Post-Menopausal Weight Loss

I'm 53 in a few weeks
It's wonderful that you're getting in a lot of exercise and you've lost a couple pounds! Whoo Hoo!!!

I've had a headache for the past few days, which happens occasionally and always causes intense cravings. My body just wants something that feels good to counter the constant, nagging pain. Hoping tomorrow it goes away so I can get back under control with my eating and I really need to resume my gym schedule.

I have to say it feels so good to finally be losing - I've been trying to shed my menopause weight for years (I went into menopause young - 44). This the first success I've had. I finally feel like I get "it" - what works, what I need to do. That was elusive for a long time.

I should check out nutrisystem's desserts - I've been going to Baskin Robbins or eating Ben & Jerry's and that has just got to slow down!

Hello,I'm 62, loosing steadily.Ive not had any issues.I exercise lightly. I do believe in weighing everything in grams. I'm also only 5 foot tall, retired. If I can do it,anyone can.Track everything.dont use cups to measure, weigh.I eat exactly what my family does with a little modification ,I just eat less.Watch that salt, too much salt is the one thing I have found to consistently make me gain weigh! Feel free to add me!

callemiramar wrote: »

I'll be 60 this year, and no issue with dropping pounds. The secret? OK, I'll share it with you: I'm realistic. I know I didn't gain all this weight (it took years of uncontrolled eating/drinking). I calculated my BMR and TDEE, and do TDEE-15% and I'm dropping 1-2 pounds a week. This has to be recalculated after every 10 pounds lost. My current calorie intake is about 1700-1800/day. The only exercise I've been doing is walking, once I get under 200 lbs I'll start with lifting (increase muscle mass so skin doesn't sag and increases metabolism so I can eat more).Eating at 1200 or less calories a day and exercising like crazy does 2 things. First, it makes you body think it's starving so it holds on to every fat cell it can (slow weight loss) and the weight you loose will be water, muscle, and fat. Second, it doesn't teach you to eat in the real world (enjoying life, friends, parties) and when you give up (tired of denying yourself pleasure) you gain all you have lost and then some. By the way, the "metabolism is slower after menopause" is a load of crap! Most (not all) people start slowing down their activities after the age of 50 (or so). They buy into the notion "I'm older, I'm supposed to do less", hence the slower metabolism. I still work full time and don't take any medicine. If you want to calculate your TDEE, go to scoobysworkshop.com and click on MENU then select TOOLS then CALORIES BURNED CALCULATOR, fill in the blanks. For the activity level, be real. If you exercise (any activity that has you moving) 1/2 hour daily (or 1 hour 3x week) you're moderate. The last piece of advice I can give you is this: take pictures (start and every 10-20 pounds lost) and measure every 2-4 weeks. Even if you don't see movement on the scale, your body can be changing in definition/shape. Best wishes for your goals!

I totally respect your experience and opinion but everyone's specifics are different. I started out at 140 and for my activity level and metabolism if I eat more than 1400-1500 calories a day I gain weight - unless I'm exercising a reasonable amount. I think the smaller you are, the tighter the margins. It takes more energy to maintain a larger body so your metabolism at 200 lbs is actually higher than mine at now 125. I couldn't eat 1800 calories a day unless I was burning 300-400 calories a day (which while I strive for that - I don't always do it).

I've always been athletic and could eat whatever I wanted for most of my life. I never experience unwanted weight gain until my forties. Older bodies have a higher fat to muscle ratio - this is normal and its why our metabolism does slow with age - because our body compositions change - even with the same activity level our bodies change. Keeping the same muscle to fat ratio as a young person requires heavy weight lifting. Even with weight lifting, you have to do a hell of a lot and eat helluva lot of protein to have the muscle mass of a person in their twenties or thirties. So it's not a "load of crap" - it's biology.

I've always been a weight lifter - at times more than others but as a result I've got good muscle mass and I haven't seen myself lose any with the lbs I've lost. But, overall, before I started dieting, of course my body was changing - I am aging. Now, I'm losing a very moderate 1lb or slightly less per week. I'm not in starvation mode, hanging on to fat cells. I'm losing at a really good clip and I've felt this good in years!

It's important to support each other here rather than criticize each other's approaches. As you recalculate for every 10lbs, depending on your activity level, you may find that when you're 125lbs, like me, you will need to eat fewer calories to lose the 1-2 lbs a week you're losing now.

Oh Yes!!!! This is HELL!!!

MyReflections wrote: »

I am 52 and if hot flashes would count as exercise I would be in great shape.

I don't take hormone replacements or drugs, but I found a natural cream that seems to work miracles with me. My husband calls it my happy cream :-). I am not sure if I am allowed to put a link in here, but I guess I am going to find out.

http://www.bhnformulas.com

I am fine with losing the weight slower, but I am not so fine with the rest of the changes (like hot flashes, or brittle fingernails and hair). My hot flashes have disappeared, since I am using the happy cream, now I have to do the rest and work on my weight.

