Weight and peri/menopause.

[crosser62]

I’ve always had weight problems but have been able to shift weight.
For health reasons a year ago I changed to a wholly plant based diet.
I started my fitness pal and a step counter.
Also I try to do 5/2 diet.
I dropped a stone within the first 6 weeks but since then I cannot shift anything, the good news is that’s my weight has been stable, the same give or take a lb or two ON but then this comes off.
Cholesterol is low, blood pressure healthy, hba1c normal but I am still in the overweight category of BMI.

Is this a thing with meno?

I want/need to be in the healthy range but can’t do it even though I made radical changes a year ago.
Still having periods regularly, hot sweats have hugely reduced since changing diet, foggy brain, forgetfulness and sleep issues loom large as do very very low mood. So I’m probably peri meno.
Pissing me off now.

To answer the question, yes, and no!

I think everyone's metabolism changes as they get older- men's too (just look at their pot bellies!)

If you are only eating vegan, what do you eat in a day? It sounds as if, being really honest, you are still taking in too many calories. Is you diet mainly pulses and carbs, obviously with fruit and veg? Fruit is high in sugar so it's possible you are having too much of that.

Have you tried going back to the 5:2 and keeping to 500 cals on those 2 days?

I am consuming about 900-1000 cals a day.
Limited fruit.
Limit bread to wholmeal from the freezer 2 slices a day, sometimes have none.
Pasta maybe once a fortnight.
I do have a sweet tooth so dark chocolate, couple of squares but within my calorie count.

So what's your height, weight and BMI?

That doesn't sound right; on those cals a day you ought to be losing 1lb a week at least.

Are you measuring exactly what you eat - weighing it, adding up the calories of everything including drinks and snacks?

What about if you do the 5:2 and cut back to semi fasting on 2 days a week? The problem with vegan is it's mainly carbs- it's pulses ( carbs), cereals and grains. All carbs. Personally, I don't think it's a healthy diet as it excludes too many food groups, especially dairy (calcium) and protein, all of which have to come from pulses , nuts and veg. If you are existing solely on fruit, veg, pulses /beans/ grains and nuts your body isn't needing to use up it's fat stores as you are giving a constant drip-drip of carbs in the main.

Reading OP's posts makes me want to watch episodes of Secret Eaters.
Maybe the whole show is staged, I dunno.
But if not staged, then many people have blind spots about their calorie intake.

It also depends on how active you are and your BMR.

I think you need to be really accurate with your cal counting.

How about listing what you had to eat yesterday and the actual amounts? And what you plan to eat today?

I know BMR calculators aren't perfect, but...

This one suggests OP needs at least 1244 kcal/day to maintain. So something isn't adding up.

How do you work that out without knowing the OPs weight/ height/ etc etc?

Here is the estimated BMR if OP is 100 lbs flat (but OP calls that overweight).

Still > 900-1000/day. BMR goes up if OP is > 100lbs or < 55yo or taller than 5'0 or is not female. Those were conservative guesses (designed to minimise the suggested BMR). Perhaps that calculator can easily be wrong by 15%.

According to mfp I should be consuming 1250cals a day, I don’t.

I put everything onto mfp and it counts it for me.
Don’t weigh anything, portion sizes are probably bigger though, not huge.

I take calcium and vitamin supplements.
It’s so frustrating completely overhauling my diet and seemingly getting no where.
I was a pig, ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. A year on, getting nowhere.
I think that another stone off will put me into the healthy category.
5’2. 11stone exactly, under 50 years old and female.
Also what pisses me off is I’m in size 16-18 clothes. Anything smaller I can’t get a leg in! Size 16 is tight on me.
Pffft it’s all so disheartening.

I put everything onto mfp and it counts it for me.
Don’t weigh anything, portion sizes are probably bigger though, not huge.

You can't really use MFP without weighing foods. It sounds as if portion size is the issue. You could easily- no joke- be eating 2x what you think you are.

For example, I was trying to lose a few pounds. I wanted to eat a suggested serving of porridge- 25grams of dry oats. I was amazed to see how little that was. Even though my normal bowl of porridge is small, it was 2 x the 25gms

You ca't calorie count without weighing. You need some accurate digital scales.

Honestly, it's obvious now you've said you don't weigh food!

How can you count cals if you don't weight the food?

I didn't mean to sound critical of you- I was genuinely puzzled how MFP could work like that!

For example, if you eat pasta - say spaghetti- how does it know if you have cooked 10 strands, or 50? If you eat a jacket potato, how does it know if it's the size of a medium apple or something much bigger? if you enter 'rice' how does it know if you mean 1 tablespoon or 2 large cupfuls?

