Here's the truth - menopause is happening! But fear not, my friend, it will not control your life! You can absolutely come out the other side feeling stronger than ever. In this episode, I share five proven ways (backed by real research, of course) to reverse menopause weight gain. Remember - menopause is NOT a life sentence, but you still need to take the right steps to keep feeling great and seeing the results you desire. 

The menopausal transition actually begins in your 30s and can last as long as 15 years. During this time, your estrogen levels fluctuate, and this can lead to weight gain, especially in the belly area. But with consistency and the tips I share today, you'll be feeling like the best version of yourself in no time! 

The Nutrition Project is a 12-week live group program that addresses your challenges in real-time. You will learn my eating methodology and gain direct access to me for in-person coaching. Add your name at hollyperkins.com/workshop.

Want FREE access to my brand new four-week strength training plan, Strength Without Stress? Head over to hollyperkins.com/review where you can upload a screenshot of your review and gain immediate access. This is a limited-time offer before it sells for $197, so be sure to grab it now!

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Topics Covered:

• My experience with menopause 
• Taking an honest assessment of your habits and your activity level 
• Why you need to be eating breakfast 
• How stick to strength training and forget about eating low carb
• The truth about fasting

Resources Mentioned:

• Listen to the first 13 episodes of Holly Perkins Health Podcast HERE
• Join the waitlist for The Body Composition Project HERE 
• Listen to Episode 3 HERE
• Research on genetics of early and normal menopause HERE 
• Research on the role of estrogens in energy balance HERE 
• Research on the role of estrogen in metabolism HERE 
• Research on postmenopausal energy expenditure HERE 
• Research on weight gain at midlife HERE

Follow Me: 

Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkins

Learn more on my website: hollyperkins.com

Connect with me on Facebook: facebook.com/HollyPerkinsFitness/

Disclaimer: Content and information as part of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast is for general interest, education, and entertainment purposes only. The use of information on this podcast or materials or products linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions.

Holly Perkins 0:00

The menopausal transition actually begins in your 30s During the phase of perimenopause. This is the life stage when your estrogen begins fluctuating, whether you realize it or not, and which can last as long as 15 years, the average age of menopause is 51. And if you count backwards, this means that the hormonal repercussions of this monumental shift in your body can start around the age of 36. Throughout this time in your life, low estrogen levels promote fat storage in the belly area as visceral fat, which we know is the most dangerous kind of fat, and it leads to weight gain. In general, the research shows an average of 1.5 pounds of weight gain per year, after the age of 50. Increased body fat and menopause go hand in hand, it is a fact. As always, I've linked the research below. And it's not your fault. This hormonal journey is out of your hands. But you don't have to accept the consequences. And there are so many things that you can do to reverse the menopause weight game. So keep listening.

Holly Perkins 1:21

Hello, and welcome. I am so glad that you're here. If you are new around here. Welcome. I'm Holly Perkins. And after 30 years in practice, I've accumulated a ton of knowledge and insights into helping women create the body that you need to keep up with this life that you love. And through the years, I've identified the most powerful practices for improving energy, releasing body fat so that you can lose weight, if that's your goal, and increasing metabolically active lean muscle, so you can improve body composition and reduce the risk of disease. This podcast will help you use strength training and intentional nutrition to feel good, look great, and improve your health. If you're over 45, I'm going to assume that you're probably noticing more hormone related symptoms, and you probably just don't feel like yourself. Maybe you're more tired than usual. Or maybe you're experiencing more hunger or food cravings or gaining weight. Even though your habits haven't changed that much. If you feel like menopause is hitting you hard and causing you to gain weight, you are not alone and this episode will help. In this episode, you'll learn key questions to ask yourself to determine if your habits are where they need to be. In order to lose fat. You'll learn the meal that makes the biggest difference in fat burning, you'll learn the signs of progress to look for that must come before fat loss. And you'll learn some of the key questions I asked my clients to help them get the body that they want.

Holly Perkins 3:15

So here's the truth. If you know me, you know I'm always the truth speaker. And without a doubt, the change in estrogen around menopause causes some pretty hard and heavy symptoms for some women. In my experience, a lot of women. And as I've said before, for many women, the phase from perimenopause through menopause is an earthquake for many women. And as I've said, this can last 15 years. For some of us. The weight gain that comes during these years is not your fault. And it's not only the result of your habits, now we're going to talk about habits in a moment because they do matter. But because of the loss of estrogen, your body changes in big ways. And the research says it best menopause itself doesn't cause weight gain, specifically, but all of the associated biological changes do. And this is good news because there really are very specific things that you can do to address your biology and the biology behind the symptoms. So you can lose the weight that is the result of this stage in life. Remember, menopause is happening to you and it is a fact and you have more influence over it than you realize. You can absolutely win the hormonal battle. I've done it and I see my clients doing it every single day.

