The Heffalump in the Room
Menopause and Weight Gain
We’d vaguely noticed that women changed shape when they got older, but they were well… older. We never thought it would happen to us. We certainly never thought it would happen this soon.
It’s not just vanity
Being overweight isn’t good for us. And not only do we put on weight but we start to put it on in different places — mainly around the belly. We tend to become more apple shaped, and we have fat on the outside of our belly, we probably also have it on the inside of our belly around our organs — what’s known as visceral fat. That’s not good for us — it increases our risk of heart disease and also (more later) of diabetes.
Anyway, what’s wrong with vanity? We want to look attractive. We’ve become happy with the shape we are. We want our clothes to fit us and to be comfortable as well as stylish. Some of us want to be sure our partners will still fancy us, and some of us want to make sure we can pull a partner who is less than twenty years our senior. It would also be nice to bend over without something, a lot of something, getting in the way!
It’s hormones isn’t it?
Well… certainly our hormones make a difference to where we put on weight. In our fertile years, they had a lot to do with our curves…
