MENOPAUSE WEIGHT

cammarata294
cammarata294 Posts: 1 Member
in Introduce Yourself

Hello

Looking for different ways/ideas to get healthier and help with menopause weight,be more active, and be healthier and happier

Replies

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 38,381 Community Helper

    Hello, and welcome!

    Speaking as a woman in menopause myself, I have to warn you that the real answer is pretty basic: Find a lower calorie way of eating that keeps you mostly full and happy, plus delivers reasonable overall nutrition; add manageably challenging exercise you find fun, both strength and cardiovascular challenge, and increase that (time or intensity) as it gets easier because you're fitter.

    Will happiness result? As long as a person doesn't take aggressively extreme measures, I don't think it needs to reduce happiness. Healthier eating and manageable exercise can potentially improve mood, but it's not guaranteed - partly depends on starting point, I think. Certainly, setting goals and achieving them can feel empowering, and that kind of thing makes me happy - not sure if that's universally true.

    For sure, in my experience, there are benefits. I started getting more active in my late 40s, after full-bore cancer treatment. That fitness improvement improved my quality of life significantly. Stupidly, I stayed overweight/obese for another dozen years, finally committing to weight loss at age 59. Within a year, I'd reached a healthy-for-me weight. That, too, was a big quality of life improvement. The combination of reasonable fitness and a healthy body weight was gangbusters for quality of life, better than either one on its own, great those each was.

    Instant change probably isn't realistic. Gradual progress in a positive direction is achievable, though, and worth the patient persistence it takes. Small positive changes in routine habits add up to big results over a period of months and years. It's human to want a quick fix, but I think that's an illusion. Positive results are possible, nonetheless.

    Wishing you success - it's worth the effort!

    P.S. Menopause is a big marketing point for diet and fitness products and influencers lately. They don't have any magic, either, no matter how much they say otherwise. For everyone, including those of us in menopause, the goals you mention are all about:

    • Appropriate calories
    • Reasonable overall nutrition, especially but not only protein
    • Strength and cardiovascular exercise
    • Sleep quality/quantity
    • . . . and maybe a few other smaller contributors, but those are the biggies.

    Not all of that needs to happen at once, just improving gradually on various fronts on average is fine. Routine day in, day out eating and activity habits are the power tools for weight management and health. Focus there.

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