Does Menopause Mean Bye Bye Long-Term Weight Loss?

Weight Loss Progress (Photo credit: Lexinatrix)

If you’re a post menopausal woman, here’s what you have to fight against in order  to achieve long-term weight loss:

• Your motivation declines after you start losing weight
• You have a lower resting metabolism, which is the amount of energy necessary for the body to perform functions like breathing and maintaining heart rate while your body is at rest. What this means is that your body is burning fewer calories to perform these activities when you are at rest than it did prior to menopause
• Your appetite-related hormone levels have increased
• Your brain encourages you to reward yourself for losing weight by eating
• Your natural energy expenditure is less than before

Given all of these negatives, is there any way you can be victorious in the battle to keep weight off? That’s the question a group of researchers wanted to investigate. They evaluated 481 overweight and obese post-menopausal women enrolled in the Women on the Move through Activity and Nutrition (WOMAN) Study to determine if changes in their eating habits would result in weight loss after 6 and 48 months.

The found that after six months weight loss resulted from eating fewer desserts, less restaurant eating, and consuming fewer sugar-sweetened beverages and fried foods. Increased fish consumption also helped in the battle of the bulge.

The results after 48 months showed that weight loss resulted from decreased desserts,  sugar-sweetened beverages and meats/cheeses. Increased fruits/vegetables aided in weight loss.

The conclusion is simple; change the way you eat if you want to take off the weight and keep it off.

~ by chasm63 on October 14, 2012.