Female Hormones and Body Composition
All this week I have been exploring how much to eat to support our training. By far, the most common question I get during our quarterly check-ins is, "How much should I eat?" Most of us have a goal to control our body composition so that we maximize our lean mass and keep our body fat percentage below a specific level.
Many, many of us have a weight loss goal. I understand and respect our desire to have a healthy weight. I also want to stress that it might be more important to track our lean mass rather than our body weight. Our body is amazing and the skin, muscle, bones, organs and body fat all play a vitally important role in our homeostasis. Lean mass influences our metabolism and body fat influences our endocrine system, aka hormones. This is why body fat percentages above 30% for men and women younger than 50 are a concern. Body fat is hormonally active and the more we have of it the more it impacts our insulin, cortisol, and other hormone regulation. Drop it below 30% and you reduce the risk of most metabolic diseases. Lean mass, notably, muscle, is metabolically active. The more we have the better we are able to stave off many diseases of aging (osteoporosis and sarcopenia, and to some extent diabetes and metabolic X syndrome.) You can ameliorate many of the health risks of high body weight by have more lean mass and lower body fat. That's why your body composition (lean mass and body fat) matter much more than your body weight. Remember, I can calculate your lean mass at your check-in or you can get it tested on campus. For us women, our hormones, during puberty, reproductive years, and the menopause transition can give us all kinds of challenges. This is especially true if we are athletes, which all of you at the gym are:) That's why I'm sharing this excellent and short podcast from Wild Health featuring Dr. Carla DiGirolamo the lead instructor of my Menopause continuing education course that I just finished. She provides an excellent synopsis of how our hormones impact body composition through all the phases of our hormonal journey. No matter where you are in your life, puberty, reproductive years, our menopause transition you will definitely learn something from Dr. DiGirolamo. Click on the link below to listen or go here. In this episode, Dr. Mike Stone and Dr. Carla DiGirolamo, board-certified Reproductive Endocrinologists who specialize in all aspects of fertility care, will be discussing a topic that is of utmost importance to many women - weight management and its relationship to female hormones.
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