My gynecologist tells me that it’s harder to keep weight down or take it off after menopause. I don’t know the science.
Here’sa site with a bit of science.
I’ll back that up with the fact that I’m hitting the menopause years, have always had a freaking hummingbird metabolism, and on the thin side , but in the past two years, have put on belly weight for the first time ever. It’s pissing me off, but, seeing the above link, as well as others, it seems a likely progression. One good teacher I’ve learned from, who learned from a Mayan traditional bent, says that women are supposed to store estrogen in fat to get through menopause. That makes good biological sense to me.
But, not so much with body image sense, though, I’m not a beauty hound at all. More a sense of balance, and having more ballast is really odd. I’m really active, have a balanced vegetarian diet, but am having a real shift in weight gain, with all other factors being the same. So, yeah, the old body is up to something different now.