How to Help Your Body Feel Safe So It Can Let Go of Fat | Menopause Weight Gain Explained

Are you doing everything “right” and still gaining weight in menopause?

This episode of The Menopause Method is a must-listen for women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who are feeling frustrated with midlife weight gain, hormonal changes, and the constant stress of trying to “figure it out.”

Today, we’re talking about a powerful shift in perspective:
👉 What if your body isn’t broken—it just doesn’t feel safe?

You’ll learn:

Why your nervous system plays a major role in fat loss

How stress shows up as more than just anxiety (think: cravings, joint pain, poor sleep, and blood sugar crashes)

Why your metabolism has adapted to protect you

How to reduce stress in midlife through food order, movement, sleep, and mindset shifts

What cortisol, insulin, and estrogen have to do with belly fat in menopause

If you’re experiencing:
💥 Unexplained weight gain in perimenopause or postmenopause
💥 Fatigue, cravings, joint pain, or blood sugar issues
💥 The frustration of doing “everything right” and getting nowhere...

…this episode will help you understand what your body is really asking for.

🔄 We’ll also cover practical tips like:

How to use food order to balance blood sugar

Why walking after meals is so effective

The truth about cortisol and belly fat

How sleep, light, and thought patterns affect metabolism

🎧 Listen now and discover what happens when you stop forcing fat loss—and start making your body feel supported, nourished, and safe.

🔗 Get the Menopause Minis – 10-minute strength workouts for women 45+ → https://www.camoyler.com/meno-minis
💤 Grab your FREE Sleep Guide → https://www.camoyler.com/opt-in
📲 Come say hi on Instagram: [@heymomma_cam]

💬 COMMENT BELOW: What’s one small shift you’re making this week to support your body?

Chapters:
00:00 Understanding Stress for Fat Loss
03:12 Stress Beyond Mental Tension
08:15 Blood Sugar Control with Food Order
09:44 Control Blood Sugar: Bread Timing
15:37 Walking Lowers Blood Sugar Naturally
17:55 Midlife Wellness: Restore, Don't Restrict

