Women who have experienced menopause know the troubles it brings: irritability, increased fatigue, and weight gain. Luckily, the keto diet has proven itself as an effective way to lose weight and improve overall health. Not sure how to begin? Keep reading to find out how to follow keto for women over 50
The Keto Diet Explained
The keto diet is a high fat low carb diet which forces your body to burn fat for energy instead of carbs and sugar. The keto diet pushes your body to use stored fat which, in turn, enables your fat cells to release fatty acids. These fatty acids are then converted into ‘ketones’ by your liver. As soon as 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 significant weight loss.
Keto Flu
While your body is transitioning from carbohydrates to ketones, you are likely to suffer from a temporary side effect known as the keto flu. But remember that it is common and goes away once your body gets used to utilizing ketones.
Now that you know the science behind the keto diet for women, it is time to understand how it is beneficial for women over the age of 50.
Benefits of Keto for Women Over 50
Keto for women over 50 helps to reduce some of the side effects of menopause. Some of the ways it helps are: maintaining a healthy weight, reducing body fat, and improving cognition. Here are a few of the cognitive benefits:
Balance Hormones: Most of the symptoms of menopause encountered by women are due to hormonal imbalances. The keto diet for women works by normalizing these imbalances of hormones such as estrogen. This enables you to experience lesser post-menopausal symptoms like hot flashes. Even if they occur, they are shorter in duration and more bearable. The ketogenic diet also balances insulin and helps regulate insulin sensitivity. This hormone balancing effect of the keto diet has also been proven to treat PMS symptoms in younger females.
Enhance Brain Functions: The hormone estrogen ensures a smooth inflow of glucose into your brain. However, after menopause, the high levels of estrogen eventually begin to drop and so does the amount of glucose reaching your brain. If you are not getting enough glucose, your brain functions will start to decline. By the following keto diet, the problem of glucose intake is bypassed. This leads to enhanced cognition and brain functions.
Increase Sex Drive: 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.
Enhance Sleep: Even a small amount of glucose can disturb your blood sugar levels. This leads to poor quality of sleep. Combined with other menopausal symptoms, your sleep can really become troubled as you age. The ketogenic diet balances blood glucose levels, and other hormones like cortisol, melatonin, and serotonin ensuring a improved sleep.
Reduces inflammation: Menopause can increase the level of inflammation which can lead to unpleasant and painful symptoms. Women over 50 following a keto diet makes use of healthy anti-inflammatory fats to reduce inflammation and lower pain in your joints and backbone.
Keto, Hormones, and Menopause
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% more than usual can enhance the production of estrogen and androgen levels by 12% in women after menopause.
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 50
- Have a Planned Start Date
An important aspect of the keto diet for women is clearing your schedule of any parties or lunch plans. Tell your friends and family about the new diet you are planning to follow so that they may help you in the process. Ask them to support you instead of judging you for your choices.
- Throw away any non-ketogenic stuff
Clean out your refrigerator from any non-ketogenic food. If you have them around, they will surely tempt you. You may believe in toughing it out, but it’s better to be overly prepared than sorry. Some people might suggest you giving away these food items to your friends and family members. It’s best you throw them away as it would seem like dumping all your weight-gaining and diabetes causing foods on your loved ones. You know the food is not healthy so do them yourself a favor as well as your loved ones. After you have discarded all of your non-ketogenic food, go and restock your home with ketogenic foods. Because the keto diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet, this means piling up on foods with healthy fats.
- Try intermittent fasting
It’s a good idea 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 its recommended that you don’t consume either your breakfast, lunch, or dinner every day. Many doctors 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.
Here is a great article on ways to begin intermittent fasting for women.
- Never consume more than 25 grams of carbs per day
When transitioning into ketosis, it is important that you eat a lot of healthy fats. Because keto is a low carb diet, make sure to reduce your intake of carbohydrates to 25 grams or less. You can add in some extra fats and proteins (eggs, avocados, or coconut oil) to your meals. 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 fewer carbs and more of fats so that there would be no lack of fuel (ketones).
- Adopt a morning routine
Try your best that you start your morning with the following ketone enhancing routine:
- 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.
Beginner Keto Diet Tips for Success
The ketogenic diet plan can be tough to start. However, you can always make use of the following tips to ensure success.
- Follow intermittent fasting with keto diet for a faster weight loss.
- Manage your stress levels as an excessive production of stress hormone can make you gain weight.
- Ensure that you sleep properly every night as this helps reduce your stress levels.
- Add more salt to your food.
- Exercise more frequently to stay fit mentally and physically.
- Stop drinking any soda or any sugar substitute.
- Drink more water.
Additional Weight Loss Tips for Women Over 50
Research suggests that weight loss is possible after 50 by doing regular exercise and eating healthy. Some of the tips to help you reduce weight effectively are for women over 50 no matter which diet you choose are:
- Eat smaller portions.
- Add more protein and good fats to your diet, especially at the start of the day to maintain your muscle mass.
- Make sure to strength train as part of your regular exercise.
- Make sure to get enough sleep at night
- Cultivate your mind about new ideas of wellness. Forget the old rules of weight loss.
- Avoid nutrient-poor and processed “diet food.”
- Set some realistic goals and follow a well-structured plan.
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 50 is a perfect way to lose 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. So if you are someone struggling with post-menopausal symptoms, try keto diet now.
However, please remember it is advised to check with your health care doctor or professional before starting any diet regimen.