Say No to Menopause Weight Gain

Anna Burns

Description

In this book you will learn to say No to the inevitable decline that begins with Menopause and reclaim you body, your
strength, yourself.
By mid-life you will face menopause. Why, in some cultures is it a time to be celebrated, while in ours it heralds the end of so many good things? The end of your youth, the end of your beauty, the end of your joy. The beginning of the end. I propose that menopause is a time to transition to the very best in your life. To become the true you, the strong you, the fittest you. Don’t let menopausal fat-gain hold you back. This is not an inevitability. You can be fit and fab in your fifties and beyond. I will show you how. I have worked for twenty five years as a personal weight-loss coach with mainly women of middle age. I have developed an accurate insight into what holds us back from believing that we can be as lean and fit in our fifties as we were in our thirties. Question the assumptions you make about this stage in life. Is becoming ‘square’ a natural evolution? Or can we retain a slim physique, with our curves still where they should be? Can we fearlessly lift heavier weights than we have ever done? Can we retain our sexy self-image? Yes, of course we can.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Développement personnel
• Santé du quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Women's Health
• Health
• Fitness
• développement personnel

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press UK
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781982286712
• Langue: English

Extrait

SAY NO TO MENOPAUSE WEIGHT GAIN
 
GAIN BACK YOUR LIFE
 
 
 
Anna Burns
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Anna Burns.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
Balboa Press
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.co.uk
UK TFN: 0800 0148647 (Toll Free inside the UK)
UK Local: (02) 0369 56325 ([phone] from outside the UK)
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-9822-8670-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-9822-8671-2 (e)
 
Balboa Press rev. date: 11/28/2022
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1Dismal Expectations
Chapter 2The Menopausal Mind and Soul
Chapter 3The Square Root of the Problem
Chapter 4The End of Dieting As I’ve Known It
Chapter 5Step Into a New Way of Eating
Chapter 6Find Your Strength. Find Your Passion
Chapter 7Sexual Healing
Conclusion
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Final words
About the Author
 
 
 