Transcript

0:00

I'm curious. What's your definition of stress? And if we were to ask your body, would your body have the same or a different definition of stress? Hey there. I'm Cam Allen. Welcome back to the Menopause Method. And my guess is your body has a different definition of stress than what you think stress is. Today's episode is how to help your body feel safe so it can release the weight. I'm so excited about this episode because it digs into the meat of what your metabolism is doing. If you're noticing weight gain that you cannot get rid of, like, no matter what you do, it is actually a signal of what's happening in your metabolism, and it's not you're not broken. I'm gonna help you find solutions so your body can feel safe and calm and release that weight. This episode came from a YouTube comment. Oh, let me read you the comment. How can we make our body feel safe? The more I focus on losing weight, the more I gain. I'm 62, and I'm frustrated that it seems the same rules that work for other people don't apply to me. If that sounds like something you've been thinking too, you're not alone, and I need you to hear that your body is not broken. Your metabolism is responding exactly how it should given everything that it's been through. Our metabolism is adaptable, and it gets used to whatever we're doing. And its whole purpose is to keep you alive. So we're not it's not failing you. It just is giving you clues. So we're gonna talk about what feeling safe actually means in the body, and this is the foundation for fat loss and having great energy and really peace of mind when it comes to midlife. When we think about stress, your definition is probably like, I'm stressed out, like that kind of mental stuff. And I need you to know that perceived stress, the thoughts that we think, the things that we say to ourselves is absolutely affecting our metabolism. If you walk by the mirror every single time and say something nasty to yourself, or every time you try on clothes and you're like, ugh, and you say those things to yourself, your body hears it and it perceives it as stress. So, we have mental stress, but we also have physical stress, and that could be over exercising or under exercising. Metabolic stress is about your blood sugar and your cholesterol and, like, those health markers. We have inflammatory stress. Are you eating out all the time or you feel achy in your joints? Those are signals from your body. And then environmental stress. I've been on a mission for about ten years now to clean up my environment, the products I use on myself, the things I use in my house, and how I cook in my kitchen, all of those things. Your body has to figure out what is this toxin and how do I get rid of it? And it's a lot of extra work. So stress in general, how to make your body feel safe, comes in lots of different buckets. And what you may be calling, like, oh, this is normal. I just I always scroll Instagram at night, or it's normal for me to go to bed at midnight, whatever it is, x y z, may actually be stressful to your body. I like to say on this side of menopause, the gig is up. When we reach postmenopause and our estrogen reaches its lowest level, we lose the protective nature of estrogen. You may notice more brain fog, you may notice more achy joints, muscle loss, bone loss, all of that is related to the loss of estrogen. So what would it be like if you stop thinking stress is just tension and mental stress and started noticing how it shows up in your meals? Like, how are you eating? Maybe it's your sleep or maybe your schedule needs and overall. Because stress has many different faces. It's not just being stressed out. And honestly, younger me, 30 year old me, thought it was a badge of honor to be stressed out. At that time, I had two small kids at home, keeping the house. I was married. I was a school teacher. All of that, juggling everything was a badge of honor. Looking back now, I can see I did not take care of my mental or emotional or physical body as well as I should have because I was so busy taking care of everybody else. Maybe you can relate to that. So stress has a lots of different faces like I was saying. Maybe it's not sleeping well. Maybe it's eating erratically or skipping meals altogether because you heard inter intermittent fasting is a way to change your body composition. Maybe you've noticed, like, crazy cravings, like you have to have sugar after dinner, or maybe you have noticed energy dips. To me, that means blood sugar problems. Maybe it's the inflammation. You're just so achy. You don't wanna exercise or take a walk, and that goes along with joint pain too. Maybe it's the constantly pushing through without rest. I did that through my forties. Through a divorce, I over exercised myself through a divorce. My body was very stressed out in my forties. And when I got to menopause at age 49, I had to change my ways. So when we have stress signals, our body thinks, oh, that's not safe. And when your body perceives a stress, it goes into protect and hold mode. Fat storage is a survival mechanism. It is not a punishment. When you are noticing your body is carrying extra weight, it is a opportunity for you to go, okay. Like, what is this really about? Why is my body feeling this burden, and what can I do about that burden? How can I relieve the pressure off my body? So I need you to hear this. It's not about discipline. It's not about shaming yourself. It's truly about your biology. It's your nervous system that decides what happens next. It is not your willpower. So if your body doesn't feel safe, it's not gonna burn fat. It's gonna conserve it and, like, actually, it's like a buffer to your life. So let's talk for a minute about why the old rules don't work now. You may have heard diet culture tell you that cardio is the way or just cut all your calories or do fasted workouts and just hustle, hustle, hustle. But if your body is stuck in a threat mode, none of that works. And you may have noticed that that worked what worked at thirty two is not working at fifty