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It's quite probable that your change in activity level decrease led to some weight gain, plus if you weren't already food logging meticulously, it's easy to have portions creep a little more (or food choices to be a little more calorie dense). A mere 100 calories over calorie needs will result in 10 pounds of gain in a year, and it can happen from a combination of eating creep, and activity decline. (Obviously, faster than a year if the excess is bigger, but it still doesn't take much change! 100 calories is around half a serving of peanut butter, a tablespoon of butter, a serving of creamy salad dressing, etc.)

It's pretty standard as we age - I'm 67 BTW - to gradually be less active in our daily lives, and we will lose muscle mass if we don't work pretty seriously to keep it. A side effect of weight gain and activity reduction is that moving is more difficult and less fun, so we subtly do less of it . . . that can be a sort of down spiral of reduced activity, reduced inclination and capability, so still less activity, and so on.

The good news is that it's pretty reversible via methods under our control. You've already started getting that into gear with your resumed spinning and yoga.

Logging your eating here should help with the eating side of things, if you're not doing that already. Personally, I'm a minimalist when it comes to eating plans, so I did this (to lose from 183 to 120s pounds at age 59-60, and to maintain a healthy weight since):

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1

That won't be perfect for everyone - no single plan is universally ideally for all - but it's one of the options, and similar to what quite a few successful people here have done. It's just one option to consider.

If you feel like your microbiome is out of sync, about the best to do is eat plenty of varied, colorful veggies and fruits, plus some whole grains; and eat some probiotic foods (like live culture yogurt or kefir, raw unpasteurized sauerkraut or kim chi, etc.). Some people like to take a probiotic supplement, but there's lots of debate about whether those are effective, and which are best. I prefer to use probiotic foods that humans have been eating for centuries and thriving. (Again, that's just my opinion.)

Wishing you success!

devenar1 wrote: »

appreciate your response. I am already logging my meals but today was confused as black ground coffee logged in at 14g fat????

Unfortunately, with a crowd-sourced database, some of the entries will have incorrect values. The good news is that once you vet an entry for accuracy and log it, it will show up in your recent foods to log again and you'll know it's right.

Hi Jane, I’m Helen, I’m 55 but I had an early menopause. It left me with a souvenir belly and hair loss! The good side is all my hot flushes were done by the time I hit my 40s so I got it out the way early! But my waist quickly went from 32 inches up to 43 inches… and a year later I gained weight rapidly after my dear Dad passed away, I comfort ate non stop, I literally ate my grief away and my waist got to 55 inches and my weight was 200lbs. I have since lost 35lb….but this big meno belly remains!

I’ve tried a daily Ab workout for a few months, but I still have quite a bit of belly fat so the Ab workout made no difference! Since the menopause I have tried different approaches to exercise, I’ve tried walking, it’s not intense enough so I don’t lose weight from walking, I tried running but I have arthritis in my knees so it’s too painful, the only thing that worked for me was a fast aerobic type workout coupled with lifting some weights, but again….my belly fat is slow to budge! The only thing that works with me is a stricter diet, less chocolate. The top photo is when I lost weight through doing aerobics and following a diet with limited snacking, but I gained weight since then, and the bottom picture is my weight loss this year, I’ve lost a couple of pounds from my belly but as soon as I have my weekly cheat meal, the belly comes back again, and then I spend weeks trying to lose it again !.