weight and menopause
 

I am not finding it out there..a thread about losing weight during menopause. I am certain there are many women struggling with this issue. Let me know what you are trying.

For me personally, menopause hasn't affected my ability to lose weight. I've been eating healthy food, watching portion size, and exercising. When I was losing my big chunk of weight, this routine was yielding a 5 pound per month loss for me. I was in full blown menopause for 2 years when I started.

I'm post-menopause. TOM ended over a year ago. I find the weight comes off a bit more slowly these days and requires a bit more work...but that's about it.

When I was pre-menopause, I could eat 1,400-1,500 calories per day and exercise about 30-45 minutes a day...and that would net me an average loss of about 2 lbs per week.

Nowadays, I stick to 1,200-1,300 calories per day and exercise at least 90 minutes per day...and my average loss is about 1.5 lbs per week (for the past 4 months). I'm not on any special diet. I too just eat healthy and watch my portion sizes. I also try to eat a fair bit of protein and I don't eat any bread, baked goods, pasta or other refined carbs.

I am gaining weight and nothing seems to stop it. I work out, eat right and still gain. One of you mentioned 1500 calories and another said more like 1200. I have tried both and neither one is working. I am getting so frustrated.

My husband has been telling me my boobs are bigger. So today I measured. He is right. 2 inches, also 2 on my waist and hips. Man this is not fun. I feel like all my hard work is going down the train and I can't stop it. Then I cry and beat myself up about it. Guess I need to count diligently and continue those workouts ...no matter what.

Have you considered bio-HRT?

I just started what I consider "active" perimenopause in February (started getting hot flashes and skipped my TOM for the first time in decades). I guess I've been perimenopausal for years now but had learned to live with the other day to day symptoms so I didn't think anything about them (in particular, menopause "arthritis" and zero libido). Oh, and my already slow weight loss (barely 1 lb a week on 1500 calories) reversed.

Anyway, when things started getting bad in February/March it was unbearable for me, horrific hot flashes (I'm talking up to five an hour), zero sleep, joint pain amped up, horrible memory problems and I was kind of uh, crazy, either in a depression so deep I couldn't drag myself out of bed or on an emotional hair trigger. I had a doctor lined up from ages ago and got my blood work, he put me on bioidentical progesterone and bioidentical testosterone and the difference is night and day. I've only been on the therapy since mid June so my hormones are just beginning to stabilize but I feel WORLDS better and he's confident that when things are more stable I'll have no problem losing more weight. As far as weight, so far everything I've gained and then some since I first started getting hot flashes has come off.

Everyone is different and metabolizes differently. At 33, I was able to lose the weight with eating low fat, processed food, and lots of exercise. Dropped 40 pounds in 12 weeks. Slowly regained 13 pounds, kept within 2 pounds of that weight for 7 years by counting calories and regular workouts. When I hit 40, everything changed. I'd already gone into peri menopause in my mid 30's, with night hot flashes. Was able to control that by not drinking decaf coffee before bed. Decaf coffee gives me hot flashes.

I changed our diet to whole foods and no processed food at 40 yo. Continued to keep the weight off by counting calories and workouts 3-4 times a week. By the time I was 42, I felt terrible. Was then traumatized by criminal activity where we live and went into adrenal fatigue, quit exercising. Was in fight or flight mode too long. Gained 30 pounds in my 42nd year emotional eating good foods, little to no exercise.

Now I think I've got it figured out for me. Hormone changes cause me not to have the drive that I used to have plus the herniated discs cause me to fatigue easily. So here I am, yo-yo'ing the same 5-8 pounds, 30 pounds over my normal weight.

I'm fortunate to know that I will not have too much difficulty during menopause, good genes. Although TOM will be changing and sometimes difficult.

My plan is this:

1. not counting calories anymore. I do occasionally punch in what I'm eating to see how many calories and nutritional value of my diet but not doing it everyday like I used to. I basically stick to the same diet lifestyle so there is no need for counting.

2. eat lots of lean protein, lean skirt steak, whole egg combined with up to 4 egg whites, sardines, wild fish, sock eye salmon when I can get it, shrimp, chicken breast.

