ok, I know I will never have my 20 year old body back, but this is getting to me. I am 48 and have always been slim, size 4 and sometimes a two depending on the maker of the clothing. I am 48 and when this whole peri thing started getting bad about a year and a half ago, I stopped working out because I was always scared I was really sick. Fast forward to now, i gained enough to go up a full size, a true 6. I started running a month ago and don't feel like I've lost a single pound or inch. I refuse to go on a scale, it'll be too depressing. My thighs and esp. midsection just won't budge. I use to do a week of exercise and cutting back junk and bam it would be gone. Now, I eat healthier than ever and nothing moves. OOOOHHHH I hate it!!!!!

Anyone else feel this way and what can we do?

Yes, I'm the same way... yet I never stopped exercising... I eat healthier than I ever have and I feel 'fit' but the weight and the inches won't budge. Actually I don't get it. It should be a basic rule of calories in/calories out.. but that doesn't seem to work.

I even went to have my metabolism checked by and oxygen thingy where they tell you exactly what your metabolic rate is. I should be able to lay on the couch and eat 1800 calories a day and stay the same... so it seems like if I work out and eat 1500 calories I should lose, right? Wrong.. It ain't happening. Yet.. I am still convinced that if I persevere and stay diligent with the trying that in the end... I will win this game. We have to stay determined. To throw in the towel and to quit is simply not an option.

Hang in there..

Enough, I'm 48 too and I stopped exercising also about 2 years ago because I felt weak and sick. I was always thin before I had the kids, so my BMI was technically underweight. After I had the kids it was in the healthy range, and now I've gone into the overweight range. I'm horrified by this, and I keep thinking what next--obesity, then morbid obesity? I used to work out a lot, and when I discussed my weight with my new thin doctor he suggested just walking 20 minutes 3x/week. It's almost as if he was saying I should just accept my body the way it is and not try to be as fit as I once was.

I just need to get into a routine again, I keep telling myself. But I feel digusted with myself, too!

Frisbee

This is exactly what is happening to me as well. (Thighs and abs - HUGE problems). It should be simple math, but it isn't for me. I eat one thing - just one thing - and my clothes feel too tight. Ysterday I worked a 10 hr shift w/ no meal time or breaks. I munched on peanuts and trail mix a little in the afternoon. I came home at 9 p.m. and had a piece of leftover pizza from fiance's dinner and 3 Muskateer. This morning my scrubs were tight! I probably consumed less than 1000 calories yesterday, drank water, and worked out diligently before leaving for my shift and what did I get for it!???? Tight scrubs!

That sounds like swelling from salt, not weight gain to me!

Zelma

You think? It wasn't that much salt......but you could be right.

I'm 47 (or will be in a few months), and I can so sympathize with all of you.

When I was in my 20's and 30's I was slim too. Always a size 4 or 6 but never any bigger... Now, I am a size 12!!! I've never ever bought a size 12 until this year. I cannot believe how much I've ballooned up.

But I don't think it's salt or bloating from my period, for me, I think it's my wine. I'm Irish and I like my drink every night. I have a glass of wine before dinner, and one with, and then usually one or two after. Even though I've done this all my life...suddenly, I'm huge!! My belly hangs over my trousers and I can't find anything that at the end of the day doesn't look rumpled and ill fit. I hate it!!

I'm a "cranky borderline inertia-filled exercise phobic" who's idea of cardio and aerobics is chasing the dog when he gets loose. I'd rather complain about being fat than do something about it.

What's that bumper sticker say? "In my next life I want to be Barbie...that b!tch has everything!"

Not eating often enough will make your body hold onto fat, and go into "starvation mode."

Eat a healthy, balanced diet.
Eat 5 to six small meals a day.
Exercise every day

Just cuttting back calories doesn't work anymore, at our age, and may actually backfire, adding fat to your body, while burning muscle. So, even if you're not gaining weight, your body composition is changing for the worse, especially increasing your visceral fat in your belly.

Yes, we do have to work much harder now, to preserve our health.

Armadillo, you're RIGHT ON. I've had a lifelong weight problem, and just as an aside, I wear size 10 slacks now and that is wonderful. I've never been a size 6 or 4 or 2; I was BORN bigger than that!

