Menopause is this giant thing to confront for women, a transition that holds extraordinary significance in terms of its physical, mental and emotional ramifications. Add into that mix insulin resistance, a major cause of menopause symptoms, and the whole thing can become beyond overwhelming.
Like many of the women in my community you may have already been transition with peri-menopause or maybe have already been thru it. Either way, this blog is for you as it may hold the key to many of your questions.
The Hormonal Piece of the Puzzle
Menopause is a time in a woman’s life when her hormones are naturally changing in a big way. Interestingly, insulin is a powerful hormone itself, is just one that is part of a complex system of communication that makes everything work in your body during the transition towards menopause.
Think of your hormonal system as email system, one that facilitates communication and balance in body. Hormones command the actions that organs, the body’s systems and the various parts of the body need to take in order to keep the body in balance.
Menopause & insulin can drive something no women like to have: weight gain! Let’s explore how.
Insulin’s Role in the Body
The message that insulin, in particular, is sending is that there needs to be a reduction in the amount of glucose in the blood. We take in glucose (sugar in the blood) and load it up to send to muscle and other cells so that we can move our bodies and fuel our organs, including the brain. We also store a selected amount of glucose in the liver for use as needed.
The body can handle around five teaspoons of glucose at any one time in the blood. The pancreas produced insulin that travels throughout the body, ordering the cells to take up the glucose, thus lowering the level of sugar in the blood.
What Causes Insulin Resistance?
Insulin resistance occurs when insulin essentially stops being able to do its job as effectively. The message still goes out, but the blood sugar levels don’t start to go down as they are supposed to.
There are lots of things that insulin reacts to, and here are a few of the major things to be aware of.
- Inability to integrate emotions – specifically, if there is trouble integrating the emotion of love and fear starts to take over, stagnating the energy of the body.
- Processed Carbohydrate in excess
- Protein
- Lack of an active lifestyle
- Obesity
- Medications: SSRI, anti-inflammatories (steroid),
What Insulin Resistance Causes
Insulin resistance has some serious consequences. It prevents glucose from entering the cell, but also raises estrogen, making it a major cause of menopause symptoms. Here are some other issues that you’ll want to be aware of.
- Thyroid can convert thyroid hormone
- Muscle loss
- Hormonal imbalance
- Fatty liver
- Alzheimer’s
- Type 2 diabetes
Insulin Resistance: A Major Cause of Menopause Symptoms You Can Reverse
The GOOD NEWS about insulin resistance is that insulin resistance can be controlled AND reversed. Since insulin resistance is a major cause of menopause symptoms, you can also reduce the discomfort associated with menopause when you reverse it.
Menopause in and of itself doesn’t cause insulin resistance, but rather insulin resistance is the consequence of overall poor hormonal health. And poor hormonal health is almost always the result of poor dietary habits.
Diet and lifestyle are far more effective than drug therapies, something that’s research based! You can actually eat your way to fixing insulin resistance.
Your One Simple Solution: Food.
It’s not even as hard as you might think it is. Changing our habits and our mindset at age 50 might be a bit more difficult than it would be at age 20, but on the other hand, we’ve also got the experience and self-control to do so many more things than we often give ourselves credit for. You can do this!
I’ve written a complete article on this exact topic. So head over here to read which foods are better to help you reduce your symptoms.
Easy and free solution to reversing a major cause of menopause symptoms!
You Can Do This, Girl!
Some of us are in the habit of beating ourselves up. Those are things that you have to face and put behind you, choosing to start fresh and to approach these things as solutions rather than as obstacles.
What do you have to lose? What could be negative about having a better diet, sleeping better, and most importantly having a positive mindset and a better mind-body relationship? Is a better diet going to make you more unhealthy? Or aggravate your symptoms? Is sleeping more going to make you watch less TV?
The key to this process is to look at the whole thing with open eyes, to be transparent with yourself about what’s going on both within and without. The solution to insulin resistance in menopause truly is simple, wonderfully and almost frighteningly so. You simply have to choose to change your diet and lifestyle
But you don’t have to do it alone! The support and guidance you need are right here. I have seen it time and time after in my practice and my programs, with women in their fifties and sixties reversing type 2 diabetes and defeating insulin resistance. You can do it!
Next steps in your journey
The next steps toward happy and healthy menopause or peri-menopause I’ll suggest you read the following blog posts in my series of article for women:
- Better Sleep during peri-menopause
- Natural remedies for hot flashes
- Optimal Diet for women above 40
Share your thoughts: I want to hear from you…have you been experiencing difficulties with menopause or perimenopause? What are your tips or tricks?