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For high-performing women who are exhausted by weight gain, hormonal chaos, and vanishing energy — this is your reset. I’m Dr. Ade Akindipe, a DNP, obesity + hormone specialist, and health coach.
On this show, we demystify metabolism, gut health, hormone balance, longevity, and the root-cause mindset behind lasting transformation.
If you’re ready to stop fighting your body and start living with more clarity, energy, and confidence — this is your space.
Ade Akindipe, DNP (00:01.74)
Welcome to the next episode. I'm really excited about this topic because, well, for one thing, it is Women's History Month, it's March, and I've been in the community doing a lot of different things with different organizations and just recognizing all the different versatility of being a woman. know, women in the industry, women...
in construction. I got the opportunity to sit and listen to a lot of different women with the YWCA here in Anchorage, Alaska. And I must say that it's just so inspiring to hear the stories of women that have been helped some way or another by other women. And on that note, I want to take the time to just, you know, celebrate you.
No matter what you're doing out there, your resilience and the progress women have made so far throughout history, I think it's worth mentioning during this episode, you all are doing amazing things. And I'm just honored to be a woman today. And we have access to so much, we can do so much. I mean, there's still room for improvement.
But again, we are standing on shoulders of many women who have paved the way for us. But today, I want to talk about something that impacts every woman personally. And yet, it's not really explained in a way that actually helps us as women understand our body. I just talked about how busy we all are as women and how, you know,
Ade Akindipe, DNP (01:55.874)
I just talked about how we women are doing so many different things in the community, in our homes. And sometimes when, if we don't realize it, we start to notice all these different shifts happening. And there is a reason for that. So we're gonna talk about estrogen today. Most women, when I asked them about hormones and they said, what do they know about hormones?
It's associated with things like, you know, reproduction, like having babies and mood swings and hot flashes and things like that. But the truth is estrogen influences far more than just reproduction. It impacts a lot of different systems, especially metabolism.
And that's really what we're gonna focus on in this episode as well as other episodes after this because I think it's really important that we women understand that it's not just about our willpower. It's not about just eating less and moving more. There are so many different shifts that happen and I don't think we really have been educated enough to let us know, hey, you are at higher risk for heart disease not because you are just getting older. It's much more than that.
Again, estrogen impacts your metabolism, your blood sugar, fat storage, digestion, energy production, and even how your body responds to stress. So as a midlife women's health and weight loss coach, one of the things I decided to do in my practice was to focus really on perimenopausal and menopausal women because I realized this shift was happening and oftentimes, you know,
Women are leaving doctor's offices and maybe their labs were normal or maybe they start to see some of those markers change, but no one is explaining to them why this is happening and what needs to change. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about estrogen. What actually is estrogen? How it functions in your body? Why estrogen plays a critical role in metabolism and energy production?
Ade Akindipe, DNP (04:08.223)
the connection between estrogen and insulin resistance, and why so many women experience metabolic shifts in their 40s and 50s and beyond, and a few simple ways you can begin supporting your metabolism, not tomorrow, today. And I'll also share a little preview of something exciting that I have coming up here in Anchorage, Alaska. It's called my Spring Metabolic Reset Program on the 21st. We'll talk more about that later. So let's talk about something that's really foundational.
Estrogen. Estrogen is often, of course, known as a female hormone. Men make it as well. But biologically speaking, it is actually a regulatory hormone that influences so many different systems throughout your body. It is primarily produced in the ovaries during a woman's reproductive years, but it's also produced in smaller amounts, amounts in tissues like your fat cells.
adrenal glands, the glands that sit on your kidney and even in your brain. And its job is not just for reproduction. Estrogen acts as a messenger hormone. So it communicates with cells throughout the body and helps regulate how cells, how those cells function. So the other thing I want you to know is that when I say estrogen, I'm talking about estrogen in general, but there are three main types of estrogen in your body.
The first one is estradiol. Estradiol or you might see it written as E2, maybe you might see it on a prescription or something like that. If you're receiving hormone replacement, it is the most active and dominant form that's produced during real reproductive years. Okay, so that's the estradiol. Then there's estrone or E1, which becomes more dominant after menopause. Then you have estriol.
or E3 that's produced mainly during pregnancy. So most of midlife discussions that we're going to have, we're going to be talking about estradiol, which is the form that begins to fluctuate and gradually decline during perimenopause. So when estradiol, E2, starts to shift, it affects more than your cycles. It influences your metabolism in ways that many women simply were never taught.
