Debra Waterhouse - Menopause Without Weight Gain - The 5 Step Solution to Challenge Your Changing Hormones

To my sister and best friend

Lori Waterhouse Erwin

who radiates beauty inside and out

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Attention All 35- to 55-Year-Old Women: Why You Should Read This Book

Chapter 1: So That’s Why I’m Gaining Weight!

The Life Cycle of a Female Fat Cell

When Fat Cells Turn 35

When Fat Cells Turn 45

When Fat Cells Turn 55

Fat Cells Are Your Menopausal Helper

Taking the ‘Men’ Out of ‘Menopause’

Chapter 2: What Type of Midlife Fat Cells Have You Got?

Fat Cells Prematurely Forced into the Menopause

Postpartum Fat Cells Entering the Menopause while Breastfeeding

Genetically Overactive Fat Cells

Fat Cells on Hormones

Unfit Fat Cells Under Stress

Fat Cells with a Long History of Dieting

Chapter 3: The Meno-Positive Approach to a Trimmer Transition

Teaching 35- to 55-year-old Fat Cells New Tricks

The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Menopausal Women

Repeat After Me: I Am Not on a Diet

Throw Away Your Scales, But Not Your Common Sense

A Tale of Two Menopausal Women

Chapter 4: Acquiring Meno-Positive Attitudes

The Menopause Is Not a Disease to Be Treated; It’s a Transition to Be Experienced

The Placebo vs The Nocebo Effect

Managing Your Midlife Weight Crisis

Diet Humour: Gaining a Whole New Perspective

In Menopause We Trust

Chapter 5: Mastering Meno-Positive Fitness

Starting with a Clean Exercise Slate

Take a Break from Walking

It’s All in the Timing

Hustle to Build Muscle

Exercise Smarter, Not Harder

How About a Little Floor Play?

Chapter 6: Embracing Meno-Positive Eating Habits

Tap into Your Body of Knowledge

Neither Starve Nor Stuff

Downsize Your Meals, Upgrade Your Snacking

Emotional Eating vs Eating Emotionally

It s Mind Over Platter

Chapter 7: Maximizing Meno-Positive Food Choices

Do You Have a Fat-Free Chip on Your Shoulder?

Mind Your Menopausal Food Cravings

Eat Your Oestrogen

Wet Your Appetite

Eat Well for ‘A Change’

Chapter 8: Living A Meno-Positive Lifestyle

Live Today Less Stressed

Mindful Menopause: New Age Medicine for Middle Age

The Pursuit of Hormonal Happiness

Your Midlife Checkup

Lifestyles of the Relaxed and Fearless

Chapter 9: It’s Not Over til the Fat Cell Sings

What Does a Healthy Midlife Woman Look Like?

Patience, Perseverance, Perspective

When the Transition Is Over

Thank You, Fat Cells

Appendix A: Meno-Positive Eating Records

Appendix B: Additional Resources

Appendix C: Suggested Reading

Biblography

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by the Author

Praise for Menopause without Weight Gain

Copyright

About the Publisher

The advice in this book is not intended for persons with chronic illnesses or other conditions that may be worsened by an unsupervised eating and/or exercise programme. The recommendations are not intended to replace or conflict with advice given to you by your doctor or other health professional, and we recommend that you do consult with your doctor. The author and publisher cannot be held responsible for any results arising from use or application of the information in this book.

Except for those who have given permission to appear in this book, all names in this book have been changed. In some cases, composite accounts have been created based on the author’s professional experience.

M enopausal weight gain – it’s real, it’s necessary and it’s the most stubborn weight gain you’ll ever experience. It’s more stubborn than the weight you gained during pregnancy, and it’s as essential as the weight you gained during puberty. It also starts when you’re younger than you’d ever imagine and lasts longer than you’d like.

You may be in your mid-thirties when the first few pounds mysteriously appear regardless of how little you’ve eaten or how much you’ve exercised, in your mid-forties when you come to the disheartening realization that your waist is 2 inches wider and your body is a full size larger, or in your mid-fifties as you wonder if and when it’s ever going to stop. Whether your midlife weight gain is just beginning or finally tapering off, you are among the millions of frustrated women who are crying out for help with their expanding waistlines and changing bodies.

This book is the answer to your universal cry for help – providing the knowledge, understanding and solutions necessary to manage this mysterious weight gain and outsmart your ‘midlife fat cells’.

If you are in your mid-thirties to early forties, your initial reaction may be one of shock and resistance: ‘But I still have my periods and I don’t have hot flushes! I can’t possibly be in midlife! I’m too young to be menopausal!’ The average woman lives to be about 80 years old, so the midway point is age 40 – marking midlife. And, although you are probably too young to be menopausal, you’re not too young to be just entering the transition to the menopause – or, as it is called now, the perimenopause . The menopause is the clinical term used to mark the end of your menstrual cycles, but the perimenopause refers to the years surrounding that event. Not just a couple of years, or a few years, but up to 20 years beforehand. Research is finding that this transition starts in the mid-to late thirties for most women and ends in their mid-fifties. That’s one quarter of our lives!

But most women still think that the menopause involves only a two-to four-year transition. While it’s true that the most intense part of our transition lasts a few years, the initial changes begin more than a decade earlier when ever-so-slight hormonal changes affect your periods, moods and weight. Your premenstrual symptoms begin to transform from moderate tension to ‘PMS from hell’, your mood swings start to become mood sweeps, and your body shape progressively changes from an hourglass to a beer glass. You may have struggled with your weight before, but now the pounds accumulate without any appreciable change in your eating or exercise habits. If you are experiencing a change in your body shape, then you are in the perimenopause and need to work with that reality.

The truth is: Your body changes before you technically enter ‘the change’, and your 30 billion female fat cells enter the menopausal transition before you do.

Each and every one of us has 30 billion fat cells, and a few years ago research finally validated what we had long suspected: fat cells have gender. A woman’s fat cells are physiologically different from a man’s. They are larger, more active and more resistant to dieting. And based on that long-awaited research, I wrote my first book, Outsmarting the Female Fat Cell , to provide a non-dieting solution to weight loss that works with a woman’s fat-storing physiology. At the end of Outsmarting the Female Fat Cell , I cautioned women that when they reach the perimenopause, they will most likely have to outsmart their fat cells again.