weight gain issues

Have any of you found that you lost weight you gained after stopping HRT? I am frustrated! I have gained 5-10 pounds on bioidentical hormones, and am considering going off and trying herbal supplements, but I don't want to make things worse.

If you're out of balance on your hormones, it's likely to be water weight. In which case either getting in balance or getting off will likely release that water weight.

But menopause changes your metabolism, so your body will tend to try to distribute fat to your abdomen (where it will make a form of estrogen) and you may find that you need follow a regimen more like the recommendations for diabetes. And hot flashes themselves lead to the possibility of weight gain. There are a couple of articles about this I wrote for the pulldown at www.hormonejungle.com

So, given that, if the weight is the only reason for quitting and you otherwise feel good, you might try more balance first. When I added progesterone (and gave it a week or two to adjust) the water weight vanished. Another balancing thing can be adding the supplements (magnesium, B vitamins, zinc) that estrogen can create deficiencies in. Those sometimes help finding that balance.

Of course, if you have other reasons, then that's a different story. You'll probably lose the water retention and if you approach it as a metabolic issue, you can control your weight. But I think with or without HRT, we're in menopause and it's all a bit harder.