to find menopausal weight management mentally exhausting and restrictive?

[caretoshare]

I genuinely did not understand before how much mental energy it can take. You spend years being told to “eat healthy”, “move more”, “it’s just calories in versus calories out”, and then suddenly your body seems to change the rules without informing you. You can eat what feels like practically nothing and still gain weight from one takeaway, one dessert, one slightly normal weekend. Meanwhile people around you are saying “just be in a calorie deficit” as if you have not already reduced everything enjoyable.

It is not even vanity for many women. It is the exhausting feeling that maintaining your weight now requires permanent restriction and hypervigilance. You start mentally calculating every handful of nuts, every spoon of oil, every piece of bread, because the margin for error feels tiny.

What makes it worse is how invisible it is. Menopause is discussed in terms of hot flushes and periods stopping, but less about the sheer frustration of feeling your metabolism and body composition shift while being expected to behave as though nothing has changed.

Yes I exercise and I do weight training as well.

I know weight gain is not the worst thing in the world, but the constant mental negotiation around food can become draining. Sometimes it feels like menopause means your body now demands lifelong restraint just to stay the same size.

I know it is not like this for ALL women.

No words of wisdom but joining the club. I've always had a tum even as a size 8 teen, but now it's taking the piss. My BMI is low but my belly measures 36". V hard finding clothes to fit when I also have a slim boy's hip measurement and flat boobs. (It's nothing sinister, just podge).
Starting again today so that my clothes fit better - will try cutting out anything processed/refined sugar etc. I already rarely drink and do 8:16 fasting (but this has been slipping).

You are probably in the minority and have good genes. I'm like my mum and sister - we like our food. I've always had to literally starve myself to lose weight.....whereas my skinny friends have never had to starve.....they're able to eat the amount needed to maintain without feeling like they're starving. Lucky them.

My bloods are fine. I don't feel like I need hormone therapy. I am put off anyway by so many women saying they gained weight with HRT.

I don't think anything is necessarily wrong as so many women are going through this but it is just a massive adjustment to have to be so careful with what I eat all the time as not to gain weight.

List your daily diet and we can see what’s happening.

Most people have had to control themselves around food from being young, in order to not put on weight. If people want to be slim you have to constantly resist, decline, be hungry.

Fair enough, I just thought maybe a deeper dive on your hormones might be benefical in seeing what (if anything) might have changed. I've read encouraging things about testosterone therapy helping with maintaining lower body fat and aiding with weightloss around peri/menopause. I don't know enough to be spouting on about it but someone else might come along with better info. Appreciate hrt is not for all

I’ve had pancreatitis so can’t have the jabs. I would love the jabs but as this isn’t an option, what do people suggest? I’m at the e mend of my tether.

I can only say what I did to lose weight and to maintain in the long term.

To lose weight I ate in a calorie deficit of 1200 calories. I weighed and tracked everything I ate and drank, including the milk in my tea (MFP). It took that level of accuracy and consistency to lose weight. I also started running (couch to 5k and then longer runs). It was during lockdown so no gyms open. It took about a year to lose 4.5 stone.

After that I started lifting weights, initially due to a running injury but later it became habit. I lift weights x5 per week and do about 2-3h cardio. Usually I do between 7-10K steps per day. I still track everything, weigh myself every day (so no surprises!) and eat 1800 calories. If I want to drop body fat I have to be quite aggressive. A small deficit doesn’t work for me. It needs to be 1200-1400 depending on how fast I want to do it.

It sounds crazy I know and it is a lot of work. However, I have been fat and I hated it and was getting joint pain and depression, so there’s no way I’m going back to that.

Nonsense! What a miserable way to live.

I do think the fluctuating hormones of perimenopause can cause hormonal/metabolic issues. I'm not an expert on thyroid issues, but I have read that sometimes the tests miss issues.

You know EXACTLY what someone means when they say this, you're just trying to be a smart arse. Muscle that takes up a certain amount of space will weigh more than the same space-worth of fat. You know this is what they mean. You know exactly.

It’s not nonsense as all, it’s reality for most who love food but want to stay slim.

