Menopause Weight Gain Solutions: One Patient’s Journey to Feeling Like Herself Again

About two years ago, Melisa Selway got comfortable in her own skin for the first time in her life. But before then, she was desperate to feel like herself again. 

First, she started by changing some habits. At her peak, she was drinking a 12-pack of Mountain Dew a day and she knew if she made the change to cut out soda, she could improve her health. In the process, she lost almost 30 pounds. Finally, she had started to feel a bit more like herself. But before she knew it, menopause hit.

“I started gaining weight in areas that I’ve never carried weight before,” she says. “In my hips, in my midsection, my face. I knew it was different. I wasn’t eating differently. My diet wasn’t changing. I was still not drinking the pop that made me lose all the weight, but the pounds just started packing on.”

She went to her doctor who confirmed her hormones were post-menopausal.

“The doctor pretty much told me there was nothing I could do about the weight and how I felt. That it was just part of menopause, being a woman.”

For Melisa, that wasn’t good enough.

When Menopause Causes Changes You Can’t Explain

Menopause, she says, is about so much more than weight. The mood changes, the sleep disruption, the way you look in the mirror and don’t quite recognize yourself anymore make the experience debilitating in a way no one quite prepares you for. 

“In a time that you feel that you have no control, I felt like weight was the one thing that I could control even though my doctor told me I couldn’t,” she says. “So I started looking into GLP.”

She knew people who had tried GLP-1 medications and had mixed experiences, some dealing with side effects they couldn’t push through. But, knowing it had worked for others, she was seeking a provider that offered both support and a prescription. 

That’s part of what led her to Apex Skin’s Total Body program. 

“I could’ve gone anywhere for my GLP-1, but I chose Apex because everything was under one roof,” she says. “They were able to support me through my menopausal journey, but also in the side effects of the GLP and the side effects of menopause. Overall, providing support physically and mentally.”

The Early Days and Side Effects of GLP

The first few weeks brought some expected side effects: a headache that arrived before she even got home from her first appointment, and nausea that was significant enough in the beginning that she rearranged her schedule around it.

“I changed my shots to Fridays so that I could feel kind of bad during the weekend, when I was able to just lay around,” she says. She was given a prescription for nausea, which helped, though it made her tired enough that the weekend timing actually worked in her favor.

Luckily, those side effects didn’t last. “I don’t have those problems at all anymore,” she says. “One week I got the shot and I didn’t feel terrible anymore.”

Her husband had asked at one point whether it was worth it. Her answer was immediate: “Yes, because it’s working.”

More Than a Number on the Scale: Finding Herself Again Through Menopause

About a year into the program, Melisa is close to her goal weight. The physical changes have been significant. She has a shape she says she never thought she could have. Her back, which had always bothered her more when she was carrying extra weight, has improved enough that she can be more active. The weight she was told she couldn’t lose is mostly gone.

But the changes that matter most to her go deeper than the scale.

“I’ve never hated who I was, but it got to a point where I hated who was looking back at me,” she says. “I felt helpless. Like I wasn’t going to be able to ever change it. Now, I feel like I found myself again.”

Menopause, she’s quick to add, isn’t finished with her. Her sleep is still disrupted, and she doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon. But she’s managing it from a different place than she used to.

“I’m functioning much better because of weight loss,” she says. “It’s feeling like you have control over something again. I feel empowered. That’s the difference between Melisa a year ago and Melisa today. I feel empowered.”

A Care Team That Understands Menopause

Melisa credits much of her experience to Kim, her primary aesthetic provider at Apex, while noting that every provider she has encountered has been exceptional.

“Kim and I have had the lengthier conversations about what my next step may be, or what I may be interested in, or what it is supposed to do,” she says. Kim’s background in women’s health has made her someone Melisa connects with easily. “She understands what I’m going through.”

That relationship has shaped not just the treatments Melisa has chosen, but how she thinks about the process overall. She’s not rushing. She’s having conversations, making informed decisions, and building a plan that makes sense for where she is.

Today, Melisa is close to her goal weight, with about four pounds left to go. But she’s quick to point out that the road there hasn’t been a straight line.

“My daughter going off to college made me stress-eat a little bit, so I may be a little further away from my goal than I’d like,” she says. “But that’s real life, and it happens. I’m not going to let it set me back.” 

She and Kim have already talked through what maintenance will look like once she reaches her goal, likely spacing her doses out to once every 10 days.

A Bigger Mission for Menopause

For Melisa, this journey has become about more than her own transformation. She wants other women to know they have more agency through menopause than they might be told.

“I think it’s just important for women to know that you can have more control than you’re led to believe, and that what you’re going through is normal,” she says. “I don’t think there’s enough education. If I had more time in my life, I’d probably start a foundation when it comes to menopause, because the struggle is real and a lot of people just don’t understand that.”

Several of Melisa’s friends are now going through menopause themselves, and more than a few of them have made appointments at Apex after watching her journey after noticing the weight loss, the filler, the change in her energy.

“I’m back to being a bubbly, fun-loving, happy person, and they see that,” she says. “And that’s the most important part.”

Her advice for anyone who feels like she once did, unsure where to start or whether change is even possible, is simple.

“If you’re thinking that you don’t have control, or you’ve been told that, there are things you can do to feel better,” she says. “A lot of times the improvement with your mental state comes with that physical improvement as well, because that’s essentially what caused it to deteriorate in the first place.”

She wishes she had started sooner. But she’s glad she started. “Menopause was taking its toll on me, but I can manage it better now.”