So, I’ve gained weight since starting menopause… About 60 pounds… For the very first time in my life, I’m not skinny.
I’ve been on Keto for about half a year but it’s making zero difference to this menopausal weight.
I’m also on HRT but that’s not making a difference either, in terms of weight.
Do I have to accept that menopausal weight is a totally different beast and it’s here to stay no matter what?
Or can I potentially shift it?
My wife is going through similar issues. She tried Maria Emmerich’s PSMF (protein sparing modified fast) diet with some success. You could give that a try. (Warning: it’s a low calorie, high protein diet.)
My only other suggestions are to shake things up. If you eat dairy, stop. If you’re eating high fat, eat higher protein. If you’re eating higher protein, eat higher (animal) fat. Even try upping the carbs (with “good” sources of carbs) to see what happens. If you’re eating sweet things (even if using fake sugar), stop.
Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about menopause. And science knows even less. Women always get the short end of the stick with science.
I am unclear about your weight gain. Did you gain 60 lbs. since becoming menopausal? If so, I wonder if you have a thyroid issue.
HRT is an unknown to me but because hormones play such a crucial role in weight, it could be an obstacle in terms of weight loss.
I have NOT listened to this yet, but I will listen to it this week (to see if it’s something my wife should listen to):
This podcast concentrates on the thyroid and women, but they had a good discussion of iron and ferritin (which I have low values of, even though this is primarily a women’s issue due to menstruation, but I have a genetic anomaly – MTHFR – which apparently can cause low ferritin).
If you listen, let me know what you think.
I’m tryyyying to listen to it but a) omg her voice is awful and b) I’m 4 and a half minutes in and so far it’s been 90% advertising… sigh… I hope it gets better…
It’s not, but only when your doc is one of those “your numbers are in range type”. The fat hasn’t changed, only your hormonal profile, which can be put back if your doc is going for getting you optimal and not just trying to check a box on a “reference range”
First thing would be are you tracking what you eat, if you’re going blind, it’s trying to find your way out of a labyrinth blindfolded, guaranteed bad ending there.
Also don’t forget about your Thyroid, if you’re like many that thing is probably underperforming, and long term Ketosis has many of us with worse off values, one of the downsides, many excuses are made on that one, but what never changes is better T3 levels means you burn more, there’s no disputing that.
So if your HRT doc isn’t the type that’s about optimzing, change them. If it’s a mainstream doc, or an Endo, then 95% of the time you’ve got a box checker. Also, the other huge one they leave out with women is Testosterone, have of them don’t even check it, and that’s a huge one as well when it comes to fat burn, my wife left her endo, came to my TRT clinic, they took over everything and also put her on Testosterone and night and day difference! More women are on Testosterone now than ever!
To pile on to the Thyroid side, if your doc (does) check it, yet only checks TSH, huge fail on their part as that tells them nothing usable, gotta check all of it!
You 100% can!
I gained a lot of weight after menopause too. No HRT tho.
I gained and lost a few times before I found keto. That was the beginning of weight loss and overall healing.
So many things in flux, months after menopause. Try to focus on health instead of numbers… for now.
Never say never. Hang in there.
I too have put weight on in menopause. First time in my life. Haven’t checked thyroid and I’m not on HRT. I’m having to do things differently and change things up a lot. We definitely do get a raw deal us women 
I better solve my food and weight problems before menopause hits then… Though it may do nothing to me, Mom had a super stable weight too and it changed nothing (but she worked a lot in the garden and ate a fragment of my food consumption… still wasn’t ever slim) and I never noticed my hormones doing anything noticeable either… Still. One can never know.
I don’t have any good ideas or advice but I trust we usually can do something about being overweight. Maybe we can’t be as slim as we wish (without extreme measures, suffering or the like) but 60 pounds is a lot! (I have almost as much extra fat without menopause… When it was a third of that extra fat, I still had a big fat belly… Stupid fat distribution.) I can’t believe it must stay. No way.
So, no idea what to do but good luck!!!
