3 Menopause Myths That Keep You Fat, Tired & Miserable

I'm Dr. Betty Murray. I'm a clinical nutritionist and functional medicine expert with over 20 years of clinical experience helping women in perimenopause and menopause. I'm also the CEO and founder of Living well Dallas and the Minerva Project. And my team and I have literally helped tens of thousands of women over the last 20 years navigate perimenopause and menopause. And I've seen firsthand how misinformation can trap women in this cycle of frustration and declining health. But today, I'm going to bust the three myths of perimenopause that are ruining your health and giving you trouble. And I'm going to give you the science backed truths that you need to take back control. But before we dive in, let me ask you this. Have you ever wondered why so many women struggle with perimenopause and menopausal symptoms, yet also feel like there's no soldier solution? Could it be that what you've been told during this phase of life is completely wrong? The reality is, is perimenopause is not just a phase to endure. It is a full body event. Every single cell feels it when estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels have shifted. And while these hormones start to fluctuate in our 40s and cliff dive in our 50s, often in our 30s, we can feel the decline and change in our hormones. And it impacts your metabolism, your energy, your mood, and even your risk for chronic disease. But here's the kicker. The myths surrounding perimenopause are making these symptoms worse by steering you away from real solutions. So we're going to tackle these myths one by one, starting with the biggest lie about weight gain in perimenopause. And I'm going to break down the science and share real patient stories and give you actionable items to rewrite your own health story. Okay, myth number one, weight gain during perimenopause. Everybody assumes that weight gain during perimenopause is inevitable and there's nothing you can do about it. And you have you been told that? Or have you been told that you just need to exercise more and eat less? Or maybe you're told that you're packing on the pounds in the middle and that's just something normal that you should have when you age. What if I told you this belief is not only wrong, but it's also keeping you stuck in in a cycle of frustration? So here's the reality. Weight gain isn't inevitable and it's a symptom of hormonal and metabolic shifts that occur in perimenopause and menopause, but they can be addressed during perimenopause. The declining estrogen level that changes how you actually store fat. And it often ships fat from your thighs and hips, what I like to call junk in the trunk, and moves it to your abdominal area. On top of that, insulin resistance creeps in and makes it harder to burn fat. And often our stress level, cortisol, plays along with that. So we get more fat storage and it's easier to store fat. Studies like those published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism show that women in perimenopause can experience a 5 to 10% decrease in menopause metabolism and metabolic rate. But let me explain this. This doesn't mean that you're doomed. And it does mean that your body needs a different approach than what you did in your 20s and 30s and maybe even your early 40s. And I've had patients that thought they'd never lose the menno belly. And they did it by addressing these very simple root causes. And they dropped 15 to 20 pounds and kept it off. So let me give you three practical tactics to tackle this myth head on. First, prioritize protein and fiber at every meal. I know you've probably heard the protein argument again and again and again and again, but we gotta aim for at least 30 to 35 grams of protein, and I would argue up to 50 grams at your first meal. And here's why. In 2023, there were several landmark studies that were published, and one of the biggest ones was looking at how well we actually go through a process called muscle protein synthesis as an older person in midlife compared to a younger person. And they controlled for age, sex, all these other things. And what they showed was older individuals, people like myself in our 50s or late 40s, are less efficient at making protein into muscle. And so we need more protein in order to make muscle and not lose muscle. And it's better to get more protein at that morning meal and the meal that ends your fast or ends your eating at the end of the day. So the breaking of the fast, larger amount of protein, the last meal of the day, larger amount of protein, and we were more efficient. We were able to build more muscle. So 30 grams is your absolute rock bottom for a meal. And so for many of us, it might be that we need about 50 at breakfast and 50 at dinner. If we're shooting for that 120 to 150 grams of protein a day, which is about where we need to be to to preserve muscle mass and ideally put on muscle mass as we get older in perimenopause and menopause. So how do we do that? Right, how do we do that? It's things like chicken, fish, lean cuts of beef, salmon, eggs. Plant based proteins like lentils and beans are okay, but they don't contain the right combination of amino acids to get the biggest bang for your buck. So animal proteins get a higher mark for quality amino acids. Now, you can also use protein powders and other things to supplement what you're doing. And even some forms of dairy, like cottage cheese, absolutely is a great form if you handle dairy. Now, we have to also think that protein stabilizes blood sugar and boosts your metabolism, so it actually raises thermogenesis, which is your body's heat and metabolic rate. So when I eat protein, it's actually working harder to digest that and utilize it than it would a carbohydrate. Now, second, every pound of muscle we put on will burn more calories at rest. So if this, if we can actually build muscle and make sure we feed muscle, we actually increase or at least preserve our metabolic rate. We don't want to lose