Peri does not necessarily mean weight gain [Content warning added by MNHQ: mentions eating disorders]

[irisetta]

Precursor - I have always struggled with eating disorders. Anorexia, bulimia, a weird spitting one that psychiatrists still struggle to classify 20 years later, that's me. The thing that has absolutely saved me is exercise. Running (or jogging) a slow 5k 4-5 times a week, weight training 3 times a week, Pilates twice a week. At 44 I'm trimmer and fitter than I've ever been. I am still struggling with eating disorders though. And that's with 2 kids. Both ND (like me). I'm terrified of passing my disorder to them. They are bright, intelligent kids.

My AIBU -

AIBU - YES Peri DOES mean weight gain, unless you are a disordered nutter like yourself

NAIBU - You can actually not get fat when you hit perimenopause, without being all disordered and crazy, you weirdo

IBU - Yeah we all get fat in the end, deal with it

I don’t think it’s inevitable but I also think it’s really hard! I have changed shape (I’m thicker around my waist and thighs) and put on weight but my mum never did. I exercise a lot and watch what I eat but she never did.

Is this something that is really worrying you @irisetta ?

I don’t really understand your post. You raise a number of quite serious issues - multiple long-standing eating disorders, excessive exercising, a justifiable fear of passing these behaviours onto your children - but what you are interested in is whether you’re likely to gain weight over the next few years or not? You refer to yourself as :

disordered
crazy
nutter
weirdo

that’s pretty harsh language. I can’t tell if your post is serious or jokey 🤷‍♀️

My stomach is a bit bigger than it was, but I'm still size 8

i don’t think responding about weight matters is going to help the OP who has eating disorders.

You have the peri with no joint pain, clearly.

I'm 49, in the past I had a tendency to be a little plump (not fat, just well covered!). However I've maintained my weight very easily for years with 16/8 and doing 10000 steps a day. I hate running and I hate the gym but walking works for me. I also don't diet or count calories - I just eat whatever I want within an 8 hour window. Some days I'm pretty healthy, others days I'm not at all.

I meant to add, I have many friends around my age, late 40s/early 50s. Many seem to be maintaining slim figures without any kind of serious dieting.

I think you need to be very very focused (to the point of disordered) to not change weight. My sister has but she is incredibly controlled / controlling about what she eats and over exercises.

I also think it’s only fair to say that you’re only 44, you’ve got years left for things to change. My menopausal belly seemed to turn up overnight at the age of 51.

Your options are too complicated before my morning coffee!

I looked for existing research into this and the weight gain is absolutely not a given. Even metabolism apparently doesn’t slow down if people stay active to prevent sarcopenia.

What changes is how we store fat, it starts accumulating on the belly instead of hips so it’s harder to “carry the weight well”.

From the evolutionary perspective automatic weight gain around menopause doesn’t make sense. We are designed to wither and fade away once our reproductive potential is gone, and fat is a difficult to maintain luxury when resources are scarce.

edit: typos

But this is assuming keeping weight off is just about vanity and that’s absolutely not the case. There are many reasons to aim to stay trim even if you don’t care what you look like. I have osteoarthritis in my knees so keeping my weight down is crucial to maintain mobility and health. Being over weight puts a lot of pressure on your joints which causes problems as you age even if you don’t have arthritis, and there are multiple other health benefits to being a healthy weight and trying to avoid it sliding op as you age.

I have never had disordered eating but was consistently the same size from 32 until injuries at 45. I then put on weight due to decreased activity. I started doing strength training to build muscle to protect in the injuries. I have gone back to my original size, although am more muscly. At 50 I don't seem to have any menopausal symptoms other than periods slowing down, and I do wonder whether outdoor activity and the gym is helping with this. So, a good enough reason to keep active, with the side effect being not putting on weight.

@Singlespies agree completely. I haven’t had a period for a year now (hurray) and no HRT, I feel totally fine. Im convinced it’s because I exercise daily and refuse to succumb to everyone saying menopause makes you fat (caveat that I know everyone has different symptoms etc but I genuinely think if everyone exercised more - an hour a day if possible - then they’d feel so much better)

During most of my peri I was in the best shape of my life - really fit and strong - until about 53. Lockdown (so a change to my previous daily running/pilates routine), family illness, an injury, bereavement and becoming post-menopausal meant I put on weight and lost muscle tone. I look ok now, but if that combination of events hadn’t occurred, I honestly believe I’d still be really toned and fit - so yes, YANBU, I think it’s totally possible to stay in shape, albeit with a lot of effort.

But - and it’s a big one - stuff starts to happen to your body after menopause that is simply unavoidable. You can mitigate the effects of aging, but you’re not Dorian Gray, you absolutely cannot stop them.

