28 minutes | Thursday, 19 October 2023
CHALLENGES OF WEIGHT LOSS DURING THE MENOPAUSE - Healthy Lifestyle Show
In this podcast Gemma Paddington speaks to Dr Amanda Avery, Slimming World’s Health and Research Consultant Dietitian and Charlotte Brazier, Bournemouth case study.
Charlotte Brazier, who has lost and successfully maintained a 4st weight loss, started experiencing perimenopause symptoms in 2019. Charlotte says ‘because of what I’d read and seen on social media I thought weight gain was now going to be inevitable.
Life before my 4 stone weight loss was incomparable to now – I had no self-esteem, no confidence, hated looking at myself in the mirror and was pretty much watching life from the sidelines rather than living it.
There so much scare mongering out there that weight gain is inevitable once you start going through the perimenopause and menopause that I thought that was it - that I would be heading towards a 4 stone weight gain and that there was nothing I could do about it’.
Charlotte says ‘I did struggle at first mood swings and tiredness had me craving chocolate (and lots of it!)’, but with a bit more careful planning, cooking my all-time favourite free food meals, spaghetti bolognaise, chilli-con-carne, egg and chips – meant I was more satisfied meaning I could then switch to sweet foods that fitted more easily into my daily Syns allowance, including chocolate weetabix, fat-free flavoured yogurts, or my all time favourite frozen bananas dipped in a melted chocolate.
Keeping up with my daily exercise routine helped too – anxiety was one of the worst symptoms for me, and just having that little bit of ‘me time’ away from everyone really helped.
In fact in 2020 during lockdown I started couch to 5k – I love how it makes me feel after a run. It’s a high-five to the 14 year old me who hated PE at school.’ Charlotte says ‘I’ll be 52 in a few weeks time, and I generally feel fitter, happier, healthier and more confident than I did in my 30s’.