The benefit of menopausal weight-gain
I’ve been trying to lose weight basically all my adult life. I was always a little bit on the chubby side, but when I started my periods, I went from chubby to fat with an alarming speed. Since than I never really gave up on the idea that one day I would become thin.
Or at least a little bit thinner.
In order to reach this goal I was not afraid of any sacrifices: I changed my lifestyle, step by step I developed healthy eating habits and what’s more, I even started to do sport! I discovered Pilates and aerobic and at one point of my life I also started jogging.
And seriously, I have no words to tell you how I hated it.
Every time before I started out for a training I kicked up a fight, every single race I partecipated meaned a forced march to me, every common jogging with my partner ended in a quarrel. But, and that’s a great but, it really did the magic trick: after a few months of jogging I became thin.
Well, at least a bit thinner.
I enjoyed to have the body I always wanted to have but I didn’t enjoy the fights, forced marches and quarrels, so after a few years and several changes in the training programs (including group runs and pulse control) I just decided to quit. I continued the Pilates and the aerobic, and with the help of the elliptic trainer in the gym I could keep my weight all right.
But then I crossed the magical line of menopause.
And just like when I crossed this line in the opposite direction, just like when I started to have my periods, I started to put on weigh at an alarming speed again.
And this weight refused to leave. Strictly.
I did all the tricks, adjusted the calorie intake, the macros, fiber, water intake, but to no result. I had my old fat body back in less than six months.
Fortunately I knew the magic trick, I had the Ace of Spades in my hand, I knew what to do to adjust my body back to the right size: I knew I should start jogging! I should restart that popular, magical, fantastic jogging…
…which I hate. Which I hate oh so much.
But which my body seems to enjoy. Oh so much.
So for a few weeks every night I went to sleep thinking of the morning when I was going to go jogging. I was planning the route I would take, I immagined the funny dogs and cuty joggers I would see, I was trying to conjure some enthusiasm in me… but when the morning came, all the enthusiasm conjured evaporated and instead of jogging I stayed at home.
You see, it’s not that I don’t like exercise. In the afternoon I do aerobic or Pilates, which I enjoy a lot, I love to have my muscles, quadricepses, abdos and bicepses, but the fat over my body insists to cover these muscles.
My body insists that I should do some serious cardio, too.
The truth is that I don’t want to offend my body. I understand it is already in a lot of difficulties after passing this hormonal upheaval: the heatwaves, the palpitations, the mood alternations, generally changing inside and outside, plus the stress of the pandemy… It’s not easy for poor body either, but…
But, no, I don’t want to go jogging. It’s not only my body to rule my life, I, too, had a difficult year, and I don’t want to suffer anymore. Why my body doesn’t understand this? It should.
The problem is that it doesn’t, and being fat also makes me suffer.
So one of these nights I’m lying in bed, trying to conjure up the enthusiasm for a run, trying to convince myself how great it would be and how I would enjoy, and bamm! The hammer strikes and I have an idea.
What if instead of trying to like the same activity that my body likes I tried to find an activity that both of us, my body and me, likes?
Because, look: besides wanting to be thin, or at least a bit thinner, I also want my body to have pleasure. We, my body and I, we survived through the process of the menopause. We deserve pleasure, both of us. We should do something both of us enjoys, something like back in the old days, before my body became reproductive and I started to refuse it’s reproductivity every month. Clearly it made our relationship problematic, because who enjoys constant refusal, but it is never too late to remedy a relationship. Maybe it’s time to put down the guns and start to negotiate.
In the name of compromise, instead of jogging, I will do something that apart from my body I, too, enjoy, but is just as effective to my body as jogging, regarding both weight loss and pleasure . I will do something that reminds me of the freedom of my body, something that reminds my body of my freedom. Something that represents the freedom that comes with the menopause, the carefree, I am who I am — type of freedom, the I am too old to waste my time on things I don’t enjoy — type of freedom.
I will do rollerblades.
I bought a pair of rollerblades a few years ago, tried to rollerblade but failed, and since than the roller were just sitting at the bottom of the cupboard waiting for their time to come.
And I realised that it probably just did.
I found a fantastic tutorial video on youtube, and one of these sunny afternoons I took a deep breath, I took the roller out of the cupboard, put my pride in instead, and to the great surprise of my body I went in front of the house to study to rollerblade.
Now, after three occasions me and my body can already slide, we can turn and we can do the c-cut in both directions. I am excited to study how to stop the roller, so I can take my body out on the street to do a real tour together.
I feel like the princess of the universe to master this craft. I feel like the princess of the universe to master this craft. It gives me the feeling that jogging never gave me, to control my body, to be equal with my body, to be in peace with my body, to be…
…to be a person I enjoy.
Thank you, menopausal weight-gain! Without you I would never have found this pleasure: the harmony between my body and me.