If you already suffer from disordered thinking around food and exercise, you seriously need to get help with acceptance, or you will spend your last precious decades on this planet obsessing about superficial nonsense and trying to turn back time rather than enjoying the time you still have.

When it comes to your kids, you know they’re listening and watching. It’s important to try to help yourself, for your sake and theirs.

Yes I agree with healthy weight. But a number of these posts are concerned Roth not gaining from earlier years. As the op has distorted eating in order to maintain, and from the tenor of her post, I didn’t have the impression this was about being in any seriously overweight category ( that’s why I said I understand MM was targeting something slightly different ).

I think this is what I was trying to say too really. Acceptance because more important than weight loss from a vanity perspective ( and actually weight loss can worsen things from a vanity perspective) because staying slim will not make you look young again. Your looks will and must change.

YABVU. Everyone is different, have different body compositions, different metabolisms.

Hope you are still getting help for your ED

And I think this thread needs a trigger warning, it does sound a bit like you’re saying your ED have helped you not gain , which no one should be advocating

I'm 55 and my BMI is 21. When I was in my early 40s I did start to gain weight and by the time I was 50 I was two stone heavier than I am now. However I did next to no excercise and didn't eat well. After turning that round with a healthy diet and moderate excercise (a brisk 30 minute walk
most days) here I am. I don't eat in an extreme or disordered way, although I am vegan so my diet is fairly restricted, but I do know that my calorie requirements are not what they were, so I need to keep to around 1800 a day. The main thing is, for health and asthetics you need to be holistic. There is no point in putting your body through extreme excercise regimes or diets, because you may keep your weight low, but you will pay somewhere else, with muscle loss, issues with your bones, skin and hair.
The best thing you can do as you get older is to treat your body with the care you would any vintage thing. Give it the best you can with good food and the excercise it needs of the right type, duration and intensity. Be gentle and focus on care not denial.

Being terrified of weight gain is a problem.
The thing you need to worry about is how your fear of weight gain undermines your mental health and good decision making.

@Halfheadhighlights , I agree , I’m glad a trigger warning has been added .

I did put on weight as I felt dreadful and ate too many unhealthy foods thinking they would give me more energy. Turns out they didn't of course and I just put on weight.

Now eating much more healthily and exercising more. Have lost the excess weight, and back to a healthy BMI. Looking at being a toned size 12 which is good enough for me. I'm 54.

It seems from your post that eating well and staying active take away all pleasure in life.

It’s quite the opposite for me, enjoying great, healthy, quality food with my family and friends and being able to run, jump, hike, or chase my kids off piste and staying pain free is priceless.

My first perimenopausal symptom was insomnia. I would spend hours in the middle of the night trying to fall asleep and then feeling like something the cat dragged in the next morning. I solved the problem with lifestyle changes and I don’t feel I sacrificed anything, quite the opposite.
The fact that I buy any clothes I want and they just fit is a nice side effect.

The op has posted mentioning ED. This does not involve “enjoying great, healthy, quality food with friends and family.”

Nor do the other posts suggesting people feel plagued with their fixations on how much they can allow themselves because age is ( and it does) working against them.

You need to read posts in context.

I don’t believe my post does suggest that eating well takes away pleasure and I didn’t even mention anything about staying active or not.

I eat extremely healthily; I don’t like putting rubbish in my body and that would not be enjoyable for me. But I do not think that being wracked with guilt or calorie counting in the pursuit of maintaining my youthful weight ( which would be very low for me and look “ wrong” on someone mid-40’s) is a healthy way to live either physically or mentally. Bodies change and gracious acceptance is a mindset to embrace. It doesn’t mean ( and nor did I say it meant) becoming sedentary and eating junk.

I have lived close to people with eating disorders and extolling the virtues and joys of calorie fixation is not a helpful perspective.

For me I have had to focus a lot more on nutrition, so I can eat roughly what I like but I can’t quickly lose a couple of pounds like I used to, and I’m conscious of needing to get the most benefit from every calorie. I also started running 3x a week and Pilates once or twice, on top of being fairly active and walking everywhere. It’s more effort in other words but it’s very rewarding effort.

I have never been thin but I’m not overweight and I feel great, but i do need to be more focused on my diet and health than ever before to feel good.

Come back to us in a few years OP 😊
At 48/49 was able to shed 5 stone by watching what I ate and walking more. No weights, no running, no crash diets. It took time but I did it over the course of 20 months.
Sadly I took my eye off the ball and regained 2 stone.
I am now 53 and have been trying to lose that 2 stone for the last year. I CAN NOT shift it. I have reduced my food, increased my walking, added some weights and started swimming.
Nope. It’s not happening. I think hormones and their effect on metabolism have a lot to answer for…

My mum lost weight in peri/menopause and has kept it off. I'm not sure I'll be the same because I love food but I think the trick is to be active and care for your health holistically.