Over the past few months I have been learning about the pre and post menopause (mid-late30s - 60 ish) years and how active women should adjust nutrition and training in order to support our changing hormones.
The majority of the body composition changes that occur happen during the late pre-menopausal state, around the 3 - 4 years before you actually hit the 12-month mark of menopause. This is when it becomes important to make changes in training and nutrition.
I want to share a few main points I've learned in hopes that you can learn too and make adjustments in order to better support your health and fitness goals.
- As we enter these years of our life our training focus should change in order to support our changing bodies and allow us to reach our goals. Traditional training methods like hours of cardio, light resistance training, barre classes, etc will no longer allow us to maintain lean body mass. And decreased lean body mass = increase in fat storage. With the changes of estrogen and progesterone, our body needs exercise stress to make up for the responses the hormones used to stimulate. Incorporating heavy weights, HIIT training and plyometric training will allow our body to build and maintain muscle integrity which is declining with the loss in estrogen. When looking at cardio, it's important to focus on shorter, high intensity sessions and do the long slow miles once a week.
- In the pre and post menopausal years, it is important to match energy output with energy intake. Focus on eating food in and around the time you workout in order to optimize macronutrient utilization, reduce the risk of low energy availability and keep cortisol in balance. Exercise creates stress on the body so we need real whole foods including lots of colorful veggies and fruits and protein to help offset the stress and reduce cortisol (stress hormone) and allow our muscles to heal and repair.
*Fasting and Keto are NOT recommended for women in these years of life and it creates additional stress on the body which causes us to store fat!
Are you interested in learning more about how to support your body during these years of your life?
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