Losing weight is difficult for everyone, but for women who have just passed the age of 40, it can be a real struggle. The whole process of weight loss becomes complex, due to hormonal imbalances. Luckily, the keto diet for women has proven itself as an effective way to lose weight and improve the overall health for women over 40. Not sure how to begin? Keep reading to find out how to follow the keto diet for women over 40.
The Keto Diet Explained
The keto diet is a high fat low carb diet that is designed to push your body to burn fat for energy instead of carbs and sugar. The keto diet forces your body to use stored fat and this enables your fat cells to release fatty acids. These fatty acids are then converted into ‘ketones’ by your liver. When this process occurs, your body enters into a state of ketosis where it starts burning ketones for fuel, instead of glucose (sugar). As the intake of carbs is reduced further, ketones become the primary source of energy. This leads to massive weight loss and fat burning.
While your body is transitioning from carbohydrates to ketones, you are likely to suffer from some temporary side effects, one of them being the keto flu. While the keto flu is not fun, it is only a minor temporary setback. But remember that it is common and goes away once your body gets used to utilizing ketones.
Now that you understand the science behind the keto diet for women, lets take a look at how it is beneficial for women over the age of 40.
Benefits of Keto for Women Over 40
For women over 40, the keto diet helps to maintain a healthy weight, reduce body fat, and improve cognition. This is achieved by the following:
Balance Hormones: Women just over 40 frequently begin to experience hormonal imbalances. As a woman approaches perimenopause, her estrogen levels begin to fluctuate. The keto diet for women works by normalizing these imbalances. By balancing estrogen, the ketogenic diet helps balance insulin. This consequently improves insulin sensitivity and stabilizes the sugar levels in the blood. This hormone balancing the effect of the keto diet has also been proven to treat PMS symptoms in younger females.
Increase Sex Drive: Although very few of us will say it, most of us women want to have better sex. The keto diet can do that for us. The ketogenic diet increases the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, especially vitamin D. Being a precursor of sex hormones, vitamin D ensures balanced levels of testosterone and other sex hormones that could become unbalanced due to testosterone. In layman’s terms this means that the keto diet can help to increase a reduced or diminished sex drive.
Enhance Brain Functions: The hormone estrogen ensures a smooth inflow of glucose into your brain. However, as a woman ages, the high levels of estrogen eventually begin to drop and so does the amount of glucose reaching your brain. A lack of glucose to the brain leads to a decline in brain functions. By the following keto diet, women over 40, the problem of glucose intake can be mitigated or even avoided. This leads to enhanced cognition and brain functions.
Enhance Sleep: Are you tossing and turning at night? Are you finding it difficult to really rest? If that’s you, the keto diet is your fix. Keeping in mind that the keto diet helps to regulate glucose levels, even a small amount of glucose can disturb your blood sugar levels leading to poor quality of sleep. And over time, your sleep can really become disturbed. Ketogenic diet balances blood glucose levels, and other hormones like cortisol, melatonin, and serotonin ensuring proper sleep.
Reduces inflammation: As we age our joints are not quite as “oiled” as they used to be. The process of aging can increase the level of inflammation which can lead to unpleasant and painful joint pain. Following keto diet, women over 40 can make use of healthy anti-inflammatory fats to reduce inflammation and lower pain in your joints and backbone.
How Keto Affects Hormones in Women over 40
Over the period of reproductive years, the follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) ensures proper release of an egg from either of an ovary of a woman. This egg is released every 28 days and stimulates the production of estrogen. The release of estrogen signals the production of progesterone.
As a woman enters her pre-menopausal state, her levels eggs start to decline and so does the levels of estrogen and progesterone. Although FSH, from the brain, tries to maintain these hormones, over the period of a few years all of these hormones start to decline steadily.
Estrogen directs storage of fats in areas like thigh or hips. However, as levels of estrogen drop, the fat starts to get stored in the abdomen. This visceral fat can lead to insulin resistance, various heart diseases, and other general health problems. In addition to fat deposition, weight can generally increase due to:
- Higher levels of insulin (hyperinsulinemia)
- Increased levels of hunger hormone (ghrelin)
- Impaired production of leptin and neuropeptide Y
- Loss of muscle mass
- Slower metabolism
However, lifestyle changes and a well-formed ketogenic diet can impact this balance strongly. Ketosis lowers the levels of insulin and enhances the production of leptin. Increasing fat intake by 5% than usual can enhance the production of estrogen and androgen levels by 12% in women in perimenopausal and menopausal states.
