520 - Weight Gain & Obesity as Unintended Consequences of Menopause | Menopause Taylor

[00:00:07]Hello my dear students. It's good to see you again. We have a real partnership, don't we? I create and deliver this education and you use it to make the rest of your life the best of your life.

[00:00:19]You've joined me for video tutorial number 520.

[00:00:23]It's the 15th video in our unit on metabolism, weight gain, and cravings.

[00:00:29]In the tutorial just before this one, which was video number 519, I presented the unintended consequences of obesity.

[00:00:40]They're all the things that constitute the bad package deal of obesity.

[00:00:45]Not a single one of them is something you want. They are all undesirable unintended consequences of obesity.

[00:00:54]Here's the chart for unintended consequences of obesity from last week's tutorial.

[00:01:01]I will not elaborate on this chart today today again. As long as you've watched my video last week, you're already familiar with it.

[00:01:10]Today, what I want to do is put a spin on this.

[00:01:14]This tutorial is on weight gain and obesity as unintended consequences of menopause.

[00:01:24]In other words, weight gain and obesity are like silent partners of menopause.

[00:01:30]Silent partners is a business term.

[00:01:32]Silent partners invest money in a business, but they do not actively participate in the business. And the reason I'm using silent partners as the theme of our tutorial today is because menopause has silent partners.

[00:01:47]You experience menopause as a result of estrogen deficiency, but along with estrogen deficiency, you have weight gain and obesity contributing to the consequences of your menopause.

[00:02:04]Chapter 24 of my book is on weight gain and you'll get the same information in a different format there.

[00:02:12]All right.

[00:02:14]I am boldly and bluntly designating weight gain and obesity as unintended consequences of menopause. Now, this is one of my own ideas. Don't go looking for it elsewhere.

[00:02:27]But why would I go so far as to designate weight gain and obesity as unintended consequences of menopause and liken them to silent partners?

[00:02:38]Well, there are lots of reasons. So, let's go through each one of them.

[00:02:46]The first reason weight gain and obesity are unintended consequences of menopause is that menopause, weight gain, and obesity are equally obvious and pervasive.

[00:03:01]Look around you.

[00:03:03]What percentage of the population is menopausal?

[00:03:08]What percentage of the population is overweight or obese?

[00:03:13]Well, I'll tell you. More than 1/5 of the world's population is menopausal.

[00:03:21]More than 1/3 of the world's population is overweight or obese.

[00:03:28]And more than 1/2 of menopausal women are overweight or obese.

[00:03:34]So, menopause, weight gain, and obesity go hand in hand. Menopause brings with it the unintended consequences of weight gain and obesity.

[00:03:48]The second reason weight gain and obesity are unintended consequences of menopause.

[00:03:54]Is it menopause, weight gain, and obesity have all been wrongly labeled?

[00:04:03]All are just now receiving proper labeling.

[00:04:08]Most people, including women, incorrectly label menopause as natural or normal.

[00:04:17]It isn't.

[00:04:18]It is common, but just because something is common does not mean it's natural or normal.

[00:04:24]Mother nature did not include menopause in her plan for animals. That's why other animals don't have menopause.

[00:04:31]Instead, they die.

[00:04:34]Human females are defying mother nature's plan by outliving their ovaries.

[00:04:41]And there's nothing natural or normal about outliving an organ that produces a vital hormone.

[00:04:48]So, rather than labeling menopause as natural or normal, we need to label it for what it is. It's a hormone deficiency.

[00:04:57]No hormone deficiency is natural or normal.

[00:05:02]Likewise, until recently, weight gain and obesity were considered a chosen lifestyle.

[00:05:10]They labeled them as a lifestyle.

[00:05:12]Historically, people assumed that if you were overweight or obese, you just ate too much and moved too little. But, that's not correct.

[00:05:21]Weight gain and obesity are chronic diseases. They are due to abnormal metabolism. They are not voluntary lifestyle choices.

[00:05:32]So, we're only just beginning to shake people awake on the fact that menopause, weight gain, and obesity are all disease states.

[00:05:42]Even though they've all been around for centuries, we're just now starting to label them correctly.

[00:05:50]The third reason weight gain and obesity are unintended consequences of menopause is that menopause, weight gain, and obesity are all chronic.

[00:06:03]You will be menopausal for the rest of your life.

[00:06:07]You will have to manage your menopause for the rest of your life.

[00:06:11]Your management will change, but the fact that you are menopausal will remain.

[00:06:17]Similarly, weight gain and obesity are chronic.

[00:06:21]You will have to manage them for the rest of your life. If you stop managing them, you'll gain weight.

[00:06:30]And since weight gain is a symptom of menopause, you need to be prepared to manage both of them for the rest of your life.

[00:06:41]And that brings us to the next very interesting reason.

[00:06:46]The fourth reason weight gain and obesity are unintended consequences of menopause is because hormone replacement therapy for menopause is fearful, undesirable, and inaccessible.

[00:07:03]There's no other hormone deficiency for which people harbor fear, undesirability, and inaccessibility for hormone replacement.

[00:07:14]So, because weight gain and obesity are symptoms of menopause, and because women encounter barriers to getting hormone replacement for menopause, weight gain and obesity are unintended consequences of menopause.

