact every aspect of our health and lives as women. So as we age and enter this peri menopausal/menopause stage, we have less of them in our system.  This tends to be a gradual process where we start to feel subtly different on so many levels.  Often weight gain is one of the most discussed changes that take place.

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With that information as a very simplified framework to go by, you can now see how hormonal fluctuations or the decline in hormones, can impact your ability to lose unwanted body fat.  This also highlights why we need to change up our approach to diet, exercise and stress management, so we can once again feel confident and empowered within our bodies as we learn how to work with these changes.

 

Essentially the more muscle you carry, the more efficiently you burn fat and can regulate many body functions. This is the body tissue we most want to hold onto as we go into peri menopause and then post menopause. Muscle tissue doesn’t make us bulky; it gives us our defined lean muscle tone, and strength in all we do. We now need to incorporate more resistance and weight training into our weekly workouts to maintain and build back up, our muscle tone.

Incorporating enough dietary protein to support our muscle growth, repair and satiety (where we feel fuller for longer and with less cravings) is another key area that needs addressing, along with enough dietary fibre to support optimal gut health.

Stress management is another component that is vital for maintaining a healthy body composition.

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I am here to create a program that is designed to support your changing body, to get you moving closer to the body composition you are after, and ensure that we are nourishing your body at the same time.  I do not believe in fad diets.  I work with what the science shows us, and your bodies ever evolving system that needs an Holistic approach for long term gains.

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