Our hormones go cycling through the month and guys are pretty static – period.
In females there is a very strong bond between oestrogen and progesterone (two sex steroids). When we start moving into peri menopause, our female body begins to change (again). The relationship between the two hormones shifts too. Progesterone falls due to lack of ovulation.
Progesterone was there to keep oestrogen under control. What then can feel like “all of a sudden” oestrogen has gone wayward. Unpredictable periods being one.
You may even experience intense cortisol effects. Namely STRESS effects. Changes in the brain relating to and not limited to:
Mood
Drive
Motivation
Worry & Anxiety
Fat storage around the middle
At perimenopause your sleep, hunger, cravings, mood, energy can go out of whack. And this is how you know you are having the stress effect of the above. True also of menopause, post menopause and during “pmt” symptom phase when we are reproductive. Mine’s used to be off. the. scale. at times lol
What Happens When Your Sleep, Hunger, Cravings, Mood & Energy When Under That Stress Effect?
How the hell do you stay on a diet?
Calories increase due to cravings and hunger
You will gain weight easily here
Any diet or exercise protocol becomes very difficult maintain and sustain.
I fell into a trap of over exercising and when it came to food practiced restraint. Eventually my metabolism pushed back so hard that I got very tired. I wouldn’t eat the amount I should have (as healthy as it always is) and completely over did the exercise. I had to do a lot to keep up this behaviour.
My behaviour needed some sorting. Covid came along and It was then I pulled the plug on it all – ably assisted by the Govt. restrictions at that time.
Smarter Eating and Exercising
Look, ageing is not a disease. It is those chronic diseases of ageing that affect our long term health and wellness. By minding your weight with a great food and drink relationship, joyful exercise, (yes that can be power lifting as well:)) lowered levels of stress, better sleep, respite and recovery, you will mitigate the risks. Try a recipe like this http://weightminders.club/recipes/dinner/cauliflower-tikka-masala/ try exercise like this https://vimeo.com/user35401329/summerdancefitness?share=copy I hope you enjoy!
Your metabolism is your chief operating officer (COO) let it take the place of your EGO and do its magic.
Paying attention to your own internal COO!
I’ve been thinking about the best ways I can share a message about your unique metabolism. And yes, it is totally unique to you, like mine is to me.
Naturally you’ll eat to whatever “moderation” looks like for you, based on your:
PHYSIOLOGY (e.g. reproductive years or post)
PYSCOLOGY ( e.g. identical twins who have the same DNA don’t come out identical. You have your own randomness.
PERSONALITY (e.g. your openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness)
PREFERNCE (e.g. carnivore, vegetarian, vegan)
PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES (e.g. single, in a relationship, kids, no kids)
At this point, I could ramble on about the science of metabolism and the family of hormones that control hunger, appetite, cravings and satisfaction but it’s not really the point of this item.
See, for years I never paid attention to those 5 key P’s above. My favourite P was PERFECTIONISM! If my weight was stuck, I would max out the burn and diet until the weight was back down to ‘ideal thin” (not my unique physiology but that of an advertisers ideal).
There is no room for this P in the above weight minders list.
INTERNAL METABOLIC COO METAPHOR
I want to present a metaphor to describe an aspect of metabolism. Think of it a bit like the Chief Operating Officer of a company, a majority shareholder, who is a wise leader. Like all good leaders this COO can help you progress and understand yourself better. Therefore, living as fabulous as you are. If you ignore it, you will lose. That’s because it will do anything just so as you can survive long enough to reproduce. Even beyond those years!
When you are paying attention to this internal COO, you will be acting on internal unique bio feedback and adjusting as a result of the feedback.
Here’s a couple of tips for you: . PRO TIP 1
Hungry? – Eat until you are 80% full. What does this feel like? What is your COO messaging to you? It feels like you are getting full but not until the point you are undoing the top button of your trousers and pulling down your zip 4 inches. Yes, you could eat more but you are not going to.
PRO TIP 2
No Energy? – You’ve got a foggy brain, you cannot recover from one workout to the next, instead you come back and do mind numbing things and put other projects on hold. Your COO is forcing you to sit down because you are not recovering. You are most likely not eating enough for your energy expenditure aka classic diet deprivation mentality. The COO will force feed you by increasing your hunger and cravings.
Just think of the times you have done a lot of crazy exercise! Then you might fight back by going on yet another fruitless diet without any due consideration and respect to what the COO is alerting you to.
Think about how you are working out and the energy you have to do other activities in your life. Is it balanced?
Let’s say you start listening in to your own bio feedback, you ate moderately yesterday. You were able to feel satisfied and not stuffed (ate to 80% fullness), if you were able to take bites of things and not beat yourself up, amazing. Congrats, you’re on the journey to getting to know your intelligent boss a bit better.
The elementary version, listening to the “gurus” is a 1.0 version can be an okay place to start, but learning to work alongside your own metabolic COO is real self trust. Simple but never easy. Easy has to be earned.
I practice listening to my metabolism and really diving in these past years. I have not turned out like a marshmallow, and I am full of energy these days. It is truly quite remarkable what can come up for you when you get to know your body’s metabolic COO.
TDEE I say the majority shareholder because 70% of your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure is BMR (basal metabolic rate) is purely down to every reaction needed to keep you alive day to day. The rest is made up of NEAT, non exercise activity thermogenesis 15% thermic effect of food 10% exercise activity thermogenesis 5%.
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