Do I just give up? Am I just destined to be fat

[Sianholby]

Just coming in here as I’m just feeling down at the moment. I’m perimenopausal, just started HRT and hate the way I look.
I swim and go on our home cross trainer twice a week. I work full time and have three kids. We eat relatively healthily and I’m trying to cut down my carbs.

i just look like a whale, my belly sticks out further than my breasts. I can just can’t shift this weight.
iVe attached a photo of me currently, I want to lose the belly and the fat below my breasts that sticks out. Any tips as exercising three times a week around work and children and walking almost everywhere just isn’t doing it

Big glass of water before every meal.
10/14 eating / fasting window.
20 minutes exercise a day.
Lost half a stone in two weeks doing that, OP and similar shape to you.

Big glass of water before every meal

That's actually not very healthy. We need our digestive fluids to do their work on what we eat. Flooding with water dilutes them, so food doesn't digest as well. We end up with digestive discomfort, and don't get as much, nutritionally, from our food. It's basically washing it all through without properly breaking it down and breaking out the nutrients. So, yes, you may lose weight, because you're eating less and not processing what you do eat properly. But it's not ideal.

Yes! I always had a tummy, even when I was at my slimmest. It wasn't until I started HRT that it actually went. At 49, my tummy is flatter than it's been since my early twenties.
I do also do a lot of exercise and watch what I eat, mind, it isn't all the HRT. A lot of protein helps.

Reading this thread has been so depressing. I am someone who has long-term struggles with my weight and I manage my sugar intake and keep a calorie counted food diary, but the thought of going back to living on 1,000 cals a day or less or cutting out entire food groups long term is just miserable. I'd rather be obese than live like that. If you're living off less than 1,000 calories a day, do you never have a meal out? A drink? A takeaway? A slice of birthday cake? There's no wiggle room there.

I have done it, I was proud to do it, I lost heaps of weight but it left me with disordered eating and it really affected my metabolism. I ended up heavier than ever and in counselling.

OP please learn to love yourself, keep going with your current calories, stand up tall and buy yourself some nice underwear. You're a strong, healthy woman and you are doing a fab job.

Hey OP, there are some great threads on the weight loss forum on MN which are great for cheerleading, sharing recipes, workouts and general tips. I would also recommend a bit of strength training as well as cardio.

LolaJ87I don’t think many people are saying you need to eat live on less than 1000 permanently. I lost almost three stone between July and November and now eat about 1500 calories to maintain my weight. I eat out about three times per week. I make that meal my main meal and don’t pick things like a full rack of ribs. On Valentine’s Day I had a lovely prawn starter and then a veggie burger with pickles and a salsa type of sauce and chips and maintained my weight.
I was away last week on an all inclusive holiday and put on two pounds so ate light when I got back to lose the two pounds which I have. I ate what I wanted when I was away, two course lunches and three course dinners. Luckily it wasn’t a buffet resort as I find them bad for weight gain.

My main tip is cut out booze and any liquid calories and to follow the diabetes Uk diet

I have lost a few stone

Yes liquid calories and also dressings/sauce calories are the easiest thing to ditch I think.

I try and do all my fluid for less that 100 calories per day.

Try HIIT (growinganannas) on YouTube. I do a non Jumping one 3 times a week and run twice a week for almost an hour. Obviously I've built up to that and I've lost half a stone so far and definitely toned up. It won't work and show overnight and you will get DOMS but you will feel great knowing you can do it.
Ease yourself in with Joe Wicks (he does lots of free workouts on YouTube). I have the bodycoach app too but the exercises on there werent enough for me. The food plan is great though and I do that alongside MFP and have set it to lose half a pound a week (the slower the loss the better chance you have keeping it off).

Try to drink 2 or 3 litres of water a day and try high fat high protein diet. I live off the pancakes and French toast off BC app and change flour for protein powder to increase the protein. It might make you poo a lot at first. Good luck you look completely normal. Also BMI is a load of bollocks. My BMI means I'm overweight but my fitness is very good so make of that what you will.

And as PP have said ditch the liquid calories.

Haven’t read all replies - but in common with some PPS I think some of the issue for you is probably pelvic floor / core + the way you hold yourself (women often do after multiple pregnancies

The cross training + the swimming won’t make a jot of difference to that.

If you have some resources I would really recommend finding a female personal trainer who specialises in post natal care - it’s never too late to improve core function.

and then to work on building muscle by lifting weights a couple of times a week instead of swimming

BMI is fine as a tool for the vast majority of people. It slightly disadvantages tall people.

Exercise / activity alone won’t shift much weight. Work out your TDEE online and drop calories by 500 a day to lose 1lb a week. I’ve lost 8-9lbs since New Year’s Day. It’s harder when we get older but not impossible. You can’t out run a bad diet as they say, 80% of weight is lost via what we eat

I was always very thin. Then put a bit of weight on and when trying to shift it I actually put more on as did the dieting / exercising wrong. Went through this cycle a few times and ended up on 78kg at which point I thought I have to stop trying to loose it as doing it wrong.