Holly Perkins 4:55

So let's get into five ways to reverse the menopause weight gain First, I want to share a little bit of my personal story because I think there is a lot of stigma around this word, menopause. So when I was in my early 40s, I was in fabulous shape, great, great shape, I felt so young. And so fit. In my mind, I was way too young to be even entertaining this word menopause. And while that's true, and while you might be in this age category, let's say between 35 and 45, menopause feels like this distant event that happens to other women who are much older than you. I felt this 42 to 45, all the way through to 46. And the truth is, I almost want to take out this word menopause because it's such a misunderstood term. If you're over the age of 35, you're beginning your menopausal transition. I know you might not want to hear that. But we got to pull back and talk about what's happening hormonally. After the age of 35, every single woman's estrogen is beginning to fluctuate. Some of us it's sooner, some of us, it's later, if you're in this age demographic, simply by age, you are in the peri menopausal phase, or you're going through the peri menopausal transition, until you have not had a menstrual cycle for a full 12 months. And then you're in full menopause. If you're in this age category, let's say 35 to 55. Today's conversation is relevant. Because even if you haven't yet experienced what you would call weight gain as related to menopause, if you're noticing some of these hormonal symptoms, and you just feel different, and like I said, you're over the age of 35. And you're just noticing your body is acting erratic, you're starting to notice symptoms that you've never had before. It could be allergies, it could be depression, anxiety, mood swings, I was dealing with a lot of these symptoms, and in no way associated it with the decline of estrogen, but in some way it was.

Holly Perkins 7:09

The first thing you can do to reverse menopause weight gain is to do an honest assessment of your habits and your activity level. See if you can become more objective about the factors that are influencing your weight game. A big mistake I see people make is overlooking the very real consideration that your habits over the past few years have slipped, and that you're eating differently or exercising less. And that is a big factor in weight gain. Now hear me loud and clear. This is not about you blaming yourself or feeling guilty about the weight gain. As I said, it's not your fault. Because menopause is no joke. Same with perimenopause. And it is a big contributing factor to wherever your body fat is. And if you truly want to reverse any weight gain you may have experienced through these years, you've got to take a look at your habits. Number one, are you exercising less than you used to? Number two? Or are you mostly walking when it used to be that you would do spin classes? Are you drinking more wine more frequently? Or in greater amounts than you used to? Even if it's only once per week? Have you started nibbling more because you're hungrier? Or are you letting refined foods or sugar sneak into your diet more? Are you strength training? Because around and during these years, you start to lose muscle and you must be strength training to maintain your muscle mass so that that muscle mass can manage body fat. And have you been consistent in your habits, your eating and your exercise for the past three to six months? I want you to ask yourself these questions, honestly, and look back to a time when your body weight was where you wanted it to be or before you gained what you would call the menopause weight gain.

Holly Perkins 9:24

The truth is when you get objective about really looking at your habits, often you might realize that your habits are different now than they were five or 10 years ago. Again, this is not about the blame game. It's really just about honestly assessing what your habits look like because it might simply mean you need to change some of these habits. There is a complex biological cascade that occurs as a result of declining estrogen which starts in your mid 30s. And it absolutely impacts your metabolism in a way, that makes it a whole lot easier to gain weight. For example, the decline in estrogen causes more inflammation. I've talked about this on other podcast episodes. And inflammation causes an increase in cortisol. And the increase in cortisol means that you process carbohydrates differently. Because of this, your body becomes less sensitive to insulin, and your body will store more calories as body fat. Estrogen is also energizing, and it makes you feel good. As it declines or fluctuates. There's a tendency to not feel as good as you used to, you may notice that you just don't feel well more frequently. And what do most of us do when we don't feel? Well? Well, we usually skip our workouts. And a lot of times we eat comforting foods, that's certainly what I do when I don't feel well. My clients often report that they are frequently tired, and they don't have the energy to work out. So they exercise less. And these are some of the reasons how that biological cascade impacts your habits. But then ultimately, it's the habits that lead to changes in your body, and specifically in body composition, and body fat. And while this is all very real, the truth is that these habits do lead to weight gain. If you exercise less than you used to your body's going to change. If you eat food, seeking energy or comfort, you are going to have different health.

