Menopause & Weight Loss
I am 55 and just recently stopped all HRTs, I have gained 15 pounds, mostly in thighs, hips, belly. I used to fast 18-20 hrs a day for years but all I do now is gain.
I like to walk 2 miles a day and do massage therapy all day so I am really tired at the end of my day. Morning is the best time to work out for me.
Would lifting hand weights help me lose weight? How often? I recently watched Dr Stacy Sims discuss how older women need to move more and eat more to lose weight.
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Yes, you will burn by doing strength/weight training. I would do it 4 times a week but continue to do cardio the other 3 days a week. I would do 3-4 sets, 12 reps for each exercise. I would concentrate on 1-2 body parts each day. For example: Back day. Leg day. Shoulder day. Abs/Chest day. It takes time for results to show. Consistency and patience is key. I am also 55 and in menopause (ended age 45 or so) and it is a struggle to lose! I lost 7 lbs so far in past 2 months or more. I have 10 more to go. Any questions, feel free to ask me. I have been doing weight/strength training for decades!
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Depends. The calorie burn from weight training is overall very low. Lets say you burn 100 calories doing that each day. Then you'd need 35 days to lose 1 pound, provided you don't eat more. Overall, a calorie deficit leads to weightloss, and eating too much to weight gain. How you achieve that calorie deficit is up to you. It's possible that stopping hrt has made you more hungry, and in a suble way less active. And this would lead to weight gain.
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Yes, the calorie burn is lower from weight training, however building muscle burns calories more throughout the entire day. Yes it can make you more hungry. However, adding weight training in your routine is proven (not just by my results) to burn fat and increase metabolism, even if it takes longer than just cardio alone.
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I think if you're a massage therapist you're getting the equivalent of some weight/resistance work already. That's a physically demanding job. If you want to lift weights, I'd do more than hand weights, if you're talking about 2-10 pound weights.
Muscle doesn't burn that much more. . .and it's difficult for a woman to build any significant mass, you'd have to use a progressive program - more than hand weights. Even if a menopausal woman COULD build five extra pounds of muscle that would only burn an additional 25-50 calories per day, and five pounds of muscle is going to take quite a while to build, plus it's very hard to do while trying to lose weight. Generally building muscle requires heavy lifting over time and eating in a calorie surplus.
So the answer to the question would be: Yes, lifting weights is good. Heavier than 10 pounds, though.
Losing weight (yes, even in menopause, I lost 80 pounds) requires eating fewer calories per day, over time, than what your body needs to maintain its current weight.
It's going to be about the food. I did it, so did many others (no HRT) so - log your food, learn to use the food log, and gradually cut back how much you eat until you start losing weight.
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Why are you saying it needs to be 10 pounds or more hand weights? I think first of all you should gradually increase your way up to 10 pounds, but secondly ANY pound weights will help build strength and muscle as long as you are consistent and do enough reps and sets each day. I do 4 sets of an excercise, 12 reps each.
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Good for you.
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Sarcasm?
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Sarcasm? Seriously? We are here to learn from one another. I'm not saying I'm always correct on things, but if I find knowledge, only then will I share it.
Muscle doesn't burn that much more. . YES, MUSCLE TISSUE BURNS MORE FAT THAN FAT TISSUE .and it's difficult for a woman to build any significant mass, you'd have to use a progressive program - more than hand weights.
Even if a menopausal woman COULD build five extra pounds of muscle that would only burn an additional 25-50 calories per day, and five pounds of muscle is going to take quite a while to build, WITH TIME AND CONSISTENT EFFORT, IT WILL TAKE AROUND 3-12 WEEKS FOR MOST INDIVIDUALS, DEPENDING ON TRAINING EXPERIENCE AND GENETICS plus it's very hard to do while trying to lose weight. WHAT IS HARD TO DO WHILE TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT?
Generally building muscle requires heavy lifting over time and eating in a calorie surplus. WHILE HEAVY LIFTING CAN BE EFFECTIVE FOR BUILDING MUSCLE, IT'S NOT A STRICT REQUIREMENT. YOU CAN BUILD MUSCLE WITH BOTH HEAVY AND LIGHTER WEIGHTS, AS LONG AS YOU REACH MUSCULAR FATIGUE OR NEAR FAILURE DURING YOUR SETS.
So the answer to the question would be: Yes, lifting weights is good. Heavier than 10 pounds, though. A COMBINATION OF BOTH HEAVY AND LIGHT LIFTING CAN BE EFFECTIVE FOR WEIGHT LOSS. START WITH THE WEIGHT THAT ALLOWS YOU TO PERFORM 10-15 REPS WITH GOOD FORM. AS YOU GET STRONGER, GRADUALLY INCREASE THE WEIGHT TO CONTINUE CHALLENGING YOUR MUSCLES.
It's going to be about the food. I did it, so did many others (no hrt) so - log your food, learn to use the food log, and gradually cut back how much you eat until you start losing weight. WHILE DIET IS CRUCIAL FOR WEIGHT LOSS, IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT FOOD; A HOLISTIC APPROACH INCLUDING PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND LIFESTYLE CHANGES IS ESSENTIAL FOR SUSTAINABLE RESULTS.
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Strength training is 100% worth doing, especially for aging women. Yes, looking at holistic lifestyle changes will be a great path, which includes not only strength and cardiovascular exercise, good overall nutrition, reasonable hydration (many go overboard there IMO), sleep, stress management, and more. We don't need to tackle all of those dimensions at once, but they all matter.