Here's what I did to lose weight after meno. I figured out a daily eating plan based on Weight Watchers, because they allow you to eat everything. Nothing is off limits. I have an eating plan for the week, when I'm at work, and a modified one for weekends, when I'm home in a different environment (and sometimes we eat out on weekends, too--so I have to deal with restaurant food, but that's good practice). I followed this eating plan and I lost weight, then hit a plateau when I still felt I could lose more. So I started walking on a treadmill and I started losing again. You have to do it four or five days a week. I just walk; no running--I don't like running. I kept increasing my speed when I got used to it, and I use a slight incline (2.0 max). I stick with this for almost an hour; about 57 minutes total counting the five minute cool-down. I'm still losing now. Keep slightly pushing up on the speed and when you feel it's getting easy, push it up a bit more. I do 3.5 miles in 57 minutes now, and my goal is 4 miles and upward from that, as high as I can go.

It's hard work, but you can get to your normal weight and stay there. You have to figure out what you can eat every day and stick to it. You have to exercise; do something you like and stick with that, too.

It's possible, but not easy, and you can never relax or ignore it.

I don't weigh myself, and just go by how my clothes fit. I don't look in the mirror. This has a far more negative result for me emotionally than just being aware of how my clothes fit.

I've gotten into vicious circles of dieting and weighing myself and getting frustrated and going off the diet, then getting back on, weighing myself, frustration again--forget it!! No more scales for me.

I have a sweet tooth, and I know that ignoring that will end up with me having to have something and maybe eating too much. So every evening I have an ice cream cup. They are 100 calories for just the plain vanilla, but it satisfies me (and maybe I have a couple of inch-long candy bars just because I also have to have chocolate).

This is true for just about everything for a woman past 50. Just when we think (mistakenly) that we've earned the "right" to take it easy, Nature throws us a curve ball, and makes us work even harder, just to stay even! Mother Nature, you are a Bitch!!!



I will never look at my reflection anywhere, I avert my eyes even if I'm walking by a glass storefront on the street. It just starts a bad cascade of negativity for me, too. I have no mirrors or reflective surfaces in my home, except for a small make up mirror, and a shaving mirror for my husband.

I too have had great success with weight watchers....I do it online. I gained almost 10 pounds this year, and as it is my first year in almost meno (10 mos since my last real period), I realized that I was on the spiral to start the gaining that all my docs have talked about at my age (I am 55).

So here I am in week 4 of weight watchers, and I am down 6 pounds! I feel so much better because my clothes feel better. I love the fact that on a day when I just needed a dairy queen cone, I could have one within my daily points....I cannot give up food groups....I love to eat.

So anyone wanting a good starting point, I highly recommend it!

Jonesy

Yes, WW is a great program. I lost 25 lbs right before meno and acheived lifetime. I swore I would never regain it back.. .famous last words... my son went to Iraq and I lost my dad etc etc... when my son was in Iraq I simplly sat in front of the TV with a bag of chocolates and did little else. (This was when the war first started and I think I was in as much shock as I was in fear)... anyway.. He came back home and I was now 30 lnbs over... went back to WW and try as I might this weight won't budge. And I exercise 5-6x a week. Hard! Dripping Sweat. I was asking my husband, who sees how much I sweat after a workout and sees how I eat, how is it that I can't lose? And he says.... honey, I think it's just the way you are .. some people have big bones... sweet of him but I know my wrist size and I am definitely a small boned woman....

Everyone says once they are in post they can lose... do I need to give up the hormones in order to lose? Sure seems like a catch 22. <sigh>

Progesterone can pile the weight on like gangbusters, and make your body hold onto it. After all, it is the pregnancy hormone, and it's function is to keep the fat to protect the baby, even when there IS no baby!

Perhaps, you need to adjust the ratios of your hormones to optimise weight loss. Because as far as HRT goes, it's NEVER just ONE thing, but a combination that needs to be continually optimised.

Hmmm...Weight Watchers sounds like something I might have to look into. It must work -- it's been around forever. I was going to try Jenny Craig or Nutrisystems, but they are FAR too expensive for me. But I have to do something. I've put on 15 lbs. since February! I am now at my highest weight ever -- 232 lbs. I can carry more weight than some people -- I can look really good at 165. But this is still way too fat!

