weight gain
“Pack your bags for the trip,” Grandma Growth gently advises. “Your Shift may be rough in places, so guard yourself. Your Shift may have some hard edges, so let your contours round out. Your wise blood is stirring, and you are learning to let it move without tethering fear to your meanders. In the same way, you can gracefully allow your natural weight gain. Struggling with your weight or dieting is bad medicine for you now, resulting only in thin bones that break easily, hormonal changes extremes that will prevent her from sleeping and thinking, and an internal fire reduced to ashes or burning out of control. Pack your bags, slowly, dear. There’s no rush,” Grandma Growth sighs, closing her eyes and sinking into a nap.
The best ally you can have on your menopausal journey is an “extra” ten pounds. I know you don’t want to hear this. I understand how hard it is to want twenty extra pounds (or accept that it happens to you, as it does to most menopausal women). You may have spent much of her life trying to shed twenty extra pounds. The ultimate failure as a woman today is not being infertile, but gaining weight.
When slim and young is the beauty standard, any menopausal woman can find it difficult to maintain a positive self-image, seeing herself becoming a thick-waisted, silver-haired old lady.
I had some deadly hot flashes, but the hardest part of menopause for me was gaining weight. I knew what was going to happen; I knew it was supposed to happen. But I never thought it would happen. I read the studies; I knew that most healthy women, thin or thick or in between, gained ten to fifteen pounds during their menopausal years. But not me, I thought. I eat wonderfully. I exercise: an hour and a half of yoga every week, tai chi, and my ordinary farm chores (moving and splitting firewood, throwing bales of hay, fetching water, chasing goats). I do not.
If I. I watched as my image in the mirror took on a shape that came closer and closer to the Venus figures of prehistory. And my modern biases came out: “Yuck. You look disgusting. You’re overweight. It’s unhealthy. Lose weight!” He knew it wasn’t true. But despite years of feminism and awareness of every -ism, from aging to weight, my culture screamed at me in my own mind every time I looked in the mirror.
Now I looked like my aunts. Now it looked like a woman. It was as strange and unfamiliar as my budding breasts and pubic hair at puberty. I remember standing in my clothes closet at the age of thirteen, wistfully and resentfully taking off my favorite girlish dresses, none of which fit.
Not looking in the mirror didn’t help. (I didn’t have to resist looking at the scale. I don’t have one.) My clothes didn’t fit me. First it was my blouses: my open buttons and my tank tops. Then it was my pants: tight waistbands became utterly impossible. My size fluctuated widely from morning to night, growing as the day progressed. For several months, I walked around the house in my pants undone from dinner to bedtime, a menopause symptom my girlfriend was all for.
Fortunately, I knew that dieting would not improve my health and could easily harm me. But without the loving acceptance I felt from my lover, I might have faltered and given in to the desire to resist this change with all my might. I could have given up being proud to look like a postmenopausal woman: like Margaret Mead, Eleanor Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony.
I wish every menopausal woman would have someone tell her each night when she undresses how goddess-like, how voluptuous, attractive, and desirable she is, and say with her, “The best ally I can have on my menopausal journey is twenty extra pounds.”
Of course, I don’t mean ten pounds of ordinary fat. You want ten pounds of healthy fat backed by healthy muscles and bones. And you want to gain that weight very, very slowly. Ideally around a pound or two a year during menopause. Remember, you are protecting yourself for the journey. Love yourself as you “get in shape” for the Shift.
Step 1. Gather information
- Fat cells convert androstenedione, a substance produced by the adrenal glands and ovaries, into estrone, the main postmenopausal estrogen. Women who gain weight during menopause have less severe hot flashes, easier change and denser bones, according to menopause advocate and longtime editor of A Friend Indeed, the Menopause NewsletterJeanine O’Leary Cobb.
- Despite pronouncements that excess fat is a health risk, weight gain during the menopausal years is not associated with any increased risk of mortality.
- And losing it will not improve your health.
- In fact, losing weight can lead to thyroid malfunction, severe gallbladder problems, increased insulin resistance, and weakened cardiovascular and immune systems.
- If you don’t have a sweetheart that tells you that your bigger body is wonderful, read:
Radiance: the magazine for stout women; P.O. Box 30246, Oakland, CA 94604.
healthy weight diary; PO Box 620, LCD1, Hamilton, ON; L8N 3K7, Canada. 1-800-568-7281.
