Is menopause my enemy?

gillila
gillila Posts: 16 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I've been using MFP linked to my fitbit for over a month. I hope to lose 50 lbs. I've been entering my meals honestly and i've been under the calorie target consistently. I'm starting to get frustrated. I've been at a stand still (weight-wise) for over 4 weeks. I shoot for 10,000 steps a day - that is my only exercise. My base calorie goal is 1200/day. i've consumed under 1200 most days and I've burned additional calories from brisk walks.

I am menopausal and I have MS - could either of those have anything to do with why i'm not losing weight?

I need help before i give up. I was maintaining my weight with no exercise and eating anything i wanted. You would think i would lose weight now that i'm counting calories and exercising a little.

Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,422 Member
    I'd also say make sure you understand how your FitBit works when synced to this site.

    Here is the Fitbit Group, read through their FAQ thread in the top section near the bottom

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

    I lost all my weight after menopause. Once you get your numbers dialed in it won't be difficult, I don't think. I have three friends with MS and I know that it's important to eat enough and to try to hit fairly stable nutrition. Lots to learnQ
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
  • gillila
    gillila Posts: 16 Member
    I am 55 yrs old, 5'7'' - 205 lbs. My MS doesn't cause physical issues other than fatigue. I try to fight through that as best as i can. I've grown so thick around the middle in recent years. I used to always have a smaller waist. I'm fairly confident with my measurements of food for the diary - i admit i don't eat the healthiest foods. That could be a part of my problem. I will try to focus on healthier food options. I will change settings to public - please don't judge... :D:)
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,746 Member
    Could your medications be causing problems?
  • gillila
    gillila Posts: 16 Member
    I don't think so. I just have a weekly injection of Avonex. I think I looked into that before, I'll check again. Thank you
  • gillila
    gillila Posts: 16 Member
    The salads are side salads in restaurants. Can't measure/weigh. Lettuce, tomato, cucumber and maybe a little shredded cheese. I try to pick what's on the list that seems reasonable.
    Thank you. I need to buy a scale
  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,143 Member
    Using a scale will be eye-opening. If you actually were undereating as much as some days show, you would be wanting to eat your arm off.

    The other thing I noticed the buffalo wings - they are about 110-120 EACH wing. So 10 would be close to 1200 calories. They are ridiculously high calorie.
  • SueSueDio
    SueSueDio Posts: 4,796 Member
    gillila wrote: »
    I am 55 yrs old, 5'7'' - 205 lbs. My MS doesn't cause physical issues other than fatigue. I try to fight through that as best as i can. I've grown so thick around the middle in recent years. I used to always have a smaller waist. I'm fairly confident with my measurements of food for the diary - i admit i don't eat the healthiest foods. That could be a part of my problem. I will try to focus on healthier food options. I will change settings to public - please don't judge... :D:)

    I'm 5'6" and pretty sedentary, and started my weight loss at 50 in perimenopause. I was about 220lbs when I started, currently maintaining around 150 due to gaining a few back over the winter. (Lost nearly 50lbs the first year, and the rest the year after.) I ate roughly 1400 calories of whatever I wanted to eat for the majority of my weight loss, including chocolate, pizza, burgers, etc.

    The key is weighing your food, and once you begin to do so you find out just how ridiculously small a portion of cheese really is! "A bit of cheese" can have quite a lot of calories. Salad dressings are ridiculously high. Anything cooked in butter or oil really ramps up the calories as well. I've studied restaurant nutrition guides when we wanted to go out for a meal and discovered that the salads can be among the costliest options in terms of calories! I can have a steak, baked potato and vegetables for way less calories than a salad with cheese, creamy dressings, avocado and/or nuts, and the steak keeps me full for far longer.

    Get a scale and start weighing everything, including pre-packaged foods. Really look at how much you get in a portion, and you'll begin to get better at estimating how much you're eating in a restaurant meal. And don't necesarily believe the lowest calorie entries in the MFP database - they are entered by users and can be way off. Look up as much as you can on the USDA website, and carefully read the nutrition labels on packing to find out exactly how much "a serving" is according to the manufacturer's calculations. When I started weighing my breakfast cereal, it was a sad day...

    Set your goal to lose 1lb per week, and make sure you weigh everything. Take account of drinks, sauces, oils and condiments too. If you choose to have a meal, day or weekend that is a bit of a blow out, for a special occasion or just because you feel like it, log it as best as you can even if you're over your goal for the day - it will help you see how much damage such a blow out can do, or maybe to see that it's not as bad as you thought!

    Don't eat less than 1200 calories a day, and don't rely on your FitBit to tell you how much you're burning - rely on your own data and results, and adjust accordingly.