muscle because we lose a little bit of muscle every year if we aren't working really hard at it. So we don't want to do that. We want to counteract that metabolic slowdown. Third, managing stress with 10 minutes of deep breathing or meditation daily. High cortisol can come down box breathing before meals. And that's doing an inhale for four, a hold for four and an exhale for four and repeating several times has been shown to calm the stress response and get you out of sympathetic drive to parasympathetic drive. It's even taught to Navy seals. And if you do that a little bit before eating every day, you're actually going to reduce your cortisol and improve your activities of digestion because you get into a parasympathetic drive, which is what is necessary for digestion, and it helps you bring down stress. And when stress comes down, we get less insulin resistance. And high cortisol, again from stress, increases insulin and it makes us store more fat. These aren't just theories. These are, these are strategies I've seen transform the lives of our patients. And hormone balance is the foundation here. Without it, no diet or exercise plan will stick. So what we just addressed there is understanding tackling the myth of what you need to eat head on. So protein, super important. Fiber. Fiber gets missed in the land of Carnivore. Everybody's super excited about a carnivore diet. However, fiber feeds your good microbiome. It also improves their metabolic byproducts like short chain fatty acids, which can help the metabolism and have a huge impact on different areas of the body, even on things like bone reabsorption and bone building. And fiber has been shown to reduce visceral fat in midlife women. So what that means is if I eat a high fiber diet, I'm going to have reduced belly fat. Now, what's important is that you add fiber slowly. So, so if you haven't been eating a lot of fiber, you add it slowly. Our goal is a minimum of 35 grams a day. I have some people that will go higher. So if you're at 10 today, you're going to slowly increase it over time. Now, fiber is found in all your fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, legumes, and yes, whole grains. But I would pick vegetable forms over whole grains when you can because you're getting a higher phytonutrient balance on top of that. So fiber is really, really important, Right? Helps with visceral fat. Think belly fat. Muffin top helps reduce that. 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Myth number two is perimenopausal symptoms like fatigue, brain fog. These symptoms are signs of significant changes in your hormones and as significant imbalances. However, it's not a life sentence when estrogen and progesterone drop unevenly. And that's what's happening in perimenopause it disrupts your brain chemistry, impacting things like serotonin and brain energy production. We can also have things like adrenal dysregulation from chronic stress that piles up and leaves you feel wired and tired. Let me give you an example. So Sarah was in her mid-40s when she came to see us, and she was feeling like a shell of herself. She was exhausted, she was snapping at her family, she was unable to sleep. And when we looked at her hormones, we actually tested them and found that her cortisol was through the roof. Her insulin was relatively high. And we also saw that her progesterone was already declining. And within a few weeks of just targeted nutrition and sleep support and stress management, she felt like herself again. So here's the thing. You don't have to always suffer. And there are answers. So here's what you gotta do. You first gotta look at your hormones and get them tested. Now, if you're in the middle of perimenopause, yes, they do shift and change if you're still cycling. We choose to test in the second half of the cycle because what's important is not the absolute measure of one individual hormone. It's their relative relationship between them. It's what is progesterone relative to estrogen, do you have testosterone? Those are important. And what's going on with cortisol and insulin. So that's number one test, don't guess. Second, prioritize your sleep with a consistent bedtime routine. Consistent bedtime and aim for at least seven to eight hours. This is when your body does repair and we have to have good sleep in order to have good insulin sensitivity. Now, if you're getting hot flashes and night sweatshirts, that's where the hormone testing comes in. Because maybe it's time to look at hormone replacement. But hormone replacement will not make up for scrolling late at night, eating late at night, or not getting to bed at a reasonable time. So we got to work on our sleep and we got to put some effort into it. And then third, you want to cut sugar and caffeine. And I would say cut sugar by 2pm and that means refined forms of sugar. I would say don't do it at all. But I also understand some people really, really need, you know, carbohydrate content, maybe some ultra processed foods. But the earlier you stop it, the less cortisol spike you're going to get. The less insulin spike you're going to get. Caffeine also stop caffeine before noon, they also spike Your cortisol and spike insulin because of the cortisol spike and can keep you from falling asleep and staying asleep. So this very simple, simple activity can help pay off about the major menopausal symptoms that women are feeling in perimenopause, which is brain fog, fatigue and irritability. And we can call that anxiety or depression, but all of those things, right? So we covered that one. So that was myth number two. So we tackled the weight gain symptoms and we also captured that fatigue and brain fog thing. But what if the biggest barrier to your health isn't about your body, but it's a belief in treatment options and it's been drilled into your head erroneously? All right, so myth number three, three, hormone replacement therapy is dangerous. What a myth, right? And it should be avoided at all costs, or it should