Neil, I’m very sorry to learn your news but relieved that you’re under good care and will get it seen to safely. Look forward to hearing that you’re feeling much better.

Cinque you are so right that we have to navigate through lots of twists and turns – or in our case, locks and tunnels.Have a lovely time with Miss Ellie. How are they both?

Anzac, I somehow missed that you were going to MI for this upcoming break. Have a wonderful time. Fingers crossed for that house price dropping. It seems Mr A’s positive outlook has paid off – are most of the related issues from his bowel cancer behind him now?

Post 1 – I’ve written a very long post on word, split it in half and copied and paste into the forum in 2 separate posts but they are still not showing. This is my last attempt because I am so fed up with the instability of this platform so I will break it down into 5 posts and see how it goes. Sorry for the rant, just fed up with ongoing issues when posting here.

Neil, while it’s not good to be diagnosed with a medical condition, you now know what you are dealing with and a positive it can be treated with medication. Thank goodness it was diagnosed before it led to any major issues or complications. While being on lifelong medication is not preferable, if needed, then it’s the best outcome to get you back on track and continue to live an active, issue free life and back on that bike doing what you love.

I’ve decided to take a different approach to my weight and wellbeing. I’m still sitting at 10kg higher than my lowest weight, this is the 10kg I put on after Mr GDay passed when I took to comfort eating and stopped daily exercise. Since then, despite doing all the right things (what I thought was right) I’ve been struggling to maintain any weight loss, I lose 3 to 4 kg then within a few weeks it comes back, despite eating well, low carbs, staying in ketosis and exercising. Even the extended fasts are not yielding weight loss like they used to.

Post 2 – As always, I’ve been researching. I recently posted about Dr Gabrielle Lyon’s book regarding protein intake, and I’ve been meticulous about ensuring I eat the right amount but still nothing has changed. Further research led me to Dr Stacy Sims who is an American exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist based at Auckland University of Technology. Neil, she lives in Mount Maunganui – is that anywhere near you, I can’t remember what part of NZ you reside.

Dr Stacy has done extensive research into menopause and when I read her books and listened to her podcasts everything just clicked. While I have no doubt my comfort eating contributed to the initial weight gain when Mr GDay passed I also transitioned through menopause during that time. Everything Dr Stacy wrote about ticked every single box for me and my circumstances – it all made so much sense.

In a nutshell, the dramatic hormonal change from peri to post menopause causes a huge shift in how the female body uses and metabolises food and how we respond to exercise. Menopause causes the body to increase and store fat around the abdomen, hips and thigh areas, muscle mass becomes harder to increase and maintain and long cardio sessions increase cortisol in a negative way (not all cortisol increases are bad). Theres so much more which I won’t go into here, but everything she spoke about screamed THAT’S ME.

Post 4 – I’m not going to focus on weight anymore, my focus will be on strength, body composition and cardio fitness. Since Mr GDays passing and becoming post menopause, I’ve been hovering between 68-70kg (going down to 64 with the yo-yo weight gain and loss) and the reality is that my current weight is perfectly fine, it’s a healthy weight and I was just holding onto the idealism I had to go back to my pre-menopause weight of 59kg. Yes, I have an increase in hip, abdomen and thigh fat compared to being 59kg but as Dr Stacy explains this is exactly what happens to women post menopause. I’ve noticed in the last few years I’ve been struggling to maintain and gain muscle mass, again, this is something Dr Stacy identifies as an issue post menopause, even for people like me who regularly strength train.

My blood test stats have always been perfect with the exception of low iron during menopause so there are no concerns around medical health which is a blessing. My concern is how I age physically by ensuring I place myself in the best possible position to be fit and strong as I go forward.

I know I’ve been holding onto the ideal of being 59kg again so I can fit back into the lovely size 8-10 clothes I have (there is a lot of them) but I know I must cut my loses and forget about the ‘being slim in these clothes” attitude and focus on health not weight. I know my focus was on the money I spent on these clothes and the fact that I will never get my money’s worth from them unless I get back to 59kg so I’ve had a change of attitude around this put health before a weight ideal and money spent.

Gday, that sounds great. Focusing on being healthy rather than specifically on weight seems a good approach if you’re at a healthy weight. I know when I went into the hospital the doctors were all amazed how well I looked, because when people usually come in with lung clots, they’re usually unable to walk and on oxygen masks. The fact my lung function test came back as having a lung age of 52 years old while I was suffering from lung blood clots means that they must have been really healthy before that.

Mount Maunganui, or just “The Mount” as most people call it, is a posh suburb of Tauranga, which is up in the Bay of Plenty on the North East coast of the North Island. I’m in Dunedin which is way down on the South of the East coast of the South Island.