[00:07:32]HRT for menopause is unpopular.

[00:07:36]Now, contrast this with the plethora of new medications for weight management.

[00:07:41]People are taking these weight management medications for everything.

[00:07:46]There's such rampant use of medication for weight management that the manufacturers can't keep up with the demand.

[00:07:54]Pharmacies can't keep them in stock.

[00:07:57]And compounding pharmacies are making fake imitations.

[00:08:02]How can it be so common and desirable to take a medication for weight management and so uncommon and undesirable to take hormone replacement for menopause?

[00:08:16]And how can this be the case when the hormone deficiency of menopause causes the weight gain and obesity in the first place?

[00:08:26]The hormone deficiency of menopause is no different than the hormone deficiencies of diabetes or hypothyroidism.

[00:08:33]The only thing that can prevent the unintended consequences of any hormone deficiency is hormone replacement.

[00:08:45]The fifth reason weight gain and obesity are unintended consequences of menopause is because all three carry a stigma.

[00:08:55]Nobody wants the stigma of being overweight or obese. Nobody wants the stigma of being menopausal.

[00:09:04]But hey, stigmas are the fault of society. They are collective form of disapproval.

[00:09:13]But why does society choose to stigmatize some characteristics and not others?

[00:09:20]Why do we stigmatize menopause weight gain and obesity but not gender, height, and eye color?

[00:09:31]The odd thing about stigmas is that we tend to stigmatize things that people do not choose. Why not stigmatize voluntary characteristics like tattoos, piercings, or makeup?

[00:09:41]The bottom line is that stigma serve no useful purpose for anybody. They serve to segregate and humiliate.

[00:09:50]They engender assumptions about others that are not accurate.

[00:09:54]And they lead to our next reason that weight gain and obesity are unintended consequences of menopause.

[00:10:03]The sixth reason weight gain and obesity are unintended consequences of menopause is because of shame.

[00:10:11]Obese people feel shame.

[00:10:14]Menopausal women feel shame.

[00:10:18]This is entirely unwarranted.

[00:10:22]But shame is a consequence of stigma.

[00:10:26]Menopausal women who know they succeeded in outliving their ovaries still feel shame.

[00:10:34]Overweight and obese people who know from personal experience that they did not cause their weight gain or obesity still feel shame.

[00:10:45]This is insane. No menopausal, overweight, or obese person should feel shame.

[00:10:53]Nothing about being menopausal, overweight, or obese warrants feelings of shame.

[00:11:01]But stigma and shame are unavoidable until we correct what underlies both of them.

[00:11:08]Neglect.

[00:11:09]And that's our next reason.

[00:11:11]The seventh reason weight gain and obesity are unintended consequences of menopause is because all three are subjects of neglect.

[00:11:23]As I stated at the beginning of this video, we are just starting to give them the attention they deserve. Until now, they've been subjects of neglect.

[00:11:34]And the people enduring menopause weight gain and obesity have been victims of neglect.

[00:11:40]I've told you that menopause is the most neglected topic on Earth.

[00:11:46]Even though half of the world's population will spend half of their lives in the state of menopause.

[00:11:52]How humans ever neglected menopause is beyond me.

[00:11:57]I mean, menopausal women are the largest group of humans on Earth.

[00:12:02]There is not a single person who doesn't have at least one menopausal woman in his or her life.

[00:12:09]And now, overweight and obese people are becoming as numerous as menopausal people.

[00:12:17]But ironically, any menopausal overweight or obese person will tell you that they feel invisible.

[00:12:26]Society tends to erase what it associates with a negative stigma.

[00:12:32]And menopause, weight gain, and obesity all qualify as states that society would prefer to erase through neglect. This is not acceptable.

[00:12:44]So now you see why I thought it necessary to declare weight gain and obesity as unintended consequences of menopause.

[00:12:52]To sum it up, here's a list of the reasons I did so.

[00:12:56]They are all equally obvious and pervasive.

[00:13:00]They have all been mislabeled.

[00:13:02]They are all chronic.

[00:13:04]HRT for menopause is unpopular.

[00:13:07]They all carry a stigma.

[00:13:10]They [snorts] are all sources of shame.

[00:13:13]They are all topics of neglect.

[00:13:17]What this means is that your weight gain problem may not be an isolated superficial problem. It may be due to menopause itself. Menopause may be the underlying problem.

[00:13:33]Anytime a superficial problem is really due to an underlying problem, you have to solve the underlying problem in order to solve the superficial problem.

[00:13:45]This is why I presented video number 516 on menopause HRT for weight management.

[00:13:54]The bottom line is that you have to get your estrogen right before anything else can be right, including your weight.

[00:14:02]I hope you're seeing why weight gain and obesity play such an important part of your menopause.

[00:14:09]My aim is to ensure that you succeed with all of your goals, and you cannot succeed if you don't see these relationships.

[00:14:18]Go to menopausetailor.me if you'd like to schedule a consultation in which I can tailor everything to you and your unique situation.

[00:14:28]Take a minute right now to subscribe to my channel and newsletter.

[00:14:32]And follow me on social media anytime.

[00:14:36]I'll be back in a week to teach you about research on weight gain and obesity.

[00:14:41]Bye for now.

[00:14:42]>> [laughter]