only be used for hot flashes and night sweats. So if you don't have those, you don't need them. This myth stems from outdated studies like the Women's health initiative in 2002, which raised fears about hormone replacement therapy. But the reality is modern bioidentical forms of hormone replacement therapy, when personalized and monitored, is safe and effective for most women. And research done by the North American Menopause Society shows it can reduce symptoms like hot flashes and night sweat. However, lots of studies like the elite study and several other randomized controlled trials show show that it can also improve things like bone mineral density, osteoporosis, fracture risk, cardiovascular disease risk, dementia, stroke, heart attack, deep vein thrombosis. All of these long term risk factors are reduced when hormone replacement therapy is initiated in the menopause transition. So you don't have to wait until you've gone all the way through. It's actually better if we initiate before you go completely through menopause, which is one year from the last time you had a cycle. So I've seen so many in my women, so many women in my practice over the last 20 years go from nightly sweats or like me, I never had a night sweat. I've never had a night sweat. I've never had a hot flash. I don't know what those feels like, But I do know what it feels like to be highly irritable and have brain fog and not be able to sleep. And I've seen so many women over the last 20 years all of a sudden sleep soundly, think clearly, just with the right hormone support. The key is personalization. Cookie cutter approaches don't work. And actually, recent research shows that if we just use hot flashes and Night sweats as a measure of appropriate dose. Without testing labs, 50% of women will be undertreated to protect the bones and 25% will be over treated. Because we don't have good data on dosing and everybody's a little bit different, we have to make sure that we test. But horm replacement therapy is one of the most protective things you could do to reduce your risk for long term health concerns, but also improve your current life status right now. And it also improves your metabolic rate and also mood. So let me explain this. So hormones are the foundation of your health and perimenopause. And if they're out of whack, there's no amount of willpower that will fix your weight. There's no amount of willpower or energy or mood that can be fixed when your hormones are at cause. So considering bioidentical hormones with a trusted provider, you need support for your body that's holistic. So you want to eat anti inflammatory foods and think your healthy lean cuts of protein, fatty fish like salmon, berries, leafy greens to reduce that systemic inflammation and raise fiber. And we want to think about the stress response and sleep and tracking our cycles and making sure we know where things are at. And we want to be able to pinpoint these imbalances. And third, we don't want to skip running labs and getting checkup and looking at other hormones like the thyroid, insulin, blood sugar control and all the sex hormones, because they often will play a role in perimenopausal symptoms and struggles. And they can often be out of balance at the same time, same time. And if you're not looking at them, you won't know it. So now that you know the truth between these three myths, what's the one thing that you can do today to feel better? How can you take this information and turn it into real results? So here's the bottom line. Stop believing the lies and start advocating for yourself. Pick one of the actions from today's videos. Whether it's adding protein to your meals or scheduling some hormone lab work, or exploring bioidentical hormone therapy, you want to commit to something this week. Or maybe it's dialing in your sleep, just putting the phone down maybe an hour earlier. This is a journey, right? So this is a journey, it's not a destination. We're on this menopause trip for an average of 35 to 40 years. And once we hit menopause, we are in menopause from that point forward. So let's make it a vibrant one. So so I'm passionate about helping women not only just be empowered with knowledge, but to deserve to really feel amazing and not just okay. So I want you to remember that treating the root cause, not just the symptoms, is the key to lasting health. So now that you understand these myths and how they've been sabotaging your perimenopausal experience and potentially your progress, you need to know the specific testing protocol that we use with our clients. And to uncover what's really going on with your hormones, there's a comprehensive approach that looks deeper than your basic blood work. Most of the women we talk to have had their blood work done, and their doctor tells them they're completely normal. Well, that's because your doctor is not checking anything that would functionally show that it's not normal. So when we look at those labs, we're looking at your entire sex hormone panel at the right time of your cycle to identify if the hormones are at a balanced to each other, because that's the important part. We also look at a full thyroid panel and your glucose and blood sugar control, things like insulin and cortisol, because those all inform how well you feel, how your hormones are controlled. The weight gain, the brain fog, the sleep disruption, all of them play a role. And this is how we identify the root cause of things like fatigue, weight gain, and brain fog. And I want you to subscribe to the Menopause Mastery show and comment below. Which myth surprised you the most? And then if you're really interested in looking a little bit deeper, you can go to gethormonesnow.com to discover how personalized testing and a personalized approach to hormone replacement therapy in perimenopause and beyond with a functional medicine lens could be the answer that you're looking for. And I want to thank you for watching Menopause Mastery. And we'll be back at the next show.