Ade Akindipe, DNP (06:35.022)
We're going to talk about how estrogen affects the body, okay? But I'm going to dive deeper into a little bit of research because there's so much information out there, but evidence-based, what exactly is the research showing us, right? So let's talk a little bit about that. So as estrogen declines in perimenopause and menopause, women, like we said, women lose this key hormone. And it really is, it's considered your metabolic protector.
because of the way it drives insulin, right? So let's talk a little bit about this. So as estrogen levels become erratic in perimenopause and drop to very low levels after menopause, like we said, insulin resistance increases and the risk of pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes rises beyond what we've expect from age alone. Large prospect...
Prospective cohorts and recent body composition analysis body composition is basically like a scale that looks at how Your body fat and muscle ratios look like they show a common pattern with women They have less lean mass, which is like your muscles they have more central or visceral fat, which is basically the fat around the belly area and worst metabolic markers across BMI categories what that means is that
Metabolic markers like your blood sugar, your cholesterol levels, all of that starts to shift and increase across BMI category. So it doesn't matter if you are a higher BMI or lower BMI, it doesn't matter. Which is why when I see women in clinic, no matter what they're going to be seen for, when I know that they're going to be in perimenopause, menopause age, we always start with a body composition. Every single woman does.
The other thing that happens is resting energy expenditure. That declines. Your resting energy expenditure just means if you're just not sitting on the couch, not doing anything, you burn calories normally, but that energy expenditure, the calorie you burn at rest decreases. It declines more than can be explained by just aging. So this is not just aging. And then also your appetite regulation becomes less efficient.
Ade Akindipe, DNP (08:58.478)
So that makes weight maintenance harder at the same calorie intake and activity level. This is all just basically telling us that the same lifestyle that maintained your weight at 38 may not be the same thing you need to do when you're 48. Because at 38, you may quietly just exercise, eat less, and you're fine. But then at 48,
The hormone rules have changed. So women will often complain that they're stuck, they're frustrated because all the things that they used to do don't work anymore. Menopause is associated with a redistribution of fat toward the abdomen. So everything around your belly area, which is strongly tied to metabolic syndrome, high inflammatory markers, and heart disease.
Postmenopausal women show a consistent pattern of low lean body mass and skeletal muscle, even at the same BMI. So you have a woman who is 130 pounds, maybe both of them have the same BMI, but one woman is postmenopausal but has lower lean body mass. So this contributes to what we call sarcopenic obesity.
worsening insulin resistance. So what's happening, you're losing muscle and as you lose muscle, your blood sugar starts to go up. Visceral fat acts as an inflammatory organ. So when you have a lot of fat in the belly area, it increases what we call cytokines and this is inflammatory. This is just like the technical scientific term.
But what it does is drives up inflammation. It's like signals that something is going on or your body is kind of sick in a way. So your body gives up, gives off these chronic signals for like, like your stress. So maybe that'll also drive up your cortisol. It'll drive up your, your, your, your blood sugar. So this, this makes insulin signaling and cardiovascular health worse, right?
Ade Akindipe, DNP (11:22.006)
So this is why it's not about how much you weigh, but it's more about where you store fat in this age and how much muscle you keep. The loss of estrogen also reduces vascular protection. So women, your arteries become stiffer, if you will, because what it's supposed to do is help
kind of keep the elasticity of your blood vessel. So women are at higher risk for heart disease. So if you're someone who has maybe gone into early menopause because you had your uterus and your ovaries taken out, this is something that could happen. It could actually increase your risk for cardiovascular disease as you are no longer producing the estradiol we talked about. Estrogen deficiency contributes to a cluster of
what we call cardio metabolic abnormalities. So dyslipidemia. Women start to notice on their labs, their cholesterol levels start to go up. So your LDL, your low density lipid lipoproteins, that starts to go up. Your blood pressure can start to go up. Blood sugar starts to go up. So maybe your A1C is normal, right? Or maybe at the cusp of not being normal.
Or maybe it's already pre-diabetes and your doctor is telling you to watch it. This is when I tell women, no, this is a red flag. We don't want to wait to the point where you are diabetic to start to do anything about it. This is the point where we need to start to make some shifts and make some things happen. That also intersects brain aging and cognitive risks. So this can start to impact your memory when all these things are not improving, right?