In all honesty and this is my opinion, changing to a vegan diet and trying to lose weight must be hard. Ideally to lose weight you'd focus on lean protein- so your breakfast might be 2 eggs with a slice of wholemeal bread- (or no bread), or full fat plain yogurt with fruit, lunch could be a chicken breast / tinned tuna/ sliced meat of some kind and salad, dinner would be a salmon fillet and fresh veg, with a piece of fruit and maybe some plain yoghurt.

if you are relying on carbs for all your protein (as in cereals and pulses)and veg it's going to be really hard. And you will have to eat small portions as they are quite high in calories.

The recommended amount of carbs per meal is the size of your palm- so pasta is about 2 tablespoons, same for mashed potato or rice.

This is for people who are not trying to lose weight- just eating a balanced diet.

Is your veganism for moral reasons or health? If it's for health I think you are shooting yourself in the foot as it's really hard when trying to lose weight.

Didn’t take it as a criticism, don’t worry 😊
I get 100% with mfp not knowing how much as regards to weights.
That makes sense.

I do own digital scales and will do a month of weighing, that should help.
I began plant based diet for health reasons not ethical (hence plant based, not vegan as I cannot claim to be vegan at all)
I’m going to tweek things, thank you for your help and advice, I very much appreciate it x

Out of interest, how does plant-based work?

I think you will be surprised if you do some research into portion sizes. Was a TV prog on this not long ago. A portion of pasta (as I said before) is about 2 tablespoons ( for a main meal.) Most people in the prog were putting 3-5 times that on their plate.

I know this is the Mail (sorry) but it does give some good photos of the size of portions.

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3331095/Handy-guide-portion-sizes-Never-know-food-Use-formula-figure-right-eat.html

This is for NORMAL eating- not weight loss.

Happy to help with ideas if you want to list your daily food intake.

Plant based for me is no meat, fish or dairy.
I cook from scratch, i scrutinise packets, eat whole meal bread, pasta, fruits, veg, lentils, chick peas, baked beans, couscous, rice.

I’m really really enjoying my food as I have done weight watchers and slimming world for years and years. These work for a short time are not enjoyable and make me feel disappointed and ashamed.

For the last year I have been following the plant based route. It’s easy, enjoyable and very doable.

For the first time in my adult life I feel in control of my very obvious eating disorder. I am an over eater, emotional eater, whatever you want to call it.

Sticking to it is a huge achievement having had control issues for the last 25 years.
With the onslaught of the menopause, it’s making things difficult.

Crosser62 I'm new here (well a couple of posts but I changed my name), so I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing in chiming in here, but I wanted to tell you, my situation is almost identical to yours. NO ONE, including my GP, believes that I eat as few calories as I do. I get lots of comments about keeping my hand out of the biscuit tin and watching my cheese intake. Not sure why I would be tearful and seeking help for my Inability to lose weight only to be accused of lying about it. There's mainly just judgement. I'm sorry you're experiencing this too.

I started doing intermittent fasting last year and cut down my alcohol intake and lost weight for the first time in years. Slimming World and low fat/ high carb diets just don’t work for me.
Now I’m on Hrt I’ve put on weight in just 6 weeks and I’m still doing the intermittent fasting. Now I’m combining it with the fast 800 diet. After 4 days my stomach is flatter and fluid retention is reduced. My fluid retention on Conti is quite severe, but I’ve been told it will settle down after a couple of months.
The point being is we really do need to adjust our diet going in to the menopause. I don’t know how difficult it would be to follow a diet on a Vegan menu. I’m also not sure why a vegan diet is healthier? Surely the Mediterranean diet with cheese, olive oil and lots of vegetables has been proven to be the healthiest around?
Secondly one thing about sleep is that poor sleep can affect your insulin resistance and cause weight gain. Even one bad nights sleep has an effect on insulin and blood sugars and can cause sugar/ carb cravings and weight gain.

I agree with @teta.

@crosser62, your diet is vegan. I asked upthread if it was and you said no, it was plant based. But it's the same thing. Vegan means no meat, fish or dairy, only veg, fruit, pulses, nuts and seeds.

Looking at your last post on 2 April, you are eating mainly carbs. Even pulses and root veg are (in theory) carbs. You're getting protein from the pulses and wholegrains, but they are your only source of protein and are still carbs.

Unless you have a moral stance on being vegan, it's making life harder for you and as, teta says, is not healthier. We are by evolution, omnivores. So a healthy diet is one that has a bit of everything in, which includes meat, fish and dairy. Long term, I don't believe vegan is good because it is hard to get the amount of calcium we need and iron , unless we eat large amounts of pulses and mountains of green veg.

I think your weight would reduce if you combined lean meat, fish, a little dairy, with masses of veg, fruit, some nuts and seeds, a small amount of wholegrains and good fats. One portion of protein at each meal, 3 meals a day, no snacking, and 5-8 portions of veg/fruit a day.