Research shows that postmenopausal women are generally less active than they were when they were younger, which reduces the energy expenditure and leads to a loss of muscle mass. So if you think back to those earlier days, when you were smaller or skinnier, are in better shape. Ask yourself, were you just more active and that could mean a more active social life that could mean a more physically busy work life. That could mean if you had younger children, you were running around more going to the grocery store more. This isn't just about your workouts. It's how much energy did you expend in a given day, through busyness? Ask yourself honestly and objectively without blame and without guilt? Is it possible that you move less now than you did when you were 30 or 40? Or do you move less now or eat differently now than you did when you were at the body weight or body composition that you want to get back to? If this is you, it's really important to acknowledge that you're less active now as compared to before the menopause weight gain, because then it's simply a matter of getting more consistent with your activity or your workouts or your diet. And this is why I am a huge proponent of following a formalized training plan and having some accountability, being on it. Being on a program really helps you to stay consistent and on track. And at the activity levels that you need to be at to achieve healthy body composition. I've always said it being on a program makes all the difference in the world.

I noticed that when women are trying to self manage their diet or their exercise plan, they really struggle because you're left to your own moods and energy levels and preferences. Rather than following the parameters of a plan. If you're on a plan, and you're following it, it takes away some of that self editing and self choice as to do your work out today or not. If you're following a program you work out today, you tend to second guess yourself, if you're self managing your programming, and you tend to second guess your program and tend to program hop whenever something isn't working. So let's say you're consistent for two weeks, you're not getting the results that you want. So you think oh, well maybe my program that I've created in my mind isn't working. So I'm going to do what my friend said was working for her or you hop to a new program because it was the headline in today's email or A headline on your favorite blog, it's very easy to program hop if you're not on a consistent program and following it from top to bottom. The truth is, once you're on a program, and you stick with it, the results pretty much always come along. And sometimes clients come to me exasperated, because they are actually exercising more than before the weight gain, and they're exercising harder, and they are doing all of the things, they're exercising more they're eating right. And this absolutely does happen where you might truly be doing all of the things. And the menopause, weight gain is not releasing, if this is you, please make sure that you listen to episode three of this podcast, when your workout isn't working. Because you might be exercising too hard, or too long or too frequently, you might be going at it too hard, and therefore causing too much inflammation. And in that situation, you're not going to release the body fat.

So the first thing that you can do to reverse the menopause weight gain is to take an honest look at your habits, and get some help if you need it. So that you can eat an exercise, right? To burn off the extra body fat, your strategy and your programming does matter. Pick a plan and stick with it for at least three to four months before you change your strategy. As long as you're seeing some degree of results, every two weeks, the weight will come off, I promise. The problem is if you're looking for the results to happen within a week or two weeks, they generally don't. And that's where you enter into the territory of program hopping. On that note, I think this is the perfect time honestly to share that I will be announcing a brand new program in the coming weeks. I've been teasing it for a while if you're on the inside. And this program is not to be missed, especially if you're ready to make some big changes in your body or in your health this year. So over the past few years, I think starting starting in about 2020 I have been developing a group coaching program that is really producing some truly extraordinary results that honestly even I've been blown away by. And while I've been coaching women for 30 years now I think the reason why we're getting such good results in this program is because I've started really zeroing in on body composition as the target rather than body weight. And helping my clients achieve that important value of at least 70% lean muscle mass so that they are more muscle less fat and healthier overall. Again, I've done podcast episodes on this, make sure you go back and listen. Because if you're chasing the weight target, you might be missing the mark if you're not actually assessing your body composition. So regardless of body weight, if I coach you to achieve 70% of your body weight at any body weight as muscle, you're gonna love the results, I promise. It doesn't matter if you weigh 200 pounds, 175 pounds, 150 pounds or 90 pounds. If you reach 70% of that body weight as muscle, you're going to be happy. My clients have stopped focusing on the scale and started obsessing over body composition. And this produces a smaller, tighter, leaner, truly healthier body a truly healthier version of you. And you feel lean you feel mean and strong and full of energy. When you get to this 70% of body composition as lean muscle mass. It's really powerful. And notice we don't even really talk about body weight. It's about getting your body fat into the right percentage range, which reflects 70% of lean muscle mass or more.