I’ve not read all the posts above, but as a 53 year old woman, having been in and still am in perimenopause, I used to be a 10 till I was 40. Now I’m 14 at least and almost teo stone heavier . I ate reasonably healthy, I don’t drink unless it’s a rare social occasion. Gym /yoga/pilates many times a week. Nothing was stopping the weight gain. This year, I started weight training three times a week. Ate even more ‘healthily’. Made lots of super healthy’treats’ to have as snacks from scratch. Tried really hard for three months, and NOTHING! Not even one lb lost! But now I am looking into insulin resistance, and have changed the order of things I eat. I eat big protein/fibre meals. I DO NOT SNACK BETWEEN MEALS, I do not eat after 7pm and I don’t have any carbs for dinner ( though I do enjoy pre frozen sourdough toast with my lunch every day). And I have less urge to now because the food I eat is actually nourishing my body. No more restriction as such. And for the first time in YEARS, I’ve noticed a change. And this is going to be it for life. I’ve realised I was kidding myself about ‘the little bit of this or that’. The mentality that if ifs low calorie/low fat and small in portion, it’ll be ok, is false. Your body needs breaks between food. Constant grazing means your blood sugar is always high, no matter the calories, and that is what is not letting your body have a chance to do what it’s meant to. Sorry for long post, but I think more women need to look into insulin resistance.

I think an equal number of women will tell you that they have not gained weight on hrt. Whether or not you take it is a completely individual decision, but if you're severely restricting what you eat, you should also be aware of needing to protect your bone density. Just something to keep in mind.

I had my bone density checked a few months ago. It is fine.

I love food and I've never been more than a size 10. I mean I love food and never deprive myself. But I don't eat anything I don't want because "you're supposed to", I'm very active despite an office job and I choose good foods whenever possible. It's absolutely possible (health issues aside) to feast as much as you want if you create a healthy internal chemical balance.

There is nothing more depressing and unattractive than an overt calorie counter.

Well I’m very jealous of you! I mean that. I just have to look at food I like and I swell up.

I am finding it very difficult. 55 and 11.5 stone. At least a stone heavier than I was. I can’t shift it at all. I am seriously considering bingeing half a stone more to get weight loss injections. I calorie count everything from coffee to garlic. I jointed team RH. Their app is brilliant. They gave me 1600 calories a day. Didn’t lose anything. I am between 1300 and 1400 a day and still not losing anything more than a couple of ounces which goes straight back on when I have my weekly G&T on a Saturday. Utterly sole destroying.

I answered YANBU, but reading this thread has left me a bit depressed.

I agree with the scientific / medical premise that, during perimenopause, a lot of women experience a change in body shape and that shifting body fat is much harder.

However, this sounds like a daily obsession for some posters. The mental and physical exhaustion, the calorie counting, the food noise ... the attempts to get back to or maintain the BMI or clothing size you were 10-20 years ago ... is this so important that you're willing to restrict your lives so much through highly regimented eating and exercise programmes?

This is not intended as a flame post, and nor do I wish to minimise the obvious frustration on this thread. I'm certainly not above aesthetics, and am currently experiencing the frustration of donating perfectly good clothing that I still like because body shape changes means trousers and jackets don't do up, shirt buttons might pop off and hit someone in the eye, etc. I also have a storage box of the stuff I really love, 'just in case' 10-12kg magically drops off and I'm caught short of outfits.

At my heaviest, I was about 8kg over my preferred (max!) operating weight. I managed to lose about 3-4kg over six months, which I've maintained. For me, one of the key things has been some serious sprint/interval training each week, which I get in cycling classes. I've always responded well to this sort of training, so it may not be useful to others ... however I have noticed some posters, when talking about exercise, are doing a lot of steady-state cardio (walking, jogging). I've made some dietary interventions, but none have been that extreme.

And if you've read this far – I'd also suggest that everyone's exercise regimes involve mobility work and weight training, because maintaining muscle mass is one of the best gifts you can give future you. You want to be able to get up and down off the floor, and carry your own shopping, when you're 90.

I honestly think just exercise more. 10k steps isn't enough.

I’m just going to lol at you because when I marathon train I run 60mi per week and my size is the same

You must eat a fair chunk, then (which is fine).

Although 60 miles a week isn't unbelievably much. I do about 9 miles a day on a typical day (I'd prefer more).

I actually don’t. I was able to when I was 32 (I had to literally eat tons of fatty protein to not lose much), but 8 years later, it’s a completely different matter. My slice of toast and 50g of cheese + 100g of cottage cheese + a 250g steak with veggies and a banana (which is my normal diet for the most days) is not a ton by any stretch of the imagination.

If you look at the Garmin stats, it’s like top 97% of users. Plus the cross training. It add up to more than 15hrs per week.

but you go girl you must be an ultra runner :)