Has anyone been successful in losing weight during menopause?

Hello, and welcome!

Yes, I did, about 50 pounds lost at age 59-60, still maintaining a healthy weight since, now 68. I'd been in menopause since mid-40s, put there early by chemotherapy. I'd been overweight to obese for around 30 years until that loss.

First: There's really no solid way to evaluate a new eating/activity routine until we've followed it for 4-6 weeks, whole menstrual cycles for those who have them (to compare body weight at the same relative point in at least two different cycles).

One common pattern is to drop some pounds in the first week or two, mostly from shifts in water retention and less waste in the digestive tract because eating less. Yes, some fat loss, but the whole scale drop isn't fat loss, usually. Then, after that, the body may increase water retention, kind of rebalancing things, and that hides continuing fat loss on the bodyweight scale.

So, recommendation #1: Keep going long enough to accumulate enough data to see average weight change over multiple weeks, at least 4-6. Even then, if the first couple of weeks look dramatically different from what follows, throw out those first couple of weeks and keep going a bit longer.

Once you have reasonable averages, you can adjust your calorie goal based on your own personal experience, rather than using an average-person calorie needs estimate from MFP or another so-called calorie calculator (or even fitness tracker).

Losing any meaningful total amount of weight is not a quick project with an end date, after which things go back to normal. That's the recipe for yo-yo loss/regain. Finding sustainable new habits - both eating and activity level - is key to long-term success. If you have quite a few pounds to lose, the habits need to be something you can continue for the weeks/months it takes to lose it . . . and then keep doing, with a few more calories, to maintain that new weight permanently.

In general, I think menopause per se isn't actionable, so there's no point in focusing there. Some women can use HRT - which I can't because of my cancer history - but other than that, menopause is an unchangeable fact of life. What we CAN do is figure out how to accomplish our goals despite its symptoms and side effects: That's a better focus IMO.

As we age, we tend to have less active lifestyles (jobs, chores, hobbies, etc.), and if we don't work out we also lose muscle mass. Those factors decrease our calorie needs, but they can be reversed by actions that are completely under our own control.

Some things that I think can help (in menopause or otherwise):

* Get overall good nutrition, especially but not exclusively adequate protein and fats. Too many women try to cut calories by eating mostly salads/veggies. They're great, but we need protein and fats, too.

* Get some exercise, including strength training. That will not only burn calories directly, but will increase fitness. Fitness makes moving easier and more fun - not just formal exercise movement, daily life stuff, too. When moving is easier and more fun, we tend to move more and burn more calories that way. Also, strength training helps us avoid losing unnecessarily much muscle as we're losing fat.

* Find forms of exercise you personally think are fun to do, or at least are tolerable and practical. Any exercise we actually do is 100% more beneficial for fitness or weight loss than a theoretically perfect exercise that we hate, so procrastinate and skip at the slightest excuse. The right exercise load will be manageably challenging, not exhausting.

(Being exhausted makes us drag through the day, moving less and therefore effectively wiping out some of the exercise calories. That's counter-productive. Exhaustion also implies under-recovery, and recovery is where the fitness improvement (building back better) actually happens. That means exhausting exercise isn't ideal for fitness development, either.)

* Think about daily life movement, not just formal exercise. There's a good thread here where many MFP-ers share their ideas about how to do that:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

* Work on sleep quality/quantity, if that's an issue. Sleep disruption is more common in menopause or peri, so optimizing to the extent practical will be helpful. Poor sleep triggers more fatigue which reduces movement and therefore reduces calorie burn.

Tricksy, trendy named diets aren't universally essential. Punitively intense exercise isn't essential. Aiming for aggressively fast weight loss is a trap. Expensive supplements or weird foods aren't going to be the magic spell. In fact, things like that can make it too hard to stay the course. Patient persistence, and some practical new eating/activity habits: Those are better allies.

Yes, weight loss is possible in menopause. I'm far from the only one here who's done it. If we commit, and keep working at it seriously, it can happen. In my experience, the rewards are more than worth that effort.

Best wishes!

ETA: I predict you'll get responses that say you must eat low carb, or must do HIIT, or must do time restricted eating (TRE)/intermittent fasting (IF), or something like that, to succeed at weight management in menopause. It's not universally required or even suitable. If something like that helps you be happy on the right calorie level, it's a good thing. Otherwise, if not easy/happy, it's an unnecessary obstacle. If something sounds good to you, try it, give it a fair-length shot because any change tends to feel disruptive at first. If it makes things easier, great. If it doesn't, you've learned something useful: That plan doesn't work for you. Try something else. As long as you keep going, seeking the tactics that work for you, you'll eventually succeed. Just. Keep. Going.