I’m Motivated to Do Only This: Stay in Bed Quaffing a Fine Merlot
By Geri Brin, Co-Founder, M.D. For You
Illustration by: Cé Marina
First, a couple of (hundred) words about getting yourself in gear. I smoked like a chimney until my five-year-old son strung together six little words that made a big impact: “Mommy, your clothes smell like smoke.” Soon after, I spent $250 (40 years ago) for a private hypnosis session, which included nightly self-hypnosis for about a month. I’ve not had a single puff since that meeting with the hypnotist. Haven’t even held a cigarette!
My musty clothes weren’t actually what motivated me to stop smoking. The realization that my nasty habit was affecting my little boy, and might also kill me before he grew up, drove me to act.
Motivation. What a loaded word since it’s the driving force behind human actions—why we do things—which covers a great deal of territory.
We can be motivated to do something intelligent, like quitting smoking. Exciting, skydiving perhaps. Selfless, volunteering at a homeless shelter. Or cruel, such as blatantly lying about our opponent to make ourselves look better.
Motivation includes the biological, emotional, social, and cognitive forces that activate human behavior, reports this intelligent and well-written website.
Getting motivated to lose weight—and actually doing the work to lose it—ranks right up there with exercising 30 minutes every single day. It’s darn hard! It’s even harder when you’ve unexpectedly gained weight during the perimenopausal transition, and are experiencing other unsettling menopausal symptoms.
Endless articles offering tips about weight loss, including lists of what and what not to eat, only motivate our eyes to glaze over and our feet to head for the refrigerator.
Focusing on the issue of motivation, Drs. Diana Bitner and Robert Wild staged a clinical “intervention” with women just like this to determine if it would do the trick. Their motivation: is to see if a personalized sex-specific intervention could reduce excess abdominal fat in women during the perimenopausal transition since this puts them at greater risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
The Participants & the Process
🔺 Eighty-three women, aged 35 to 55, who were experiencing symptoms of the menopausal transition, completed a six-month WAIPointes (Who Am I) demonstration project.
🔺 Participants were educated at the outset about the phases of ovarian function and their risks for chronic diseases, and given solutions for managing their symptoms and challenges during the menopausal transition.
🔺 At clinical visits in medical office settings with either an obstetrician-gynecologist or a family practice nurse, each woman’s height, weight, waist circumference, and body fat were recorded. Fasting blood glucose, blood lipids, and ovarian function were tested initially.
🔺 Personalized goals were created for each participant to encourage her engagement, and to establish benchmarks defining her success in transitioning into menopause and beyond.
Solutions were devised to help women overcome personal obstacles - difficulty making smart food choices and poor exercise history, for instance. Experts were recommended to them, including dieticians, cardiologists, physical therapists, and others.
“We thought that women who adopted healthy habits to meet personal benchmarks, and gained control over menopausal symptoms, would learn to permanently embrace this new lifestyle,” Dr. Bitner explained. “This would in turn lower their risk of chronic diseases.”
The Results
△ Women transitioning into menopause had a median decrease in waist circumference, from 35.2 to 33.7 inches, and median diastolic blood pressure decreased to 71.2 from 75.2.
△ The intensity of menopause symptoms also decreased. On average, hot flashes improved from 2.56 to 2.79 on a scale where 3 represented “rare and predictable” and 2 signified “moderate and predictable.” The composite score of menopause symptoms, rated on a similar 3-point scale, improved from 2.28 to 2.76.
△ Surveys taken before and after the program revealed that women became significantly more knowledgeable about the causes of menopause symptoms and their triggers, as well as their options for improvement. They also gained an understanding of their risk for chronic diseases and made plans to improve their lifestyles and reduce risk.
△ At the start of the program, 36 women followed a plan to stay physically active; at the end, the number increased to 56, a jump of 56%
△ 31 women had a weight control plan at the beginning versus 57 women at the conclusion, representing an 84% increase.
△ 20 participants began the program with a plan to decrease their risk for diabetes; 51 women had a plan at the end, a whopping 155% jump.
△ 12 women initially had a plan to manage menopausal symptoms versus 59 at the conclusion, a 392% increase.
△ 33 participants knew their risk factors for heart disease when the program began; 58 understood them at the end, representing a 76% increase.
△ 21 women followed a plan to decrease heart disease risk at the start; 55 women followed a plan at the close, a 162% increase.
"Empowerment through education was a cornerstone of our intervention," Dr. Bitner stressed. “Our findings suggested that personalized planning, goal setting, and support are effective even with patients who are educated about the risks of central obesity.”
Meet Dr. Bitner
A board certified OB/GYN, Dr. Bitner is Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, at true. Women’s Health, a personalized concierge care practice in Grand Rapids, MI. Guiding women through a holistic prevention and wellness plan—driven by them—true. embraces every unique facet of their health, hormones and sexual health to nutrition, weight optimization, mental health, and more. Through her practice and a close connection with her, Dr. Bitner empowers women to take ownership of their health.
Dr. Bitner’s book, I Want to Age Like That—Healthy Aging Through Midlife and Menopause is an essential guide to leading the best third of your life.
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