Losing weight is impossible!!

[Lowwintersun13]

Hi everyone, I’m 2 years post menopause and have piled on 6 stone 🥲 no change in lifestyle or diet, just menopause the only change. The 6 stone went on very very fast (around 6-9 months)
I’ve gone from a size 8 to an 18 and look and feel disgusting. I’m a tiny 5 feet 1 so you can imagine how I must look. I have had a recent illness where I did not eat for around 3 months, just an odd piece of toast here and there but still lost nothing! How is that even scientifically possible??!!! But one thing I have and do consume a lot of is milky coffees made with oat milk. Is it the oat milk that has made me so fat? All the usual diet rules just don’t apply after menopause; I avoid carbs like the plague but still nothing. I’ve had every test at doctors, desperately wanting there to be a reason why but all tests came back normal. I don’t even leave the house anymore except for work because of how awful I feel and look. I wear the same top and trousers as anything I buy always looks awful. I have a half hour walk every lunchtime but I am starting to feel this is just how it is. I’m now in the obese range which is an awful thing to hear. My knees and joints hurt all the time. Please someone tell me there is hope and how you managed to lose the weight. I’m not on any HRT, I had to remove my patch after my marker for breast/ovarian cancer spiked 🥲

It’s so hard isn’t it?
something must be going on to gain 6st so quickly, is your thyroid okay?
my thyroid was borderline under active for a long time before my blood test finally fell into the range for medication, that was when I was mid 40s and been steadily putting on weight and struggling to lose anything.
my weight hit a peak of 16st 2 early this year and I took the decision to go on mounjaro as a company was doing a 99£ a month deal for 12 month commitment.
I have lost 4st 3, probably not what you want to hear given all the stuff in the news about the huge price hike but it’s been life changing for me, not been this weight for probably 12 years.
i wouldn’t think milky oat drinks would account for 6st weight gain.

You are either eating more, or your metabolism has slowed so you need to adjust calories and do weights etc
My mum and nan etc all complained that menopause/hrt made them put stones on but they were eating so much more and had stopped exercising. They worked office jobs and went home to eat shit food. But said it was menopause. They just couldn’t get away with it anymore
Once my mum started eating healthily she got her figure back.

I would also consider seeing a specialist in regards to your patches making your markers spike - do you mean CA125??

Why would it only spike now (due to oestrogen patches) when it didn't in response to your own 40 years of oestrogen production?? What dose were you on? If you are currently so miserable, it might be worth taking the correct professional advice and seeing what hormone / dose you could take?

Take a look at the information factsheets available on the Balance Menopause website in relation to this subject. There are also podcasts from Breast Cancer specialists etc on there and the personal stories of other women in similar situations.

Fasting and weights. It’s taken time but if has worked for me.
I NEVER thought I could fast, I woke up hungry, ate breakfast. Mid morning, hungry, snack, same all day.
I can now eat nothing until. I want to try a 24 hf fast for the health benefits.
Also, high protein Mediterranean diet. Cutting out white were possible. I love bread so that is hard.

I do weights 3x week,
Best thing is I no longer have the internal chatter in my head about how I’m fat and unfit, I now say to myself ‘I’m doing what I can and it is slowly working’
There are lots of supportive threads on here Please have a look!

I eat nothing til mid afternoon !

I would agree that this is biologically not possible so would strongly suggest going back to GP for more thorough tests.

In the meantime I would try to get outside more and walk as much as possible.

6 stone in 6 months is a gain of around half a pound per day. To gain half a pound you would roughly need to eat 1750cals per day in excess of your maintenance cals. That is a huge amount of food that even someone with portion delusion would have trouble convincing themselves was a deficit!

So there must be something else going on in addition to menopause. How is your sleep? How much exercise do you do? What exactly has the GP tested for?

Don't they advise seeking medical advice with any sharp increase or decrease in weight. 6 stone in as many months cannot be just down to menopause.

Hi everyone, I’m 2 years post menopause and have piled on 6 stone 🥲 no change in lifestyle or diet, just menopause the only change.

As we age our base metabolic rate decreases and so in order to not gain weight we must increase exercise and/or decrease caloric intake.

It isn’t impossible to lose weight. You need to change your lifestyle to a healthier one and stick to it. Forget dieting.

In addition to the above, a six stone gain in less than a year indicates a medical issue in addition to menopause. You need to go to the GP and have your heart, thyroid and kidney function checked urgently.

