it's about life, my life, quilts, midwifery, and whatever else occurs to me.

11 December 2011

Bump 2.0 - Menopause Edition, or how to procrastinate and still feel you accomplished something

After the afternoon deluge, the clouds lifted a bit, the weather radar had no bad news, and it was still light enough out to go for a run. Or, to be more accurate, a trot. The big questions of the day to be answered were:

1) Can I still run there you go again, damn it, trot! 3 miles without stopping?
2) Do the mosquitoes of SE Qld prefer to bite skin that is sweaty or just moist from humidity?
3) Will the addition of kinesophobia and passive coping variables improve the R^2 ("R-squared") of my linear regression model?

I know, I know. This post is supposed to be about Bump 2.0. I'll leave off digressing and get on with it.

As with labor and birth and parenthood, so menopause. You can read all the books, spend hours at websites, talk to your friends, and go to classes all you want, but nothing can really prepare you for what happens to your body after menopause.

Here is one of the things that happens. One day you look down, and where what you thought was your more or less flat belly used to be, there is now a Bump. Bump 2.0, and not the pregnancy one - that's Bump 1.0. Contract your abs, and the Bump moves with them, but it is still there. Your weight has not changed, but it's apparent that the distribution of said weight, somehow, has.

Since we know there is no such thing as "spot" weight reduction, logic dictates that the only way to deal with Bump 2.0 is a program of "overall" weight reduction. Now for you young women, I'm sorry to say there's more bad news. In addition to bringing you Bump 2.0, menopause plays another cruel trick: your metabolism slows to slightly above Sloth level, and - here's the best part - with no corresponding reduction in appetite! As you might imagine, this makes overall weight reduction a mirage of a goal: you can see it in the distance, but you never actually get there.

Being an HRT* refusenik, I am unable to tell you whether the appearance of Bump 2.0 would have been delayed or prevented had I chosen to maintain my youthful hormone levels through chemistry. If anyone has any pertinent evidence, I'd be interested in knowing about it, although not interested enough to give up refusenik status.

It occurs to me that Bump 2.0 - Menopause Edition would be a good title for a zine or a blog. I'm happy to lend it to anyone who wants to start such a publication, as long as I'm properly credited, of course.

And now the answers to today's big questions:

1) YES!!!! Slow, but I can still do it. The hardest bit, besides all of it, is when I'm downwind of the poo bins.
2) Didn't get any bites in either direction, so research continues.
3) Still to be determined when procrastination time is over.

*hormone replacement therapy, which in the 90s was a really really good thing, and now we know better.

2 comments:

Gramma B said...

I submitted to the "traditional" HRT in the 90s. I have found NO youthful advantage to this approach. Your Bump 2.0 - Menopause Edition is very tenacious. Sadly, this also comes with a lowering of energy and ambition. Have fun.

quiltmidwife said...

Thanks for the comment! Some day I'll do a study on menopausal bumps. I know what you mean about decreasing energy. I have to fight it every day. Sometimes all I want to do is sit on the couch and veg. I dream of the day when there's nothing I HAVE to do.