So if your 2024 is the year for you to transform your body, and to truly make some big changes so that you can finally say without a doubt I am strong I am fit, I feel good and I am confident that my health is truly on track. Be sure to add your name to the waitlist and be notified when the body composition project kicks off. If you're interested in having me as your coach, and being part of an incredible group of women, you can sign up add your name to the list so that I'll notify you first. Once we've got some real announcements around it, come over to Holly perkins.com, forward slash body waitlist, all one word, body waitlist. And you'll be the first to hear more details as I roll out this program in the coming probably month or two. So let's move on.

The second thing that you can do to reverse menopause weight gain is drumroll start eating breakfast and make sure that your macronutrients are balanced after this meal. And yes, that is right. I know that there is a ton of conflicting information out there about whether you should eat breakfast or not. Even for me every single day, I'm reading a new headline that says breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And then the next one says it's absolutely not. Listen, I get it. I know it's confusing. And I know there is a ton of conflicting information out there. Here's what I'll say to that, it can really go in either direction, be sure to listen to at least the first 10 episodes of this podcast because I go into a lot of the nitty gritty around this conversation. And I will say that there is a ton of research to support the fact that when you eat breakfast, you set your body's glucose regulation for the whole day. And we know that blood sugar regulation is absolutely essential for fat burning. And both sides of the conflict agree with this, those voices and experts that are proponents of low carb or ketogenic eating or fasting, we'll say the reason those approaches work is because it regulates blood sugar levels, which is true, but it's a whole other mechanism. And it's a whole other approach to hacking your biology. As I've always said, why hack your biology, when your biology on its own works great when you give it what it's intended to have. And that is blood glucose regulation, you must have stable blood sugar levels in order to maximize that burning all day, even while you sleep. And this is the ultimate hack to burning off extra body fat. But you can achieve it by eating consistently throughout the day, starting with breakfast, so that you tell your body to regulate glucose and burn fat for the rest of the day. When you're active when you're up and about and running around and burning the majority of your calories. When you do this, you're also going to feel better during the day. And I don't know about you. But when I feel good during the day, I'm more active, I get a better workout, I want to do more. I want to work out and go for a walk and be busy throughout my day, whatever that looks like for you. But for me, it's kind of being busy around my house or being busy busy within my work. When your blood glucose is stable, you'll have more energy.

Here are some of the benefits of establishing blood sugar at the start of the day, by eating breakfast. And by eating a macronutrient balanced meal as that first meal of the day. Studies show that you'll be less hungry at night if you eat a macronutrient balanced breakfast within an hour of waking before your heart rate elevates too much, and before your brain gets very busy with the busyness of your day. Number two, eating upon waking breaks your overnight fast and provides glucose to your brain and your muscles. So you can think and move during the day. Fasting of any kind is catabolic. And if it's done improperly, it destroys the very muscle that you're trying to maintain or build. So while an overnight fast is helpful, that is why we don't eat it at night. It is important to fast overnight. You want to end that fast during the hours of the day when your body actually needs fuel. If you're upright and thinking and moving around your brain and Your muscles need glucose, full stop. That's the basic biology of the human body. Now, I am not a fan of extended fasting in general at all. But if you feel that fasting is working for you, you can do what I call early, not what I call what the industry calls, early time restricted feeding. And what this means is, you eat for the early part of the day, you eat for the first eight hours of the day, or 10, or 12. And then you fast for the remaining hours of the day. This is the flip flop of what a lot of people are doing, a lot of people are fasting until noon, or one and then eating their food in the second half of the day, so that they can have a big meal, and so they can eat at night, it's actually not as effective. Instead, if you shift your eating window to the front half of the day, you're going to feel better, you're going to burn fat better, you're going to burn more calories, and you're going to feel better overall. But also, the studies show that that early time restricted feeding is actually more effective for weight loss. But oh, by the way, most of the research really is inconclusive if fasting is effective for weight loss at all.

The big mistake I see people make is skipping breakfast as a means of fasting or as a sort of bastardized version of fasting. But then being so hungry in the evening, that they ultimately end up eating more calories during the day, or as many calories as they would have eaten if they've spread, spread those calories out throughout the day. As we know, you must be in a calorie deficit in order to burn off body fat. And that's why fasting for the first half of the day can become problematic. Because ultimately, if you're just getting hungrier the rest of the day, chances are you're probably going to eat more calories. Fasting can be helpful for limited phases. But most people aren't even doing it effectively.