Thank you all - I will reply to this properly later… Saw an endocrinologist/ diabetes Dr yesterday but, boy, was it a stupid discussion… In the end, I walked out of the appointment really annoyed and with a 3 month prescription for Metformin… Totally in two minds about it and am going to start a separate thread about that, and will come back to this one later on…
I finally entered menopause at the ripe old age of 58. Keeping the weight off for me has included resistance training, eating about 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, and lowering my fat intake a bit. Keeping up muscle mass is vitally important as we get older, especially for women. Muscle is what helps rev up the metabolism.
Sadly, it seems most endocrinologists are old school, and just not good at treating thyroid. My wife went to one who tried to say low thyroid doesn’t cause depression, when it is widely accepted as one of the common symptoms. Anyway, she has gone to various doctors over the years for thyroid. Functional health doctors are usually good for this. That endo would probably only order a TSH test, if that… I’m not saying you have thyroid issues, but they are more common in women.
I have been trying to talk my wife into trying a little TRT to address her menopause symptoms. I figure can’t hurt, but her mom had breast cancer, so she will not do any estrogen… fine. Just try some T I say. My wife too, has gained some weight, and seems to put it on easier than ever. Encouraging, I know…
So, I really want to thank you for this post @lfod14
I’ve been trying to get testosterone added into my HRT mix for 3 years now and no luck so far… It’s not done in the country where I live… I know it’s becoming more standard treatment in the USA and UK, but here it’s basically impossible…
I’m going to go back on a search for it tho… I sort of gave up after I’d been to half a dozen Dr’s who all said no to prescribing it… I’m going to try and find some alternatives… So your post has been a timely reminder to stop being complacent about this.
Likewise with the thyroid stuff… Last time I did Keto, I did end up having problems with my T3/ rT3 and ended up taking an additional T3 supplement to the T4 supplement. So I’m looking into that again too…
I’ve spoken to 2 doctors about it so far this week and both of them were AGHAST at the idea of taking both T3 and T4 and flat out refused to believe that there are T3/ rT3 issues connected to a Keto diet…
So I’m going to have to go on another Dr odyssey for that too, to find someone willing to prescribe it… I’ve still got some T3 tablets from my first attempt at Keto, and have started taking 10 micrograms of T3 in addition to the 88 micrograms of T4 that I take and I have noticed a definite improvement in energy levels.
Where I live, taking T3 is not viewed as “optimising the thyroid” by Dr’s but as medication abuse and as a form of doping, similar to what athletes do. I’m not sure if it’s actually illegal for Dr’s to prescribe T3 for someone without a clinically diagnosed T3 conversion disorder, but the Dr’s sure behave like it is…
It wasn’t great. It’s more about what the symptoms are, and not as much about how to resolve them. I didn’t recommend it to my wife.
And, I think they recommended fiber. I am conflicted about fiber. On the one hand, maybe it has benefits? But I find I can’t eat much fiber or many plants for that matter.
Oh, I forgot to get back to this… I actually ended up finding it helpful - so thank you. The guest did most of the talking, thankfully, and the rest wasn’t full of adverts. (I think she’s got a… uhm… challenging voice, and I think she’d taken too much thyroid hormone that day and was really hyper… not a good mix!)
I can’t remember what I found so helpful about it… I’ll have to listen to it again (skipping the first 5 or 6 minutes) I think it was about the “unexpected” symptoms… the ones most ppl wouldn’t even think of…
You’re right, it didn’t really address how to fix them - other than maybe saying that if your thyroid was “fine” before, menopause could throw it further out of whack… And I’m taking that on board… Just because my previous thyroid med was working pre-menopause, things are completely different now and I need to start from scratch, including re-thinking thyroid meds.
So yeah, it did end up being helpful for me - so maybe for your wife too…! (Tho tell her to skip the first 5 mintues 
)
Well, as you know, there’s little to no info about (peri)menopause, so maybe I will see if my wife listens to it. And I can’t remember where I was when I listened (could be working out or driving), so maybe that affected it too.
The by faaaar best source I know for info about peri/menopause worldwide is a Facebook Group started in Ireland called The Irish Menopause. It’s phenomenal - run by experts in the field - full of thousands of women sharing their experiences - it doesn’t get any better than that, imo.
I’m on Day 3 of an extended fast… Really hoooooping to drop a few pounds… sigh…
Also, I think I’m going to do a 48 hour fast each week, from here on in, to keep my metabolism on its toes…