From the right way to exercise, to what to eat and drink and the case for HRT, experts explain how women can prepare for midlife changes to their bodies
Sometimes your body notices things before your mind does: you might think you’re so far away from the menopause that a hot flush is just a thing you can fake to get out of a boring situation, but your midriff knows better. Lucinda Meade, 57, is a physiotherapist and personal trainer. She has trained many clients through the menopause and says it tends to start with surreptitious weight gain around the middle, which they then can’t shift. It may be accompanied by aches and pains in smaller joints, and an unappetising smörgåsbord of “mood changes, sleep changes, annoying visits to the GP to be given antidepressants”.
All this makes perfect sense from a hormonal perspective, as another trainer, Sarah Overall, 51, describes: “Oestrogen governs so many of your bodily processes, and one of the things it’s involved in is water regulation. It’s a lot easier for tendons and ligaments and joints to become dehydrated. And that can also lead to a resurgence of old injuries.” Plus, “when your female hormones decrease, you go from having a gynoid shape, carrying fat on your hips and thighs, to android obesity, abdominal fat, which is a male shape.”