Your body is a machine. It's a Ferrari, I say this all the time. And it needs fuel while it's running. Why starve yourself until noon, when you don't have to when it's backfiring. Anyway, if you are fasting, do it properly and do it for short periods of time, maybe one to two weeks, per month or every few months. More on that in a moment.

The third thing that you can do to reverse menopause weight gain is to lift weights and avoid going low carb, these two things are not compatible. And yet every woman who comes to me struggling is doing this. She's working out she's lifting weights, and she is claiming to be low carb. If you've listened to more than one of my podcast episodes, you know, I preach strength training full stop. In my experience, it is the best, the most effective way to truly transform your body, your health, and therefore your life. Strength training is powerful for burning off body fat. And it's absolutely essential, absolutely mandatory if you want to achieve that 70% lean muscle mass body composition, which indicates a lower risk of chronic disease.

If you want to reverse menopause weight gain strength train three times per week, like your life depends on it. And forget about going low carb if you don't exercise much or if your primary activity is just kind of leisurely walking or walking the dog or even a brisk walk at night. Low Carb can be an effective approach. It can work but there's a direct correlation between activity and carbohydrate intake. The more active you are, the more carbs you need. The higher your heart rate gets, the more carbs you need. And building muscle requires more carbs. The more muscle you have or the more muscle you want, the more carbs you need in direct proportion. Now, if you're new around here, it's important to put that into context. Because you can't just say blindly carbs are good and I need to eat a lot of carbs. That doesn't work. Either I teach a 5025 25 approach to macronutrient distribution. This means that 50% of your daily calories are coming from carbohydrates. 25% of your daily calories are coming from protein, and 25% of your daily calories are coming from fat. You can't arbitrarily eat more carbs, because you have no way of truly knowing what percentage you're eating. Because if you're eating 70, or 80%, carbohydrates, that doesn't work either. There are three macronutrients and only three macronutrients, carbohydrates, protein, and fat. And if you think about it from, you know, sort of the master design of biology, why is it that there are three and only three macronutrients that the human body needs, we need them, mostly in equal proportions, almost an equal proportions, it's not a 3333 33. But it's close at a bare minimum, you've got to have more carbohydrates and the amount of protein and fat that you're eating. So at a bare minimum around here, 4030 30. But if you're active, and you're working out, and you're building muscle, and you're lifting and your strength training, you need more than that bare minimum of 40% carbohydrates. All you've got to do is track what you're eating for about a week, take a look at what your macronutrient distribution looks like, and adjust it so that the foods that you're eating help you achieve between 40 and 50%, carbs, give or take 5%.

Now listen, if you're terrified of that, which a lot of times when clients come to me they are, if you have been low carb for a while, and it's just scary to hear this, I suggest that you start at 40% of your daily calories coming from carbohydrates, because that really is still considered a lower carbohydrate approach, then gradually make your way up to at least 45% of your daily calories coming from carbohydrates. From combined sources, of course, making sure that you're choosing healthy carbohydrates, slower digesting high fiber, low glycemic index carbohydrates. I know it's scary, but I have just seen way too much evidence that this approach works. And I just don't support in any way a low carb approach anymore. unless for some reason you're treating a medical condition. That's a whole other conversation. While ultra low carb, and a ketogenic type diet can work, I find it's more restrictive and unrealistic than it needs to be. You can achieve the same exact results by eating carbs, when you're strategic about it, and when you're consistent. And really when you think about it, who doesn't want to eat carbs, right? Most of us our beloved foods include carbohydrates.

The fourth thing that you can do to reverse the menopause weight gain is to stop fasting altogether. If it's not working for you, what a concept, huh? This one always makes me giggle. Because I have clients that come to me when they're new. And they swear by fasting. And when I ask some questions and probe a little bit deeper, objectively, most of the time, they realize that they're not actually getting the results that they want from fasting. If they weren't getting the results that they want, they wouldn't be coming to me for coaching, right? And yet, if this is you, you might be clinging to this idea that fasting is working for you. And you've got to really ask yourself, is it the key here is to ask yourself, if you're actually getting the results that you think that you should be getting from fasting, is it actually working for you? If it is awesome, fast forward through this section, and on to the next conversation for Tip five.

