Menopausal Weight Loss: How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off During Menopause

• Are you a female who’s reached the stage where the extra weight starts piling on, no matter what you do?
• Are you tired and frustrated after trying every diet and fasting hack to lose a few pounds only to sit there, stuck in neutral, or even worse—to gain even more weight?
• Are you ready to feel good and have the energy to keep up with your family, grandkids, and life?  

Good news!  We have stumbled upon the solution for those battling the ominous weight gain that often occurs after menopause!

We initially designed our tools and systems to help people optimise their blood glucose and body composition. 

But, to our surprise, we attracted a solid following of middle-aged women who’d tried so many other approaches like fasting, keto, calorie counting and carnivore.  These women are now thriving after finding our programs!

The Problem

As youthful hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone decrease as we age, maintaining a healthy body composition becomes harder for both men and women.  While women’s hormones are more complex, the problem—and thus the solution—is the same for everyone battling weight creep and declining metabolic health.  But for women, this change occurs more abruptly in the post-menopausal years when hormones change rapidly.   

The recent paper, Weight Gain during the menopause transition: Evidence for a Mechanism Dependent on Protein Leverage, helped us pinpoint the problem and understand why our systems have been so helpful for so many middle-aged women. 

1. Decreasing estrogen and increasing follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) in the menopausal years make it harder for a woman’s body to hold onto precious muscle (and bone mass). 
2. Decreasing muscle mass and less activity means older women require less energy but more protein to maintain the precious metabolically active muscle they have. 
3. Increased appetite for protein to combat muscle loss caused by the changing hormonal milieu.  
4. Body fat as someone responds to increased cravings for protein by eating more calorie-ridden fat-and-carb foods despite a slowing metabolism.  This leads to worsening metabolic health, insulin resistance, Type-2 Diabetes, and the many associated complications.   

The Solution

So the simple solution to menopausal weight gain is to:

• prioritise dietary protein while
• dialling back energy from carbs and fat.  

It sounds simple, but it can get tricky in practice!

This is not just another diet that forces you to eat less. 

Changing what we eat directly influences how much we eat!

In line with protein leverage theory, our satiety analysis has shown that we eat less when we increase the percentage of total energy from dietary protein.  At Optimising Nutrition, we often refer to this as protein %.  Our programs guide Optimisers to achieve an increased protein % by prioritising protein while incrementally dialling back the energy from fat and carbs. 

Aside from protein, we have also identified several key nutrients that we appear to crave, including calcium, iron, potassium, and vitamin C.  Like protein, we eat until we get enough of these critical nutrients. 

Packing more of these nutrients into our food per calorie empowers us to crush our cravings and appetite with less energy while getting more of all the nutrients we need to thrive.  We call this nutrient density. 

Our satiety algorithm enables us to leverage these other nutrients that align with greater satiety.  Thus, we can use it to identify foods and meals that empower you to manage your appetite and feel full with less energy. 

Our unique approach to nutrition provides plenty of protein to build and maintain your muscles so you—and your metabolism!—remain strong, robust, and resilient while ensuring you get enough of all the other essential nutrients from your food to thrive and live a vibrant life!

Minimal Effective Dose of Measurement

While biohackers want to track everything, most people find tracking tedious.  But a little data and measurement can help gamify the process of Nutritional Optimisation to make it fun as you ensure you’re moving in the right direction. 

If you’ve tried every other weight loss approach and failed, some tracking will likely be helpful.  But rather than tracking everything, we encourage our Optimisers to use the minimum effective dose of actionable data.

In our Data-Driven Fasting Challenges, we show users how to use blood glucose to validate their hunger, get back in touch with their innate hunger cues, and give their bodies precisely what they need when needed. 

In our Macros Masterclass, Optimisers track their food to understand how they currently eat.  Over time, they’re nudged towards a more optimal macronutrient intake until they find the minimum effective dose of macronutrient change required to keep them moving towards their goals. 

Rather than tracking forever, our ultimate goal is to build new habits.  After each class concludes, participants are encouraged to take a break between challenges to practice ‘maintaining’ their new habits without needing to track.  

Food List

Now that you understand the problem and the solution, the simplest place to start your Nutritional Optimisation journey towards an adequate protein intake and increased satiety is with a simple food list.   

While we have a range of food lists tailored towards different goals and preferences, our High-Satiety Foods list will ensure you get the protein and other nutrients you require to crush your craving and feel satisfied at the expense of less energy.

Recipes

We don’t always eat individual foods; instead, we combine them into meals. 

To help people get results fast, we created a series of NutriBooster recipes centred around nutrient density and tailored towards different goals and preferences. 

To get the ball rolling, you can download samples of our Fat Loss, Maximum Nutrient Density or High Protein:Energy recipe books.

Articles

If you like to read, we have a range of articles that detail our unique approach to reversing insulin resistance and diabetes management we’ve included below: 

• Menopausal Weight Gain: The Problem and Solution Explained
• Moneyball Nutrition: Leverage Big Data to Crush Your Hunger with the Nutrient You Need to Thrive
• The Protein Leverage Hypothesis
• What is Nutrient Density (and Why It Matters)?
• Micronutrients at Macronutrient Extremes
• The Surprising Science Behind Thriving with Less Food

Courses  

When you’re ready to dial things in, we have some courses that may interest you as you continue on your Nutritional Optimisation journey. 

Data-Driven Fasting 

Our most popular course is our Data-Driven Fasting Challenge.  In just four weeks, you’ll learn to use your blood glucose to guide when and what to eat without needing to track your food. 

While many older women turn to popular fasting regimes like 16:8, 20:4, OMAD, ADF, or extended fasting, Data-Driven Fasting brings greater precision around meal timing.  It ensures you get plenty of protein and nutrients multiple times a day. 

You can familiarise yourself and get our DDF app with our free DDF 101 course here.   

Learn more about our Data-Driven Fasting Challenge here

Macros Masterclass

If you’re ready to work on the quality of your diet, our Macros Masterclass guides Optimisers on how to dial in their balance between protein and energy from carbs and fat.  This is the most important step to increase your satiety. 

While you may think that only body-building bros thrive on a higher-protein diet, menopausal and post-menopausal women might give them a run for their money because they require more protein with less energy.

Learn more about our Macros Masterclass here

Micros Masterclass

Finally, when you’re ready to take your nutrition to the ultimate level, our Micros Masterclass will guide you to fill in all the micronutrient gaps you have that are critical to crushing your cravings and increasing your satiety.    

Learn more about our Micros Masterclass here

Got Questions?   

If you’ve got any further questions or want to learn more, we’d love you to ask them in our Optimising Nutrition Community.  We have thousands of Optimisers eager to help new optimisers find their feet.