Forty Is The New Twenty

How Aging Affects the Female Body

This month, we are revealing our secret formula to female aging. For males, many of these body types look similar, but hormonal patterns leading to a “male menopause, or a drops use” has its own list of characteristics. More to come on this in the future.

First, we’ll dive into what we hear the most from our female patients: where we gain weight as we age, why we gain it and most importantly… how to lose it.

Aging is THE biggest risk factor for all chronic diseases including arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, alzheimers, parkinsons and many more.

Did you know, The World Health Organization (WHO) considers aging a disease? Your epigenome controls the key to aging.

Aging is defined as the progressive loss of function over time. Health and disease are not binary and, just like disease, you don’t get old overnight. Now that we can measure your aging, we can tell you what interventions work for you to prevent it and the associated decline in function.

This is the best snapshot of how well you are aging and a snapshot of your overall health. Normal aging is not equal to optimal aging (much like hormones).

The HOW, WHAT and WHY to weight gain.

There are four main weight gain patterns: Androgen/Adrenal type, Female Hormone type, Thyroid type and Metabolic type. These patterns can overlap and are unique to each individual.

The Androgren/Adrenal type creates weight gain in the midsection, arms, chest, shoulders and inner thighs. A person may also experience difficulty getting started in the morning, sugar and salt cravings, afternoon fatigue and headaches, excessive sweating and a dependency to coffee/caffeine. 

The Female Hormone type causes weight gain in the hips, buttocks, thighs giving a “saddle bag” appearance and/or a lower abdominal “pooch”. A person with this type might also struggle with unexplained weight gain, moodiness, hot flashes, changes in sex drive, acne breakouts, breast and vaginal tenderness and depression/anxiety.

The Thyroid type produces all over weight gain, swelling issues, sluggishness, cold feet/hands/body, infrequent bowel movements, thinning hair and dry scalp/skin, low sex drive and nervous/emotional feelings.

The Metabolic type stores fat around the waistline, creates high blood pressure, blood sugar and triglycerides, dry flakey skin with a yellowish tone, gas/bloating, bitter taste in mouth and reddened skin in face, cheeks and palms.

There are many factors as to why some people gain weight in different areas. Some of those factors include: microbiome, chronic stress, under-active thyroid, and hormonal imbalances. 

Our diagnostic approach to fat loss allows us to successfully target specific areas. Those elements include:

• lab work to check your overall health
• annual wellness visits
• assess calories in versus calories out
• determine carbs, fats and proteins ratio
• evaluate exercise routines
• check stress levels
• track your sleep patterns

Compete with yourself to lower this aging rate.

“You can’t change what you can’t measure!” 60% of these markers are changeable. Therefore your DNA is not your destiny.

It isn’t just about LifeSpan, it is about Healthspan! If you reduced the epigenetic aging rate by 7 years in the population you would cut disease in half. Normal aging is not optimal aging. You can’t manage what you can’t measure so let’s start measuring.