If you are a woman over 40, you need to know this.
As we age, we need more protein, nearly double what we needed before, to keep making and maintaining muscle.
From 45 onwards ( 5 to 10 years before you reach menopause), our hormones change, and there is an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone.
This can cause a list of symptoms, one of which is a change in body composition; we now tend to hold fat around the waist.
To counteract that, we need to drastically reduce our consumption of processed carbs, such as pasta, pastries, bread and crackers, cookies, and pizzas; white flour becomes sugar in our system, and our bodies can't deal with this high spike of insulin as they used to.
You need to do strength training. Maintaining firm muscles and bone strength is non-negotiable for balance and autonomy.
Too many women eat little to nothing early in the day and devour all their calories at dinner and later; this is counterproductive and can disturb your sleep.
I see many women fasting and, worst of all, not eating after exercise. Fasting can cause more harm than good for a peri- or menopausal woman; our bodies now tend to be elevated in cortisol, the stress hormone and food is what drops the cortisol level. A body high in cortisol is a stressed body, and a stressed body tends to hold weight.