How Not to Gain Weight After Menopause

This way of eat­ing will help you not gain excess weight dur­ing menopause.

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Agree, menopause is a rather com­pli­cat­ed top­ic and an equal­ly com­plex health con­di­tion. After years of men­stru­a­tion, cramps, PMS, and so on, hot flash­es, irri­tabil­i­ty, insom­nia, and even poten­tial depres­sion have to be endured. Menopause is a night­mare for many.

Usu­al­ly, menopause begins between the ages of 45 and 55 and caus­es sig­nif­i­cant changes in the hor­mon­al back­ground. Because of this, you can eas­i­ly encounter weight changes and a more dif­fi­cult process of los­ing weight. In addi­tion, the peri­od before menopause, the so-called per­i­menopause, can cause unwant­ed weight gain.

There­fore, doc­tors in the peri­od before menopause rec­om­mend adher­ing to a spe­cial diet. It’s called the Galve­ston Diet, and it was cre­at­ed by Mary Claire Haver, MD. This diet includes a lot of whole foods and also reduces inflam­ma­tion. There­fore, it will also be use­ful for women of all ages.

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What is the Galveston Diet

The main goal of this diet is to help con­trol weight dur­ing per­i­menopause, as well as avoid weight gain asso­ci­at­ed with menopause. But she does not focus on weight and its con­trol. The Galve­ston Diet will sup­port you if you’re strug­gling with hor­mone reg­u­la­tion and also feel like menopause symp­toms are approach­ing.

The diet is based on three pil­lars:

• anti-inflam­ma­to­ry food;
• inter­mit­tent fast­ing;
• “fuel reori­en­ta­tion” — lim­it­ing refined car­bo­hy­drate intake, focus­ing on nutri­ent-dense car­bo­hy­drates.

This diet is based on eat­ing low carb, lean pro­tein, healthy fats, and low starch foods. In addi­tion, don’t for­get to include three sup­ple­ments in your diet: vit­a­min D, fiber, and omega‑3 fat­ty acids.

In addi­tion, inter­mit­tent fast­ing is an impor­tant ele­ment.

How the Galveston Diet Works

The first step is inter­mit­tent fast­ing.. Of the 24 hours in a day, you can eat only 8 hours, and the remain­ing 16 — fast­ing (you can only drink unsweet­ened herbal teas and water).

The sec­ond stage is anti-inflam­ma­to­ry nutri­tion. The diet includes many foods with nat­ur­al antiox­i­dants. This will help sup­port the intestines and help the body work more effi­cient­ly.

The third stage is the reori­en­ta­tion to the right fuel. No processed carbs and no sug­ar addic­tion. Refo­cus on car­bo­hy­drates with more nutri­ents.

In addi­tion, it is rec­om­mend­ed to con­sult a nutri­tion­ist before start­ing this diet.

The Galve­ston Diet does­n’t depend on count­ing calo­ries, so you don’t have to fum­ble around with cal­cu­la­tors and pro­grams.

Research on the Galveston Diet

Although the Galve­ston diet has not yet been well researched, there are stud­ies on parts of this style of eat­ing. This is inter­mit­tent fast­ing, as well as foods that pro­mote a feel­ing of sati­ety.

They have been found to be ben­e­fi­cial, and there­fore the Galve­ston diet, which includes them, is also ben­e­fi­cial.

So, for exam­ple, a 2020 study of 27 tri­als showed that inter­mit­tent fast­ing helped to lose from 0.8% to 13% of the ini­tial body weight.

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Galveston diet menu: what to eat and drink

The Galve­ston Diet focus­es on nat­ur­al, antiox­i­dant-rich foods. In addi­tion, you should avoid foods that are high in added sug­ar, processed car­bo­hy­drates.

What you can eat:

• Pro­teins: salmon, eggs, quinoa, Greek yogurt, lean chick­en, lean turkey, lean beef, nitrate-free deli meats.
• Fruits and veg­eta­bles: blue­ber­ries, rasp­ber­ries, straw­ber­ries, spinach, zuc­chi­ni, squash, toma­toes, cucum­bers, cel­ery, broc­coli, cau­li­flower.
• Fats: avo­ca­do, extra vir­gin olive oil, wal­nuts, pecans, almonds, sesame seeds, sun­flower seeds, pine nuts.

What not to eat:

• Processed or refined car­bo­hy­drate foods (piz­za, chips, white pas­ta).
• Refined flour and cere­als.
• Foods high in sug­ar (cook­ies, cakes, sweets, desserts).
• Soda and sweet water.
• Sug­ar or arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers.
• Oils — rape­seed, for exam­ple.
• Foods with arti­fi­cial fla­vors, col­ors, preser­v­a­tives and espe­cial­ly corn syrup.
• Processed meats with nitrates (burg­ers, sausages and sala­mi).
• Fried.
• Alco­hol.

Some evi­dence sup­ports that this diet is effec­tive for weight loss. At the same time, some parts of this diet help in the pre­ven­tion of chron­ic dis­eases — insulin resis­tance, dia­betes, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease. The poten­tial draw­back is, of course, the dif­fi­cul­ty in stick­ing to the diet, as well as the high cost of some prod­ucts.