Weight loss and menopause

I lost about 50 pounds in a bit less than a year, when I'd been in menopause for nearly 15 years. (There are quite a few women here who lost weight in menopause; I assume some will comment.) I'm also severely hypothyroid (but medicated for it), which some people think is a barrier, too. (I don't, particularly.)

You mention insomnia and night time eating. I'd suggest looking at those things as root causes, and trying - to the extent possible - to improve them.

There are some threads in this part of the MFP Community about sleep issues, that might be worth checking out. I tried a bunch of things.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/sleep-mindfulness-wellness

The most helpful to me were a formal medical sleep study, where I learned that I had sleep apnea, and got that treated; and a set of hypnotherapy sessions with a licensed psychologist.

The night eating can potentially be related to the insomnia: As the day goes on, we're more distant from recent rest, and fatigue increases. Fatigue can make the body seek energy, food is energy, so various related hormones can cause appetite to spike, and the effect is likely to be most severe in the evening: Voila, evening snacking. Stress can increase fatigue, too, so stress management techniques may be helpful. (People do a variety of things for that. Reduce stress sources, if possible, of course. Beyond that, different things help different people. Some example things are mild exercise, journaling, meditation or prayer, warm aromatherapy bubblebaths, adult coloring books, etc.)

Did you talk with your doc about the medication-related weight gain to see if there was an alternative drug regimen that might be less likely to have relevant side effects? (Sometimes there aren't such options, I know.)

Generally, weight gain as a drug side effect comes from one or more of these mechanisms:
1. Increased water retention
2. Increased fatigue (so lower activity)
3. Increased appetite (so more calorie intake)
4. Impaired sleep.

The water retention usually tops out at some point, but can be surprisingly substantial sometimes, and does show up on the scale even though it's not body fat.

Usually, the counter for fatigue would be to work on improving sleep quality/quantity, but you've already mentioned that insomnia is a problem in your case.

Calorie counting can sort of help with increased appetite, in that it makes calorie intake obvious (but doesn't directly solve the appetite, of course). There are varied eating strategies that work for some to manage appetite. (Common examples: Eating more whole foods and less ultra-processed foods, getting more protein, improving nutrition, eating low carb or keto or carnivore, intermittent fasting, volume eating (of lower calorie things), etc. None of those work universally, it seems like, but can help some people. It can require a little individual experimenting, and there's no magically perfect option for all.)

With your situation, if someone suggests dramatically increasing exercise (in duration, intensity or frequency), I'd raise an eyebrow. Exercise is great, and some do find that increasing it helps manage depression symptoms or insomnia, in some cases even counter fatigue. However, increasing it too much can increase fatigue and timing of it has potential to hinder sleep for some, so extremes may not be ideal.

Generally, I haven't found losing weight in menopause dramatically different than losing weight at any other stage in life. There's a lot of marketing around menopause and weight loss now, much of which I think is light on substance and heavy on sales pitch. It is the case that many of us have less active daily lives at menopausal age than we did when young, and that reduces calorie needs. On top of that, we tend to lose muscle mass as we age unless we do something to keep or increase it, so moving becomes less easy or fun, so we do even less moving. On top of that, many women have done multiple rounds of extreme yo-yo dieting, and that also can reduce calorie needs through a couple of different mechanisms.

Sometimes those effects get blamed on menopause, because that's an age when they really come home to roost. But each of them can be countered, primarily through strength training, improving fitness in other ways, and consciously increasing daily life movement** as well as exercise.

** More discussion about increasing daily life movement here, including many MFP-ers ideas about ways to do it:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

You have various things going on, so I don't mean to imply that all of this is easy let alone no problem. But there are actions we can take that can improve the situation. I don't think menopause itself is a key cause, and even if it were, we can't change it, so focusing there IMO isn't helpful. (Some women can use hormone replacement therapy, but I can't due to a history of estrogen-fed breast cancer, so I can't common on how much it might help others.)

What I might suggest is finding some particular manageable thing, an aspect of the situation to work on, then as that progresses, adding another change that builds on that success. What to do, in what order, is individual.

I'm cheering for you to succeed, because my personal experience is that there's quality of life improvement on that path. Best wishes!

Hi, my story is I had a total hysterectomy at the age of 51 in OCT 2022 due to fibroids and endometrial cancer. HEAVY shedding periods and unpredictable long-term bleeding was causing wardrobe malfunctions at the office and other embarrassing times, sending me home to change or just plain kept me home. Prior to all that I had been doing well with a gradual 50 LB weight loss over the course of a year and a half. I lost 25 more by my 3-month post-surgery follow up appointment and was feeling pretty proud of myself. I wasn't letting medical menopause have its way with me...and then the creeping weight gain began.

I gained that post-surgery 25 loss back plus another 15. High cortisol, brain fog, stress, sugar cravings, interrupted and inadequate sleep, hot flashes, anxiety, and winter depression was taking its toll. I upped my Paxil dosage to help curb, though not eliminate, the vasomotor symptoms. HRT was not advised due to the cancer likely caused by too much estrogen related to obesity. When my surgeon told me this, I was truly shocked. Here's my PSA for this post. I encourage anyone with an abnormal period or bleeding to get checked asap. Even if it's just 1 drop. I didn't and thought oh well it's just what women go through during peri and I just gotta stick it out and suffer until menopause actually happens. Big mistake.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago or so and wanting to try something new for the interrupted and inadequate sleep. I switched from Tylenol PM to CBD nighttime gummy bears (mine is 21mg of CBD per bear). The CBD has had the best result for me so far. Taken right before bed, it has helped consistently support more restful and restorative sleep with less interruptions. My day focus has improved and I'm able to go to bed at a logical time vs media binging to try and dissociate long enough to eventually fall asleep. I sit outside over my break when its sunny to get that good vitamin D. To date I'm cancer free. This last Monday was my return to tracking on MFP after being absent for over a year. It took a while for me to get up the courage to face the scale and return. I'm currently 240 LBS and working toward slow and steady loss until I'm more comfortable in my own skin. Hang in there, you are doing your best and you are worth it!