Nutrition plays a vital role in managing health during perimenopause. Yet, many women undereat in an attempt to shed the stubborn weight that suddenly seems to gather around their midsection.
While it might feel like cutting calories is the solution, undereating can actually work against your goals, leading to:
- Fat retention.
- Muscle loss.
- A slower metabolism.
- Worsening perimenopausal symptoms.
During this transformative stage of life, maintaining muscle mass and fueling your body with the right nutrients is more important than ever.
Here’s what every woman needs to know about fuelling your body correctly if you want to avoid gaining fat and minimise perimenopausal symptoms:
Fat Loss vs Weight Loss
Instead of fixating on weight loss, our focus should be body composition—increasing muscle mass and decreasing fat (to healthy ranges). This could result in a higher number on the scale, but you will be leaner and healthier.
Here’s why:
- Muscle is Metabolically Active: Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat, meaning the more muscle you have, the better your metabolism functions.
- Fat Loss vs. Weight Loss: Losing muscle instead of fat can result in a “skinny fat” body composition, where body fat percentage remains high despite a lower weight on the scale.
- Reduces Health Risks: Excess body fat, especially around the midsection, is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.
- Improves Hormonal Balance: Lower fat levels can help reduce inflammation and support better hormonal regulation during perimenopause.
- Functional Fitness: High muscle mass enhances strength, endurance, and mobility, making everyday tasks easier and reducing the risk of falls or injuries.
- Supports Joint Health: Strong muscles stabilise and protect joints, especially during aging when joint health can decline.
- Bone Density: Resistance training and the stress muscles exert on bones stimulate bone growth and strength, reducing the risk of osteoporosis and fractures.
- Postural Support: Strong muscles improve posture, which can prevent back and neck pain.
- Healthspan vs. Lifespan: Muscle mass is a predictor of longevity, with studies showing that individuals with higher muscle mass live longer and experience fewer health complications in later years.
- Independence: Preserving muscle reduces frailty, allowing you to maintain independence as you age.
- Toned Appearance: High muscle and low fat create a lean, toned look many people associate with physical fitness.
- Body Confidence: Feeling strong and capable often improves self-esteem and body image.
Focusing on composition change—building or maintaining muscle while reducing fat—leads to better health outcomes and a leaner, stronger appearance, regardless of what the scale says.
Maintaining muscle mass becomes one of the most critical aspects of overall health as women enter perimenopause.
While a calorie deficit is necessary for fat loss (meaning we consume fewer calories than we expend each day, so the body is forced to use its fat stores for energy) it’s important not to consume too few calories.
Extreme calorie restriction signals the body to enter “starvation mode,” where it prioritises fat storage and breaks down our precious lean muscle to meet energy needs instead.
Without proper nutrition, the body will break down lean muscle for energy instead of targeting fat stores, leading to:
- Muscle loss.
- Fat retention.
- Slower metabolism.
- Hormone dysfunction.
- Decreasing bone density.
- Poor joint health.
- Unfavourable aesthetic changes – though this, of course, is subjective.
If our goal is to lose fat, reduce menopause symptoms, gain strength and just be healthier, we must:
- Have a calorie deficit to encourage fat loss.
- Eat enough so we are not signalling our body to go into starvation mode which will lead to fat retention and muscle loss.
- Prioritise nutrition to retain muscle mass, especially before and after training sessions—this is crucial for women during perimenopause.
If you’re 40+ & want a scientifically based, female-specific program to lose fat and build lean muscle, I can help:
