How To Lose Weight After Full Hysterectomy

This article was co-authored by Pouya Shafipour, MD, MS. Dr. Pouya Shafipour is a Family Medicine Specialist, Primary Care Physician, and a Weight Loss Specialist based in Santa Monica, California. Dr. Shafipour specializes in dietary, nutritional, behavioral, and exercise counseling to manage obesity and medical conditions related to excessive weight gain or loss. Dr. Shafipour received a BS in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, an MS in Physiology and Biophysics from Georgetown University, and an MD from the Loma Linda University School of Medicine. He completed his internship in general surgery at UC Irvine and a residency in family medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and became board certified in family medicine in 2008.

Losing weight after having a hysterectomy involves many of the same strategies as you would use prior to the surgery, such as diet and exercise. However, it's important to get clearance from your doctor before you start an exercise program. Making a few other simple lifestyle changes may also help to promote weight loss after a hysterectomy.

This article was co-authored by Pouya Shafipour, MD, MS. Dr. Pouya Shafipour is a Family Medicine Specialist, Primary Care Physician, and a Weight Loss Specialist based in Santa Monica, California. Dr. Shafipour specializes in dietary, nutritional, behavioral, and exercise counseling to manage obesity and medical conditions related to excessive weight gain or loss. Dr. Shafipour received a BS in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, an MS in Physiology and Biophysics from Georgetown University, and an MD from the Loma Linda University School of Medicine. He completed his internship in general surgery at UC Irvine and a residency in family medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and became board certified in family medicine in 2008. This article has been viewed 3, 596 times.You went through a hysterectomy, and you gained weight. Suddenly your clothes no longer fit, your energy levels are down, and you don’t like how you look in the mirror. And the frustrating thing is that this happened without any changes in your exercise or nutrition patterns.

Partial Hysterectomy Weight Loss

And if you want to learn how to exercise for weight loss, just fill out the form below, and I’ll send you the article.

If you already had a hysterectomy, I don’t need to tell you what it is. But if you haven’t, and you’re the friend/relative of someone who has (or another personal trainer), it would be helpful to know.

According to WebMD, A hysterectomy is a surgery that involves removal of the uterus. Often, it also involves the removal of neighbouring anatomical strcutures, like the cervix, ovaries and Fallopian tubes. When everything is removed (uterus, as well as the neighbouring structures), that’s often called a “complete hysterectomy.”

What To Expect After A Hysterectomy

And there’s more than one way to do a hysterectomy. The surgeon may choose to remove just the uterus, and keep the ovaries, cervix, and other structures. Or the surgeon may decide to remove the ovaries as well, which is called an “oophorectomy.”

So you’ve had your uterus and (maybe) ovaries removed. Now what? Well, the problem that was bothering you, for which the hysterectomy was required is probably gone, but unfortunately, there are some side effects of the surgery, like:

As it pertains specifically to this article, the one we’ll talk about is weight gain. But not every woman gains weight after a hysterectomy. Remember, don’t fret if this is you! There have been many weight loss success stories after hysterectomy.

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Since you landed on this article, I’m guessing that you gained weight after yours. So the answer is “yes”, you do gain weight after a hysterectomy. But according to at least one study, it’s not much – just 3 pounds. However, according to the same study, about 23% of women gain over 10 pounds.

Fortunately, not every woman gains weight after a hysterectomy. If she had a healthy lifestyle (slept well, exercised, ate right, and managed her stress properly) before a hysterectomy, she’s less likely to gain weight after (although there are no guarantees).

Weight loss without deliberate effort after a hysterectomy is very unusual. Just like weight loss without deliberate effort is unusual any other time. So if you’re losing weight after your hysterectomy, and you’re not eating less, exercising more, or doing something specific to lose weight, it may be a cause for concern.

How To Balance Hormones After Hysterectomy

A very small minority of women experience diarrhea and vomiting after a hysterectomy (usually if they get it for cancerous reasons), in which case, they’re losing a lot of fluid, and weight can be lost. But it’s fluid, and not fat. Definitely not desirable.

In another tiny minority of cases, women just feel better, so they move around more. Maybe it’s not deliberate exercise, but they do more active stuff, like gardening, hiking, or just walking around, so they lose weight that way.

Essentially, if the ovaries are removed, regardless of your age, you go into early menopause. Even if you’re 25, you’re now menopausal. So you’re going to have the hormonal profile of someone who is menopausal as well. And no, it’s not quite as simple as “low estrogen.” It’s much more complex than that. I elaborate on that in my article, Discover Your Menopause Type. Or if you’d like, I strongly recommend the full book,

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However, if just the uterus is removed, and the ovaries are left intact, then you don’t go into menopause until the natural age when it would have happened anyway

In one study that did a head-to-head comparison of weight gain after natural menopause vs. after a hysterectomy, both groups gained the same amount of weight. But the speed at which they gained it differed. The group that got the hysterectomy had almost 3 times the speed of weight gain, compared to natural menopause.

Furthermore, the same study found a significant difference in the speed of weight gain between women who had a hysterectomy with ovary removal (oophorectomy) vs. those who had their ovaries preserved. Those who had their ovaries removed gained weight faster than those who had their ovaries preserved.

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Although I’m not aware of any research on this, I’ll also add in my experience: although weight could be gained everywhere, there’s an especially high amount of stomach weight gain after hysterectomy.

So we know what happens, but like a 4-year-old, we want to know why? What’s the reason? What’s the mechanism behind the weight gain after a hysterectomy? For that, there are a couple of different explanations.

According to one study, women who go through hysterectomy actually have a higher weight before the surgery, than women who don’t require a hysterectomy. So they’re already more predisposed to weight gain.

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The most obvious explanation for the rapid weight gain following hysterectomy: changing hormones. Unlike natural menopause, when hormones change gradually from a pre-menopausal, to menopausal state, with surgery, the change is abrupt.

A lot of women might have been pear-shaped before a hysterectomy (ie they carried their weight around their buns and thighs), but bam – surgical menopause hits, and suddenly, the weight shifts towards the stomach (this, by the way happens with natural menopause, as well).

Where you store your body fat is an indicator of your hormonal profile. A pear-shaped pattern is more indicative of estrogen dominance. Because during a hysterectomy, estrogen can decrease, there’s less of that. However, the adrenal glands secrete more cortisol (the “stress hormone”), and an apple shape (weight that is more distributed towards the stomach) is more indicative of cortisol dominance.

Weight Loss After A Hysterectomy And Other Side Effects Of Hysterectomy To Be Aware Of

I talk about that in greater detail in my article on where you store fat, and what it means. I talk about this also to a greater extent in my book,

I wish I could give you some secret exercise, or food or supplement that works specifically for those with a hysterectomy. Some little-known gem that will really help you. But I can’t. Because as far as I know, it doesn’t exist. The stuff that works for weight loss without a hysterectomy will also work with a hysterectomy (regardless of whether it’s a total hysterectomy, or partial – you kept your ovaries). So let’s break it down:

With a hysterectomy, I would take extra efforts to balance your hormones. Since it’s not really something you can usually do yourself, I’d recommend seeing a professional. Rather than reading about a “hormone balancing supplement” on the internet, and going through trial and error to see if it works, a professional will help you do it in a more targeted way.

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A lot of health issues come from just having poor sleep. I covered this in much more detail on my articles about how bad sleep affects your hormones, what happens when you sleep, as well as how to sleep better, and supplements for sleep.

With ovarian removal, hormone levels tend to drop. Among those hormones are estrogen and testosterone. When those 2 hormones drop, so does muscle mass, which explains why metabolism slows down. You’re eating the same amount of food, but you gain weight. That happens because your muscle greatly contributes to your metabolism.

Strength training is important for most women, but it

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