Menopause regulation reset

sareesa3278

girls you are getting the menopause surprise of weight fluctuations??? I admit, I am not eating clean but I feel my weight is fluctuating disproportionately 😛

AnnPT77

Hello, and welcome!

But, um . . . no?

I admit, menopause for me was confusing: It was brought on at age 45 nearly instantly by chemotherapy for cancer. Any short-term side effects were masked by the chemotherapy, then mixed in with side effects from 7.5 years of anti-estrogen drugs that in some ways create kind of a hyper-menopausal state. Soon after chemo, I was diagnosed as severely hypothyroid, too.

My understanding is that weight fluctuations in early menopause have a lot to do with weird water retention effects. Weight gain has more to do with sleep interruptions, fatigue, and appetite.

Eating clean - which has dozens of definitions so I'm not sure what you mean by it - is pretty much irrelevant for weight loss, except when someone is eating so high a percentage of highly processed and refined foods that they don't feel full, so tend to overeat. Most people find things like meat, fish, veggies, fruits, and whole grains more filling, and that can make calorie reduction a bit easier for some. But it's OK to eat some smaller amounts of treats or more-processed foods. It's the calorie balance that determines weight gain/loss/maintenance.

I finally lost weight around 14 years after cancer treatment, at age 59-60, and I'd obviously been in menopause for a long time by then. I've been in maintenance at a healthy weight for around 9 years since loss. The quality of life improvement was more than worth the effort it took, for me.

One thing I have to say: There sure are a lot of online influencers and marketers these days claiming that menopause is doom for weight loss. I'm pretty sure they're wrong. 😆 I'm not the only one around here who's lost a meaningful amount of weight in menopause or peri. Mostly, those people claiming doom are trying to sell us something, or rent our eyeballs to sell to advertisers. They all seem to have some "secret" hack, diet plan, exercise program, supplement . . . etc.: Something that will solve all our problems. Yeah, right. 😉

To the extent there's any research evidence for what's in their programs, it's this: Exercise, including some strength exercise to regain muscle mass that's crept off over the years; get good overall nutrition including plenty of protein; improve sleep quality/quantity to the extent practical. Pretty much everything other than that is small potatoes, if not full-on mythology.

You can lose weight, if you want to lose weight. It's normal for the scale to meander up and down a few pounds from day to day, even if not in menopause or peri. It takes a few weeks to see actual weight loss in the slow downward trend of the scale over time.

Patient persistence is part of the solution, and that part is easier if we don't adopt some extreme plan of eating restrictions and punitively intense exercise. Eat food you like that adds up to decent nutrition and reasonable calories, increase daily life and exercise movement in manageable ways. That'll work.

Best wishes!

claireychn074

I certainly hold water at certain times of the month, but I always have to be fair. I’m taking progesterone which enhances bloating (for me), but it’s only water. I haven’t noticed any effect on permanent weight to be honest.