two or at 62. You see, that's not your fault. Those plans were not made for your current hormone reality or your nervous system. So trying to force fat loss through stress is like trying to put a fire out with gasoline. It doesn't end well. So let's talk about specific ways that you can actually feel safe in your body again. And when your body feels safe, you will release the weight. And, also, you get to love yourself extra, which is, like, the most amazing side effect. So safety is like consistent signals that you are nourished, rested, and not under threat. That's what we're talking about feeling safe. So let's start with this one, blood sugar support. There are two hormones I like to teach about in midlife. One is insulin, and one is cortisol. Insulin is when you are spiking your glucose and you are your pancreas has to send out insulin to clean up your blood sugar. Insulin is a storage hormone, and it loves to store it as fat. The second hormone I like to talk about is cortisol. The right amount of cortisol is actually anti inflammatory and is your best friend. It's your get up and go in the morning. However, if you're running on cortisol and caffeine all day, that puts your body in panic mode. And guess what cortisol does when it's out of control? It stores belly fat. Again, when you reach postmenopause, you lose the protection of estrogen, and so these things become a bigger deal. So let's start with blood sugar first because I'm gonna give you some easy things to look at and think about and add to your life and then watch how things start to change for you. First of all, my very favorite way to help with blood sugar is food order. Food order is giving your body nutrition in a certain order so you are not spiking your glucose. So the first thing I would like for you to do is start your meals with a veggie starter. Veggies contain fiber, and fiber forms this mess in your digestive system, which actually, like, kind of blocks the food from entering into your bloodstream quickly. It, like, literally forms a mesh and slows it down. So veggie starter. After you eat some veggies and you have fiber in your belly, then it's time for the protein. Protein has all the benefits of satiety and less cravings, and we know it helps build our muscles, which I love. So then it's protein. And then eat your carby carbs, like your sourdough or your sweet potato or whatever it is. So food order is very simple. So when you look at your plate, eat the veggies first, make sure your digestion is working on that, then the protein, and then the carbs. That will greatly reduce your blood sugar spikes, and you're still eating the same foods. You see, the way we do it in America is if you go out to eat to a Mexican restaurant, they're bringing you chips. No matter what you eat after those chips, you've already spiked your glucose and the game's off. Or if you go to a place that serves bread first, you sit down and they bring you your drinks and you're eating bread. If you start your meal with bread, again, you're spiking your glucose, and you could have the most amazing, beautiful, balanced meal afterwards, but your glucose has already spiked because your digestion started with the chips or the bread first. Moving them to the end of the meal is a really simple way to control your blood sugar better. And, again, if your body doesn't have to send insulin to clean up your blood sugar, spill an IL three, then what happens is you're gonna have less storage hormones. Again, insulin is a storage hormone. That's really easy. I hope that helps. Let's talk about daylight in your eyeballs. Getting morning light is a great way to calm your nervous system and actually set your body's clock. You see, the other thing about digestion, it works best on daylight hours. So an easy way to, like, clean up your meals a little bit is to eat during daylight hours. When the sun goes down, stop eating. Close the kitchen. That will allow your body to get ready to rest and sleep as part of this puzzle too. So getting morning light actually starts your body clocks. Have you ever wondered, like, how your belly knows what time it is? It's because of the daylight in your eyeballs. So eating during daylight hours is one of my favorite things. Getting daylight in your eyes in the morning is also a really nice way to calm your nervous system. When your nervous system feels happy and calm, it's also going to release the weight easier. So I love getting sun in the morning. The other thing about getting sunlight in the morning, it helps you set your wake sleep cycle. See, getting good sleep at night actually starts in the morning by getting exposed to daylight. And then in the evening, limiting your screens, your TV, your phone, anything that has the blue light is going to keep your brain awake longer. For me, I started to learn how to sleep in 2020, I say. I started tracking my sleep with an Oura ring. You don't need to have an Oura ring, but that was what I one of the tools I decided. Once I learned how to sleep, like, my body now knows when it's time to go to sleep. I get my best sleep if I go to bed between nine and 10PM. I get a huge amount of deep sleep in that first part of the night, and then my REM and light sleep happens in the second half of the night. So if I choose to stay up late, like, later than my window, I'm gonna miss out on my deep sleep. I know this about myself. Deep sleep is when your brain restores and detoxes and your brain gets clean. All this happens in deep sleep. And if you're consistently missing your deep sleep, you're missing this huge opportunity for your body to work naturally to get things to heal. Having a consistent sleep and wake cycle is really important. Your body likes the consistency of it. And although it might sound boring because I used to think it was boring, now I know what I need, and I know how much better I feel when I choose to do that. Now I have a free sleep guide. I will link it below. It is the exact steps I did myself back in 2020 to get better sleep. Part of that is adding some