Category: Menopause

Menopause symptoms and the associated signs of menopause are part of a woman’s natural reproductive cycle.
During the early teens, your ovaries will start releasing an egg every month. If the egg is fertilized, pregnancy occurs. If there is no fertilization the egg dies. The uterine lining (endometrium) which was built up in preparation for pregnancy, breaks down and sheds – menstruation.

Hormones of the menstrual cycle

There are 4 main hormones involved in the menstrual cycle:

1. estrogen
2. progesterone
3. follicle stimulating hormone (FSH)
4. luteinizing hormone (LH)

The two that concern you most with regard to signs of menopause and symptoms of menopause are estrogen and progesterone. The menstrual cycle can be divided into 3 parts:

1. pre-ovulation
2. post-ovulation
3. menstruation

What happens in different phases of the menstrual cycle?

In the pre-ovulatory phase, the developing egg releases estrogen mostly. This causes the endometrium to proliferate and thicken. In the post ovulatory phase, progesterone is secreted in increasing amounts from the corpus luteum which is left in the ovary after ovulation.

It acts to increase the blood supply to the endometrium making it water-logged and rich in nutrients. If pregnancy does not occur, the corpus luteum dies through lack of stimulation from a growing fetus. Following this, the secretion of estrogen and progesterone goes down.

The endometrium does not have enough hormonal stimulation to thrive and starts to break down shedding the top 2 layers and leaving the basal layer intact. This is referred to as menstruation. In the absence of pregnancy, this cycle occurs roughly every month (22-35 days).

What happens at menopause?

There is a limited number of eggs in the ovaries and as you get older, more and more of them die off. By the time you’re in your 40s, most of the eggs have been released during ovulation or died and the few that are left are usually of poor quality. Ovulation may not occur every month and the length of the menstrual cycle gradually increases. Menstruation becomes irregular until eventually periods stop altogether.

How does this lead to menopase symptoms?

During this time of irregular ovulation/menstruation, there is marked estrogen and progesterone levels fluctuate a lot. Estrogen levels tend to be higher than those of progesterone, leading to the use of the term ‘estrogen dominance’ to describe this imbalance

Without a corpus luteum there is minimal secretion of progesterone. However, estrogen is still produced (in the fat cell for example) from conversion of androgens (male sex hormones) produced by the ovaries and adrenal glands. Menopause symptoms and menopause signs are thus caused by several factors:

1. imbalance between estrogen and progesterone
2. progesterone deficiency
3. estrogen deficiency

Common menopause symptoms

The following list of menopause symptoms and menopause signs is very long and far from exhaustive. Fortunately, no woman will have all the menopause symptoms and signs and some women are fortunate enough to have relatively mild menopause symptoms.

• hot flashes (the most common menopause symptom, affecting about 85% of women)
• depression
• forgetfulness
• headaches
• inability to concentrate
• irritability
• mood swings

• chest pain
• palpitations
• sore breasts
• irregular/heavy bleeding
• vaginal dryness
• itchy vulva
• loss of sex drive
• slower sexual arousal
• painful intercourse
• constipation
• abdominal bloating

• irritable bladder
• frequent bladder infection
• frequent urination

• increased facial hair
• thinning hair
• itchy skin
• brittle nails
• pins and needles
• sore muscles
• stiff/swollen joints
• back pain

These menopause symptoms occur at various times. Early symptoms of menopause include irregular or heavy vaginal bleeding while menopause symptoms like thinning of the hair and brittle nails may not occur for several years after the menopause.

Menopausal weight gain (also known as middle age spread) is common from about age 40 and onwards. At this time you may find yourself putting on weight or find that it becomes difficult to prevent weight gain post menopause even though you are still eating the same amount of food.

Menopausal weight gain- middle age weight loss

Causes of menopausal weight gain

Menopausal weight gain doesn’t appear overnight. During the years leading up to menopause you may put on about a pound a year.There are several reasons for this :

1. You tend to be less active as you get older.
2. Your body needs less energy as you get older so you burn fewer calories.
3. Over time your muscles become replaced with fat, which burns fewer calories than muscle.
4. You tend to eat more.
5. Your genes may play a role. If your parents had trouble with weight, especially with fat around the tummy, you may too.
6. Hormonal changes may contribute.

How to avoid middle age spread

The formula for losing weight and preventing weight gain is quite simply. If you take in more calories than you use up, the excess calories will be stored as fat. So to lose weight, you need to use up more calories than you eat.
Sounds a lot easier than it is!

