Tips for Perimenopausal Ladies!

I would like to know also.

Are you saying your muscle doesn't increase, or your fat doesn't decrease, when you say "Mine will not budge!"? Or both?

Eating appropriate calories was key for me for losing fat in menopause. I lost 50-some pounds of it in just less than a year. I had eaten reasonably nutritiously before that, just ate too much compared to my actual calorie needs. @COGypsy is making an excellent point there about subtly reduced activity being a contributing factor. (That means daily life activity, not just exercise. It's very common to have a more placid lifestyle as we age, less physical movement in our daily life, chores, hobbies, etc.)

For muscle, the best route would be a good progressive strength training program faithfully performed, good overall nutrition (especially but not exclusively adequate protein). Muscle gain will be slow (as it is for everyone, but slower with aging) and is unlikely (or at least even slower) when reducing calories to the point of fat loss. The strength training would need to be heavy enough to be quite challenging, while staying safe.

I'm not doing that progressive strength training bit now (have in the past, earlier during menopause), though I do lift some now (but with different goals than muscle mass gain, mostly). When I spent more time in the gym, it was common to see women lifting weights in ways that were not - if I may dare to say it - challenging for them. High rep, fast rep, relatively low weight isn't optimal for muscle mass gain, as I'm sure you know.

Does "estrogen love fat"? I'm not sure what that means. Menopause is lower estrogen - if estrogen loves fat, wouldn't low estrogen promote less-fat? I don't think it does, so I don't understand the phrase.

When I was lifting routinely and progressively, I was already in menopause (chemotherapy triggered), plus taking anti-estrogen drugs because of breast cancer (you could think of those drugs as creating a hyper-menopausal state in some ways), and eating around maintenance calories (while overweight/obese, if that matters). I gained strength (fairly fast at first) and muscle (slowly). I've also gained muscle ultra, ultra, extra-very slowly without much lifting (sometimes none), doing a more strength-y form of cardio really, really a lot.

IMO and IME, challenging current strength level (somehow) and getting good nutrition is key to keeping (or gaining) muscle in menopause, as it is at other times. Eating the right number of calories is key to losing fat in menopause, as it is at other times. Good nutrition is important for health, and supports both those goals but doesn't guarantee them. Patience and persistence also support those goals.

In my mind, it doesn't matter if menopause makes these things harder. I think the wisest sign in the world is the one we see everywhere that says "you are here". Some women benefit from HRT in various ways. Personally, I can't take it because of my history of estrogen-fed breast cancer (which reached an advanced stage, so I'm not playing around with it). That's my "you are here".

I feel like the only reason to think about obstacles is to figure out how to get over, around, or otherwise past them - your post here is completely in line with that philosophically. Thinking about obstacles in any other way seems like an unproductive waste of time, to me: Catastrophizing basically, spinning the wheels.

I'm betting you can accomplish your goals. Optimizing strength training and nutrition will help. Your OP doesn't mention calorie intake, but I'm thoroughly convinced that calorie balance is the key to the fat loss piece.

Best wishes for success!

@AnnPT77 thank you great informative post, I'm in the same position as yourself regarding BC and medication.

I haven’t put weight on during peri (started 3 years ago and now on HRT) but my chocolate and wine consumption crept up, as coping mechanisms for the lack of sleep and feeling rubbish. I kept within my calorie limits, hence no weight increase, but I can’t say it was good for me. Back into a healthier pattern now the HRT is working. I can see how incredibly easy it would have been to pile the weight on if I wasn’t tracking accurately though; coffee and tonnes of sugar were all I could stomach in the morning to keep me functioning.

dfhoff40 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Are you saying your muscle doesn't increase, or your fat doesn't decrease, when you say "Mine will not budge!"? Or both?

Eating appropriate calories was key for me for losing fat in menopause. I lost 50-some pounds of it in just less than a year. I had eaten reasonably nutritiously before that, just ate too much compared to my actual calorie needs. @COGypsy is making an excellent point there about subtly reduced activity being a contributing factor. (That means daily life activity, not just exercise. It's very common to have a more placid lifestyle as we age, less physical movement in our daily life, chores, hobbies, etc.)

For muscle, the best route would be a good progressive strength training program faithfully performed, good overall nutrition (especially but not exclusively adequate protein). Muscle gain will be slow (as it is for everyone, but slower with aging) and is unlikely (or at least even slower) when reducing calories to the point of fat loss. The strength training would need to be heavy enough to be quite challenging, while staying safe.