I've always been big -- not fat necessarily, just larger than many women my height (I'm 5'6", although people swear I'm taller than that). I DO have big bones -- my wrist and elbow measures in the large range. I wear a size 9-1/2WW shoe and a size 8-1/2 ring (when I'm at my fighting weight. I'm wearing a size 10 ring right now) and after a body fat caliper measurement, I found I have (or rather had) lots of muscle mass. That's a good thing, since muscle burns fat. My ancestry is Russian and Scottish, so I figure that's where all the body mass comes from. Because of the mass, I try to not go by weight so much as how my clothes fit, but now my fattest fat pants don't fit. I am unemployed at the moment and bummed about it, so am rather sedentary. So there goes the muscle mass, and here comes the fat.

I'll go check out the Weight Watchers website. Thanks for the heads-up.

I understand your pain, but oh how I wish I was a size 6!! My leg would not fit into a size six even back in high school when I weighed 115 lbs. My body is just not built that way!

Shakin'

I want to renew this thread...so...and add that I am disgusted with myself. I am through with all this weight gain cr--. A friend was printing some pictures yesterday in WMart, and they were from our visit to a water park. I knew I looked bad-(fat) before but seeing it on print-urghh. I am sort of tall 5' 7" and have been able to get by with a few extra lbs over the years (or so I told myself and others told me), but now -it is a nightmare. I have turned into my mother-who compares herself to every 'stout' person she sees. 'Am I that big' or 'I'm not that big, am I?'
I don't want to be down on myself, but I am a big ole Eorr(sp) and God knows-when you put all the struggles together-I come up with-what's the use? I am alone, I am fat and I have no self esteem..... OK.
I needed to purge that.
I know there is no magic cure or magic pill. I have been to the doctor-well, his PA, and I liked her-she told me to count calories and keep a calorie diet. I know the ramifications of being overweight and sedentary. But I have every excuse in the world for not following through. Maybe I am a food addict. lol
Enough of this. I know what I need to do.
I need to stop talking and start moving. Doing something is better that nothing, right?

Amen! I was surprised at my pictures too. It's funny how we can convince ourselves we haven't gained 'that' much. No magic cure but we have started a support thread on this very site so come join us. We'll fight this battle together. It's called.. "For those trying to lose weight".

I gained 40 pounds on estrogen and progesterone last year. And I am struggling to take it off. Again. I have had weight issues all my life.

But this time, something almost magical has happened. I stopped denigrating myself. I have accepted that what I look like at the moment is what I look like at the moment. I keep my hair looking good, I wear nice clothes, I put on makeup. At age 56, I have finally decided to stop defining my worth by numbers on a scale.

It is incredibly liberating.

Definitely come join the "for those trying to lose weight" thread.

I was much like you, but I gained my weight in 2008 - 31 pounds!!! I know that sounds bad, and it is bad - but I had dropped 25 pounds really fast from my hormonal crash last fall. I figured I would gain the weight back when I started feeling better, but between the meds, BHRT and feeling good....well I just ate and ate and ate - and LOVED every moment of it!! I was digusted with myself, but I just COULD NOT STOP!! It was terrible. I weaned myself down to half the dose of ADs, and that seemed to stop the insatiable appetite.

I dieted for a few days, and drank 8 plus glasses of water everyday. I lost 7 pounds the first week!! I am sure it was probably all water weight, but who cares! It motivated me to start exercising. I have been walking 3 km (about 2 miles) everyday and every other day I have been doing Callanetics. I haven't lost any weight so far in my second week, but I feel amazingly stronger and harder. I figure I am gaining muscle so if I don't lose weight it is okay.

Anyways, sorry I got off on myself there!!! That hardest thing is taking the first step. I found this really cool website that is free. It teaches you how to track your diet and helps prepare you for actually dieting. You aren't even supposed to change how you eat at first, just to track everything you eat. You can also track nutrients you are getting or NOT getting. I discovered I was getting WAY too much salt and not enough protein - still working on that!!

It might be something for you to consider. PM me if you would like the link.