Success stories during/after menopause

Gazelle2911

Is it possible to lose fat during menopause? I feel like it's impossible with so much against us during this phase of life. If you have lost weight after 45 please share your story.

megd44

I have done it and continue to do so. I hit menopause naturally very early at 41. So 15 years ago. I gained and lost the same 7 to 10 pounds until 2023. In January 2023 I quit smoking after 37 years. And gained ten pounds in a month.

I came back to MFP and spent a couple of weeks just logging to see a pattern and reading the forums to get information and ideas. Then I set goals

I set a deficit to lose .5 lbs a week initially and have kept it there. My approach this time was that I needed a sustainable plan, not drop 5 pounds quickly like when I was younger. This time, I am eating a lot more whole foods, more in season fruits and vegetables and a wide rainbow of those daily. I also still have a beer or glass of wine, some chocolate. I just make sure it is within my daily calories.

I have lost the weight, exercising regularly for health purposes and feel better than I did in my 40s. Even though I am only 5 pounds heavier than when I got married, my body looks different. My husband and I were laughing about that while looking at photos the other day. Gravity, less elasticity in skin, who knows.

Bottom line is that yes, you can lose in menopause. There are a lot of women on here who have done so successfully, have lost considerably more than me and have kept it off. It may take longer, it might not. But making it truly sustainable will be the key.

AnnPT77

Sure, it's possible. It's not that different from losing at any other age, in essence.

I lost about 50 pounds at age 59-60, class 1 obese to a healthy weight, and am still maintaining a healthy weight since, now age 68. I'd been in menopause since my mid-40s, put there early by chemotherapy. I'd been overweight to obese for around 30 years until that loss. I'm also severely hypothyroid (medicated) which sometime people also think is weight loss doom. It isn't, IME.

What did I do? Started logging my food, and ate less (in calorie terms). I focused on finding new habits I could keep up long term reasonably happily to stay at a healthy weight.

I didn't much change the range of foods I ate, since I was already eating a lot of nutritious foods (just too much of them). I changed portion sizes, proportions on the plate, and frequency of some calorie-dense foods so that I hit a more sensible calorie level. I didn't materially increase exercise. (I was already very active athletically, and had been for a dozen years while remaining fat.)

In general, I think menopause per se isn't actionable, so there's no point in focusing there. Some women can use HRT - which I can't because of my cancer history - but other than that, menopause is an unchangeable fact of life. What we CAN do is figure out how to accomplish our goals despite its symptoms and side effects: That's a better focus IMO.

As we age, we tend to have less active lifestyles (jobs, chores, hobbies, etc.), and if we don't work out we also lose muscle mass. Those factors decrease our calorie needs, but they can be reversed by actions that are completely under our own control.

Some things that I think can help (in menopause or otherwise):

* Get overall good nutrition, especially but not exclusively adequate protein and fats. Too many women try to cut calories by eating mostly salads/veggies. They're great, but we need protein and fats, too.

* Get some exercise, including strength training. That will not only burn calories directly, but will increase fitness. Fitness makes moving easier and more fun - not just formal exercise movement, daily life stuff, too. When moving is easier and more fun, we tend to move more and burn more calories that way. Also, strength training helps us avoid losing unnecessarily much muscle as we're losing fat.

* Find forms of exercise you personally think are fun to do, or at least are tolerable and practical. Any exercise we actually do is 100% more beneficial for fitness or weight loss than a theoretically perfect exercise that we hate, so procrastinate and skip at the slightest excuse. The right exercise load will be manageably challenging, not exhausting.

(Being exhausted makes us drag through the day, moving less and therefore effectively wiping out some of the exercise calories. That's counter-productive. Exhaustion also implies under-recovery, and recovery is where the fitness improvement (building back better) actually happens. That means exhausting exercise isn't ideal for fitness development, either.)

* Think about daily life movement, not just formal exercise. There's a good thread here where many MFP-ers share their ideas about how to do that:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

* Work on sleep quality/quantity, if that's an issue. Sleep disruption is more common in menopause or peri, so optimizing to the extent practical will be helpful. Poor sleep triggers more fatigue which reduces movement and therefore reduces calorie burn.

Tricksy, trendy named diets aren't universally essential. Punitively intense exercise isn't essential. Aiming for aggressively fast weight loss is a trap. Expensive supplements or weird foods aren't going to be the magic spell. In fact, things like that can make it too hard to stay the course.

Patient persistence, and some practical new eating/activity habits: Those are better allies.

Yes, weight loss is possible in menopause. I'm far from the only one here who's done it. If we commit, and keep working at it seriously, it can happen. In my experience, the rewards are more than worth that effort.

Best wishes!

ETA: I predict you'll get responses that say you must eat low carb, or must do HIIT, or must do time restricted eating (TRE)/intermittent fasting (IF), or something like that, to succeed at weight management in menopause. It's not universally required or even suitable. If something like that helps you be happy on the right calorie level, it's a good thing. Otherwise, if not easy/happy, it's an unnecessary obstacle. If something sounds good to you, try it, give it a fair-length shot because any change tends to feel disruptive at first. If it makes things easier, great. If it doesn't, you've learned something useful: That plan doesn't work for you. Try something else. As long as you keep going, seeking the tactics that work for you, you'll eventually succeed. Just. Keep. Going.