Ketones also activate the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA axis) which promote the interaction between the hypothalamus, the pituitary and the adrenal glands. As mentioned earlier, insulin sensitivity can affect your sexual hormones. Ketones balance your insulin sensitivity and increase the production of sex hormones.
5 Simple Steps to Start the Keto Diet for Women Over 40
- Identify a set start date
An important aspect of the keto diet for women is identifying a set start data. This means selecting a period where your schedule is clear of any parties, lunch and dinner dates, or trips. The reason for this is that you need to be laser focused at the beginning with very few distractions. Let your friends and family know about your new diet journey so that they can help you in the process and so that you will have people to be accountable to. This will help to give you a strong start.
- Get rid of all non-ketogenic food
The second step in starting a keto diet is to clean all non-ketogenic foods out of your kitchen and home. Having these foods in the house will make it easier to break your diet. You will less likely have non-ketogenic food if you have to put effort into leaving your home to go get them. It may tough to throw perfectly good food away and costly to buy new food to start over, but your health and new body are worth it.
If you live with other people who are not on the keto diet or if you have children who aren’t eating keto, then work on avoiding the foods they eat and remember, nibbling or eating the smallest amount of non-ketogenic food will kill your diet. You must have discipline!
- Try intermittent fasting
It is strongly recommended to add intermittent fasting to your schedule. This does not mean fasting for the entire day. All you need to do is skip one meal every day so that you can control your net carbs more efficiently.
It’s completely up to you which meal you skip, but it’s will be of great service to you if skipped one of the major meals per day and fasted. Many gurus and health practitioners recommend eating an earlier dinner combined with a late breakfast. Just by doing that a few times a week, you can create an effortless fast of 12-14 hours.
It is recommended that women start intermittent fasting with crescendo fasting. Learn more about it here.
- Never consume more than 25 grams of carbs per day
When transitioning into ketosis, it is important that you consume a fair amount of healthy fat. Because keto is a low carb diet, make sure to reduce your intake of carbohydrates or less than 25 grams. You can add in some extra fats and proteins (eggs, avocados, or coconut oil) to your meals. This may be challenging at the beginning but you will get used to it.
Try to add butter and coconut oil to everything you eat. This ensures that your body starts to transition into ketosis and motivates your body to get energy by burning fat. Make sure your body gets less carbs and more of fats so that there would be no lack of fuel (ketones).
- Adopt a morning routine
Adopt the following ketone enhancing routine in the morning:
- Drink plenty of water
- Take two teaspoons of coconut oil
- Take half teaspoon of MCT oil as a supplement
Your ketone levels are a great indicator of either your body is using fats for energy or not. Any blood ketone tracker will ensure that you remain motivated and on the right track. Testing ketone levels should be done frequently when initially starting the keto diet.
7 Keto Beginner Tips for Success
The ketogenic diet plan can be tough to start. Here are seven quick tips to get you started:
- Try intermittent fasting with keto diet for a faster weight loss. Intermittent fasting also helps to get to ketosis faster.
- Manage your stress levels as excessive production of stress hormone can make you gain weight
- Ensure that you sleep properly every night as this helps reduce your stress levels
- Maintain adequate protein intake to maintain healthy muscle mass and for liver health.
- Exercise more frequently to stay fit mentally and physically
- Stop drinking any soda or any sugar substitute
- Drink more water to help with satiation and hydration.
Additional Weight Loss Tips for Women Over 40
Research suggests that weight loss is highly attainable after 40 by doing regular exercise and eating healthy. Here are general weight loss tips for women over 40 following any diet.
- Practice portion control.
- Add more protein and good fats to your diet, especially at the start of the day to maintain your muscle mass
- Add strength training or resistance training to your regular exercise routine.
- Make sure you get enough sleep at night. Without proper sleep, weight loss cannot occur.
- Cultivate your mind about new ideas of wellness and adopt a fresh perspective on health and fitness.
- Avoid nutrient-poor processed “diet foods.” These are processed foods that are said to support diets and weight loss. EAT REAL FOOD.
- Set some realistic goals and follow a well-structured
- Keep a journal and chart your weight loss journey.
Following the keto diet for women in combination with the tips mentioned above will definitely help you get rid of the excessive weight.
Conclusion
The keto diet for women over the age of 40 is a perfect way to reduce weight, stay active, and enjoy life. It can balance hormones, improve cognition, and improve the quality of sleep without posing any threats to your health. It can also help to improve your sex drive and your intimate relationships. So if you have just broken into the 40 club, or if you have been a member for a few years now, and are struggling with weight management, try keto diet now.
However, please remember to consult your health professional before starting any weight loss plan.
