Aging and Menopause

Fat gain and menopause… What the heck is really going on? Well, unfortunately, what we often blame on menopause is actually just the aging process doing its thing. However, there is significant overlap between the two that make resistance training more critical than ever. Here’s why.

Let’s start with estrogen. This female sex hormone is necessary for strength and maintaining muscle mass (side note: testosterone does the same for men). Specifically during menopause, but also once the mid to late forties hit, estrogen levels drop - hence why ovulation eventually stops. It isn’t an “all of the sudden” thing, but the aging process paired with perimenopausal hormone shifts cause a steady decline in estrogen over an extended period of time and as a result, muscle mass decreases.

Ever heard the phrase, “muscle burns more calories than fat”? Well, it’s true. Your trainer isn’t just telling you that to sell you more protein powder. Compared to fat (aka adipose tissue), muscle tissue has a wildly greater caloric demand. Metabolically, it is much more expensive. This means that a body with greater muscle mass is going to require more calories for daily energy expenditure than a body with less muscle mass, even if those two bodies weigh exactly the same on the scale.

Knowing that aging and menopause both contribute to a decline in estrogen thus muscle mass, we can infer that a body undergoing one (or both) of these processes will require fewer calories per day over time because less muscle mass = less calories needed for daily activities. The tricky thing, though, is that both are also gradual processes, which means that fat gain can slowly creep up on us even if we continue to eat and exercise the same as we always have.

While this happens in men too - the aging, not the menopause part -  it isn’t as noticeable. Differences in male/female sex hormones change the rate in which muscle mass loss occurs. Additionally, men typically have more muscle mass to start with, which means that the decline in required calories to sustain daily activities reduces at a much slower rate.

So what about that stubborn belly fat that you’ve never noticed before? That has to be connected to menopause, right? Belly fat gain does happen in women undergoing menopause, but this is typically still a calorie balance thing… More calories are being consumed than burned. Aging is the primary culprit here, though it can be challenging to decipher between aging and menopause since the two happen concurrently. However, studies have shown that fat distribution can shift in relation to hormone changes. Meaning, menopause can cause fat gain to present itself in the belly region instead of other places where fat used to be stored, like the arms or thighs.

Regardless of whether fat gain is occurring because of aging or menopause, when resistance training is performed consistently, preferably at a high intensity, the higher the likelihood of minimizing muscle loss. Therefore, the “hack” for losing weight while aging and/or navigating menopause is resistance training. Plain and simple.