Читать книгу Menopause Without Weight Gain: The 5 Step Solution to Challenge Your Changing Hormones - Debra Waterhouse - Страница 7

Have you recently looked in the mirror and wondered where that extra body fat was coming from? Or tried on a pair of trousers that you haven’t worn for a couple of months only to discover you can’t button the waist, even with the previously successful lie-on-the-bed manoeuvre? Or got on the scales saying, ‘This can’t be right; I couldn’t possibly have gained 4 pounds in a week’?

When you honestly look at your eating and exercise habits, you are confident that you’re not eating more or exercising less. Sure, you slipped a few times and ate real, luscious ice cream yesterday or a second helping of lasagne last week, but that can’t possibly be the reason. Neither can a decrease in your activity level, because you either don’t exercise at all or you have a personal trainer who will vouch for your consistency.

Unable to figure out what’s happening to your body, you make an appointment with your doctor for a complete medical exam. Your tests show that you are in perfect health. Still perplexed, you call your mother asking if adult onset obesity runs in your family. She tells you no and that you’re probably imagining things. Then, you start talking to your friends, wondering if they, too, are experiencing this mysterious weight gain. They are, but they don’t know why either.

This first chapter will piece together the mysterious puzzle of midlife weight gain by providing a full and uncomplicated explanation of how and why you are gaining weight. I can assure you that it’s not the ice cream, the second helping of lasagne, or a missed exercise class, and chances are it’s not a physical ailment or a latent obesity gene either. It’s the menopause, and you are definitely not alone. Millions of other women share your confusion and frustration.

If you are a fertile, hot flush-free 35-or 40-year-old woman, you may have flinched at the boldface ‘M’ word. Let me clarify. You are still menstruating, so you are not menopausal in the classic sense and probably won’t experience the hot flushes, memory loss and other telltale signs for another decade or more. But you are entering the initial phase of the menopause. You are entering the perimenopause, the important 10-to 20-year transition leading up to the menopause, where your waist expands and your fat cells enlarge to prepare your body for the rest of the transition and the rest of your life.

Whether you are 35 and just about to enter the transition, or 55 and just ending it, the good news is that you can take a deep breath and stop blaming yourself or your eating habits for this midlife weight gain. Researchers round the world have proven that an increase in calories, carbohydrates, fat or alcohol does not explain menopausal body changes. But changes in hormonal levels, metabolism and fat cell physiology do.

You are gaining weight because your fat cells are responding to lower hormonal levels, a drop in metabolism and an overriding need to maintain your physical and emotional health during the menopausal transition and beyond. You may not want to gain weight (what woman does?), but your body wants to. You may think the best way to fight expanding fat cells is through dieting, but, as you’ll discover, your fat cells fight back now more than ever and will make you gain even more weight. The only way to manage menopausal weight permanently is to forego dieting and begin a new, natural way of eating and exercising that works with your midlife fat cells instead of against them.

I’m not going to lead you to believe that you can turn back the clock and get back your 20-year-old body. You can’t. The changes in your midlife body are biologically necessary and too important for your well-being to prevent them completely. But you can make your fat cells smaller and achieve a fit, healthy body by following a weight-control programme designed specifically for the menopause. However, before you can master this programme, you need to know exactly what’s happening to your body and fat cells during the transition. Before I can outline how to outsmart your midlife fat cells, I need to explain why they are so clever and stubborn to begin with. Because this knowledge will be both motivating and empowering, first I’m going to make you an expert in female fat cell physiology.