Menopause can feel like a looming monster in the distance of life for many women. They are not sure how their body is going to react to the change in hormones, the hot flashes, and the other unforeseeable symptoms that will occur once they start to transition out of their child bearing years and into menopause. While there are many stages to menopause, there are some key things that women can do to help ensure that they glide through the process of menopause as smoothly as possible. Being active is essential in healthy living and even more essential for women who are in a menopause transition. But not all workouts are treated as equal, there are some common workout mistakes during menopause that women make that can be poor for their health and actually instigate negative menopause symptoms. Here are some of the common workout mistakes women make during menopause and how to avoid them.
You Try To Do It All On Your Own
Getting older can have some very frustrating moments and can cause people to give up on certain areas of health and wellness. When going through menopause, be sure to seek help when necessary from doctors, trainers or nutritionists who specialize in women of that age range. Not only will they help you develop a plan of action that best suits your abilities and your needs, but they can push you to be your best version of yourself, so that menopause is not just a time to get through, but also can be a time to thrive and set yourself up for a healthy, active and happy later life.
The best thing to consider when going through menopause is to keep a mindful awareness of your overall general health and to make daily adjustments to try and keep yourself active and healthy. When you put more of an effort into understanding how your body works and pushing yourself to be a more physically fit, and nutritious person, you will find that the negative symptoms of menopause lessen and the stages of menopause become easier to handle. So make sure to watch out for the workout mistakes that most women make during menopause, and keep propelling yourself into a healthy older life.
You Only Do Cardio
When we are young, our bodies hold on to muscle tone much easier and many women only have to focus on cardio to keep their bodies strong, in shape and looking svelte. But as we age, we lose muscle mass and skin elasticity, and our bodies can not hold their curvy and tight shape any more. In addition our trouble areas can become more prominent. While a couple spin classes a week might have been able to keep you looking trim when you were young, throughout our menopause years, strength training becomes extra important. Not only will it keep your shape more toned, but the strength in your legs and arms will allow to stay more active, for longer in life. By working strength training into your weekly exercise routine you are actually deciding to preserve the longevity of your physical health as well as keep your body looking younger.
You Only Do Low Impact Exercises
While swimming or cycling are good forms of aerobic exercise and can keep your heart and lungs healthy, they do little to impact the strength of your skeleton because there is very little impact on your bones. During menopause women lose bone density at a rate as much as 15% faster than women who are not experiencing menopause. This can result in osteoporosis for women which can mean a complicated and inactive senior life. By avoid this workout mistake during menopause, women can make sure to keep their bones strong and healthy which allow them to fight against osteoporosis. Be sure to integrate some impactful exercise into your routine, if running to too hard on your body, studies show that walking does enough to keep your skeleton strong.
You Take It Easy On Yourself
As we age and begin to go through the first stages of menopause, we might think it is best to slow down our bodies because the symptoms of menopause might feel overwhelming for us. But specialists are the first to tell you that you should not slow down. There is no reason that women in their 50’s and 60’s cannot be doing the same exercises that they were doing in their 40’s. To ensure that while you are going through the transition of menopause, you don’t feel the need to ease up on your activity, begin to start a healthy and active workout routine as early as possible, the more the routine is engrained in your schedule the easier it will be to keep it up as you age.
You Don’t Spend Enough Time Warming Up
Even the most fit women can find their workout routine to be derailed by an injury, and once that injury flares up, it is much harder to get over as a woman going through menopause, than a younger person. Prevention is key to avoiding any sort of injury that could affect the quality of exercise of a menopausal individual. The best form of prevention is to make sure that you warm up efficiently before exercising. The better equipped your body is to handle the planned workout, the less likely you are to sustain an injury. Warming up also awakens the body in many other ways, circulation, metabolism and energy, which can provide even more benefits to the workout than just burning calories.
You Don’t Change Your Diet
Women who are going through menopause need to take into consideration that they don’t need to consume as many calories as a woman who is in her 30’s and 40’s does. On average a woman in her 50’s and 60’s should be eating 200 calories less than before she was menopausal. And not only does she need to eat less calories, but she needs to be more mindful about the types of food she is receiving her calories from. More vibrant and colorful vegetables as well as lean meats and fish should be staples in a diet where hormones are changing and weight is easily taken on.
Not Drinking Enough Water
As a whole, we rarely intake enough water daily to keep ourselves hydrated. Women who are experiencing menopause need to up their water consumption even more because hot flashes and night sweats cause their body to release more water than normal. So women who are then working out on top of it are depleting even more water causing severe dehydration and inability to keep an active lifestyle. Being more mindful about drinking even more water during your menopausal years will help with hot flashes, better energy, weight loss and keeping up an active lifestyle.