But if you're fasting to lose weight, and you're not losing weight, stop fasting. Right? The whole proposition of fasting is that it induces what's called Autophagy. Make sure you educate yourself about fasting. And while autophagy looks awesome on paper, it does it really does. So it's built on the premise of catabolism. And what that means is catabolism is the metabolism where your body is breaking down tissues and cells, you're breaking down your own tissues and cells as a means of cleaning house. And I do love this idea. And I believe that dedicated fasting for a set number of days, once or twice per year can be really great. The problem is, many people have adopted it as a lifestyle. And it's not really intended for that it never was, again, educate yourself, approach fasting, like it's a medically oriented strategy to be used for health. Because the research really shows it's not that effective for weight loss. It's great for other things, but it never really was intended to be a tool for fat loss. The goal is to become a lean, mean, fat burning machine like an athlete, and that takes food and fuel so that your machine is burning hot all the time, you will never meet a female physique, athlete or competitor who's over 40, who fasts on a daily basis. In this industry, we know that in order to really build a lean physique, a powerful machine, you've got to eat consistently, so as to avoid letting your blood sugar levels get too low. If fasting is truly working for you, awesome. But if it's not, it's time to rethink your strategy and try something else.

And the fifth thing that you can do to reverse the menopause weight gain is to forget about losing the weight quickly. It never works. Focus on ensuring that you're seeing results every two weeks, and put weight loss at the bottom of the list of results that you want to get. The truth is, you're going to feel better, and see associated results before your body fat shifts. So there's all of these benefits and all of the signs of progress that have to happen first, before you'll see the scale change. If you're seeing results every week, or every two weeks, your weight will eventually start to move. But in my experience, it's the last thing to move. The results that you want to be looking for week after week are number one, do you feel better? Because if you do, something's working, so just stay the course. Number two, do you feel tighter or leaner? Regardless of what the scale says? So when you're exercising, or when you wake up in the morning, do you feel like your body is going in the right direction? If so, keep going and the weight loss will come? Number three, do you feel better during your workout? So do you feel stronger or better able to generate strength or more fit in general? If you see that progress, you're going in the right direction and the weight loss will follow. Are you sleeping better? Are you eating better? Because if you're eating better, and you keep going and you stay consistent, it's going to be reflected in your clothing and on the scale. And on that note, do your clothes differently? Or do they fit better? Even if the scale hasn't changed? It always makes me giggle. Women will come to me. And they'll say the first thing they'll say is I'm not losing weight. It's not working. And then I probe all of these important signs of progress. And they're all there. But it's like, oh, but because the scale hasn't moved. None of those other benefits matter. And the truth is, if your clothes are fitting better, and you're sleeping better, and you feel better, and you feel tighter and leaner, you're going in the right direction. So why negate all of that and throw it out the window just because the scale hasn't changed. Yet. Another example does your midsection feel smaller or tighter? Because if it does, your body fat is changing. Do you feel less bloated? Because if you do your metabolism is changing, and are you lifting heavier during your workouts, because if you are, you're building muscle you're becoming more fit, your metabolism is going to run hotter, and you're eventually going to burn off that extra body fat. All of these things have to happen before the scale moves unless you're just starving yourself. And if you're experiencing these benefits, and you just keep going, the body fat will come off.

The rule I have for my coaching clients is every week, I want to see some kind of new sign of progress every two weeks for sure, every two weeks, your progress photos should look different, or your clothes should fit different. Or if you're using a body composition, scan or circumference measurements, we should see a change. But all of that's going to happen before the scale changes. So as always, my message is stop focusing on weight, stop chasing the scale, Chase everything else, and you're going to be even more blown away by your body and by your results than you even thought possible. I've been in business long enough to be able to say, I promise.

And that is it five ways that actually work to reverse the menopause weight gain. Now remember, remember, this is important. You didn't gain the weight overnight, so you're not going to lose the weight overnight. If it took you three or four or five years or more to gain the weight. Why would you expect it to all come off in six weeks. I encourage you to surrender to the process and focus on making improvements each week. Enjoy the process. Celebrate the signs of progress. celebrate the wins. If you keep making improvements week after week, the weight will come off if you stay consistent. Menopause is not for the faint of heart. It is brutal for some of us. And it does not mean that you're stuck with more body fat than you want. It is not a life sentence. And you can create new habits to address the underlying biology that led to the weight gain in the first place. Menopause is simply a prompt to start doing things differently. And when you do, you'll get different results. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, let me know remember, you can get access to my four week strength without stress program for FREE simply by rating and review this episode now. Wherever you're listening. Just post your review post your comments, share your thoughts, grab a screenshot and then send it to me over at Holly perkins.com forward slash review. When you do that you will get immediate access to strength without stress completely for free for ever. Stay tuned for another brand new episode on Tuesday next week. I will see you then stay strong my friend