When you are 40-50 years old and female, you are in
perimenopause, the time when major changes are happening all over your body, on
the road to the major landmark of menopause. Women have to accomplish in
approximately 18 months what a man gets to spread out over a decade. [The male
version is andropause, when a man's internal biochemistry shifts from
reproduction to conservation of resources for aging.]
Problem
#1: Failing Thyroid
One of the most common problems is a failing thyroid. While many
changes of perimenopause and menopause are normal parts of life, including hot
flashes, a failing thyroid needs intervention,
What does thyroid hormone do?
Thyroid hormone must be absorbed by every cell in your body. It
is the metabolism hormone. Without it, you will experience more and more
lethargy, you will constantly feel cold, you will gain more and more weight and
(if the thyroid levels fall low enough), you will die. The ONLY way to deal
with a thyroid that is failing to produce enough T4 (which is converted to the
active hormone T3) is to supplement with genuine T4 or T3. Syntheroid doesn't
work well for a lot of people but it's cheap so you'll probably start with that
one. Armour is "natural" in that it is taken from the bodies of pigs
who were killed for meat, and that natural moniker appeals to some of us. The
doses aren't going to be precisely equal because every pig is different, which
is why your doc may not love it; it's harder to feel good if you're not getting
the same dose every day, so if your ideology pushes you to Armour (which I
love, by the way), you understand that her concern is your health, not anything
sinister, please. You can also take T3 directly, whose brand name is Cytomel.
Your body needs you to take T4 or T3 every day, so your cells
can have the chemical it needs to run your metabolism. There are NO herbs, and iodine supplements are included
here, that can substitute for thyroid hormone. If you genuinely
need it, do please take it. An iodine supplement can only help if you are not
producing hormone due to an actual iodine deficiency and if you are eating a
healthy diet, you don't have one. You can harm yourself very severely if you
overdose on iodine, so don't muck around with this. Do what your body needs.
Another cure: get serious about exercise. Do
it; stop making excuses. I KNOW that when you aren't
sleeping enough, etc. you get frantic about What Isn't Getting Done. This
increases your stress. There is a solution, it is actually the ONLY
solution, and it will work.
Here's the solution: cut your to-do list in half.
I. AM. SERIOUS. For the first two years that perimenopause starts
and the 18 months of actual menopause you need to cut back your responsibilities
sharply. You have to. You are the exquisite ancestral result of
10,000 generations of people who dealt with reality, not with what they wished
was reality; those folks ended up dead and left the gene pool. You have
to have less worries and responsibilities. Get a good night's sleep and
hire a life coach like me and make it happen.
This is a major biological transition and moderate exercise (energetic walking, treadmilling and
spinning, yoga, weights work, classes, etc.) every single day will improve your
hormonal balance every single day. I know you hate this
truth, but it is a truth, supported by reams of clinical evidence. Moving
enough to get a mild sweat going shifts your bouncing hormone levels onto a
more even keel. They need to trend downward slowly; you can deal with
that. It's when they are all over the place that your poor brain gets
crazy and has you drenching sweat one
minute and freezing the next and sleeping deeply and healthfully never If
you want the torment to stop, lace up your shoes and re-read/view/listen to the
Moving Domain.
Taking hormone supplements (even the natural, bioidentical,
blah-blah stuff) ups your chances of breast cancer. Think breast cancer will be less
hassle than exercising every day? By the time
we hit 45, we're past the fantasy that devastating problems and illnesses only
happen to other people. Whatever it takes, make exercise and healthy
eating your priority.
Eat more soy. Soy metabolizes as a
molecule that looks enough like estradiol (estrogen) that it connects to
hormone receptors on cells and makes your body think it has more hormone than
it really does. So your peri- and menopause symptoms are less intense.
Japanese women have lower levels of reproductive cancers and easier
menopause and a lot of the reason is soy in the diet. Soy milk.
Edamame. Tempeh. Tofu that's flavored. If all you've
ever eaten is the boring while stuff, that's only for the hard-core. Ordinary folks like
me get the flavored stuff, yum. Non-meat sausage, bacon and you-name-it
can be made from tapioca and other healthy substances, but a lot of it is soy.
Enjoy!
Problem
#2: Catastrophically dropping calorie requirements
This cause of slow and steady weight gain during the
perimenopause and menopause years is a sharp drop in your metabolic rate. You burn less calories just running basic
processes. You will have to cut 100-300
calories per day out of what you input by changing what you eat or eating less
overall food per day. You’ll be mildly hungry
a lot of the time, because of the crazy hormones, and if you respond with
eating, you will compound the problem.
Good news: exercise dulls your appetite as well as revving up
your metabolism for several hours. The
amount you burn working out is trivial compared to the benefit of boosting your
metabolism. Adding muscle – not bulk,
remember; breathe! – adds to your metabolic rate because muscles burn up
calories getting ready to leap into action, whereas fat just sits there.
The good news about this 2nd issue is that you don’t
need a manufactured hormone to save you.
You can be the heroine of this story all on your own.
Check out 101 Stress Busters for Energy, Joy & Healthy Longevity for great ideas!! Only $1.99 on Kindle; $9.99 in paper.
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victoria@soaringdragon.biz