You count, calories don’t, Linda Omichinsky. Box 102A, RR#3, Portage La Prairie, MN; R1N 3A3, Canada. 1-800-565-4847.
Loving your middle-aged bodyLinda Moore Browning, Older Women’s Health Forum, Winter 1999.
Step 2. Engage the energy
“The first time I saw pictures of my postmenopausal self I was freaked out by my size!”
- Give yourself permission to take up more space. Let your needs take precedence. Expand your vision of yourself. Expand your world.
- If you don’t already do an hour or more of yoga, tai chi, or some other meditative physical exercise on a weekly basis, start…now.
- Go to an art gallery or get a book from your library and find a picture of an attractive woman with a round, proud tummy. Meditate with her. Become her for a moment. Feel the energy in your belly. Feel the wise blood stirring inside your womb. Stirring and simmering and sending the heat of it along the energy pathways of your body. Be proud of yourself and your belly.
- Say a short thanksgiving prayer, sing a song, light a candle, or observe a moment of silence before eating. It affirms that food will bring you health and pleasure.
Step 3. Nourish and Tone
- Stop dieting. Eat as wide a variety of whole foods as possible. Do not make any absolutely prohibited food. What you eat every day has the greatest effect. The best way to stop worrying about weight gain is to eat ten or more servings of fruits and vegetables, three or more servings of whole grains, and a cup of yogurt a day.
- To ensure you’re adding hormonally useful, bone-building, and strengthening fat, include one serving of a high-calorie, phytoestrogen-rich food and three servings of mineral-rich superfoods in your daily diet.
High-calorie, hormone-rich foods include olives, olive oil, organic butter, freshly ground flaxseed, home brew, non-alcoholic beer, fresh peanut butter.
Superfoods rich in minerals include nourishing herbal teas of nettle, oat straw, red clover or comfrey leaf; cooked vegetables such as kale, kale, quarter of lamb, amaranth, mustard; seaweed; serum; whole grains, including oats, millet, wheat, and brown rice; bittersweet chocolate.
- The beer is traditionally brewed from hops and sprouted whole grains. Fermentation creates easily assimilated B vitamins and releases minerals. One beer a week will slowly increase your weight, improve your memory, calm your nerves, and boost your immune system. A cup of hop tea with a tablespoon of barley malt sweetener is a non-alcoholic alternative.
Step 4. Stimulate/Sedate
- Most of the herbal remedies sold for weight loss include stimulants that can impair heart function, and diuretic and laxative herbs that can cause excessive fluid loss and upset electrolyte balance. This can lead to life-threatening events during the menopausal years, when heart and adrenal function is unstable. Avoid all “weight loss” herbs.
- If you’re determined to lose weight during your menopausal years, here are some safe strategies:
Eat a hearty breakfast and a hearty lunch, and skimp on dinner. Absolutely avoid midnight snacks.
Eat one cup/250 ml of fresh chickweed daily or take a dropper of fresh plant tincture in a little water during or after each meal (at least four times a day).
Simmer a handful of dried or fresh bladderwrack seaweed for 15 minutes in enough water to cover. Pressure. Drink a cup before each meal for no more than three months.
Eat a bowl of hot soup at the beginning of the meal. You will feel more satiated and you will eat less. Soups and cold drinks do not have the same effect.
- Stay active. But you don’t have to buy any spandex. Five-minute bouts of exercise, done several times a day, every day, are better than one long session once a week. Weight lost as a result of increased physical activity is safer than weight lost through dietary manipulation. Lift weights.
- Depression can be associated with intense cravings for starchy foods. If we satisfy these cravings with mineral-rich foods (including chocolate), the depression will be “treated” and dissipated. If we try to satisfy these cravings with white sugar and mineral-free white flour, the depression will deepen.
Step 5b. use drugs
Appetite-suppressing drugs alter your metabolic rate and make it increasingly difficult for you to maintain a normal weight on a normal diet. Avoid all drugs, herbs, and supplements of any kind that claim to suppress your appetite.
Step 6. Break in and enter
Science is ready to help you deny your growing wisdom and power by liposuction of fat from your butt and adding it to your face to fill in wrinkles.
Disclaimer: This content is not intended to replace conventional medical treatment. Any suggestions made and all herbs listed are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, condition, or symptom. Personal instructions and usage should be provided by a clinical herbalist or other qualified healthcare professional with a formula specific to you. All material on this website/email is provided for general information purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice or advice. Contact a licensed health professional if you need medical attention. Exercise self-empowerment by seeking a second opinion.
