The Secret to Weight Loss? Tame Your Hormones

If it seems like every morsel of food you eat goes straight to your hips, it could be that your hormones are to blame. According to Dr. Pamela Peeke,best-selling author and Chief Medical Correspondent for Discovery Health TV, women go through four "hormonal milestones"--puberty, pregnancy, perimenopause and menopause. Each stage is fraught with its own unique weight gain perils. Peek says the key to maintaining a healthy weight regardless of age or hormonal status is a customized diet and fitness routine. Read on for advice on handling perimenopause and menopause.

Perimenopause
Perimenopause can start as early as 35 but usually starts at 40 and extends to 52 to 55 when menopause then begins. (Menopause by the way is defined as 12 consecutive months without a period.) The challenge during peri-menopause is the slow withdrawal from estrogen, a hormone so intimately associated with every body function. It's a whole different rollercoaster and I hate to break it to you but the party's over. There is no buffer zone in terms of excess calories and missed workouts.

If you aren't more mindful about the calories rolling through your mouth and the amount of activity you do, you will gain weight during this time. Here's how to navigate it without gaining weight: Go to bed earlier, stop eating stupid stuff, get more resilient about stress. You can expect periods when your energy is lagging and that can make it more of a mental challenge to exercise but you've got to keep up physical activity the best you can. In fact, you should be adding a regular dose of what I call "Vitamin I" where the I stands for intensity. Challenge yourself by ramping up intensity with faster speeds, more hills, mix and match activities, heavier weights. Because fat cells are slower to give it up as you get older, your workouts need to be more vigorous to help maintain weight. And of course, you have to pay a lot more attention to nutrition too.

Menopause
Everything I said about peri goes for menopause too but good news is roller coaster is over. Everything settles down. No more withdrawal. Unfortunately, what you end up with is a situation where the fat is more stubborn. But you can fight excess fat by making sure you do plenty of weight training in addition to your cardio work. The secret is to maintain a strong muscle base and optimize lean muscle mass and minimize fat mass. Do no less than two weight workouts a week with a focus on upper body. Your muscle will disappear quickly if you don't take steps.

Check out Peeke's Body for Life for Women Workout DVD, a twelve-week program includes a unique week-by-week blueprint for a compete lifestyle change plus a thirty-minute full body fitness routine that's adaptable to all levels.