Diet Plan For Menopause Weight Loss – It happened to Texas obstetrician Mary Claire Haver, MD, when her hormones started to fluctuate in her 40s. Mainly to help herself, she created a new diet specifically for women going through menopause, which is now marketed as the Galveston Diet, named after her hometown.
Dr. Haver insists that Galveston is not a diet in the classic sense. “It’s a lifetime diet plan,” she says. One of the effects is weight loss, but she says the Galveston diet is also a way to feel better overall and improve other menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and brain fog. .
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When Haver, 54, started eating this way six years ago, “I wasn’t counting the calories and the pounds started to come off. I also slept better and my hot flashes were better,” she says.
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Haver also describes her story and discusses the science that guides her approach to menopause and nutrition in her new book, The Galveston Diet. The book also includes several weeks of meal plans for meat eaters and vegetarians, as well as recipes and shopping lists.
Read on to find out what the diet is all about — and what menopause experts have to say about its potential value.
Haver didn’t seek to create and share a lifestyle eating plan. She just wanted to lose the extra 20 pounds she had accumulated from eating emotionally after her brother died and from the hormonal changes of perimenopause.
She took the approaches she had preached as a doctor, which is that weight loss happens when you reduce your calorie intake and burn more through exercise. “Calories in, calories out. That’s what we were taught in medical school,” she says.
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But even though she cut her intake to less than 1,200 calories a day and religiously went to her home gym at 5:30 a.m. every morning, the pounds didn’t budge.
Exasperated, Haver contacted nutritionists she knew, who told her of other possible reasons why the weight remained, including subclinical inflammation, which the theory suggests increases with age.
She quickly began to assess the importance of not only calories, but also the quality of nutrition in her food – another topic not covered by her medical training – as well as insights into the importance of eating within certain windows of time.
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Foods thought to contribute to inflammation in the body are limited in this plan. Inflammation-promoting dishes include sugars, processed grains, fried foods, processed deli meats, saturated fats and sodas, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
Foods specifically believed to reduce inflammation are encouraged, such as oily fish, berries, garlic, nuts, tomatoes, and olive oil.
The idea, notes a research review published in the Annals of Medicine, is that a long period of time between meals makes your cells more adaptive to stressors and also initiates important cellular repair.
The type of intermittent fasting (IF) recommended in the Galveston diet is known as 16/8, which means fasting for 16 hours and eating for an 8-hour window each day. This usually means delaying the first meal of the day until around noon.
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As for postmenopausal women, there were concerns that intermittent fasting could affect hormone levels, but a study published in the journal Obesity in October 2022 tested a dozen postmenopausal women (as well as a dozen premenopausal women ) after two months of an even stricter four- to six-hour food windows. He found no change in levels of estrone, testosterone and most other sex hormones.
Haver advises slowly adopting an intermittent fasting regimen, such as delaying breakfast by half an hour every few days, to give your body time to adjust. “I myself took six weeks before my first meal at noon, so I was never very hungry,” she says.
Compared to the typical American diet, the Galveston diet significantly reduces carbohydrates. The bulk of the calories here — about 70% at first — come from healthy fats, to encourage fat burning, according to Margaret Walsh, the company’s coaching and program director.
“The goal is to achieve an optimal ratio of fat, protein, and carbs that promotes fat loss in the fat loss phase,” says Walsh.
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After you’ve been on a diet for a while and get used to eating fewer carbs and sugars, some additional complex carbs are added.
It’s true that a woman’s body composition changes during perimenopause, with more fat being deposited around the abdomen, experts say.
“Mid-body weight gain is nearly universal among postmenopausal women,” says Nanette Santoro, MD, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine at Aurora and researcher of long time about menopause.
Virtually all women gain at least some fat under their skin by the end of their period, Dr. Santoro says, which researchers believe may be linked to the loss of estrogen.
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A certain percentage of women experience faster weight gain and more fat accumulation around the abdomen during the menopausal transition, she says. “Yet little is known about why these women seem to have to work so much harder to maintain their body weight during this time.”
In addition to the possible hormonal link, women entering perimenopause and menopause also face changes related to aging, says Stephanie Faubion, MD, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women’s Health and medical director at North American Menopause Society (NAM). The average age of menopause, defined as going an entire year without menstruating, is 51.
Postmenopausal women typically lose muscle mass at a rate of nearly 1% per year, says Dr. Faubion. In fact, due to muscle loss, metabolic rate decreases by about 30% between the ages of 20 and 70 for both women and men, according to research, and this may contribute to weight gain.
The short and factual answer is no. Haver points to testimonials from women who have successfully used the diet, but says the company has not conducted any clinical research.
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“There’s no evidence that the Galveston Diet is any kind of special magic” for middle-aged women, Santoro says. “The diet is an example of a marketing tool based on intuition,” she says, noting that it incorporates several ideas with at most a small amount of research behind them.
“The arguments about anti-inflammatory foods and a ‘hormone rebalancing’ diet are appealing, but not evidence-based,” Faubion says.
What’s more, this diet restricts carbohydrates more than necessary, says Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, author of Read It Before You Eat It – Takes You From Label to Table. “Whole grain carbs provide fiber and a wide range of vitamins and minerals to help keep us satisfied and energized,” she says.
And while healthy fats like olive oil are important for middle-aged women — especially since they support heart health at a time when heart disease risk is rising — “an overabundance doesn’t isn’t necessary,” says Taub-Dix.
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“What women should take away from this is that they should focus on eating food — real (unprocessed) food, mostly plant-based, and not too much,” Faubion says, referring to the advice from Michael Pollan of
There is research supporting the ideas, in general, but studies focused on postmenopausal women, in particular, are lacking.
Two key concepts of the Galveston diet likely stem from early research into cutting carbs and eating high-quality fats.
A study known as EMPOWIR (Enhance the Metabolic Profile of Women With Insulin Resistance) followed 46 postmenopausal women who reduced their intake of simple carbohydrates for 12 months, while eating plenty of vegetables, protein and dairy products. low fat and low glycemic index fruits. . He found benefits for weight loss and improved insulin resistance in these women.
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But in its conclusion, the authors stress that larger, long-term studies are needed to confirm the findings. Additionally, most nutritionists stress the importance of cutting back on simple carbs and instead eating more nutrient-dense complex carbs, as the Mediterranean diet suggests.
The evidence supporting the idea that intermittent fasting helps some people lose weight is mounting. A December 2021 review published in JAMA Network Open found weight loss benefits “supported by moderate to high quality evidence.” But the studies reviewed did not specifically involve postmenopausal women.
Similarly, a review of 42 studies that tested IF in overweight people, women and men, published in Biological Research for Nursing in May 2022, found that in the majority of studies the technique resulted in weight loss. which has persisted over time. However, the authors note that other calorie-restrictive diets were equally effective. This review also did not confirm long-term differences in anti-inflammatory effects between IF eaters and others, and again, postmenopausal women were not the focus of the research.
In general, the benefits of exercising and eating whole foods while avoiding sugar, processed foods, and other unhealthy foods are widely accepted and proven aspects of many healthy diets.
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Many of the foods recommended in the Galveston diet are found on other diets, such as the well-regarded Mediterranean diet. For example, lunches and dinners in the