 
For the fabulous fifty-something women, who inspire me daily.
In memory of my mother, Noreen
INTRODUCTION
In 1997, while working in New Zealand, in the Food Supplement industry, I visited an elderly Obstetrician/Gynaecologist one Friday evening, as a courtesy call on behalf of my company. I was a young twenty-something year old, scientifically-minded, seminar-giving, trainer of pharmacists and health-food shop owners. They came to talks I designed and delivered on subjects ranging from PMT to Menopause; Heart Health to Arthritis; Weight Maintenance to Pregnancy Health. The season at that time was Menopause. I had designed a series of one hour talks on the treatment and management of Menopausal Symptoms, with a view to promoting (obviously!) the products that were on special offer, such as Black Cohosh, Wild Yam, Vitamin E, Evening Primrose oil, Menopause Vitamins & Mineral combinations etc. This courtesy call was with a view to highlighting our products to a man in the business of treating menopausal women, thus highlighting the ‘alternative’ or ‘natural’ treatment options for his patients who might benefit from them.
Though I was not involved in direct sales, I did this as a favour to the owner of the company I worked for. One ‘old boy’ networking, through me, to another ‘old-boy’ whom he knew. This medic was rather traditional in his ways, by New Zealand standards, but open-minded enough to want to listen to me. New Zealand at that stage was possibly twenty years ahead of us in its acceptance of more ‘natural’ treatments and prevention of ill health than our medical model of care here.
Princess Diana had just died and this ‘old-boy’ of very recent English descent was as English as the English themselves, so this story was the starting point to our conversation. In our chat, it was his remarks about the, then, Queen Mother, that struck me and in fact stay with me to this day. “Do you think she would be as upright and straight, without as much as a cane, without a lifetime of hormone replacement behind her?” he asked me. At the time she was an unlikely 94 years old, fit and well. That, in 1997, was considered an extraordinary age (much less so now).
I had not, until this point, considered the long-term effects of hormonal management. I had put hours and hours of research into the myriad symptoms of declining female hormones in the body; from hot flushes, to sleep disturbance; lack of libido to loss of skin elasticity; brain-fog to mid-riff weight-gain. What I had no motivation to look at, until that point, was the effects on longevity; quality of years rather than quantity of years, for the post-menopausal woman of compromised female hormone levels in the body. Joie de vivre versus survival.
This engendered in me (young as I was) an interest in the effects of hormones on the female body, brain and psyche. Was her brightness, aliveness and vitality a direct result of hormonal management for possibly forty-plus years? This intrigued me. I have, in the interim, arrived at a deeper understanding of the vital importance of such hormones for a woman in her menopausal years, experiencing the withdrawal symptoms myself and questioning every single one of them.
Crude as the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) the Queen Mother may have been taking (it would have been horse-urine extract back in the day); the effects on her smiling, upright vitality were plain for all the world to see – she was a living example of a woman living well, in her nineties.
From the outset, I will admit, that I am an avid advocate for the use of hormone replacement therapy, when and if suitable. Why would we not replace hormones as they drop in levels? Why say “yes” to the inevitable decline that comes with declining hormone levels in the body. I say “no” to menopause and question; I question every assumption we have ever made about menopause and continue to question them as I age. In this book I present to you seven chapters on what to question and why, in my opinion, you should. The number one area of interest for me and the clients I have worked with for twenty five years, is in weight maintenance at this stage in life. Weight loss is still possible. We are not done yet!
We need role models we can identify with and be inspired by so that we can become the role models for our daughters’ generation, who will question the very existence and old-fashioned notion of menopause, I expect.
My muse; my inspiration for penning this book is Jane Fonda. Of the same vintage as my mother, she, at 85, never fails to impress me with her vitality, lucidity, energy and purpose. For years she has written and I have read of her life philosophies and approach. In her book, PRIME TIME, Making the most of all of your life , she details her approach to every chapter in life. She didn’t get everything right; she regrets not having a lifelong love and partner.
She, however, embraced her physical health from a young age, dealing with eating disorders and poor self-image. Even after a very rocky start as a young woman, physically, she ploughed through to become a symbol of fitness, fabulousness and ‘high health’ and inspire the likes of me. Far from suffering Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, frailty or passivity, Jane Fonda, instead, embraces all aspects of herself at every age. In being as present to the moment as any ageing person I can think of, for me, she represents what post-menopausal life can and should look like. She remains visible, strong, clear-headed, successful, capable and relevant, for any age.
In a memorable first season of Grace & Frankie (Netflix) she is, at almost eighty, designing vibrators for her peers, blowing expectations of the elderly out of the water. What, they are still sexually active? As a living emblem of the use it or lose it mantra my ode to Jane Fonda ends with a thanks to her for breaking the mould of what is possible and probable for any of us who wish to embrace the mid-life transition to a healthier older woman. Facelifts optional!
Can we leverage such an example to energise our own efforts and give us hope for the future? If we successfully navigate this menopausal transition can we aspire to being present, vital and relevant into our eighties and nineties? Have we the energy and wherewithal to get back our figure and fitness that we enjoyed in our thirties? Of course we have. Perhaps we can be even fitter and more fabulous. Life may actually get better!
Let’s look at the underlying issues around menopause and then deal with the specifics of how to do just that. This next chapter is for us to design. The next phases in life will follow-on whether we embrace this transition or not. I know I’d like to think I’ve laid the very best groundwork for them, now, while my options are so many. We are still young! Living until one hundred is no longer wildly aspirational. Do you want to fight this transition, or embrace it?
When I was growing up and studying Shakespeare in school, we were taught about the seven stages of man. Shakespeare, though beautifully written, may have been limited by his time and level of expectation (not to mention healthcare) as he wrote. He detailed, quite literally, the life-course of a man at that time. Today, in her book Your One Wild and Precious Life , Dr Maureen Gaffney details, from this mid-life perspective, a few extra stages of life. We appear to have gained time for development between the ages of early thirties to late seventies that now fall i