    You can absolutely do this - menopause makes no difference to the process. All you need is consistency, accuracy (as much as possible) and lot of patience. :)
  • IsETHome
    IsETHome Posts: 386 Member
    One oz of cheese is shockingly small and typically 100 cals. Skip the salad bars, you can eat almost your daily requirements with one salad that has cheese and dressing. Unless it’s all veggie no dressing. I use lime juice 10-20 cals). Once you weigh 3 oz of chicken you can eyeball it - typically wings are over 100 cals each depending on type/size. Some of the amounts are wrong per size in mfp. A serving size of fries sadly is about 12, and 10 cals each. I find emptier cals like sprouts, pickles, capers, seasoned veggies to fill the snack void.
  • gillila
    gillila Posts: 16 Member
    Thank you both for your input. And congratulations SueSueDio on your weight loss/maintenance. I will try to be more vigilant on weights/measurements.
    With the exception of a beer or glass of wine occasionally, i try to only drink water. I aim for 60 oz a day and it's a struggle.
    For the record - I thought i was trying to guess on the high side. ex. 2/28 for dinner i only ate 2 of thet 3 perch filets, about 3 french fries and about 2 bites of cole slaw. (the fries were undercooked and the coleslaw wasn't exciting enough to eat).

    I will keep at it - i need to do some strentgh exercises, build muscle to burn more calories (is that true?). I feel like i've lost a lot of muscle over the last several years.

    Thanks again for your help.
  • gillila
    gillila Posts: 16 Member
    I think on the buffalo wings i was trying to find an entry that made sense calorie-wise. I don't remember that entry, but i do remember about what i ate. I've never eaten 10 wings. We air fry our wings and they are pretty small. i probably had 3 drumettes and a flat. How would you calc calories on that?

    I hate counting calories! Years ago I lost a lot of weight on the South Beach Diet. probably 45 lbs. took about 5 yrs to gain it all back - it snuck up on me. I slowly re-introduced all of the foods i had craved for so long. and the rest is history.
  • Kathryn247
    Kathryn247 Posts: 570 Member
    The most accurate way to log wings would be to weigh them before you cook them, then weigh the bones and whatever's left and subtract that from the starting weight.
    The USDA has a site where you can look up the nutrition for just about any food:
    https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list
    and their product numbers are in the MFP database. Chicken wings, for example, is 05100.
    So if you start with 250 grams of raw wings, have 50 grams of bone left over, you should log 200 grams of 05100.
    (Some of the USDA entries, like eggs, specify if it's the "edible portion only," but this one doesn't.)
    Don't forget to count the sauce. :)

    I realize this sounds like a horrible process at first, but it's totally second nature to me now. I tend to gravitate towards food that's easy to log. Eating in restaurants can also be very challenging for counting calories.

    The upside is that you CAN have the food you love and crave, just count it and work it into your calories.
  • stephanieturner0122
    stephanieturner0122 Posts: 18 Member
    I'd check your thyroid to see if it's underactive. MS & Hashimoto's hypothyroidism are both autoimmune diseases. Having an autoimmune disease puts you at higher risk of developing another. Also, about 20% of women have undiagnosed hypothyroidism as I once did. I had gained weight & didn't lose an ounce after 10 months of exercising 7 days/week, 2/hrs/day. Once I got on thyroid meds, the weight came off easily. That said, the older we get, the harder it is to lose weight.
  • gillila
    gillila Posts: 16 Member
    I had my thyroid checked several years ago. Maybe if i try some of the suggestions here and get no results i'll do that again.
    Thank you.
  • GretelGSD
    GretelGSD Posts: 11 Member
    edited March 2019
    Menopause often means you tend to gain weight around the middle due to the change in hormone levels, this is fairly normal. I'm the same age as you and weight loss is still definitely possible, please don't give up. Weigh everything and log every lick and bite you take and exercise where you can but it's calories that make the difference, I promise you putting in the effort is worth it. If you weigh and log everything and in a month you see no shift on the scales then see your doc but it's probable you're consuming a lot more calories than you realise.
  • SueSueDio
    SueSueDio Posts: 4,796 Member
    Logging can be a bit time consuming at first, but as you go along you'll have more and more things in your "frequent" list that take just a couple of clicks to add to your diary, If you tend to eat the same things together, you can save them as "meals" for ease of logging too, and just adjust the quantities or add/delete an item or two as needed. And you can enter your own recipes, which can be a bit of a challenge at times (watch out for the 1,000-calorie garlic!) but once you get the recipe entered and saved it's so easy to log it whenever you want.

    Put in a little effort now, and it'll pay off later! :)

    Named diet plans are successful for many people because they all reduce calories in one way or another - whether it's limiting the type of food you can eat, or limiting your portion sizes, or assigning points to everything, or whatever. The end result is the same - less calories going into your body, therefore you have to burn your own stored fat. The problem with most of them is that they don't teach you how to keep the weight off long term, which is where becoming aware of calorie counts and portion sizes can really help.

