Why exercise is so important in menopause

Menopause can lead to weight gain but also loss of muscle. Read on to find out why exercise is so important in menopause.

Do you know why you put weight on when eating out and socialising more, but your arms, bottom and legs get smaller? During menopause, women lack muscle mass.

Muscle and menopause weight gain

Women live a third of their life in menopause. Therefore, it is really important to keep moving the body to live a healthy and happy life.

Exercise, movement and building muscle are big contributors to belly fat thing, for various reasons including:

• Muscle supports our skeletons
• Muscle burns up the calories that we consume
• Muscle keeps us strong

To keep moving and enjoying active hobbies, your body needs to be strong. Strong muscles help you to move forwards, backwards, sideways, up and down. 

If you love running, walking or dancing, keep doing them all. The movement will stimulate your happiness, and exercise facilitates building muscles. 

Add strength training to your exercise

As a woman becomes older, it becomes more important to think about strength. 

Strength training isn’t transforming yourself into a bodybuilder. Weights will also not mean that large muscles suddenly appear. Women simply don’t have the DNA to build massive muscles by simply adding light weights into their routine. 

Use your own body weight as resistance or perhaps light hand weights to introduce resistance training into your daily routine. 

If you are worried about hurting yourself, or not sure where to start, ask a trained menopause fitness professional to coach you in resistance training. Your trainer needs to understand that, as a midlife woman, you are trying to get stronger and coach your body in a functional way.

Get moving in menopause

If you would like to know more about movement and menopause, take a look at my online fitness classes. In these classes, I actively coach women to specifically move in the way that they need to move for better health. It’s not about squeezing into a tiny small bikini; it’s about being functionally strong and achieving a body that will keep you active. 

For belly fat, exercise is not about doing 100 crunches. It does not work like that. Exercise is about building muscles throughout your whole body, which will help you burn fat. In turn, this will help to keep you strong, and healthy, and prevent the risk of heart disease, diabetes, clotting and inflammation.