Menopause is a significant set of systemic changes in the body. In part 1 of this series, I covered the basics of what changes in the body during menopause. This time around, we’ll talk about how menopause affects weight loss, and why it makes dieting significantly harder than before. 

Why Is Weight Loss Harder During Menopause?

The Game Changes

Menopause can be a real pain regarding weight management. It may be that in the past, your habits kept your weight pretty stable. Now, it seems like the pounds are creeping on with seemingly no change in lifestyle. And for those actively trying to diet, the weight comes off frustratingly slow compared to years prior. While there does tend to be a decline in physical activity as we get older, you know that you haven’t turned into a complete couch potato. So what gives?

Simply put, you’re following the same rules you always have. The problem is the game itself has changed. Under the hood, your body’s hormonal profile is way different than it was prior to menopause. The parts are all there physically, but the programming has rewired.

So no, you’re not crazy when it seems like the scale won’t budge. Nor is it faulty memory if things that worked for you before are falling short now. Your body’s entire baseline has shifted. You can’t play the same way in an entirely different game.

Estrogen Affects Everything

The loss of estrogen in your body has a huge systemic impact. It regulates many different functions, each with their own contribution to your overall metabolism and energy. You can think of it as a butterfly effect. Estrogen disappears, which impacts certain hormones, which in turn affect other hormones, and so on. This cascade eventually culminates in changes in even the most basic functions of your body. 

Let’s briefly go over three big hormones dependent on estrogen, and how their changes during menopause make dieting significantly harder.

Leptin

Leptin plays many different roles in the body but is best known for moderating everything related to energy availability and hunger. If you’re talking about anything fat loss related, leptin is going to play a huge role. Leptin is responsible for determining when the body has adequate energy for its processes, and when it needs to conserve energy for fat storage.

Leptin is closely tied to calorie intake, particularly energy balance. When you’re consistently eating around maintenance calories or higher, leptin levels are high. In turn, your hormonal profile will favor keeping things the way they are (homeostasis), or actively expending energy. Leptin says your body has the energy to burn, so all systems are go.

The exact opposite happens when you enter a calorie deficit. Sensing that you’re losing net energy, leptin will move to conserve what you have. It does so by altering the hormones responsible for appetite and hunger. This naturally leads to increased desire for food. If you’re constantly hungry for food, well…dieting is all the more difficult.

Your body reacts to changes in leptin levels fairly quickly, i.e. it is sensitive to leptin. Unfortunately, estrogen levels are tied to leptin sensitivity. Thus, when estrogen is low, sensitivity is low, and the body doesn’t react to shifts in leptin quite as readily or powerfully. This leads to difficulties such as decreased satiety after eating, longer and/or more powerful desires for food, etc. So not only are you hungry more often, you also get hungry again much more quickly after eating. 

Insulin

Your body uses insulin to assist with absorbing glucose. When it detects elevated levels of glucose in the blood, such as after a meal, it signals to the pancreas to create insulin. Insulin then helps your cells take in the glucose. It sends signals to cease once glucose levels are back within their normal range.

As with leptin, your body has insulin sensitivity. This determines how well the signals for insulin are received, as well as how quickly the body can respond to changes in glucose levels. One of the main things that governs insulin sensitivity is yes, you guessed it: estrogen. Hence, menopause can mess with blood sugar levels, making fat gain easier. 

It doesn’t end there, though. Excess bodyfat itself tends to negatively affect insulin sensitivity. This further amplifies the insulin complications that arise from menopause. It’s kind of a positive feedback loop: Low estrogen leads to low insulin sensitivity, which can cause bodyfat gain, which further lowers insulin sensitivity, and so on.

Cortisol

Cortisol is a “stress” hormone that often gets a bad rap for weight loss. However, it’s actually a crucial hormone for several essential processes in the body, including circadian rhythms and immune system function. It even helps govern metabolism of the foods you eat. So why is it always associated with negative connotations?

The thing is cortisol in of itself isn’t bad. Even elevated levels of cortisol are normal. Its levels spike and wane throughout the day, particularly when waking and going to bed, respectively. Where we start to run into trouble is when cortisol levels are chronically elevated. Consistently high levels of cortisol negatively affect metabolic rate. It increases blood glucose levels, stimulating the release of more insulin. This further exacerbates any troubles with insulin sensitivity, and thus further promotes fat storage.  

Constantly high cortisol levels also tend to interfere with sleep. While lack of sleep already sucks in of itself, it has a particularly poor effect on dieting. When sleep deprived, your body tends to have elevated levels of ghrelin (a hormone that makes you hungry) and decreased leptin levels. This yields the same scenario as above: increased hunger, decreased satiety.

Oh, and guess what hormone usually assists in managing your body’s physiological stress? Estrogen. As estrogen drops during menopause, cortisol levels tend to rise, contributing to the myriad of other troubles mentioned above. 

Conclusion

Menopause is one of the most significant difficulties you can deal with during weight loss. It’s important to remember that a lack of progress isn’t necessarily a failure on your part. Instead, there are a bunch of bodily changes stacking the cards against you. The good news is that fat loss is indeed possible. It just requires some extra considerations and modifications to a traditional diet. In part 3, we’ll start with just that: How to approach setting up a diet for menopause weight loss.