Hello, my name is BJ. I turned 50 eight years ago. I was already in full blown menopause by that time. Full on hot flashes, night sweats, fuzzy brain, bloating and a metabolism that CRASHED to the floor. I’ve been gaining weight slowly since.
I was 125 lbs when I got married in 1984. Spent most of my 30’s around 140 lbs. My 40’s, I was weighing in around 160. It climbed to the 180’s then the 190s in my 50’s. I’ve tried different weight loss supplements from online retailers to health food stores.
My husband and I were going on a 35th Anniversary trip to French Polynesia and I did NOT want to go there weighing 190+ pounds (I’m around 5 ft 7 in). We have an exercise bike and a NordicTrak cross country ski machine. I decided to start doing a 45 minute workout on the bike, arm exercises with weights, and some abdominal floor exercises at least 3 days a week. I don’t eat a lot of sugary foods, rarely drink soda, and do eat a lot of vegetables and salad. I should lose weight, right?
Well, no. I didn’t lose any weight and went to French Polynesia at 190+ in mid-September 2019. We spent the first part of our trip on a cruise ship which is never a good thing for any sort of dieting. It was only 2 weeks so I didn’t want to make myself crazy. French Polynesia has a lot of French cuisine so I wasn’t going to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime experience. When we returned, both of us had a kind of continuous indigestion. It wasn’t crippling but uncomfortable.
After Christmas, we did a driving wine tasting tour of Central California. The indigestion grew worse and worse on the trip. I was miserable by the time we returned home. I started looking at various articles on what was causing this indigestion and how I could fix it. I don’t want to be dependent on prescription drugs–or even over-the-counter drugs. I figured that my weight had a lot to do with it but I was still in the 190’s like before when I didn’t have this terrible indigestion.
In mid-February, I read about Provitalize by Better Body. I listened to their LONG video spiel which talked about probiotics and the whole “leaky gut” thing and they assured their listeners that, though it may take several months, the probiotic formulation in Provitalize would get your intestinal track back in balance and then your menopausal symptoms would lessen and you could start losing weight. It has a “money back guarantee” but if it takes a few months, they aren’t going to refund it all. It wasn’t exorbitantly expensive so I ordered a bottle of Proviatalize. Of course they have OTHER supplements. Previtalize supposedly feeds the probiotics and helps speed up the recovery process; a sleep supplement called inergy Sleep and an energy-boosting supplement called inergy Energy (or something like that). I was going to try just the Provitalize first because I didn’t want to get sucked into a money pit like I had before with other weight loss supplements. I started on Provitalize on February 29, 2020.
After a month or so, my intestinal track did settle down and I tried to eat less and kept up my exercising. My hot flashes have calmed down somewhat though have not disappeared. I rarely have night sweats. My weight however, climbed over 200. The company says that you might gain weight but then you’ll start losing gradually so I was trying to be patient. Several of the testimonials said that it took a while. In March, Better Body had a special that had the Provitalize, Previtalize, inergy Sleep and inergy Energy as a pack. I tried that pack. The inergy Energy did nothing so I didn’t stay with that. The Previtalize I used for 2 months and I didn’t feel any change or improvement so I stopped getting that. I’m going to do one more month of Provitalize but I doubt I’ll continue it. Even with the auto-ship, it costs $38 a bottle. If I feel the need for more probiotics, there are plenty out there. We’ll see.
I love drinking wine and it does help me sleep mostly through the night and calm my overactive brain. I decided to try the inergy Sleep to replace the wine so I would drink wine less. I used to try 3mg of Melatonin and it would help me get to sleep but I would wake up feeling very groggy and sluggish unless I could sleep until 11am. Well, that is not very practical. I tried taking Valerian Root and that didn’t help much at all. Actually, of all of the Better Body products, inergy Sleep actually works fantastic especially if you take it an hour before bed. I still usually have to get up once at night to use the bathroom, but I can get back to sleep quickly. The only downside is that if I’ve done a heavy workout the day before, I can get jumpy tingly muscles in the wee hours of the morning which are very annoying. I don’t get that with wine.
Then the coronavirus came to town. In a way its been okay because we can’t go out much to eat so we’ve really had control of what goes in our meals. We haven’t been eating many prepackaged foods. BUT…I still haven’t lost weight.
It is now June 2020. We’ve had 3 trips canceled including a big one that was supposed to take place in April to France. That was pretty devastating. We have been working on our backyard a lot. It is back breaking work and on hotter days when I sweat a lot, my weight will go down temporarily but it is back up in the 200’s the next day. My sister is doing the plant-based diet thing and I started that for a few weeks. No real change (I know, I know..that isn’t really a fair test).
One day, we had a friend over to help grade our back yard. He is slightly older than us and looked really fit. Much thinner than he used to be. I vaguely remember that he talked about his new diet. He is doing the Keto Diet. Has been for a year. He lost 30 pounds in 3 months. I was still skeptical because he is a man and doesn’t have the same psychotic metabolic system that menopausal women have but I did some research. The research says that your body will go to carbohydrates first for energy so if you eat carbohydrates, your body will skip using the fat stores it has and burn what you are eating. If you don’t burn all of the carbs that you eat, your body will store the excess as fat. GREAT! Of course carbs are all of the good things: bread, beans, sugars, cereals, bread, some fruits, bread (yes, you can see what I’m REALLY missing). If you don’t eat the carbs, your body should go into ketosis and start burning fat since it doesn’t have any carbs to burn.
I didn’t want to get into buying a Keto plan. Several articles I read from dietitians just talked about eating LOW carb. No bread (me sobbing), very little cereal or grains like rice (I use riced cauliflower in its place), little or no pasta (zucchini strings make a very nice spaghetti), very little sugar or sugary treats, etc. I try to look at whatever food we buy and avoid anything that has more than double digits in the carbohydrate field of the nutrition facts box.
I got several recipes from EatingWell.com. It is a very good resource.
Soooo…I’ve been doing it for about a week and a half now. I have wine on the weekends, haven’t had the Keto flu (a nasty condition one can develop as your body is adjusting to the new eating style) so I guess my body wasn’t tooo dependent on the sugary carbs. I am cautiously ecstatic to say that my weight is down to 197 from 202 after just a week and a half. I haven’t been under 200 since March! The diet of leaner meats, eggs, low carb cheeses (cottage, mozzerella sticks), full fat plain yogurt (yogurts with fruit have quite a bit of sugar) with some dark berries, green vegetables is not too bad and mostly filling. I don’t get that SUPER hungry feeling that I used to. I also do the “ingest 2 tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar with the mother every day” either in a salad or cooking or drink it mixed with some water.
An update will follow in a week or so…