Help me please get this right??

[haveyouopenedyourbowelstoday]

Years of weight gain and loss, the menopause and possible insulin resistance and I feel I’ve well and truly messed up my metabolism.
5ft 8, and have got down to 12 stone 10 and a size 12. Since February I’ve been increasing the strength training at the gym and am feeling stronger and beginning (slowly) to feel and see the difference.
The issue is my calorie/protein intake. I’m aiming for 140gms protein a day but I instinctively struggle to eat over 1200 calories even though everything I read says it’s far too low.
I suppose I’m asking for reassurance that if I eat more (but clean, high protein, low-ish carbs) I won’t pile on the weight again? I’d love to hear your experiences please.

It's hard to say. Weight is very much calories out/calories in. But if you're lifting pretty heavy 4 times a week, then 1200 calories is not enough. I'd be aiming for 1500, but it does also depend on how heavy and how often you're lifting.

High protein for low calories: chicken breast, tuna, Greek yoghurt w/o any guff added to it (I like Fage 0% or 5% fat).

If you want to give your metabolism a break (which might regulate insulin?) try the method of eating within 8 hours, and fasting 16 hours. I do this if I need to just get control of my appetite - I eat 2 big meals, plus Greek yoghurt, protein powder & fruit between 8am and 4pm, and then just have herbal tea in the evening.

I know it’s super tricky psychologically but if I were you I’d really focus on building muscle even if that means scale weight goes up a bit. You need to fuel your body properly and 1200 calories must feel pretty miserable when you’re training hard. Once you’ve stacked on some muscle you can always reduce calories a little if you feel you’d like to but you might well not want to!

FWIW I’m your height and weigh 9 stone and I eat tons - I don’t track calories but I’d guess 2000/day minimum, about 110-120g protein per day. I’m 52. I’ve just built enough muscle that I can eat pretty much what I want, it’s great.

It’s difficult to get your head back in the space of eating more but think about it as fuelling your body to perform.

I would try adding 50-100 calories a day for a week and build up from there to find the right calorie balance for you rather than upping calories straight to a maintenance. This will help you mentally be in a better place and you can see how your body reacts to the higher calories,

Great advice from @ConstanceMartensCat and @Livingthedream1978 I'd just caution that it's quite hard for women to "stack on the muscle." You need to eat, with quite a lot more protein than maybe you are at the moment, and have a strength training programme that is consistent & works on progressive overload (weight and/or reps). That means getting used to heay weights, and barbells rather than machines, IME.

I used to go to the gym and use the machines, but it was really only when I started a consistent programme of training and learning how to use barbells for the classic squat, deadlift and bench press compound lifts, that the muscle really started to emerge.

And remember, muscle is denser than fat, so a kilo of muscle takes up less space than a kilo of fat. Your scale weight might stay the same, while your dress size drops (that's happening to me at the moment, and it's weird).

I'm doing a bit of a cut/calorie deficit at the moment - eating between 1400- 1500 calories a day: egg whites, spinach & tomatoes for breakfast; lunch is a chicken breast, or a tuna steak, plus a whole bowlful of green vegetables - I'll eat around 300 to 400 grammes of broccoli for example, plus half a baked sweet potato, plus more tomatoes; then an afternoon bowl of 0% Greek yoghurt, with a scoop of vanilla protein powder and some fruit - usually strawberries. I rarely feel hungry on that, although I miss bread & butter!