3. good fats, extra virgin olive oil(2-4 TBS a day), blanched almonds(3-6), walnuts(3-6 halves), 1 TBS pine nuts, avocado, little virgin coconut oil for popcorn(1 TBS coconut oil per 1/3 cup popcorn for stove top. I eat 2-4 cups of popcorn with sea salt), *homemade almond milk for coffee

4. LOTS of fresh vegetables. Green salads topped with a homemade garlic basil balsamic vinaigrette & steamed veggies(very filling) topped with a little fresh parmesan.

5. little fruit, try to limit fruit and even avoid...very difficult for me.

6. drink 1/2 my body weight in oz of water.

7. homemade licorice root tea 1-2 cups a day to stimulate adrenal glands.

8. limit caffeine(1-2 cups a day)

9. 1 TBS chai seeds

10. smoothie, natural unsweetened yogurt, fresh frozen berries, sweetened with raw honey

11. juice: 1/2 beet, 2 carrots, beet greens & 1 small apple(my daily iron)

12. no breads or pasta

*homemade almond milk: sometimes I add a TBS vanilla extract, a pinch of sea salt, and sweeten with dried figs. It varies to my mood.

I just limit how much I'm eating. Been processed food free for 4 years and got fat eating healthy, which no one online talks about. Try to eat high protein, low carbs. This is how I live. I'm learning that the high protein will stay with me and keep me from craving. When I do crave sweets, I grab a banana or a few almonds.

Biggest change in my diet will be no breads or pasta, little to no fruit and high protein.

Exercise: 1-2 hours on the stationary recumbent bike, some working out with free weights, water therapy some walking and that's it. I gained weight by not exercising and eating too much homemade bread, pasta and homemade ice cream hehe

REST: I'm using melatonin capsules during this time to get to bed earlier. I DO notice a HUGE difference and weight loss happening when I get enough good rest. To bed sleeping by 11 p.m. and trying to sleep till 8 a.m. I notice a difference in the scale every time!

My mornings are full. Wake, take the sublingual vit B12, drink my fresh juice, wait 20 min, drink my coffee, eat breakfast high in protein, hop on the bike with some free hand weights, shower then lunch, rest(may or may not sleep for 1/2-hour), afternoon smoothy, eat dinner between 4-5 p.m. early evening therapy swim, may ride the recumbent bike another hour while watching evening tv. The time I crave and want to eat the most is between 6-9 p.m. must have more protein during that time to keep me from craving and emotional eating.

I'm hoping to get this 30 pounds finally off and don't expect to look like I did in my 30's but at least I'll be smaller and less back pain.

For the most part, the only known physical problems I have are herniated discs and my hormones are changing. I do have low production of hydro choleric acid and take a sublingual vitamin B12 in the a.m. other than that, no thyroid no other problems. I'm really very healthy but 30 pounds overweight, which fatigues me terribly.

If you've actually been eating 1200-1500 calories (as in logging/measuring everything you eat and not just guessing, which typically results in underestimating your calories), plus you've been working out, and you've been gaining weight by doing all that...then I too would suggest a visit to your doctor. Perhaps you might benefit from some hormone supplements or similar. I wish you luck!

I am in my mid 60's now and this just gets worse as you get older. I think it has as much to do with muscle loss as well as hormones. I was still able to lose well if I ate very carefully in my 40s and early 50s but it was much more difficult as time went on.
What helps is that I eat much the same as taste the skinny outlined. I don't exercise nearly that much though. I haven't eaten grains except for oats for a long time. I recently had to admit to myself if I can't handle fruit anymore. That is so difficult be I just can have small amounts as part of low carb recipes.

If I had been able to see doctor that was knowable about this area ReNew Me described I think it would have made a world of difference. I would really try to check that out if you can.

We had a reunion this year for all of us who went to High School together in our small town and were turning 65 this year. I was overweight from childhood and quite heavy when we gradated. Nearly all of my classmates were slim and trim.
Now I am smaller than most of them although still trying to lose. The physical ailments many of them have are shocking. It really pointed out to me how weight creep hits even people who have never been overweight and how important it is to continue with my unexciting food plan. It gets more and more about health as you get older and you are very smart to look for info reight at the start of this happening.

i suppose checking with my doctors would be a logical step. I have the BRCA gene mutation so hormones are a tricky thing for me. I do see a cancer doctor and maybe she would be helpful. Thank You for all of your ideas.

