The Ups and Downs of Weight Loss AND Gain in Perimenopause – Part 2

So, there I was steadily putting on weight while my muscles atrophied and my motivation to do anything about anything lay in a sad little me-shaped pile on the couch, a veritable embodiment of ‘meh’.

And that is when my friend kicked my arse and said, get yourself to the doctor NOW and start MHT (formally HRT – hormone replacement therapy). And that made complete sense. So, I didn’t do that. 

Instead, I let myself decline further and watched a few more episodes of the compete shitshow that was my life. 

I don’t know what eventually made me go and see my doctor, but eventually I did. She was great and immediately prescribed a regimen of oestrogel and prometrium (patches were impossible to find at that time). It took 2 months or so, but one day I felt the urge to peep out from the blanket fort I had made myself on the couch, and the next I had a bigger look around, and slowly, slowly I began to hear an echo of my former zeal. 

That echo grew more constant and less ethereal, until I started to feel ‘me’ coming back. The really scary and sad thing about ‘me’ coming back was I didn’t realise how much of myself I had lost.

And I want to tell you that everything got better from that point, but that is only partly true. And because this is an article about peri-menopause weight fluctuations, let’s get back on track and drill down into what I had to do and continue to do to this day. 

I started tracking my diet again, but this time I upgraded my app to the paid version because I wanted to drill down into macro and micronutrients. I wanted to know exactly what I needed to put into my body to give myself the best chance of moving through this phase of my life and beyond. 

And look, this is really boring – I know! And yet, once I had a handle on this, I really started to feel better AND the weight slowly started to come off again AND I found I didn’t care so much anyway. 

I went on a deep dive into protein, fibre, vitamins, minerals, bone health, carbs and blah, blah, blah on and on. I watched videos, read blogs and journal articles. My algorithm got right on board and soon all I was seeing was nutrition videos, ads and articles. 

In the beginning, I decided to completely ignore calories/kilojoules and focus on eating whatever would ensure I hit my protein, fibre and magnesium targets daily. I did that for a month or so and felt really healthy but noticed that in order to hit those targets, I was eating about double my calorie intake, so naturally the weight was creeping up. While I wasn’t focusing on calories OR weight, I began to wonder what swaps I could do to hit my targets AND my calorie intake. 

It turns out, that was the right question. And that was the turning point for me. It was all about eating smarter. 

Wherever I could make a swap, I did. For example: Greek yoghurt to high protein yoghurt, normal cereal to high-protein cereal, normal pasta to high fibre or high protein pasta. I added salad as a daily part of my diet and made sure I started my day with a healthy savoury  breakfast. (I’m going to write a whole other article about these swaps and what I eat.)