Health in your 70's Plant Based Diet???

Marvelous47

I'm about to go into my 75th year on this earth and feel and look as good as I have for years...EXCEPT...I have a tummy...I workout and try to eat better and have started fasting a few days a week and thinking of going on a plant based diet. Anyone doing that who have had success? Just looking for some encouragement as it's a change for me. I'm not really overweight but could lose 5 or 6 pounds to fit into my clothes and plan on seeing my grandchildren marry and have babies....

cwolfman13

Going plant based is a fine thing to do, but in and of itself has nothing to do with losing weight or losing a tummy. I was plant based for 3-4 months to see if it would resolve a particular medical issue of mine (it didn't) and I gained about 10 Lbs. It comes down to calories, not omnivorous or plant based or anything like that. My plant based meals were just more calorie dense than simply grilling some chicken thighs and having a side of veg, namely because many of my recipes revolved around lentils and beans...which I love and regularly eat as a side...but as an actual meal they were pretty calorie dense but that is where I was getting much of my protein.

Xellercin

I used to work in a vegetarian/vegan restaurant and A LOT of our customers were overweight or obese, and eating pounds of deep fried tofu every lunch hour.

I personally only cook vegetarian, and I love it, but that's not what keeps me lean. Cooking nutrient dense, low calorie meals is what keeps me lean, and that I can do vegetarian or with meat.

In fact, I've been eating off diet for the past month as I'm away from home. I've been eating fish and meat every day, and I can tell I've lost weight, because all I'm eating is a piece of meat and a giant pile of raw veggies with some hummus.

It's very filling and easy to make, but it's also very low calorie.

It's all going to come down to food quality and portion control, regardless of whether it's vegetarian or not.

That's actually why I'm not a vegetarian. When I have a full kitchen, I only cook vegetarian, but when I'm forced to eat/cook differently than I normally do, I'm not limited to high calorie, nutrient poor, unhealthy vegetarian options.

So for example, I was out at a restaurant where the only vegetarian option was pasta with a creamy sauce and the healthiest option was a spinach salad with fruit and chicken. I ordered the salad.

Food quality and portion control. Nothing complicated.

AnnPT77

I'm not fully plant based, but have been a mostly whole foods ovo-lacto vegetarian for 47+ years . . . thin to fat to obese and back to thin again. That leads me to believe that eating style is tangent to weight management, generally.

Overall good nutrition, overall food quality (as Xellercin says) are important to health, and so is being at a healthy weight. (I've proven to myself that I can be fat and not healthy eating mostly high-quality foods (but too much of them!), and while quite athletically active . . . for me, managing my weight made a huge difference in my health. Since you're only a few pounds overweight, that's probably not the key thing, for you, like it was for me.

Do you have any health markers (blood tests, blood pressure, anything like that) that are problem areas for you, or borderline? If so, those would be relatively more urgent focus areas for health improvement, but the suggestions would depend on specifics.

Speaking in generalities, i.e., statistical averages, the typical American (and probably many other developed-world folks) would IMO be better off getting more veggies and fruits into their eating, though that's not the same as saying it's important to be fully plant-based.

According to surveys, most Americans aren't even getting the recommended minimum 5 daily servings of varied, colorful veggies/fruits, leaving them short on fiber and/or micronutrients. (Supplements are not an ideal subsitute, IMO.) Now some mainstream nutritional authorities are suggesting that 10+ veggie/fruit servings daily is an even better goal.

In addition, surveys suggest that many people our age (I'm 66, F), are eating too little protein. Recent recommendations are that we need somewhat more protein as we age, and that spreading it through our day is important for us in a way that it isn't for young people, because our ability to absorb protein typically declines with age.

Here's a recommendation report about that: https://www.jamda.com/article/S1525-8610(13)00326-5/fulltext

I'd add that a fully plant-based diet makes getting protein, especially calorie-efficient protein, a small bit more of a challenge. It also makes getting some other essential nutrients a little harder (such as vitamin B-12, one that's also extra important in aging). If someone has ethical reasons to eliminate animal-sourced foods, that challenge is certainly manageable, not at all an insurmountable barrier.

However, if someone is not motivated by ethical reasons, I'd never encourage them to become vegan or vegetarian: Why make good nutrition even slightly more difficult? Why would it foster better health, even, since we need those more-difficult nutrients for best health, and most human societies have eaten at least some animal foods for centuries and millennia, and thrived?

As far as having a bit of a tummy, I gather that can be common post-menopausally. I've seen some limited research suggesting that strength exercise can be helpful (full-body strength exercise, not boatloads of crunches or other ab exercises). I'm sorry, I don't have a cite handy for that research, just commenting from memory.

Speaking statistically again, for sure it's common for people - perhaps especially women - to lose muscle mass as we age, to the detriment of our health, independence, longevity, and appearance. Strength exercise can help counter that, certainly. I feel like we're not helped, in our demographic, by myths about strength training that were common in our formative years, that strength training will make us "bulk up", "look like a man", etc. Women who are very muscular bodybuilders have to work very hard at it over years to get a defined, muscular look. It's not something that happens instantly, suddenly, by accident. What can happen, with strength training, is quite fast strength gain (useful!), appearance improvements (looking "toned"), and in the longer run even some regained healthful muscle fiber.

There's a good thread here about strength training options:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

Anyone can start strength training at any age, and it's always fine to start lower or progress slower than a written program dictates (which can be necessary at any age, too). It's not about lifting objectively super-heavy weights; it's about finding something (weights or bodyweight exercises) that are just a bit of a progressive, manageable challenge to our current strength level, so we can both make gradual progress and avoid disruptive injury. Health and strength improvements have been demonstrated in research even for people well into their 80s.

Another issue for the appearance of having a tummy can be posture. This is also a possible factor at any age, but perhaps a little more common with age (because of the loss of muscle mass, and maybe decades of postural habits).

Common things are a bit of a slumped head-forward, rounded-shoulders posture that many of us develop from decades of desk work or computer/cell-phone use. This tends to drop the rib cage downward, and squish any central tissue (fat or otherwise) outward between ribs and pelvis, making it appear more prominent.

There's also a common thing called "anterior pelvic tilt", which is carrying the top of the pelvic bones tipped a little forward of the bottom of the pelvis, instead of the lower/upper parts being more vertically stacked. This also tends to push central body tissue forward and look more prominent, tissue that would otherwise be more contained within the torso cavity and therefore less visible.

If you feel like those could be factors for you, there are exercises to improve those issues. On YouTube, the "Bob & Brad" channel - by two guys who are actual physical therapists - is a decent source for that type of thing. (I feel like some of their advice about eating/diet is a little more iffy, but diet/nutrition is out of their professional wheelhouse.)

I think you definitely can achieve your goals, and the above are just one woman's opinions about things that might potentially be helpful. Wishing you much success!