Effective fat loss for women after 50 does not include starving yourself. It doesn’t include walking or other exercise hours and hours, it doesn’t include salads and missing pleasure from food. 

It may not include intermittent fasting, or grapefruit. 

Two words for you: 

Add muscle.

That is the Cliff Notes for this episode. 

If you’re focused on all things weight loss, there’s a BIG chance that your menopausal journey will be fraught with frustration and disappointment no matter if you’re in perimenopause or postmenopause. 

Effective fat loss for women has to do two things: 

1. Increase use of muscle 

2. Increase lean muscle mass

Each of them has a very specific role to play in metabolism. 

The exercise two-for-one is strength training.

There are other ways to move that uses muscle: 

• Yoga

• Housecleaning

• Walking

• Name any cardio machine

• Golf

These are all helpful. 

But only resistance training will support building muscle. 

The way to increase motivation to use muscle (that is, increase energy) and support increase lean muscle mass from the kitchen is to eat more protein. 

I’ll share with you here today the information regarding something called anabolic resistance.

What is it and why does it pertain to effective fat loss for women after 50? 

Glad you asked!!

Let’s break it down.

Defining Terms

Anabolic or anabolism means build up.

Resistance means, not to state the obvious, push back or difficulty, or similar to insulin resistance… that it is going to require MORE of what worked in order to get the same results. 

Anabolic resistance that occurs in menopause means you can’t build muscle, even maintain it, without changing something.

When we say, “I’m doing the same thing but it’s not working,” it’s not going to. You do have to make changes. 

Imagine you’re sitting on a dining room chair. It’s solid on four legs. 

Then someone kicks the estrogen leg out from under you. Three-legged stool. No problem, if you enhance your protein intake a little more and you make your resistance training exercise more challenging. Oh, and as long as you sleep. 

But what if you’re not sleeping?

We’re down to two legs. And 3-6 additional hormones are going to cause a problem now. And.. if you’re skipping or skimping on protein, and particularly if you reduce calories, what will happen? 

Well, predictably you may lose weight for a couple days. Then you will likely pop back up. You don’t have the support team you need. 

However, think of this. You start focusing on lifting weights, eating MORE protein… and as a result you end up sleeping better. (Amino acids support sleep and even 10 minutes of exercise daily helps sleep. That said in addition to strength training you’re only going to do twice a week, you move. You walk). 

Changing Stimulus for Effective Fat Loss for Women 

For instance 15 repetitions is not the best thing to do forever. It’s a wonderful start, or moderate progression, and a nice rotation of stimulus, but if it’s possible you’ll need to do heavier weight for fewer repetitions. Heavy where bone density is concerned is 10 or fewer reps. Where bone density is concerned will 5 reps do more good? Yes, the greater the stimulus the better the results. 

In a recent study, not the first and not the last, it is the protein leverage that is the answer. Muscle protein synthesis to be clear. You must gain muscle to have a metabolism that supports weight loss. 

The biggest lesson here is, you will need to stay away from the scale for a short time. You may see it go up as you increase muscle and your body figures out you are not binge eating but you’re going to treat yourself like an energy burning machine finally. 

When you gain muscle, you gain energy. Mood and motivation improve.  You move more. You will lose weight if you need to. This is especially true for you if you have significant weight to lose. 

You will not bulk up. But your brain may at first tell you that you should eat less and you’ll experience discomfort with the idea of eating more. 

You can ride that out. 

Reference: 

https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1471-0528.17290?af=R

Resources:

Sleep Yourself Skinny: https://www.flippingfifty.com/sleep-yourself-skinny

Other Episodes You Might Like:

Why You Can’t Lose Fat in Menopause: https://www.flippingfifty.com/lose-fat-in-menopause/

9 Ways to Measure Fat & Body Composition | Best & Worst: https://www.flippingfifty.com/measure-fat/

Fat Loss in Menopause: It’s Not What You Think: https://www.flippingfifty.com/fat-loss/