You can get your body back after 40
I have such fond memories as a young child of my beautiful grandma.
She was such a beauty.
She had long black hair with one thick band of contrasting grey and soft blue mysterious eyes.
All day she wore her hair in a bun.
At night she would let down her gorgeous main and I would beg her to let me brush it.
I was obsessed with long hair.
And then one day it happened.
My aunties convinced her that she was too old for long hair.
And then she had it cut, dyed and permed into what I thought was a hideous and homogenous ‘old lady do’.
I was appalled.
From that day forward, I decided, I would never be one of those old ladies.
I would keep my hair long.
I would grey naturally and I prayed that I would be blessed with the same gorgeous thick grey skunk like stripe that my grandma had.
I just can’t stand seeing women succumb to the idea that long hair is just for young ladies.
Or that growing old means that fat and frumpiness are inevitable.
Good god, that is ridiculous.
What I see is that many women, when they get to a certain age, they stop adorning themselves in the feminine ways they once enjoyed – and start masculinizing the way they look.
From what they choose to wear, how they style their hair, to letting their body change from curvy to square and feeling powerless to do anything about it.
Aging this way has become not only accepted, but expected.
And frankly, it pisses me off.
Not that women accept it (that I understand, especially because it feels futile when you don’t know how to change it).
But that as a woman ages, she is expected by society to cut her hair, change the way she dresses and drench her scalp in chemicals?
Agh!
Just because it is common for women (and men) to start packing on pounds after 40, that doesn’t mean it is natural or the healthy sequela of aging.
I have also heard people justify gaining weight as a natural healthy part of aging because belly fat is needed to produce estrogen when the ovaries stop.
Though these fat cells do produce and store estrone, some consider it an unhealthy form of estrogen that may be related to estrogen dominant forms of cancer.
I think it it is a compensating mechanism for stress.
Your adrenals glands are supposed to take over for the ovaries by producing androstenedione, which is converted peripherally into estrone by the aromatase enzyme found mainly in adipose tissue.
Estrone is then converted into estradiol, the most potent estrogen.
Optimal adrenal gland function is needed to do this, but due to chronic stress, they may not be able to keep up with the demand for sex hormone precursors.
So the tummy roll helps out.
Far too many women experience chronic stress, so it stands to reason that while this compensatory mechanism is common, it doesn’t mean it is optimal or necessary.
If the tummy roll was a sign of good health, would that mean that women who keep their curves and don’t have the tummy roll (also a symptom of insulin resistance by the way) are unhealthy?
That doesn’t make sense.
Look around you.
Have you noticed that as people age and become overweight, they are more androgynous?
Men can have estrogen dominance too. That’s where the beer belly and the man boobs come from.
I became aware of this long before it happened to me.
I distinctly remember having this moment when I realized I was at a crossroads.
I could simply accept gaining weight and begin to enter into my crone years taking on the typical grandma look.
Part of me thought it wouldn’t be that half bad, after all pudgy grannies are the cutest ever!
Who doesn’t love the image of a little white haired granny with reading glasses half way down her nose, sitting on a rocking chair in front of a fire knitting?!!
Or I could chose to look like this grandma, or this one or this one.
Personally, I choose to be a hot granny!
But that doesn’t happen by accident.
What do you prefer, curves or bulges?
Personally, if curves are on the menu, that’s what I’m having!
The truth is, when you lose your curves and gain weight around the waist, that is a symptom of estrogen dominance and insulin resistance.
Even if you are fine with the extra weight, you must know that beyond appearance, estrogen dominance is a serious health issue that should not be ignored.
It masculinizes women and feminizes men.
So if you want to let go of the ‘bulges’ and get your curves back, you are going to want to listen in to my upcoming call to learn how to balance your hormones to go from feeling fat, frumpy, frustrated, puffy and drying out – to feeling slim, sexy and satisfied again!
It is never too late!