Anyone else dealing with menopause madness?

Results are mixed, but there's some limited research suggesting that strength training can be helpful.

It's kind of normal for our daily life activity to decrease over our adult years, and for our muscle mass to decline, and for us to become less fit in general. I don't know if any of those are true for you at your current age vs. when you were 20, but if they are, taking steps to reverse them can pay off.

I admit, menopause for me came on as a result of chemotherapy in my mid-40s, and the difficulties of menopause were somewhat hidden in the noise of cancer diagnosis, treatment (surgery-chemo-radiation-drugs) and recovery. I know a good bit about combatting symptoms individually (hot flashes and what-not) without resorting to hormone replacement therapy. (HRT is way off limits to women like me whose tumors were estrogen-fed.) If you have no reason to avoid it, talking about HRT with your doctor might be useful.

Some vitamins, if deficient, can contribute to hot flashes and the like. From memory, I think it's E and the Bs, maybe B-6 especially. My advice would be to try to get a robust daily intake of varied, colorful fruits and veggies, vs. trying to supplement. Anything that improves your overall nutrition has potential.

There are some prescription meds (other than HRT) that help some people, too. Talk to your doctor.

In non-medical interventions, some things I and my non-HRT-eligible peers did are carrying a hand fan (like the paper ones); and using those gel-filled, flexible, reusable cold packs on one's neck at night (I preferred mine with a towel over). (At extreme points, it can help to keep a small cooler bedside with another frozen gel pack to pull out in the middle of the night.)

Given the mechanisms that underlie hot flashes, I found that it helped to avoid any external heat spikes. (My body seemed to grab them and run with them, once they were triggered.) I stopped wearing sweaters, preferred multiple thin layers I could peel off at the slightest sign of perceived warmth.

By the time (way late, stupidly) I got around to losing weight, I was long into menopause. (Menopause, around age 45-6; weight loss, definitely age 59-60.) By that point, pure calorie counting worked for me. It's worth noting that calculator estimates of calorie goals are only a population average. Any one of us can find that we need more or fewer calories than our demographic.

My advice would be to start with an MFP or other calculator estimate, stick with that for 4-6 weeks, then adjust based on real world results, using the assumption that 500 calories a day is about a pound a week. Be careful about exercise calorie estimates, whether using MFP, a fitness tracker, or a TDEE calculator estimate. We're all individuals, not exact abstract statistics. Once you have 4-6 weeks of personal logging data, use that to adjust goals.

IME, that can work.

Wishing you success!

Here's a great thread on peri and menopause: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10482404/is-it-over-yet-the-perimenopause-thread/p1

Somewhere in there I talk about never having hot flashes and having taken black cohosh with dong quai for years, and that Gabapentin worked for night sweats for my sister.

Yeah, I'm gaining even though I'm technically doing everything 'right'. But exercise is doing wonders for my mood, my extreme periods and my body shape, so, ya know? I figure I've got enough to worry about. I'll keep logging, keep accountable, keep exercising and if the pay off for less symptoms is no weightloss on the scales? I'll take that...