I got the Joe Wicks app and followed the recipes and exercises and shifted the weight. The food was the key. Exercise important but as they say you can’t outrun a bad diet.

I'd suggest your carb intake is the answer. Insulin resistance is a big thing for menopausal women because of all of our hormonal changes.
If you go very low carb you'll also find your hunger drops but that will only happen if you are strict and not if you cut carbs from one meal a day.

Read Ultra Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken and the books by Tim Spector. It's amazing how much UPF makes a huge difference. Good luck!

Hi OP
I'm 52 if i relaxed and slouched i would look similar but am taller.

Its horrible to face but after 45 i would say it gets harder every year to loose weight. Exercise affects how your body looks when you loose weight and can see the toning , however swimming particularly does not burn off enough calories to make a difference. If one digestive biscuit for example has over 70 calories that's a lot of swimming just to burn that off.
The only way i can loose weight is to cut the carbs and eat very little every single day !! for months on end as it takes ages.
I do 10 fitness classes including spin running and weights and this makes virtually no difference to my weight.

I'd recommend wegovy.

I used to have a tummy like yours despite exercising loads and it didn't shift until I went on the wegovy and lost a few stone.

Well of course when people go back to “ eating normally” they put on all the weight. It was never “normal” in the sense of being the right amount to stay thin.

You call it “ abnormal” but the thin people I know, whether it’s only crisps and chocolate or organic vegetables eat intermittently or limit there food in some way. They do it naturally or intentionally but you give them what a fatter person eats and they’ll become fat.

Telling over weight people to make small changes is fine but the reality is those changes need to be lifetime changes. It doesn’t matter if they diet hard or diet slowly.

@Watchkeys I’m clearly being a touch flippant to make a point, of course keto and intermittent fasting help you lose weight. My point is they’re not long term solutions and fail the majority of times because people don’t make appropriate lifestyle changes to support their goals. People are told now, often via social media and the like, these days to try this crazy diet, or this miracle product or plan (V Shred I’m looking at you) and they end up going round in circles of peaks and troughs of weight/body shape/self image, whatever their goal might be. My advice is not eat less, get thin either, my advice is have simple, straight forward and achievable goals in a way that you can manage - people want to drop 2 sizes in 6 weeks and stupid things like that, it’s nonsense. Diet needs to be balanced out, swap lunchtime crisps for fruit, eat smaller portions than you do now if portion size is an issue (I’m not saying small portions). You can include treats in a balanced diet, you can eat bread, you can eat carbs, you can eat processed food, cutting all that out doesn’t need to be the approach in the same way they also can’t be all that you eat.

53, menopausal on HRT and your photo looks like me! I have same body shape but am a little taller at 5'5" and heavier I expect as my BMI is😱 33.9.

I was always a size 10/12. Had kids. Stopped smoking 13 years ago and that's when the weight crept up. It's been the last 6 years (since peri started) that the weight seriously started packing on. Life events and stress stopped me addressing my ever increasing waist (i no longer have one!) and now I'm at least 4 stone overweight.

Every attempt I make...calorie counting, slimpod, SW, WW, hypnotherapy, intuitive eating...lasts, at most, 2 days. I have shockingly bad issues with food and I wonder if it all stems from when I was in my teens/20s/30s where I restricted eating so much because of my desire to stay 10stone and in a 10/12 dress size, that my brain is just completely ignoring any attempts at following a restrictive diet again.

But I am sleep walking into major health issues if I continue on this road so I do HAVE to do something. The thought of a calorie deficit for the next 18 months to lose the weight makes me want to cry tbh. Just sick of it but needs must! It's so much harder the older one gets.

That’s sort of my point though, you shouldn’t be existing on a super low calorie diet, it’s not good for you or sustainable. A balanced diet should give you the ability to have a bit chocolate or whatever your vice is from time to time whilst still supporting your goals. Depending on how you approach it you can run a calories deficit say across the week and if your net position is a deficit it will help. Obviously if you 1,000 calories for 5 days then over the weekend go crazy it’s not going to be good for you. If I’m focusing on weight, which I tend not to do as for me it’s more about body image, I weigh myself for a week daily and then take the average.

I was going to say this. Looks like (at least partly) menopause belly. It's also harder to lose weight generally as your oestrogen drops. You might find that when you get your HRT to the right level your weight starts to come off.

Right OP, I’m 161cm (5ft3.5) and I maintain on 1500. I have to eat 1200 to lose. It’s shit, I know. Especially when I could eat 2000-2200 on active days in my early thirties just a few years ago before kids. Mind you, if you’re exercising loads it’ll obviously be a bit more.

Exercise DAILY. 20 minutes of cardio in the living room will do if you can't get out. Work on your core stomach muscles. Stand up straight and suck your tummy in.

Track your calories like an obcessive and burn more than you put in.