Oat milk is essentially sugar syrup. It’s a total myth that it’s a health food.

intermittent fasting is the way forward.

That's a remarkable amount of weight to put on. I wonder if you have water retention issues?

Also if you're not leaving the house apart from a short walk at lunchtime that won't help your physical or mental health. There are lots of people who are larger than you who get on with their lives. Don't hide away.

That’s a very extreme weight gain- 9lbs a month if it was over 9 months. I’d be pressing for there to be a medical reason- you say you’ve had “every” test- which tests?

It really is a very high, fast weight gain, if you're sure about it (do you have accurate scales?). You must have had to buy new clothes pretty much every month. If you get 'smart' scales you can find out % body fat and water, which might help pin down the issue (e.g. water retention vs visceral fat).

I think we have a very inaccurate idea of what calories we need, in the western world. This idea of women needing 2000 calories... not at average female height. At your height your daily calories to maintain current weight are likely to be a lot lower than you think, you can calculate as pp have said. We can get away with eating more when we are younger, but at menopause that changes.

I think you should use an app such as Nutracheck to record everything that passes your lips, over a 2 week period. That will hopefully either identify the problems to you, or give you the data to take back to the GP showing they need to do more investigation.

You need to do this. You cannot have put on that amount of weight without having consumed more calories. Be honest with yourself when tracking, account for everything then assess.

One of the biggest changes I made several years ago was to stop drinking 2 or 3 lattes a day - we have a fancy coffee machine at work. Instead I have one strong coffee with almond milk at home before work and otherwise drink the odd black coffee or cup of tea with a splash of milk.

Our bodies don't deal with sugar the same way as we get older and it is a LOT harder to burn fat if we don't get those sugar levels under control. Lowering carb intake and increasing protein is key. At least 1 gm of protein per kg of weight.
And real food. As close to natural state as possible. Stay away from low fat and make sure you understand where the hidden sugars/carbs are.
I have found that focusing on protein has been a lot easier than counting calories and once I cut out sugar, I stopped craving it.
It's hard but I found that understanding WHY I need to eat more protein and WHY I'm not shifting weight like I used to helped me reshift my mindset

I’d say it’s almost impossible to have spent your life as a size 8 and then put on 6 stone out the blue in approximately 6 months. Without a single change to your diet or lifestyle.

Menopause can be held responsible for a lot of things but that’s pushing it. Even with oat lattes

The slow in metabolic rate due to ageing is very slow and gradual. What is far more likely is that we're a lot less active then when we were younger and therefore just not as efficient at burning calories through activity, but not adapting what we eat a d drink to reflects this. Added to which if you're not tracking things and if you're perhaps relying on easy ready meal type options you're likely to be eating more than you realise.

I try to keep a reasonable amount of protein in my diet (I’m on WLI injections and protein helps, plus it’s hard to eat carbs and fat). Oat milk has hardly any protein at all, not surprisingly. Either switch to black coffee or dairy milk.

I agree. I had a faecal impaction with overflow last year and lost a stone in two weeks due to lack of appetite. I was still eating, but about 50% less than normal. To have a significantly reduced appetite for three months would lead to weight loss, unless the OP was drinking huge amounts of coffee with oat milk!

I suggest you swap the oat milk for something like almond milk with no added sugar. I use the WeightWatchers app and I find that works well for me.

I'm post menopause and have lost weight with Slimming World. I agree with people about the coffees - on SW you are allowed 15 'sins' a day - and I was horrified after meeting a friends for coffee and having 2 lattes to check and discover I'd just consumed 22 sins in those 2 cups of coffee.

There are plenty of people at my SW group who have lost 4 or 5 stone and who are all in their 60s and 70s. It is possible without starving yourself, but you do have to realise what you are eating.

I'd recommend trying it at least.

no change in lifestyle or diet,

This is why. Along with all the calorific lattes.

You need way less calories in meno unfortunately.

I think this suggests an underlying issue. You need to get to the GP for a health check. What was your recent illness? Btw I suspect you are also exaggerating how little you are eating - did you really eat NOTHING for 3 months only the odd piece of toast here and there? Do you literally mean you ate one piece of toast a week for 3 months?

Iam in a similar position. Nothing to advise just reading for tips!

I'm not sure OP is returning.

Anyway. Absent any health conditions, it is insanely easy to underestimate calorie intake. Working out your TDEE and then religiously tracking everything that you eat - and drink - for a couple of weeks is the best place to start, I guess.