Mtiger, I can't take hormones either. Sent you a PM.

I'm in the middle of this right now. My last period was at least three months ago, and the one before that was another three months previous. I hit a wall with my weight loss about five years ago, which was about the time of my divorce and other emotional stressors. My sleep pattern has not been right ever since. (I started an insomniac's thread on 3FC.) If I don't get at least eight hours of sleep every night, I definitely experience a cascade failure with the weight loss efforts.

Through trial and error I have developed a protocol for myself just to hang on to what I've achieved. Still trying to move forward, and I have achieved progress on multiple fronts.

• Build muscle - I do a weight training and Pilates workout five days a week. Been putting on a lot of muscle (underneath my fat layers), and with the muscle comes bone density. I now have the bone density of a 20-year old athlete. I had a DEXA scan done recently, my second one. It showed me how well I was doing. The doctor said that as long as I keep up with the weight training and my diet, the real fat loss will kick in very soon. I did not lose any weight in the last four months, but I did lose fat and I gained muscle and bone. That's something a regular bathroom scale wasn't telling me.
• Control blood sugar levels - I have type 2 diabetes. I control it with diet and exercise only. Not perfectly, but I am getting better and better at it. As long as I keep my blood sugar below 100, I can lose weight.
• Clean up diet - This helps with the diabetes, but I also have food sensitivities, so no processed food for me. And I hardly ever go out to restaurants any more, except to ones where I know what they're cooking. (Yes, I talk to the chefs.) I keep carbs very low, under 50 gm per day. I eat a lot of organic, non-starchy vegetables. A LOT. I eat enough protein to build muscle, but not too much. Eating too much protein also causes blood sugar to rise. All my protein is from grass-fed or wild-caught sources. And about 60% of my calories comes from healthy fats. This is a ketogenic formula. Since I know my lean body mass from the DEXA results, I could calculate more accurately how much to eat. I don't ever eat less than BMR for my lean mass. So right now, that's around 1900+ calories.
• Create effective support system - I walked away from as many destructive, non-supportive relationships as I could, and I keep the rest of them to a minimum. I developed and maintained all the healthy ones. There were people in my life that wanted me to remain unbalanced and unhealthy, or to enable their unhealthy life. I don't think so! There are now people in my life that encourage and enable me to make the best choices for myself.
• Move past stress and other emotional issues - I have a great therapist and I practice emotional brain training (ebt.org) to get past a lot of old issues. I experienced some trauma in the past and this helped me A LOT.
• Have more fun - Every day, I find the joy in life. I laugh. I dance. I am silly! I don't take myself seriously any more. I don't spend time taking pictures because I tend to miss out on what's actually happening. And I keep my daily life as simple and uncomplicated as possible.

So, while I really don't want to weigh 300+ lbs. any longer, and I'm ever so slowly shedding excess fat (maybe a pound or two a month if I do everything right), I am feeling MUCH better about my life. I feel vibrant, joyful and free. I don't ever "feel fat" any more. I am active. I am happy. I joke about hitting menopause. I don't mind not ever having a period again! What am I going to do with my stockpile of tampons?!

Actually if you find the right doctor you'll be fine. You don't have to be on estrogen and it appears that testosterone actually may BLOCK cancer, they're doing studies right now. Like I said, I'm only on progesterone and testosterone. That (HIGHLY FLAWED) women's study really only looked at estrogen.

The big thing is if your body is out of balance then your immune system isn't working at it's full potential, period.

Guess it is time to revisit the cancer doc and see what can be done.

I am 37 and I'm post menopausal. I had surgery 4 weeks ago to remove my uterus, cervix, tubes and ovaries. I am using a 0.1mg estrogen patch and that has taken care of most of my symptoms. I'm still exhausted all the time. Some of that may just be from having major surgery and being out of my normal routine. I am just starting my weight loss journey, although I cannot start exercising for at least another 2 weeks. My Dr. is very strict about no exercise and no work for a minimum of 6 weeks. I'm very concerned I will gain a ton of weight now that I am in menopause. I have already noticed the scale creeping up on me.

The exhaustion can be recovery from surgery but lack of testosterone is going to cause a huge lack of stamina. A woman needs more than just estrogen. Unopposed estrogen is actually more likely to cause cancer problems than progesterone or testosterone.