HELP - Menopause makes losing weight so much harder!

I understand!!! I'm right there with you! What I've done lately is increase my exercise time and lowered my calorie intake to 1200 cals per day and drink 1/2 my body weight in water...that seems to help me. With that combination, I've lost about 8 lbs (doesn't seem like much) but it's alot to me because not only am I in menopause, but have hypothyroidism (sloooooooow metabolism) which inhibits me from burning fat quickly, So, I've managed to work around it. Best wishes!! :drinker:

Hi Healthybabs.

I am the same age as you, but have been using this site for a few months. I also found that with age and/or the menopause, the weight was creeping up like never before. But I've since being around here I've lost 22 pounds, and am now down to my last 3 pounds or so. I've learnt such a lot here, and I think the best I can do is let you know what has worked for me.

First of all, I started exercising quite a lot. This wasn't completely new for me, as I've been to gyms etc for years. But I read about the need to 'eat your exercise calories' (see my signature below for a link to useful information), and I took it on board, so what I burnt through exercise I used on eating extra food, keeping my net calories at the level recommended by MFP. For the first few weeks, when I wasn't losing anything much at all, I just kept on going. After a while, the weight started to drop steadily - a pound a week, sometimes more (I started at about 139 I think). I don't actually want to lose too quickly, because I'm doing this mainly for health reasons, and want to do it right. I also don't like that haggard look I've sometimes seen in friends who've lost very quickly. My weight loss has gone really well, and I'm now in better shape than I've been since my early twenties!

The really important change I've made food-wise, which I can't recommend highly enough, is that I've upped my protein intake to levels which are quite high for me (I'm vegetarian, so it has been difficult at times). I aim for between 0.8 and 1.0 of my goal weight in grams of protein (so ideally, 114 grams of protein a day in my case). The best food I've discovered to help me with that has been 0% fat Greek yoghurt - it's packed with protein. I also try to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables (I don't worry about the sugar content of fruit at all).

I hope this helps just a little; please 'friend' me if you want to, and we can peek at each other's diaries!

Hello again. I just had a look at your food diary, and I was thinking that it looked fine until I noticed at the bottom that you are doing tons and tons of exercise. That's wonderful, but because you are not eating lots of extra calories, you are in a HUGE calorie defecit - at least on the days I looked at. Some people would say that causes the body to go into 'starvation mode' where it desperately hangs on to weight (explained in those links). I don't know if that is true, but I would suggest that you continue to exercise as much as you want to and feel good on, but really increase your calorie intake to achieve the net recommendation. You can have a really good time in the process, eating all kinds of lovely things! I know it seems wrong somehow, when you want to lose weight, but it works for an awful lot of people. Don't panic if you seem to hit a plateau - it will start to come off steadily after a while, when your body learns to trust you again, lol!

bump

My problem is - I can't seem to get back in gear. I weighed less back around the holidays - it's so upsetting. I was down to 185 - now today I'm 205 again. I could just scream!!! :explode:

I've been thinking about joining Weight Watchers again.

I know my reply wasn't much help - but just can say I feel your pain. I'll be 50 next April.

:drinker:

I've just come off weight watchers, as ever since pro-points has come in I have got nowhere with it. I think slow loss is just something you have to put up with after menopause. But slow is better than nothing (and ww gave me nothing if not a gain).