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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello everyone, welcome back. So this study, body composition changes during the menopause transition. What can we learn from the Swan study and related literature? So the menopause transition is a multi stage process, about four to eight years, so it's early late and post menopause stages. It's normal obviously and it's, observed as twelve consecutive months of amenorrhea The menopause transition is also called perimenopause, so it's a multi stage thing, like I said four to eight years.
Speaker 1:So a study on women's health across the nation which is called Swan. I want to look at the characteristics of this study and I'm going to skip a lot of the details of the people and all are to go straight into the body composition changes of the results. Okay? So what they did was they did a dual X-ray, so DXA, nine years before, nine years after the final menstrual period. So nine years before and nine years after the final menstrual period with assessments occurring annually and you had the results.
Speaker 1:So the rate of fat gain doubled approximately two years before the final menstrual period and lean mass started to decline. Fat gains and lean losses continued until two years after the final menstrual period, at which point things flatlined. Weight increased linearly during the menopause transition, also plateaued two years after the final menstrual period. There's differences in some Japanese women and black and white women had similar patterns, Chinese women gained lean mass which is an abnormality. Post menopausal women had greater volumes of pericardial fat and abdominal visceral fat which are associated with high risk of coronary calcification and cardiovascular events.
Speaker 1:A lot of this is due to the hormonal changes, you'll store fat in the belly more than the hips and thighs, your fat storage can change a bit. But what, like, what does this mean? And, like, what are the actual rates of fat gain and stuff? So you had rate of fat gain doubled, but let's have a look what that actually means in like, as in as a number. So across all subjects, okay, the average annual increase in fat mass was naught point two five kilogram per year before menopause transition, and this goes up to naught point four five kilogram per year during the menopause transition.
Speaker 1:Okay? So this is people who are generally sedentary, suboptimal dietary patterns, and, really, I'm not doing any program like you're listening to now. So the prevention of this fat gain, which is just 1.6 kilogram during the menopause transition, is in the realm of control for sure. So if you're listening to this, you think most people who are just floating by life going through these stages, okay, they're gonna gain fat at 0.25 kilograms per year, but then menopause kicks in, the transition is gonna go to 0.45 kilograms a year, and they're gonna gain if you think about gaining a kilogram a year for eight years, it's eight kilograms. In stone, that's, let me see, over a stone or whatever, one to two stones say, region for the Britons.
Speaker 1:And then in terms of lean mass loss, it's a muscle loss. Covers more than that, let's focus on muscle loss. Lean mass losses were quite small. They did happen, so 0.06 kilogram a year before and then 0.2 kilogram during the transition period. So that could be one to two pounds of muscle loss.
Speaker 1:It's still something we want to protect and not lose. The good news here is that whilst this literature shows that there is definitely trends of gaining weight, losing muscle, it's not breaking you as a woman. In terms of your symptoms, psychologically I can't speak. I'm not a woman and I'm on perimenopausal or menopausal and I've not gone through it. So I genuinely I can't say anything about the psychological impact.
Speaker 1:There might be the psychological might be way worse, and it could result in some people having more severe cases of, like, weight gain and and muscle loss during these periods. But in general the good news is that most people that did this study, the negative traits of it, the negative physical impacts can be reversed at least if you're making sure your calorie intake is good, making sure your protein intake is higher, so you're not going to be losing muscle mass, you're going to lose way less muscle mass. Bone mineral density as well, if you add a few workouts in a week like strength workouts for sure are going to mitigate these things, And you might start seeing, of course, fat being redistributed and being stored in the belly as opposed to the hips and the thighs, but at least you know to expect that because of the hormonal changes. You might be feeling more irritable, for sure in the study said that when you go through the transition period, irritability goes up, sleep goes down, energy goes down, changes in fat, storage changes, I just mentioned, joint and bone health alterations, so these things are really important things that are a negative consequence of it.
Speaker 1:So if sleep has been impacted, of course it's going to knock on effect. So what I want you to take from this kind of, research and looking at it is that you've got the power, the negative impact isn't as bad as might be portrayed in the media, The psychological impact is varies, so I can't say about it. But if you are being impacted a lot by it, it might be due to a knock on effect of way less sleep, irritability going up, and, like, changes in your hormonal stages and stuff like that. So you wanna look at that. You wanna look at trying to get your sleep back up because, look, anyone who's on less sleep is gonna be irritable.
Speaker 1:People on less sleep don't wanna function in the day. You're not motivated in the day. You feel really bad. So having good sleep is a really important part of trying to get back to feeling your best. And if it's been negatively impacted, we need to sort it out.
Speaker 1:There's many, many people I've spoke to in these periods during it, perimenopausal, menopausal after it as well. There's many success stories I've heard. People being like, I've tried to lose weight for years and it hasn't happened, but now it has. And again, it's like what I spoke about on the podcast yesterday. It's really about doing things that are manageable, that you feel motivated by, that your why is deeper than just looking a bit better.
Speaker 1:When you start giving yourself time, especially a six month to twelve month period, you're going to feel like you can achieve it and you see the results coming slowly. And then you start thinking, wow, I actually can do this. But put so much pressure on things to be sorted out so quickly, especially when you've gone through the menopause and then you're like oh my god everything's going downhill, I can imagine in the head this is going get worse and worse in my life, there's nothing I can do. But there's many things you can do and I've seen stories, I've read the reviews about I feel so much better, I've lost a bit of weight, I've got my steps back up, feeling more myself, all those things. Amazing.
Speaker 1:Some people do HRT and stuff, of course, but there's big benefits to doing the small fundamental things. Not small, the fundamental things over time, And it impacts you at all stages of your life. And even eating more protein and being more active as you get older is probably more important, but you want to start now. You don't want to be starting to say in ten years time I wish I did these fundamentals ten years ago. Imagine a difference in your life in ten years if you did the fundamentals now for ten years versus not.
Speaker 1:They might feel small today but let me assure you they are life changing. It might mean another ten years of life. It might mean another ten years of good life. It might mean another ten years of being able to enjoy it and move and feel strong, doing activities, being social, all those things. Come on.
Speaker 1:Fundamentals done today with patience over time. Remember, Fistina Lente, make haste slowly, focus from now to bedtime, let's get going, let's do this. You know, we've got a few things to focus on. Okay? Nothing more.
Speaker 1:Don't bog down in all of this nonsense, know like biohack and all such, just fucking the fundamentals. Every master in jujitsu, one of the most complicated martial arts of all time, thousands and thousands and thousands of moves. Some of them are so complicated you're looking at a video going what the hell just happened? He was just folded in 90,000 ways. And then you speak to these masters who've been black belt thirty, forty years and they say listen fundamentals, don't worry about those things.
Speaker 1:They're nicest to have. Cool, cool, fundamentals. Doesn't really click to you until you speak to your third or fourth black belt that says it, and then you see them deploy it as well. You think, oh, it must be onto someone here. Why is the most complicated martial art focusing on fundamentals?
Speaker 1:Like, why don't we focus on the complicated part of it? Because the fundamentals is the key thing. So fundamentals over time, I promise you, is gonna deliver you more results than if you focus on these complicated things that you think is going make a big difference to your life and your health. They won't without the fundamentals being there. Focus on that until bedtime, enjoy your day, bring back some fun into it.
Speaker 1:Don't take it too solemnly. You've got a chance today to improve your health even if it's a tiny bit, and I think that's quite the cool place to be as a human being in this world. So enjoy your day. Speak soon.