So what do you do?

1. Get moving. – Even if you eat the same amount of food but you increase the amount of exercise you get, you should lose weight. It is important to combine aerobic exercise with weight training for best results.
2. Eat less. – There are 2 ways of looking at this. You can look at this in terms of the quantity of food that you eat or in terms of the number of calories in your food.

You should avoid ‘energy dense’ foods. These are foods that have lots of calories crammed into very small quantities of food. Things like ice cream, chocolates, soft drinks (sodas), fries e.t.c. fall into this category. A plate of veggies will definitely contain less calories than a bar of chocolate or a can of soda and will be more filling and chock full of vitamins and minerals.

On the other hand you could reduce the size of your portions which may leave you feeling hungry leading to snacking later on.
The6 tips to avoid it

Don’t let weekend weight gain ruin all your hard work!

You’re usually a bit stressed out during the week trying to juggle all your responsibilities. You do your strength training and cardio religiously. You pass on the creamy, rich desserts and you eat lots of fruit and vegetables. You control your portion sizes and make sure to drink lots of water.

You’re there for your spouse, partner, kids, family, colleagues and just about everyone else that needs or wants a bit of you for one reason or another. So the weekend is the time to let it all hang out and relax right? This might be the only time you have to give yourself some love. But guess what? What you eat while you’re chilling out may be the cause of your weekend weight gain.

On weekends, you may have more time to prepare sumptuous meals (my family looks forward to their saturday breakfast!)If you’re at home, remember that idle hands need something to keep them busy.

It’s easier to pig out on fattening snacks and unhealthy treats while you’re watching tv or reading a novel or magazine for example. Going out is another pitfall because you may be less conscious of what and how much you’re eating while you’re chatting and having a good time.

With all this, some people may eat more than 800 extra Calories over the weekend. This can add up to an extra 5.5kg (about 12 pounds) of weight a year.

How do you avoid the extra weekend weight gain?

• Watch your food portions.
• Go easy on the alcohol which contains a lot of empty calories.
• Eat more fruit and vegetables.
• Eat healthy snacks like popcorn, my new favourite. I make my own so I can control how much sugar I put in it and I use olive oil.
• Watch less tv.
• Get up and get moving.

Alli for weight loss – how does it work?

Alli is not a new drug. It is the baby sister of the drug Xenical, a prescription drug used to treat obesity. They both contain the same substance, orlistat. The only difference is in quantity. Xenical contains 120mg of orlistat while Alli contains 60mg of orlistat. Alli should be used by overweight adults (over 18 years) as an aid to weight loss together with diet and exercise.

Alli is basically a fat blocker. It works by stopping a substance called lipase from working in your bowel. Lipase breaks down the fat that you eat into little pieces so that it can be absorbed into the body. As the fat is not broken down and absorbed, it passes through the bowel unchanged and is removed when you go to toilet.

How do you use Alli?

Alli is taken with a meal that contains fat up to 3 times a day. You should not eat more than 15g of fat in each meal as this increases the possibility of side effects.

How long should you use Alli?

The manufacturers suggest that you may only need to use it for 6 months as that is when most of the weight loss occurs.

What are the side effects of Alli?

Side effects are more common when you eat more than the recommended 15g of fat per meal. However, they can still occur even if you are within the recommended limits. They include

1. frequent bowel movements
2. very soft stool and even diarrhea
3. gas
4. oily discharge from the anus
5. bowel movements that are hard to control

Who should not use Alli?

You should not use Alli if you:

1. are not overweight
2. are taking cyclosporins
3. have had an organ transplant
4. have trouble absorbing food (malabsorbtion)
5. are using medication that thins the blood
6. are diabetic
7. have thyroid problems

Will Alli help you lose weight?

The short answer to that is yes. It is recommended that Alli should be used as an aid to weight loss in combination with a healthy diet and exercise.
But don’t expect the pounds to just fall off! Xenical, the prescription-only, double strength big sister of Alli induced a weight loss of about 6 pounds in one year. At half strength, Alli is expected to produce about half the weight loss, ie about 3 pounds a year compared to expected weight loss using diet and exercise alone.
Another thing to consider – if you stop using Alli, that weight you lost comes right back!

I have heard of people losing 10lb in 8 weeks and other similar stories. Some people that have tried almost every diet they have come across without success have been able to lose weight with Alli. It works in your intestines and not in the brain or anywhere else so you won’t get the jitters like with some other weight loss aids. It has worked for lots of women, it may work for you too.