@crosser62 Michael Mosely's Blood Sugar book is a good one- loads of healthy recipes. it's not a 'diet' - it needs to be this type of eating for life.

www.amazon.co.uk/8-Week-Blood-Sugar-Diet-Recipe/dp/1780722931/ref=sr_1_3?s=gateway&keywords=michael+mosley&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1555659971&sr=8-3

I calorie counted for 40 years, then it started to not work.

I went keto 2 years ago (basically Michael mosley programme is keto) and I’m as thin as a post.

Also thought I was peri. I wasn’t. My hormones were just all over the place after years of a high carb diet.

I can’t claim to be vegan as I do not hold with vegan viewpoints.

I have been vegetarian for over 20 years. Out of desperation to control my escalating weight, I cut out dairy.

Root veg is extremely limited, potatoes very infrequently, I have now cut down on portion sizes of rice, well everything I eat really.
Dusty, yes I get what you say completely, no one believes how little I eat and yet remain so fat. Look at the post up thread commenting on secret eaters

I eat less than 1000 calories a day, don’t drink alcohol, have upped my steps each day and cannot shift anything.
I know that if I gave up this strict control, I would easily gain 3-5 lbs a week, easily.

I cannot face restricting any further my already very very restricted diet. It is actually my one and only pleasure in life is eating.

Thanks so much for your lovely helpful replies, I really appreciate it.

@crosser 62

Being vegan or giving up dairy is not the way to lose or control your weight.

I think- kindly- you are ignoring a lot of advice here.

I am slim but have to work at it to maintain my weight.
I would be huge if I ate the amount of carbs you are.

I don't accept you have 1000 cals. You said upthread you didn't weight your food, so how can you know what your cals are?

I eat less than 1000 calories a day, don’t drink alcohol, have upped my steps each day and cannot shift anything.
I know that if I gave up this strict control, I would easily gain 3-5 lbs a week, easily.

Crosser this is me too!! 'Normal' eating, such as it is after 40 years of dieting and disordered eating, results in s steady 2kg per week gain.

My friend recently lost a substantial amount of weight for the first time in her life and is now a complete 'expert'. She knows what she did and how much she lost, so she thinks it follows that if I do the same, I'll lose 30kg too. She raises her eyebrows and smirks when I tell her any of my issues.

If you are like me, and have always struggled with your weight, you could probably write a book on weight loss science and strategies. I think what some people miss is that there is s major issue going on, in addition to the weight itself. And this is that despite trying everything, the weight won't budge. It is very hard to keep going and maintain motivation and focus when your efforts yield no results.

And then you get judged by people who imply that you're gorging in secret. There's got to be a medical or genetic reason for this but I've yet to convince a doctor it's actually true.

I'm sorry but the simple facts are that if you create a calorific deficit, on a daily basis, either through moving more and / or eating less, you will lose weight.

People who cannot lose weight may have a health issue like a thyroid problem. If this has been checked, it's more likely it's not being aware of what you eat.

@crosser62 posted that she doesn''t weigh food, so has no idea what her calories are.

I am quite small, and to lose weight ( a few pounds if I've crept up) I have to go down to around 1000 cals a day or less.

You need to
1 Know you basal metabolic rate ( cals needed to live, without any activity). Mine is around 1000 cals a day.
2 Count calories by weighing foods such as all carbs- rice, pasta, grains, starchy veg, sugary fruit
3 Aim for a deficit of 500 cals a day based on what your intake would be to maintain current weight. The 500 deficit can come from exercise and food together.
4 Invest in some digital scales to see your body compostion - how much fat you have, how much muscle. It doesn't matter if your muscle ratio goes up, the aim is to reduce the fat.

The body holds onto fat during the menopause partly because fat cells help create estrogen. It's harder to lose weight.

Our bodies also are 'set' to go back to the weight we have been for ages, which is why once you lose some, the weight loss slows dow n or stops. It can help to increase your metabolism by more exercise (vigorous, not simply counting steps) and creating muscle which burns more calories.

I feel your pain!
I'm also trying to lose weight and finding it hard. It's like I'm trying at the same time my body is trying to pack on the weight. So tough.
(No answers, sorry!)

I cannot face restricting any further my already very very restricted diet. It is actually my one and only pleasure in life is eating

You have two issues here.

1. No one on this thread has suggested that you restrict your diet further. They have pointed out that the restrictions YOU have placed on YOURSELF are making it hard for you to lose weight. Posters have suggested that you INCREASE the variety on your diet. You don’t seem to be listening.

1. You need to find other pleasures in life. I can’t tell you what yours should be , only you can do that.