Women’s Health Series Part 4

We have learned in our series how the natural loss of progesterone & estrogen affects our mood, sleep, gut health, bone health, heart health, & brain health. Lastly, we will look at our metabolic health impact. Loss of estrogen makes our cells less responsive to insulin = more sugar/glucose left in the blood stream = more risk of diabetes. Our metabolism also slows down ☹ and with aging muscle loss we are burning less calories due to that as well. Estrogen controls where we store our fat. Less estrogen leads to the fat going around our abdominal organs. This is very unhealthy and called visceral fat. This kind of fat also releases inflammatory chemicals so it is a double negative.  Our friend progesterone helps control our appetite so with less of that we now want to eat more but we are burning less calories. This is bad math ladies.

Things you can do are limit sugar & processed carbs, exercise, follow a mediterranean diet, and mild intermittent fasting.  We can also do yoga or meditation to lower our stress. All of things I just listed help to keep your cortisol/stress hormone in control. When cortisol is high it helps the process of putting bad fat around your organs.

Have you ever felt like that glass or two of wine or cocktail makes you feel horrible and didn’t use to?  That is a legit problem. Our tolerance goes down and our liver can’t break it down as efficiently. So now it stays in your system longer. I bet you on those nights you have a drink you wake up around 2am?  Yup, that is because your body is still trying to get rid of those drinks. You might have seen a post I did; if you choose alcohol you are choosing to not sleep. At least this one you have complete control over.

If you are taking action and still needing better symptom control, see your gynecologist to see if you are a candidate for hormone replacement therapy. As you have learned your hormones have many important jobs for many aspects of your health. There is much we can do to improve many of these symptoms, our health, and how we age.