to be fed up with how little I can eat now I’m menopausal?

Yes it's absolutely miserable.

To lose weight I need to eat 1000 calories, above 1400 I gain. I love food, I used to love cooking but it's just pointless now as I can't eat it.

I put on 3 stone in perimenopause whilst going to the gym 5 times a week and eating exactly the same as before.

Did you misunderstand tdee? 1200 would be bed/chair bound.

To be honest, apart from periods stopping there isn't a single positive thing about menopause. Weight, hair thinning/loss, bone loss, hot flushes, insomnia, brain fog.. the joyful list goes on. Oh to go back 20 years!

I have nothing but bad news for you. It’s going to get worse! I’m a gym user, do lots of walking as well and if I eat normally (I slice of toast or porridge for breakfast, 2 x fruit at lunchtime and small dinner no alcohol, the I put on weight. To get that off, unless I eat less than 700/800 calories a day I can’t lose a gram. It’s awful.

I hear you.

It's depressing how little food a post menopausal body seems to need.

I am extremely active but I really have to watch what I eat now very carefully. I'm lucky I don't have a sweet tooth but a bag of crisps now needs to be factored into the daily calorie total.

I have never struggled with weight. Always been very lucky. And then suddenly, menopause hit and the weight just piled on, no matter how little I ate or how much exercise/weights I did. I just got heavier. This went on for about 5 years and it was so depressing. At the beginning of last year, I suddenly lost 3kg without trying. I then decided to cut back on sugar, no chocolate, cakes, biscuits or sweets, not to lose weight but because I ate too much of them. In the past year I have lost about 9 kg. Might be worth trying?

Yes that’s true, unlikely to gain enough to increase metabolism however, if you lift weights and eat below TDEE then unlikely to build any muscle. My TDEE at 163cm is 2,221 - but that’s with daily excesses and a step average of about 15k.

A TDEE of 1,200 at 55kg / 5 1 seems unlikely / impossible. Are you sure that’s not BMR? Based on 4x exercise a week TDEE is around 2,000.

I put on just over a stone as soon as I turned 44. I also became very tired. I naturally tend to fast about 12 hours most days as I rarely eat after 6pm until 7 am the next morning but I also have put in cardio work outs like HIIT classes again. I piled on an extra 8 pounds with purely weight training. It wasnt inflammation as even weeks later it was still there (and the scales were still going up) plus i was looking the biggest i ever had done. Since cutting down to 2 lower weight lifting sessions a week and starting 3 x 30 to 45 minutes HIIT sessions a week I am losing weight.

People incorrectly believe that oestrogen is only made by the ovaries.
Body fat creates oestrogen too.
When oestrogen level decline naturally your body will work to produce more fat cells to make more oestrogen. This is why women put on weight round their middle later in life.
In relation to a 2kg weight gain. This will be fluid. If your body is used to a restrictive diet and you suddenly have something different you will be likely to bloat/gain fluid

My mum & aunts did the same & then later the weight just came off again.

Not in the same boat but have insulin resistant PCOS and my weight was just going up and up. I’ve been on WLI and am still maintaining my weight loss on them. I’ve experimented a couple of times with reducing doses and had a period of 3 weeks off then, it’s depressing how little calories my body actually needs to sustain my fairly active lifestyle. People don’t believe me but I do gain on anything over about 1200 calories. 1000-1150 is what I have most day, I have to be careful about prioritising balanced nutrition and on the odd occasion feeling okay about having a bagel or a piece of chocolate 😂 I mean ffs it’s madness tbh but it’s my body and I know it.
Carbs are sort of an enemy but I do eat them because I exercise quite a lot and I need to be fuelled partly by them. When I was in France I noticed I was eating baguettes daily and I came home 2lbs lighter, I only eat jasons bread at home or homemade because it’s UPF free but also I eat bread about once a week, rice and potatoes etc on other days, but I came to the conclusion that french baguettes are so minimally processed, I didn’t feel any bloating or excessive toilet trips which I sometimes find happens when I eat bread at home.
Anyway, sorry, I wandered on to this thread and though I’m not yet menopausal I thought I’d add my thoughts into the mix!

I agree. You have to do a lot of lifting to gain the sort of muscle that speeds your metabolism. So while strength training is important to stave off atrophy, I don't see it as a good weight control tool. I think it can actually result in a false sense of security.
Similarly with low carb. I have friends who avoid carbs and cant understand why they dont lose weight, but when totting up the calories they consume from meat and high fat dairy, they are exceeding the amount they burn by some margin.
I know CICO has gone out of fashion, but its the only reliable way I find of managing weight.

What do you weigh and how tall are you? Has your weight increased since you started weight training? Has your clothing size increased. Have you tracked calories in everything you eat and drink for a week and also looked at your TDEE?

Invariably on these kinds of threads I find the OP does not answer these kinds of questions.

It is not metabolism. Studies have shown (I can't provide a citation), but I'm sure I saw it on a Michael Mosley programme, that it is not metabolism slowing, it is more to do with activity decreasing as we age. I've successfully lost weight eating plenty of food with a high protein content without cutting out carbs. I have put weight on when I have repeatedly eaten high calorie foods, drunk lots of wine in a week and not tracked calories. If you're not sleeping well, have a lot on and are finding things stressful, it can be difficult to control your weight.

I have definitely started to struggle now I'm older. I don't think it's the amount of food I'm eating but what I reach for when permanently knackered.

If I'm strict with myself and calorie count and strict to 1800 calories then I lose weight. I just make bad choices when I'm tired and I end up not counting calories properly for a few days.

I’m very similar to @5128gap, I average around 1.8 - 2k a day, do lots of cardio, walking, badminton, HIT workouts, I have a carb heavy diet, always have, don’t touch alcohol at all and maintain my weight, I don’t think high protein diets suit everyone despite the claims of it making you feel full, it doesn’t work for me at all, only bread, potatoes and veg fill me up. I also think cardio seems to have gone out of fashion and the lift heavy mantra again isn’t working for everyone.

I forgot to put sugar on the list and I don't drink*

A 2kg weight gain from one dinner and one tea sounds very extreme. I'm post menopause and smallish, weigh around 57kg. My calorie requirement if sedentary is around 1.5k. If I walk a lot I can push this up to 2k. So yes, while it's harder work not to gain weight, provided I'm active I can eat a decent amount. I'm vegan and don't drink alcohol which does give me good bang for my buck calorie wise. However I eat loads of carbs and wouldn't think twice about the odd big dinner in the context of overall moderate eating. It might be worth getting checked for other conditions if you're struggling that much. Sometimes the right HRT can help too.

I just can’t live like that, so I’ve got a bit fat!

I put on over a stone when menopause hit. The way I’ve got rid of it has been intermittent fasting, 16 hours of fast and an 8 hour window to eat a healthy balanced diet. I now tend to have two meals a day, always have overnight oats at around 11am, I’m then full until at least 6pm. I generally eat the same as my hubby, smaller portions, eg, chicken, veg, potatoes etc. If I want a small desert I’ll have one. I’ve lost the excess weight and it’s staying off, it’s also easy to keep it up on holidays.

I can no longer eat bread, potatoes, pasta, rice or flour based foods, unless I want to be the size of a house. It balloons me. If I cut it out, it drops off, even if I'm eating loads of everything else.