    I might have to weigh and log my food, at least on and off, for the rest of my life - I don't particularly want to, but if that's the price I have to pay to keep the weight off after close to 30 years of being obese, that's what I'll do!

    Oh, and strength training would be an excellent idea! Muscle does burn more calories, but I'm not sure that it's a really significant amount (someone else can probably give you a better idea)... but it would be great to do anyway. The thing I really regret is not starting that sooner, while I was losing the majority of my weight. Bigger bodies take more effort and strength to move around, so most overweight/obese people have more muscle than it might seem. We lose it along with the fat if we don't work it. Don't end up smaller but flabby like me! :)
  • IsETHome
    IsETHome Posts: 386 Member
    if you have an aldi they have fit and active single drink mixes for water at 5 cals each. I put 2 packets raspberry lemonade in a big cup of water about 32 oz with lime wedges. helps a bit.... double check your water need - your amount seems low side.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,318 Member
    SueSueDio wrote: »
    Logging can be a bit time consuming at first, but as you go along you'll have more and more things in your "frequent" list that take just a couple of clicks to add to your diary, If you tend to eat the same things together, you can save them as "meals" for ease of logging too, and just adjust the quantities or add/delete an item or two as needed. And you can enter your own recipes, which can be a bit of a challenge at times (watch out for the 1,000-calorie garlic!) but once you get the recipe entered and saved it's so easy to log it whenever you want.

    Put in a little effort now, and it'll pay off later! :)

    Named diet plans are successful for many people because they all reduce calories in one way or another - whether it's limiting the type of food you can eat, or limiting your portion sizes, or assigning points to everything, or whatever. The end result is the same - less calories going into your body, therefore you have to burn your own stored fat. The problem with most of them is that they don't teach you how to keep the weight off long term, which is where becoming aware of calorie counts and portion sizes can really help.

    I might have to weigh and log my food, at least on and off, for the rest of my life - I don't particularly want to, but if that's the price I have to pay to keep the weight off after close to 30 years of being obese, that's what I'll do!

    Oh, and strength training would be an excellent idea! Muscle does burn more calories, but I'm not sure that it's a really significant amount (someone else can probably give you a better idea)... but it would be great to do anyway. The thing I really regret is not starting that sooner, while I was losing the majority of my weight. Bigger bodies take more effort and strength to move around, so most overweight/obese people have more muscle than it might seem. We lose it along with the fat if we don't work it. Don't end up smaller but flabby like me! :)

    Research suggests that a pound of muscle burns around 2-4 more calories daily than a pound of fat does, so not big. However, every little bit helps, and stronger/more-fit people probably tend to move more in daily life than less fit ones, so burn some extra calories that way.

    Also, muscle tissue is very slow/difficult to build under the best conditions (plus "the best conditions" include a calorie surplus!). A very good result for a woman would be 1/4 pound of muscle gain in a week, 1/2 pound for a man . . . with might happen with a calorie surplus, adequate protein, and a well-designed challenging progressive weight training program, conscientiously followed.

    Your point about keeping muscle is a great one, and the fact that it's slow to rebuild makes it even smarter to hang onto what we've already got!

    One note: Sometimes people think they've gained muscle in a calorie deficit because they're stronger and have better muscle definition. They may not realize that most of one's fast strength increase when starting comes from neuromuscular adaptation (basically, better recruiting and more efficently utilizing existing muscle), and that the water retention from muscle repair makes the muscles look a bit bigger, then loss of overlying fat makes them show up better. It can be deceptive!

    Someone may be fortunate enough to gain a little new muscle tissue while losing weight, especially if losing slowly, while obese, getting enough protein, and following a good strength training program. Of course, strength is worth having in itself, so if the worst that strength training does while we diet is help us keep existing muscle, plus make us stronger, that's still a pretty useful pair of benefits right there!
  • gillila
    gillila Posts: 16 Member
    Thank you. I bought a stepper that i use in the evening. I have been trying to get 10,000/day. That helps. I am lazy and i like my tv shows. I can get up during a commercial break and get in around 300 steps. And there are bands attached that i use to work my biceps and triceps. Hopefully that will help.
    I love the stepper - only $43 and it gets me out of my recliner. Money well spent - i think
  • jager3003
    jager3003 Posts: 1 Member
    Just starting again. I am 58, have MS and struggle with fatigue and leg weakness. Following...
  • whmscll
    whmscll Posts: 2,255 Member
    edited March 2019
    There are sooooo many hidden calories in restaurant food. Can you try to cook and eat more meals at home? Especially once you have your food scale. And doing a bit more exercise will give you a few more calories to eat. Eating at 1200 is really tough. That’s what MFP usually gives me to lose .5 pound a week. The only way I can do it (to stay mostly full and not be constantly hungry/craving) is not to eat or drink anything with extra/empty calories — unless I’ve exercised and can eat back those calories.

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