Are you sick of belly fat that won't move?
Frustrated with loss of muscle tone and stsrength?
Worried about memory loss of dementia?
Educational content reviewed by licensed APRN medical staff. Not personal medical advice.
In the video, Dr Vikki Petersen explains why women develop belly fat, lose muscle strength and develop dementia. If you're 35 to 65+ years old, this video is for you.
The bad news is that women start to lose estrogen in perimenopause, early 40s typically. It really plummets at menopause but if you're younger and have suffered with irregular periods or PCOS, you've already been suffering with imbalanced estrogen.
Estrogen is anti-inflammatory and protects you against:
belly fat/ visceral fat
muscle and bone loss
type 2 diabetes
heart disease
fatty liver
dementia.
Protecting you against the adverse effects of aging, called geroprotective, are just two organs, your muscles and ovaries. The latter go away with menopause so you are left with needing very healthy, strong muscle to combat this.
High intensity exercise creates changes in muscle which drives glucose into your muscles while relasing a hormone that prevents storage of visceral fat.
High intensity exercise is defined as reaching greater than 80% of your maximum heart rate. Calculate max HR by taking 220 minus your age. You want to engage in this 20% of the time or 2x/week. At a high intensity you'll find it difficult to speak.
Exercises like HIIT, heavy weights and circuit training fall into this category.
Benefits are many:
1. prevents visceral fat storage / belly fat
2. makes muscles stronger
3. makes anti-inflammatory chemicals (cytokines) which lower disease risk
4. increases neuroplasticity of the brain, produces more brain cells and makes more lactate - protecting against dementia
5. benefits sleep quality
6. balances mood
80% of the time you want to engage in low intensity exercise - defined as 50 to 70% of your max heart rate. So that's 5x/wk.
Examples would be an incline walk, slow run, steady cycle and weight lifting.
Avoid moderate intensity exercise. This zone doesn't create a storng enough stress and post-exercise response the way high intensity does. Instead, it elevates inflammation and the stress hormone corisol.
A recommendation is to get your bone density tested early. You want to catch bone loss early - get tested in your 40s. The LiftMor study cited below found that lifting heavy weights in older women with osteoporosis was safe and built back bone. Don't be afraid of this. It's never too late to turn this around.
#bellyfat #menopause #womenshealth #rootcausemedicine
References:
Kodete, C. S. et al. (2024). “Hormonal Influences on Skeletal Muscle Function in …” MDPI J 3(3):24.
Also: Zhang, C. et al. (2024). “Research progress on the correlation between estrogen …” Frontiers in Endocrinology.
Steiner, B. M. (2022). “The Regulation of Adipose Tissue Health by Estrogens.” Frontiers in Endocrinology.
Marsh, M. L. (2023). “Adipocyte Metabolism and Health after the Menopause.” PMC.
García-Suárez, P. C. (2020). “Acute Systemic Response Of BDNF, Lactate and Cortisol to …” PMC.
Kraemer, R. R. (2023). “The effects of peripheral hormone responses to exercise …” Frontiers in Endocrinology.
Ward, L. J. et al. (2020). “Resistance training decreases plasma levels of adipokines …” Scientific Reports.
Tan, L. (2025). “Can strength training modulate inflammatory markers in postmenopausal women with overweight and obesity?” Complement Ther Med
Watson S.L., et al. (2018). The LIFTMOR Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. 33(2):211-220. doi:10.1002/jbmr.3284.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this video is intended for educational purposes only and is