Science of weight loss and menopause

rheddmobile

It made no difference for me. I lost 50 lbs (and later regained) at 25 and then at 35. Hit menopause at 48, had an ovary removed due to a tumor a year later, lost 125 lbs, weight still off 3 years later. Literally no difference in how easy it was to lose weight before and after menopause. Female hormones change the way weight is distributed on the body, but even that has a lot to do with exercise.

You know what does prevent weight loss? Excuses for not attempting weight loss because it’s impossible due to age or medical conditions. It is absolutely impossible if you aren’t even willing to try it. Or if you do it half of the time for two weeks and then say, “See, I tried and it’s impossible for me! I must be a medical exception, my metabolism is broken!”

springlering62

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Here's a thing I hate: Women feeling powerless, even over things where we have major influence, possibly even full control. It's too common. Recognizing that we've let common assumptions rob us of a sense of agency about our body weight and fitness level . . . it's kind of tragic, really. We get to make our own choices, and if someone doesn't choose to make changes to eating and activity, that's her choice, too. But the choices are still available, not wiped out by aging, or menopause.

OMG....THIS!!!!!!!!!!

Every time I hear someone on MFP saying I can’t do this because I’m old /post menopausal/pre menopausal/on meds/thyroid/ PCOS/ OCD/too fat to exercise/no self esteem, I want to grab them, shake them, hug them, cry with them, preach at them, scream at them: don’t give up your power because someone else says you can’t do this.

Well said, Ann, well said.

AnnPT77

springlering62 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Here's a thing I hate: Women feeling powerless, even over things where we have major influence, possibly even full control. It's too common. Recognizing that we've let common assumptions rob us of a sense of agency about our body weight and fitness level . . . it's kind of tragic, really. We get to make our own choices, and if someone doesn't choose to make changes to eating and activity, that's her choice, too. But the choices are still available, not wiped out by aging, or menopause.

OMG....THIS!!!!!!!!!!

Every time I hear someone on MFP saying I can’t do this because I’m old /post menopausal/pre menopausal/on meds/thyroid/ PCOS/ OCD/too fat to exercise/no self esteem, I want to grab them, shake them, hug them, cry with them, preach at them, scream at them: don’t give up your power because someone else says you can’t do this.

Well said, Ann, well said.

Thank you. 🙂

Unfortunately, I believe @rheddmobile's post is also exactly on point. "You know what does prevent weight loss? Excuses for not attempting weight loss because it’s impossible due to age or medical conditions. It is absolutely impossible if you aren’t even willing to try it."

There are people in my personal circle who truly have been disempowered by truly believing they're in unconquerable circumstances. (I'm excluding those with genuine severe challenges when I say this.) There are others in my personal circle who are, sad to say, essentially what I'd consider wannabes. They would like to be thinner, but are not willing to change much of anything about their pleasant lifestyle to accomplish that, and these popular myths become convenient excuses. These two scenarios are both sad to me, but in different ways.

I have no objections to people who choose to stay fat. People can freely prefer whatever lifestyle they like, and the consequences that come along with it. I wish they'd be honest with themselves about it, but that's really not my problem. (As a side note, while I was staying obese, I was pretty clear in my own mind that I was making a choice to stay fat, and said so, in the rare case where it came up in conversation.)

As another aside, I'm P.O,-ed at the diet-myth industry that makes out that we need to suffer to lose our fat, let alone keep it off. The women who don't want to change their pleasant obesity-sustaining routines have typically been through various past cycles of miserable, dispiriting fad diets, and what are to them unpleasant intense exercise routines alongside. As a consequence, I think some visualize weight loss and maintenance as a permanent path of misery. Viscerally, they can't get past that, after all these years and all those failed attempts. They will never know, as you and I now do, that there's an extremely enjoyable, pleasure-filled lifestyle on the other side of weight loss (a better one, IMO and IME) . . . and that the path to get there need not be as punitive as they imagine.

Final snarky aside: You can recognize them, sometimes, by their theme song, "How Do You Stay So Thin Then You Eat *That*?!?!", subtitled "It's All That Exercise You Do, Isn't It?!?". Heh. 😉