Often, when women reach menopause, they experience weight gain. You can thank a slowing metabolism for this! Even if you have followed a healthy diet and have exercised regularly your whole life, after menopause, you need to make adjustments to both if you want to keep the weight off. There are three steps to boost your metabolism in early menopause and beyond:
1. Sweat more. When your daily exercise becomes routine, your body condition adjusts to it and allows your metabolism to slide into autopilot. But if you increase the intensity of your workout so that its challenging again, youll boost your metabolism and lose weight, even if your new workout burns the same number of calories. So increase the intensity, and youll boost your weight loss.
2. Pump some iron. By middle age, most women progressively lose muscle and gain fat mass. Because it takes significantly less fuel to feed and maintain fat mass, you can eat the same number of calories and engage in the same amount of physical activity as you did 10 years ago, and still gain weight.
Strength training helps retrieve some of the muscle youve lost and automatically increases your daily calorie burn, even on days when youre not active. Why? Because, as youve probably heard time and time again, muscle consumes more fuel than fat. All you have to do is challenge your muscles more than theyre currently being challenged. For instance, if youre using 5-lb. weights, move up to 8-lb. weights. As your condition improves, either increase the intensity of your workout or change your routine so that youre working different muscle groups.
3. Add these nutrients, which boost metabolism:
Brewers yeast contains anti-aging enzymes called sirtuins, which boost metabolism and stamina. I recommend Jarrow Formulas Saccharomyces Boulardii + MOS (www.jarrow.com).
Resveratrol is a sirtuin activator. I recommend 200 mg of resveratrol, standardized to at least 8 percent total resveratrols and mixed with flavonoids for better bioavailability. I like Jarrow Formulas Resveratrol Synergy
(www.jarrow.com).