micronutrients. So there are also some supplements in the guide. Figuring out what you need to sleep through the night will make everything better. In fact, on nights that you don't sleep, it also messes with your blood sugar the next day. So on nights that you don't sleep, you wake up, that next day, your cravings are gonna be more you're gonna be searching for carby carbs, I call them, cheap and easy energy to get more energy in your body. That is because your body did not get the rest that it needed overnight. It's gonna go search for that in the kitchen. So sleep cycle is amazing. Getting that dialed in really is one of the first steps. So check out the sleep guide in the notes below. So we're using daylight to sync our body clocks to sleep better for our digestion. We're eating more during daylight hours. We're practicing food order, and literally, we're crowding out other things, and we're letting nature, mother nature, help sync up our body better. Now the other part I need to talk about is movement that doesn't threaten your nervous system. As a former CrossFit coach and athlete, I loved my CrossFit days. It got me through that separation and divorce, and I learned how to move my body. And now I've been doing this since 02/2010. I'm really grateful for those days, and, also, I was pushing too hard. It was too much threat to my body. And in my late forties, the injuries started showing up. The hormone imbalances started showing up, and I had to change my ways, especially when menopause came. So you need to figure out what movement doesn't threaten your body. Walking is always amazing. In fact, you can double dip if you walk after you eat. That helps with your digestion. It helps clear your blood sugar naturally, and it's a way to manage your stress, which is also the cortisol. So I love doing things that tap into more than one bucket. So walking after eating would help your digestion, blood sugar, and it would help your stress management. So there's a lot of reasons why to walk after eating. I'm a huge fan of strength training. If you've spent any time on this channel, you know that. I have the menopause minis. They are available in the notes below. They are ten minute strength workouts designed for midlife. Having more muscle on your body will improve your how you age, period. End of sentence. We know that muscle burns more calories at rest. And then also, because there's more than just that benefit, it also is a place to store your blood sugar. So let's go back to that walking. You eat some food. Your body's turning that into usable energy, AKA blood sugar. When you walk, you are contracting your muscles, and your muscles actually act like sponges and clear the blood sugar without insulin. And, again, insulin is a storage hormone. That is the easiest thing to do, to walk after eating, use your muscles in a productive way to lower your blood sugar, help your digestion take the burden off your body. Now if you go into the walk while I have to do this and you're all stressed out about walking after eating, then that kinda defeats the purpose. Because I'm here to tell you that your thoughts can actually raise your cortisol. A few years ago, I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor to understand about my own blood sugar and, like, what foods and how I was reacting. It was just like being an experiment of one. And at that time, my dog, Maverick, was barking at me. I was working on a computer, and I did not wanna do whatever he wanted me to do, and he was barking at me in an angry way. My thoughts about him barking at me raised my blood sugar. It actually spiked my glucose on the little app, and I was like, okay. So that means if I'm walking around having stressful thoughts all the time, I am causing high blood sugar all the time. It was an eye opening experience. Your thoughts can literally raise your blood sugar. We don't want that. Because then your pancreas has to send out the insulin to go clean up the blood sugar. And when we have insulin being pumped out all the time and not working very well, it's called insulin resistance. And insulin resistance is not good. That is not the kind of health that we wanna have. So practicing food order, lifting weights, walking after eating, those are three easy ways to make your body feel safe and work optimally. So the other thing I wanna talk about is our thoughts that we say to ourselves really matters. So if you're struggling with releasing weight, you can ask, what is my body asking for instead of why can't I lose weight? Like, b, come to your body with curiosity. And in those quiet moments, I promise you, your unconscious mind will let the next logical step for you bubble up. I encourage you to let go of the timelines, like trying to lose weight in a certain amount of time. Let go of that. Maybe that is too much burden. You're putting too much pressure on yourself, and that might be part of the formula too. In general, I feel like midlife is all about restoration versus restriction. How can I crowd out some unhealthy habits and, like, lean into things that are actually gonna support me now so I can live this vibrant life that I dream of? And I just want you to ask yourself, what would it be like to wake up feeling rested and ready that just one small shift begins to unravel the tension that your body's holding onto? So what if the goal wasn't this week to release the weight, but rather to feel safe, nourished, and calm instead? If your body hasn't been letting go of the weight, maybe it's because it still feels like it has to protect you and your metabolism has adapted to your current habits. If you wanna take the next gentle step, check out the menopause minis ten minutes a day to support your strength and soothe your nervous system with just the right amount of exercise. If you're on Instagram, be sure to stop by and say hi. I would love to know what your starting step is. What bubbled up for you? What is the first logical step for helping you help your body feel safe? Thanks for being here, and I'll see you next week.