For whatever it's worth, those creams are hormone replacement, of sorts. They contain progesterone and/or estrogen.
I love the bio-identical hormone creams, don't get me wrong. Just know that you ARE using hormones.
I love the stuff, but can's seem to stay at the lower end of my happy weight when I use them.

callemiramar wrote: »

I'll be 60 this year, and no issue with dropping pounds. The secret? OK, I'll share it with you: I'm realistic. I know I didn't gain all this weight (it took years of uncontrolled eating/drinking). I calculated my BMR and TDEE, and do TDEE-15% and I'm dropping 1-2 pounds a week. This has to be recalculated after every 10 pounds lost. My current calorie intake is about 1700-1800/day. The only exercise I've been doing is walking, once I get under 200 lbs I'll start with lifting (increase muscle mass so skin doesn't sag and increases metabolism so I can eat more).Eating at 1200 or less calories a day and exercising like crazy does 2 things. First, it makes you body think it's starving so it holds on to every fat cell it can (slow weight loss) and the weight you loose will be water, muscle, and fat. Second, it doesn't teach you to eat in the real world (enjoying life, friends, parties) and when you give up (tired of denying yourself pleasure) you gain all you have lost and then some. By the way, the "metabolism is slower after menopause" is a load of crap! Most (not all) people start slowing down their activities after the age of 50 (or so). They buy into the notion "I'm older, I'm supposed to do less", hence the slower metabolism. I still work full time and don't take any medicine. If you want to calculate your TDEE, go to scoobysworkshop.com and click on MENU then select TOOLS then CALORIES BURNED CALCULATOR, fill in the blanks. For the activity level, be real. If you exercise (any activity that has you moving) 1/2 hour daily (or 1 hour 3x week) you're moderate. The last piece of advice I can give you is this: take pictures (start and every 10-20 pounds lost) and measure every 2-4 weeks. Even if you don't see movement on the scale, your body can be changing in definition/shape. Best wishes for your goals!

Just as every woman experienced their child bearing years differently (my sister was down with migraine and severe cramps each month, I breezed through) everyone experiences menopause differently.

Your journey isn't everyone's journey. I'm thrilled for your success. Metabolism DOES slow down as we age. And insulin resistance is quite common in menopausal women. That alone can make it harder for some women to lose.

I suspect you'll often see women here who were fit and lean and are now struggling to keep their weight at their goal. We are finding it challenging to "hang on" to our goal weight or keep the weight off. I'm one of those women. I'm 5'6" 135-137Lbs. I'd rather be my old 130. (I'm MORE active than I used to be, btw) The margin of error when you're within 10-20Lbs of goal weight is TINY (play around with scoobysworkshop and you'll see). Add hormones and SHEESH! I'd say that's a different scenario than you're experiencing, and could factor in to many women's complaints.

signed: hanging on to my preferred weight by the skin of my menopausal teeth.

cheers

I can't speak for being POST-menopause, but I've been in medically induced menopause for 6 years (so still actively menopausal, rather than post, and will be actively-menopausal for the foreseeable future. Possibly until I hit the menopause for real).

The change in hormones does lower your metabolism (given that metabolism is heavily effected by hormones...) although the change hits some harder than others depending on your individual levels, I guess, and your caloric needs will decrease as a result. Unfortunately, that just means eating less or moving more. Consistently. Calories in vs calories out still applies, it's just the "out" number is smaller than it would otherwise be and you need to accommodate for that.

If you're a smaller person (like me) then that can be a "good golly are you serious?!" calorie number (my BMR, at 50lb OVERweight -weight which I gained since becoming menopausal- is a mere 1400. Were I a healthy weight by BMR would only be skimming 1200 and my maintenance cals (before exercise) would be sub-1500). Smaller people have tighter margins. Hormonal mucking about in menopause makes those margins even more annoying.

Now, as to how I manage and lose the weight...

*Knowing my BMR/TDEE are going to be lower because of the hormonal effects and not basing my calculations on the stats of a regular 26 year old because that... does not work.
*Eating a high protein diet to maintain fullness (which ends up being low carb by default just to keep within caloric limits but your mileage may vary. I don't pay any attention to carbs at all, really.)
*Burning 800-1,000 calories through activity every day - through the gym and walking I make sure to cover at least 7 miles on foot daily and do...
*Strength training to preserve (and hopefully some day increase) muscle mass which will push daily BMR up a notch

A lot of my activity has to be fairy gentle because I also suffer from rheumatoid arthritis and although I want to go all out and, you know, REALLY go for it, I pay dearly in the long run when I do and have to take so much time out. Learned my lesson, lads. Know your limits.

I've found if you want it to come off at any sort of "reasonable" rate (rather than a half pound a month because who has the time?) you have to work a whole lot harder. Sucks, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Edited to add: my preferred protein sources are chicken, fish (notably salmon. I have a great love of salmon), strained Icelandic-style yogurt, and eggs. Lean protein mean you get more bang for your buck, calorie-wise. Which means a greater amount of food. Which I'm here for.

Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »

lexbubbles wrote: »

I can't speak for being POST-menopause, but I've been in medically induced menopause for 6 years (so still actively menopausal, rather than post, and will be actively-menopausal for the foreseeable future. Possibly until I hit the menopause for real).

What do you mean by medically induced menopause? A hysterectomy? or?

No, they won't grant me one of those. I'm injected with very very large doses of hormones to put my body into a menopausal state. The medication is actually not supposed to be given to women at all, and is reserved for the treatment of prostate cancer in men. The more you know! (A milder dosage of the drug, administered for short periods, is used in the treatments of fibroids and may induce menopausal symptoms). Once I am no longer being injected, menopause will cease. But... that's not likely to be soon or ever.

They don't know what's wrong with me, so they can't fix it, and won't take it out, so they just put lots and lots of drugs in me to keep me in a menopausal state so I stop bleeding because otherwise I won't (pretty much ever, without them I bleed for upwards of 16 weeks continuously with mere days respite in between).

I have been campaigning for a hysto for a decade, though. But I'm too young to make this decision about my own body and may want a child someday, although it has yet to be explained to me how this will occur since I don't stop bleeding for long enough to conceive.

(Sorry if I sound a little bitter, the patience wears thin, and the hot flashes get so so old)