Aging women, statistically speaking, are also more likely to be getting less than ideal amounts of protein, and not realizing that as we age it becomes more important to spread the protein through the day, because we tend to absorb it less efficiently than younger people. The "eat only salads and veggies" approach to dieting has been common among my peers - and earlier, me 😉😬 - over my lifespan. It's not ideal, maybe not even adequate.
But - despite how very much I wish it weren't so - Riverside is correct, as she usually is: Muscle doesn't burn very many extra calories. Both fat tissue and muscle tissue are metabolically active, so both burn calories, even at rest. Researchers believe a pound of muscle burns around 4 calories more per day at rest than a pound of fat.
Personally, I suspect there's more caloric benefit than that, but indirectly. (I can't prove it.) I suspect that when we're stronger and fitter, movement becomes easier and more fun, so we tend to do more of it without even thinking about it. For most of us, the 2nd biggest component of our daily calorie burn is NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. That's the calories we burn doing daily life routine stuff like job, home chores, and non-exercise hobbies. Increasing NEAT can potentially increase daily calorie burn by low hundreds of calories daily, without taking lots of extra time. Further, research suggests that obese (and formerly obese) people tend to have lower average NEAT than slim people, which suggests that habits matter. Habits can change, and maybe being stronger changes them automagically.
Many MFP-ers share their ideas for increasing NEAT here:
Equally unfortunately, Riverside is also correct that muscle mass gain is quite gradual. Under ideal conditions, half a pound of muscle gain per week would be a very good outcome for a woman, maybe twice that for a man. Ideal conditions include a good progressive strength training program faithfully performed, good overall nutrition (especially but not exclusively ample protein), relative youth, favorable genetics, and a calorie surplus, among other things. Menopausal women working on weight loss are missing at least 2 of those, youth and calorie surplus. That doesn't mean zero mass gain necessarily - though fast loss can mean that for sure - but it does mean that the fastest rate of muscle mass gain we might reasonably expect would be slower than half a pound a week.
Sometimes people are mislead by the undeniable fact that strength gain - especially when new to strength training or resuming after a long hiatus - can be surprisingly rapid. The initial strength gain comes from better recruiting and utilizing our existing muscle fibers, a.k.a. neuromuscular adaptation. Only as those strength gains begin to be tapped out will our bodies be inclined to add new muscle fibers. On top of that, appearance can begin to look more "toned" before mass, or much mass, is added, largely from a sort of "pump" from water retained in the muscles for repair. I've seen people here say they must be gaining muscle because of these strength/appearance changes . . . but that's not necessarily accurate.
You're correct that lighter resistance is a good starting point, for reasons you state plus that we can have imbalances at the start that may need some conditioning to improve. If high reps are used, more reps are needed - as you say - in order to create a strength challenge. It's challenge that creates progress, of course. IME, there are more women afraid of lifting heavier-to-them weights than women lifting too heavy, though of course both things occur.
Also, lighter resistance at high reps has a tendency to favor muscular endurance over muscle mass gain. If muscle gain is the goal, working up safely to lower/moderate reps and higher resistance would be a good plan. I emphasize working up gradually because of course injury derails the whole process until healing completes. I can't speak for others, but as I age, any break in the action sees me de-training faster than I would've when younger. That makes injury even more important to avoid.
It's a digression, but I'd add that most of any muscle I have beyond average for my demographic - and I do have some - comes from high-rep, low-resistance activity (not lifting, BTW). I'm talking literally thousands of reps per week, over a period of years. No exaggeration. If mass gain were my goal, I wouldn't do it that way, at least not beyond an initial conditioning phase to identify and correct imbalances or form issues.
I absolutely agree that strength training is part of the best formula for aging women, no matter whether menopausal, peri- or something else, I also believe from experience here that unrealistic expectations are a common way that people become discouraged and give up. Knowing what needs to be done, how to do it, and when to expect to see results - that's IMO all part of a success mindset.
P.S. As an aside, might I suggest you consider setting off quoted bits from responses by using the editor's text tags for italics or bold for either the quote or the comment? All caps can be more difficult to read, and unfortunately some people will misinterpret it as shouty, so miss out on useful content.
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Thank you for your responses and detailed information Ann. I'm not sure if I completely agree with all you said, but it's okay. I did more research and will post below what I confirmed that "I believe to be true." I totally understand what you're saying though in your post and I thank you for it! Also, I will take your advice for sure, yes, on using CAPS, as people still in this day and age think it's yelling when it's not LOL. I am not sure what you mean by quotes because the only way I can reply to someone's post is by hitting the quote tag. There is no reply tag. Thank you again Ann. I appreciate your knowledge and taking the time to write!
While both muscle and fat burn calories at rest, muscle tissue is indeed more metabolically active, burning roughly 6 calories per pound per day, while fat burns about 2 calories per pound per day. Muscle tissue is more metabolically active than fat tissue, meaning it requires more energy to maintain, even at rest. Having more muscle mass leads to a higher resting metabolism, meaning you burn more calories overall, even when you're not actively exercising. While muscle mass plays a role, other factors like age, genetics, and activity levels also influence metabolism. Building muscle through strength training can help increase your metabolism and burn more calories, contributing to weight loss and overall health. Muscle tissue burns more calories at rest than fat tissue, so increasing muscle mass can boost your metabolism and help with weight management. Regular strength training is essential for seeing results. While muscle gain is a gradual process, consistent weight/strength training is crucial for overall fitness and shouldn't be overlooked, alongside cardio and nutrition.
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