We’ve created clever euphemisms to describe it - like muffin top, mid-life bulge, and a thickening waist. But however you want to refer to belly fat, it’s an unfortunate fact of life for most women in mid-life and getting rid of it is, as a friend of mine put it, like chiseling cement.
I’ve been in search of diet and exercise books to find the cause as well as a cure to belly fat and I came across From Belly Fat to Belly Flat: How Your Hormones Are Adding Inches to Your Waist and Subtracting Years from Your Life — the Medically Proven Way to Reset Your Metabolism and Reshape Your Body, by Dr. C.W. Randolph.
Dr. Randolph, a board certified OB-GYN, is well known for advocating the use of natural medicine to treat women’s health concerns and he has been a leading proponent in the use of human-identical hormones to treat symptoms of hormone imbalances. I contacted Dr. Randolph by email to ask about the connection between hormones and abdominal weight gain and how hormone-balancing can help. His responses follow:
Wendy: A lot of women begin complaining about abdominal weight gain, along with sleep problems and an inability to focus or concentrate in their 40s, but because they’re still getting their periods, they don’t attribute it to menopause. When do a woman’s hormone levels begin to get out of whack?
Dr. Randolph: In a women’s early to mid-30’s, progesterone levels are the first of the three sex hormones (progesterone, estrogen and testosterone) to decline. In fact, progesterone levels decline 120x more rapidly than estrogen levels. The result is a disequilibrium of estrogen to progesterone medically termed “estrogen dominance.” Too much estrogen with too little progesterone is the culprit responsible for the more subtle (or less well recognized/diagnosed) symptoms of hormone imbalance such as sleep disturbances, foggy thinking and abdominal weight gain. Dr. Erika Schwartz explains it well in her book, The Hormone Solution: Naturally Alleviate Symptoms of Hormone Imbalance from Adolescence Through Menopause”
No, you’re not losing your mind: you’re just losing your much-needed progesterone. When you don’t have enough progesterone circulating, estrogen is the dominant hormone. Estrogen in overabundance makes you angry, edgy, short-tempered and anxious. At the same time, estrogen increases the water content in your brain making you groggy, fuzzy and unfocused.
Wendy: The weight creep experienced in mid-life seems to land (and remain) right in our abdomen. Why is this?
Actually, hormone related abdominal weight gain typically begins in the early to mid-30s, coinciding with decline in progesterone production and the incumbent estrogen dominance. Medical research shows that the average woman will gain one to two pounds each year between the ages of 35 and 55 and these pounds will cement around the waist, butt and thighs.
Estrogen dominance is the culprit. To get and keep those pounds off, it is essential the optimum hormone balance be restored via bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT). To accelerate the body’s off-loading of its extra estrogen, there are foods and supplements medically proven to help the body eliminate the extra estrogen.
Wendy: What types of foods do you recommend?
Dr. Randolph: The stars of my nutritional plan are cruciferous vegetables, citrus fruits, insoluble fiber and lignans because these foods will all function within the body to reduce an unhealthy estrogen load. The consumption of cruciferous vegetables is a critical pivot of my plan’s success.
In my next blogpost, I’ll list examples of the cruciferous vegetables that Dr. Randolph suggests. If you’ve tried Dr. Randolph’s estrogen-reducing diet, let us know if and how it’s helped you.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I have been using 200mg of progesterone for 4 years and am 58 and still have my period every month. It has helped me in many ways but NOT AT ALL to lose weight around my middle or anywhere else. I do a low carb diet and I exersise. Also he recommends lignans as in flax which doesn’t make any sense because they cause the body to produce more estrogen and I quit taking it because of that. I take DIM everyday to get rid of excess estrogen..
I agree, that progesterone loss is responsible for weight gain. The key is to balance estrogen and progesterone as well as thyroid hormones and cortisol. For more information about hormone replacement therapy with bio identical hormones: http://www.doctorkalitenko.com/1-22-Rejuvenate_yourself
@Linda — My brain is probably just foggy from all this excess estrogen, but what is DIM?
Also, FYI, Ori Hofmekkler also has a book on this topic — The Anti-Extrogenic Diet.
oops — Anti-Estrogenic
DIM takes the excess used estrogen out of you liver so your body doesn’t have to store it
Copy and past DIM and you can findit online.
Thank you Jacqueline & Linda for your comments. I recently started taking DIM-plus, so I did some research to learn about it. DIM (diindolylemethane) is a phytonutrient found in cruciferous veggies (i.e. broccoli, cauliflower, and kale). Here’s what is written on the Nature’s Way DIM-plus box: DIM supports the activity of enzymes that improve estrogen metabolism. Scientific research shows diindolymethane increases the level of “favorable” estrogens (2-hydroxy-estrogen) while reducing the level of ‘less favorable’ estaogens (16-hyroxyestrogen). Hope that helps!
Thanks for this resource but it doesn’t address the issue of the post menopausal woman who is not on HRT.
DIM is great when you produce estrogen but what happens when you stop?
My research indicates that most estrogen now comes from your body fat once you pass beyond menopause. So how you going to shift that if you don’t want HRT?
Plus more fat is deposited on the stomach because of high cortisol levels (stress again) so the liver can use it fast. Except it never does becasue the cortisol is always high. Recent studies show promise of vitamin C as a cortisol modifier.
I have yet to find a website or information source devoted to post menopausal women and their body image problems i.e weight gain.
And what to do about it more’s the rub. I keep searching though …
live long. Live well.
Rick Rakauskas
Thanks for the info about DIM! I will look for it at my health food store.
My gynecologist recently prescribed testosterone cream, 2.5%, which I apply daily to my forearm - to treat my belly fat. Several months ago I stopped taking the BHRT gel which was a progesterone/estrogen combo. I started gaining weight using this combo. So, now - I’m using the testosterone cream. I am a 54 yr old post menopausal female. Any advice or research to show that testosterone cream will help belly fat or harm me?
Hi Judy - Thanks for your comment. I’d like to know the answer to that too, so I will seek out a response from a doctor who has experience with this. I also gained weight when I started taking BHRT, but not the combo gel. I only saw a drop in weight when I stepped up my exercise routine (duration & frequency). That just might be the only solution.
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