So let's go into the role of menopause hormone therapy because I know that this is something that you may have heard of and if you haven't heard about it, I have really great recommendations for where to start. I actually, in my clinic, I give out a book. It's called Hormone Havoc written by Dr. Terri Denai. She's a nurse practitioner that is a big proponent for hormone replacement and how that really has changed a lot of women's lives.
Ade Akindipe, DNP (13:44.142)
Let's dive into a little bit more research here. Bear with me. So a 2024 meta-analysis of 17 randomized controlled trials found that menopausal hormone therapy, especially estrogen-only regimens, where appropriate, significantly reduced insulin resistance and risk of prediabetes in post-menopausal women. Another one said that the timing, starting appropriately earlier, the early you start it,
women start to notice more favorable markers. So their risk for cardiovascular disease and vascular disease actually reduces. So their risk reduces. So basically, hormone therapy is not a magic bullet for everyone. But when it's used safely and at the right time, it can be one tool to support metabolic health.
Estrogen interacts with receptors in nearly every organ. So this means it influences many processes that affect how women feel every single day. And again, one of the biggest one is metabolic regulation. Estrogen helps regulate how efficiently the body uses sugar for energy. It helps maintain insulin sensitivity, meaning cells can respond properly to insulin and improve and move glucose out of the blood.
and into the cells where it can be used as fuel. Estrogen is also important for fat distribution. So during your reproductive years, when you, know, younger years, estrogen encourages fat storage as patterns in like the hip area and the thigh area. But when estrogen declines, the body's fat storage patterns shift more towards the stomach area.
So this is why I tell women all the time, it's not about discipline, it's not about willpower, because most women are saying that they are trying everything and often what they want to do is eat less, eat less calories or eat less fat or eat less carbs, but it's more about hormone signaling. So estrogen also influences your muscle mass and your metabolic rate because your your muscle tissue is actually metabolically active.
Ade Akindipe, DNP (16:00.352)
So that means that it burns energy, even when you're resting, which is why I tell women all the time, lift weights, lift weights, or do some kind of strength training with your body. Estrogen helps support muscle maintenance. So as you lose estrogen, maintaining muscle becomes more important, which means you do have to work harder to maintain the muscle, build muscle. And sometimes that can be challenging.
Another major role for estrogen is in brain energy and mood regulation. Estrogen helps regulate neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. It also supports mitochondrial function, which is how your cells produce energy. This is one reason why women will notice changes in their focus, their mood, motivation as these hormones fluctuate. If you can relate with that, I know I can.
Just your ability to focus and multitask. Women will say, I used to be so sharp and I was able to just do this and do that and not have to worry about it or even their mood or their irritable. This is why. And then there's gut health. Estrogen interacts with the gut microbiome, which is basically the bacteria living in your digestive system. These bacteria can actually help metabolize estrogen and regulate how it circulates in the body.
So when the gut microbiome becomes imbalanced, it can affect estrogen metabolism as well. And when your estrogen shifts, that can also affect gut function. So you see how these are so interconnected. So, lady, if you're listening to this, there is hope. Don't get discouraged. But it's really good for us to understand
the role of estradiol. It's so important. And once you understand how that relates to your metabolic health, it can help you make all of those small changes, all those little shifts. And maybe you are someone that has struggled all your life, and maybe it's become even harder. You can make changes, but you need to figure out
Ade Akindipe, DNP (18:23.902)
Amongst all of these changes of what's happening, what else do I need to do personally? What rewiring do I need to do so that I can make it not to the point where I'm needing medications later in life? Because yes, I have hormone imbalances, but my lifestyle has caught up to me, if that makes sense. There are some shifts that you may need to make personally in your life to ensure that you are not
automatically predisposed to diabetes or high blood pressure. That does not have to be your portion as long as you're willing to do what you need to do to not get there. I know I said a whole bunch of words there, but what I'm trying to say is yes, there are genetic predispositions to these things, but there are also some external factors, some lifestyle things that we can use to change that trajectory.
because insulin is the hormone that is responsible for blood glucose. So if you can figure out how your body responds, you can change that. Insulin resistance doesn't have to automatically happen. Your risk goes up if you don't fix it, but it doesn't have to be that the problem. The higher your insulin level signals, the more your body wants to store fat, right?