AmunahSki

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Sure, it's possible. It's not that different from losing at any other age, in essence.

I lost about 50 pounds at age 59-60, class 1 obese to a healthy weight, and am still maintaining a healthy weight since, now age 68. I'd been in menopause since my mid-40s, put there early by chemotherapy. I'd been overweight to obese for around 30 years until that loss. I'm also severely hypothyroid (medicated) which sometime people also think is weight loss doom. It isn't, IME.

What did I do? Started logging my food, and ate less (in calorie terms). I focused on finding new habits I could keep up long term reasonably happily to stay at a healthy weight.

I didn't much change the range of foods I ate, since I was already eating a lot of nutritious foods (just too much of them). I changed portion sizes, proportions on the plate, and frequency of some calorie-dense foods so that I hit a more sensible calorie level. I didn't materially increase exercise. (I was already very active athletically, and had been for a dozen years while remaining fat.)

In general, I think menopause per se isn't actionable, so there's no point in focusing there. Some women can use HRT - which I can't because of my cancer history - but other than that, menopause is an unchangeable fact of life. What we CAN do is figure out how to accomplish our goals despite its symptoms and side effects: That's a better focus IMO.

As we age, we tend to have less active lifestyles (jobs, chores, hobbies, etc.), and if we don't work out we also lose muscle mass. Those factors decrease our calorie needs, but they can be reversed by actions that are completely under our own control.

Some things that I think can help (in menopause or otherwise):

* Get overall good nutrition, especially but not exclusively adequate protein and fats. Too many women try to cut calories by eating mostly salads/veggies. They're great, but we need protein and fats, too.

* Get some exercise, including strength training. That will not only burn calories directly, but will increase fitness. Fitness makes moving easier and more fun - not just formal exercise movement, daily life stuff, too. When moving is easier and more fun, we tend to move more and burn more calories that way. Also, strength training helps us avoid losing unnecessarily much muscle as we're losing fat.

* Find forms of exercise you personally think are fun to do, or at least are tolerable and practical. Any exercise we actually do is 100% more beneficial for fitness or weight loss than a theoretically perfect exercise that we hate, so procrastinate and skip at the slightest excuse. The right exercise load will be manageably challenging, not exhausting.

(Being exhausted makes us drag through the day, moving less and therefore effectively wiping out some of the exercise calories. That's counter-productive. Exhaustion also implies under-recovery, and recovery is where the fitness improvement (building back better) actually happens. That means exhausting exercise isn't ideal for fitness development, either.)

* Think about daily life movement, not just formal exercise. There's a good thread here where many MFP-ers share their ideas about how to do that:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

* Work on sleep quality/quantity, if that's an issue. Sleep disruption is more common in menopause or peri, so optimizing to the extent practical will be helpful. Poor sleep triggers more fatigue which reduces movement and therefore reduces calorie burn.

Tricksy, trendy named diets aren't universally essential. Punitively intense exercise isn't essential. Aiming for aggressively fast weight loss is a trap. Expensive supplements or weird foods aren't going to be the magic spell. In fact, things like that can make it too hard to stay the course.

Patient persistence, and some practical new eating/activity habits: Those are better allies.

Yes, weight loss is possible in menopause. I'm far from the only one here who's done it. If we commit, and keep working at it seriously, it can happen. In my experience, the rewards are more than worth that effort.

Best wishes!

ETA: I predict you'll get responses that say you must eat low carb, or must do HIIT, or must do time restricted eating (TRE)/intermittent fasting (IF), or something like that, to succeed at weight management in menopause. It's not universally required or even suitable. If something like that helps you be happy on the right calorie level, it's a good thing. Otherwise, if not easy/happy, it's an unnecessary obstacle. If something sounds good to you, try it, give it a fair-length shot because any change tends to feel disruptive at first. If it makes things easier, great. If it doesn't, you've learned something useful: That plan doesn't work for you. Try something else. As long as you keep going, seeking the tactics that work for you, you'll eventually succeed. Just. Keep. Going.

This!!

I’m 52, menopausal, lost 26lb to get to goal and successfully keeping it off, one day at a time.

Corina1143

Not much story.
Just after first year of Menopause
I went to a very good nutritionist, we clicked, I lost 60 pounds smiling all the way. Small changes to eating habits and exercise I enjoyed. She quit. I immediately gained 20 pounds because she wasn't advising me. I said "Whoa, she taught me well, I can do this myself." Kept 40 off for years.
Then started blood pressure medication that causes weight loss, average 3 pounds in 3 days. I lost 30 in 3 months. Thought this is a good time to keep losing, so ate very carefully, as low calorie as I thought I could stick with for a while. Lost 20 more. Blood pressure went down, so i stopped the pills. Immediately gained 20 pounds, then naturally, easily lost 10 of that in the next month or so, no dieting. Now down 80 pounds from highest,20-30 above goal.
Menopause didn't hurt my weight at all. Pain, stress and blood pressure medication definitely did. Good dietitian was definitely the most help to me.

TranquilWaterfalls

I had a lot of difficulty with weight loss. I've a lot more success with a focus on building muscle with weight training, eating healthy and eating enough, and a moderate amount of walking.

Muscle burns a lot of calories and looks great, so as I build more muscle literally everything has become easier.