I'm not doing that progressive strength training bit now (have in the past, earlier during menopause), though I do lift some now (but with different goals than muscle mass gain, mostly). When I spent more time in the gym, it was common to see women lifting weights in ways that were not - if I may dare to say it - challenging for them. High rep, fast rep, relatively low weight isn't optimal for muscle mass gain, as I'm sure you know.

Does "estrogen love fat"? I'm not sure what that means. Menopause is lower estrogen - if estrogen loves fat, wouldn't low estrogen promote less-fat? I don't think it does, so I don't understand the phrase.

When I was lifting routinely and progressively, I was already in menopause (chemotherapy triggered), plus taking anti-estrogen drugs because of breast cancer (you could think of those drugs as creating a hyper-menopausal state in some ways), and eating around maintenance calories (while overweight/obese, if that matters). I gained strength (fairly fast at first) and muscle (slowly). I've also gained muscle ultra, ultra, extra-very slowly without much lifting (sometimes none), doing a more strength-y form of cardio really, really a lot.

IMO and IME, challenging current strength level (somehow) and getting good nutrition is key to keeping (or gaining) muscle in menopause, as it is at other times. Eating the right number of calories is key to losing fat in menopause, as it is at other times. Good nutrition is important for health, and supports both those goals but doesn't guarantee them. Patience and persistence also support those goals.

In my mind, it doesn't matter if menopause makes these things harder. I think the wisest sign in the world is the one we see everywhere that says "you are here". Some women benefit from HRT in various ways. Personally, I can't take it because of my history of estrogen-fed breast cancer (which reached an advanced stage, so I'm not playing around with it). That's my "you are here".

I feel like the only reason to think about obstacles is to figure out how to get over, around, or otherwise past them - your post here is completely in line with that philosophically. Thinking about obstacles in any other way seems like an unproductive waste of time, to me: Catastrophizing basically, spinning the wheels.

I'm betting you can accomplish your goals. Optimizing strength training and nutrition will help. Your OP doesn't mention calorie intake, but I'm thoroughly convinced that calorie balance is the key to the fat loss piece.

Best wishes for success!

Oh so estrogen loves fat means estrogen hangs out in fat tissue, so when your body stops producing it then it wants to hang into the estrogen that already exists in your fat tissue.

Yep Ive been working twice a week with a trainer to build muscle, and already had above average muscle mass due to two years of twice weekly taekwondo training. After 6 weeks nothing changed! Lol. Even the trainers were scratching their heads haha(part of my training program is full body scan for fat/muscle tissue distribution- funny because I was in the same percentile for fat mass as
muscle mass lol. Something like 65 percentile for both! Argh)
I've recently started more effort towards 35% protein intake. I do notice I'm feeling more full! Appreciate the support and your thoughtful response!

FWIW, when I lost weight it seemed like my (already menopausal) fatty tissue let go of estrogen as I lost weight. My libido, which had blessedly (because I'm aging widow) been silent for years, suddenly perked up and went crazy. The effect faded, and I was very, very glad that it did.

Others, in different situations, might react differently to that same effect, I understand.

I didn't find that my body particularly hung on to fat, once I got my calorie intake to the right level . . . which in my case, was a higher calorie intake than MFP predicted, despite being old (59-60 at the time), menopausal (for around 15 years at that point), and severely hypothyroid (but properly medicated for it).

FWIW, I personally wouldn't expect any noticeable increase in muscle mass in 6 weeks, no matter what I did. Theoretically, a women in ideal circumstances might be delighted to gain around 1.5 pounds of muscle mass in 6 weeks - a really good result. "Ideal circumstances" would include a calorie surplus, relative youth (of which I have near zero), good genetics, ample protein in a context of overall good nutrition, a good progressive training program faithfully performed, and more. In less than ideal circumstances - always present for me - gains would be slower than that, at best, and likely near zero in a mere 6 weeks. Strength gains, if coming off a hiatus in strength training or new to it? Yes, sure. Mass? Not me.

Maybe your trainers' experience has been different, and I respect that . . . but for me, muscle gain is slow, requiring substantial patience . . . and that's if I'm willing to work really hard at it, which I'm usually not, realistically. YMMV - I hope it does, in fact, because I'm not very enthusiastic about strength training, sadly.

It's worth pursuing, though, and will happen in the longer term with the right interventions . . . or at least that's been my post-menopausal experience.

Best wishes!