Ade Akindipe, DNP (19:53.568)
Okay, let's talk a little bit more about why midlife metabolism needs a different approach. We just talked a little bit about estrogen and all of that, but this is an adaptive phase. I don't want you to think, well, this is it for me. There's nothing I can do about it. This is an adaptive phase. So hormones are shifting, muscle is declining, stress demands are often higher, sleep is disrupted and digestion may be slower, right?
But rather than focusing on restriction and punishment, the goal becomes supporting the systems that regulate your metabolism. So this means supporting blood sugar stability, supporting gut health, muscle preservation, and stress regulation. So when these systems improve, your metabolism often becomes much more responsive again. So how can you start to support your metabolism right now?
So number one thing that we need to do as women navigating perimenopause, menopause is to prioritize nourishment. Protein helps stabilize your blood sugars. Protein helps support muscle mass. And it also helps improve satiety. We talked about how estradiol decline.
can make it so that you're not as easily, you're not able to control your hunger as you used to. So women find themselves more hungrier and they actually crave more sugar. So many midlife women simply aren't eating enough protein to support their metabolism. So even small changes like adding protein to your breakfast, if you were someone that maybe just had cereal for breakfast, maybe shifting that out and doing boiled eggs, scrambled eggs.
Sometimes I'll add in if I don't if I don't have a lot of time I will add in you know a nice protein shake with high grams of protein in there and that can significantly help improve your blood sugar stability The number two thing you want to do is make sure that you are strength training as your estradiol declines we know that preserving muscle becomes very very important so You know you this does not require hours of gym activity, but
Ade Akindipe, DNP (22:16.806)
Incorporating small sessions, maybe starting with body weight and then increasing as you go, as you get stronger will be the way. And then stabilizing your blood sugar. This means avoiding long stretches without eating followed by a large carb meal. So what you used to do, whether you would go maybe skip a couple of meals and then you get really hungry and then you eat, that doesn't work because you need to make sure that you're balancing protein, fiber and healthy fats.
These are what helps stabilize your blood sugar spikes and energy crashes. So when your blood sugar is stable, your cravings are less and your metabolism functions more efficiently. And then you also need to support your gut health. So when I say support your gut health, I don't mean just taking probiotics. Most people think that gut health probiotics is the answer. It means nourishment. What you eat actually impacts your gut.
and that impacts your hormones. These are all connected. So if you eat fiber rich foods, plant foods, staying hydrated, this can help support your digestion. I'm not saying that probiotics are bad, but what you eat has a tremendous impact on how your gut health is. And finally, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, okay, this is a lot of information, I know my metabolism,
need support but I don't even know where to start. I'm having the Spring Metabolic Reset which is on March 21st. It's at the Lusak Library in Anchorage. This program is specifically designed for midlife women who want to reset their metabolism in a supportive, realistic way because I know it's not easy. Most women that are navigating these changes are busy. They are
doing multiple things, they have tried it all, and maybe they're at the point where they're just like, you know what, it doesn't really matter. You know, there is a way, but sometimes it's, you don't know what you don't know. If you have the information, sometimes you just need to go to someone that can help guide you and help coach you. And that's what this program is for. It's basically going to be a small group of women. I think we limited it to 20, but we max are probably going to be about 15, okay?
Ade Akindipe, DNP (24:40.844)
You know, we're going to talk about blood sugar balance, hormone aware nutrition, gut health support, metabolic inflammation, energy and weight regulation. We're going to come up with a plan for 90 days that you're going to carry out for the 90 days. And the best part is it's only $49 to join, $49. If you've been feeling like your metabolism needs a reset, then this is a really
supportive place to start. We're going to have you do a vitality, what we call a vitality gap assessment. And what it's basically looking at is your metabolism, your nervous system, and all of these different things that could impact you and make you feel stuck. You're going to take that along with a body composition that we're going to do at the event. And we're going to go over it together. We're going to come up with a personalized plan for you. So you don't want to miss this. All right. So today we talked about a lot.
especially estrogen and how it's not just a reproductive hormone. It plays a critical role in your metabolic health. If this episode helps you better understand your body, then please share it. Please share it with another midlife woman who needs to hear this today and make sure you are following us for more conversations around hormones, metabolism, and midlife health. And if you want deeper guidance, you can join the Spring Metabolic Reset starting March 21st for just $49.
Your metabolism and your future self will thank you. All right, until next time, stay elevated.