If I could give one piece of advice to women in their 40s who are struggling with weight gain, mood swings, hot flashes, and any other perimenopausal symptoms it would be to track your hormones. I know the last thing you want to do is to track something. I get it. I’m don’t even track my workouts. But hear me out with this one.
One huge benefit of tracking your hormones is it gives you a sense of control over your body when you’re going through a phase in your life where you feel like you have little control over your body. You don’t know if your pants are going be snug tomorrow or what kind of mood you’ll be in and it can make you feel like you’re crazy.
The truth is you’re not crazy. It’s your hormones that are going crazy. Today I’ll share how you can track your hormones easily and effortlessly and how to use the data to align your nutrition, fitness, and rest habits to mitigate mood swings, weight gain, and other perimenopausal symptoms.
Before we dive into the good stuff let’s tackle the legal stuff. I’m not a licensed medical professional which means I’m not qualified to diagnose or treat your hormonal fluctuations. My role as your health and fitness coach is to help you to create sustainable nutrition and fitness lifestyle habits that work for you. I will share my knowledge based on my in-depth training of perimenopause and personal experience. Got it?
Okay, let’s dive right in.
When you’re in your reproductive years ovulating and have a regular menstrual cycle it’s pretty easy to predict what your hormones are doing throughout your cycle. Estrogen begins increasing when you start your period and continues to rise until ovulation. This is the follicular phase of your cycle. After ovulation, you enter the luteal phase where your estrogen begins to decline. Your progesterone increases during and shortly after ovulation and then declines a few days before your period. Low progesterone can trigger sugar cravings which is why you want to eat all the sweet stuff right before your period. Your estrogen also begins to decline during this phase.
When you reach your 40s (or even your late 30s) your hormones may fluctuate more frequently. This could explain weight gain, mood swings, insomnia, brain fog, low energy levels and other symptoms.
Now let’s talk about how tracking your hormones (specifically estrogen and progesterone) can boost weight loss, minimize anxiety, and mitigate brain fog.
Your body is made up of systems that interact with each other by increasing one hormone and decreasing another. Estradiol, the prominent estrogen hormone, keeps a handful of hormones in check. For example, estradiol works with your satiety hormone, leptin, to let your brain know you’ve had enough to eat. When your estrogen levels are low, it can’t communicate with your brain as effectively to let you know it’s time to stop eating.
Low estrogen also increases insulin resistance which means your body isn’t able to distribute nutrients from carbs as efficiently as it should if you were more insulin sensitive. When this happens your body stores carbs as fat and sends your blood sugar on a roller coaster ride. When you’re insulin sensitive, your body can burn carbs more efficiently by moving them through your blood without the roller coaster ride.
Estrogen also has an impact on sleep. When your estrogen levels are low you may not sleep as well. The same goes for progesterone. If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, this could be due to low estrogen and progesterone. When you’re not getting great sleep you’re more likely to experience sugar or salt cravings, false hunger, and anxiety.
So, how does this help with weight loss?
If you know that your estrogen levels are low, you can make choices throughout your day knowing that you may want to eat the entire box of cookies or bag of salty potato chips because of false hunger and cravings. It’s super easy to be reactive when it comes to food by giving into your body’s cravings when it actually prefers whole foods.
The solution is simple: focus on prioritizing whole foods with protein first (fish, beef, bison, chicken, pork, and eggs), healthy fats second (avocados, real butter, diary), non-starchy veggies third (broccoli, spinach) and fruit fourth (preferably berries). This will help your body keep these hormones in check. When you become proactive with your nutrition you naturally fall into the habit of working with your body rather than against it. Your sleep, mood, energy levels, and everything else will fall into place.
Will whole foods actually increase your estrogen levels? Probably not. However, if your estrogen levels are low, feeding your body processed junk food will only intensify your perimenopause (or menopausal) symptoms. If you want to increase your estrogen, I encourage you to see your healthcare provider about hormone replacement therapy (HRT). You can go here to check out the podcast episode with my nurse practitioner friend, Dana Salisbury Duarte, to learn more about HRT.
If you’re not sleeping great because you know your progesterone and estrogen are low, this is a great opportunity to take an active rest day from your workout and go for walks. You may even consider taking a nap or simply lying down for 15-20 minutes for an afternoon energy boost.
So, how do you track your hormones?
It’s actually super easy to do in the comfort of your own home. There’s several hormone tracking products on the market. I personally use Mira and it’s been pretty accurate so far. If you have irregular periods (this is a sign of perimenopause) and it’s new territory for you, the Mira app will predict when your period is going to start so you don’t have to be surprised. I recently started tracking my hormones again at the end of my cycle and it was spot on with predicting the day I was going to start my period. I was amazed at how accurate it was even when I hadn’t tested in a few months.
I talk to women all the time who say they’ve had their hormones tested by their doctor and the results come back within normal range yet they’re still experiencing mood swings, irregular periods, and weight gain. One snapshot of your hormones is not a good measurement of what’s really going on because your hormones fluctuate from day to day and throughout the day. It’s best to track your hormones over at least a few cycles to see if there’s a pattern.
The Mira app will create a testing schedule for you when you input all your info including why you want to test. You can test for fertility or where you are in the menopause transition. The actual testing part is really simple. You just pee in a silicone cup, dip the wand in the pee for 20 seconds, stick the wand into the monitor, and go do something else while waiting for your test results. It’s best to test in the morning with your first pee before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. This will get you the most accurate results.
One feature of the Mira app that I’m a fan of is the ability to download a report of your hormone levels to send to your health care provider to share your data. This will help them recommend the appropriate treatment for you. If you’re enrolled in my 1:1 health and fitness program you can share your data with me and this will help me guide you in creating a fitness program and nutrition plan that works for you.
If you want to start tracking your hormones, you can go here to check out Mira. To be totally transparent, I earn a small commission when you order from any Mira links on my website, YouTube channel, or podcast.