Hi from Jane

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medtechnc
medtechnc Posts: 4 Member
in Introduce Yourself
I’m not new to MyFitness Pal, but trying it again to lose weight. I am over age 55 so it’s harder to lose the weight.

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,429 Member
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    Hi, Jane!

    I'm not totally convinced it really is inherently harder over age 55. In some ways, it's hard for everyone, just maybe hard for different reasons.

    The good news is that it isn't impossible over 55. I lost around 50 pounds at 59-60, then have stayed at a healthy weight for around 8 years since (after 30 years before that being overweight/obese), and I'm not a special unicorn. I'm kind of the opposite, actually: More like a hedonistic aging hippie flake with a very, very limited stockpile of motivation, willpower or discipline. I figure that if I can do it, most anyone can, with patience, persistence, and some personally-suitable tactics.

    For me, the big thing was to firmly change some mysterious switch inside my own head to the "fully committed" setting. If I knew how to do that for others, I'd bottle and sell it, make millions. :D

    I'm cheering for you to succeed: The results, in improved quality of life, are worth it IME!
  • whitewesties8268
    whitewesties8268 Posts: 2 Member
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    Hi to both
    I have the same problem 2nd week on the plan, 1st week I dropped 3lbs 2nd week dropped zero, so disappointed have tracked every day, I am not an exerciser, apart from walking dog, I am expecting eating less and healthy should equate to weight loss so now I am thinking why am I bothering
  • MargaretYakoda
    MargaretYakoda Posts: 2,566 Member
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    whitewesties8268 wrote: »
    Hi to both
    I have the same problem 2nd week on the plan, 1st week I dropped 3lbs 2nd week dropped zero, so disappointed have tracked every day, I am not an exerciser, apart from walking dog, I am expecting eating less and healthy should equate to weight loss so now I am thinking why am I bothering

    You are bothering because you made a choice to drop some weight. How much?
    Well, if you could drop 3 pounds in the first week? You had at least 3 pounds to drop…

    Weight loss is weird. It’s not actually linear. There’s a lot of factors that can make your weight stall for a moment. Or bounce up a bit.

    It’s rough at first.

    Best advice I see shared here on these forums is to keep at it.
    Participate here. Ask questions.
    Read answers given to questions others have asked.

    If you haven’t already, consider downloading a weight tracker.
    I’m using Apple OS so the one I use is Happy Scale.
    It will show you your trend over time.

    You didn’t mention your age, but it’s not uncommon for a woman between 18 and about 45 to have monthly weight fluctuations that absolutely are not related to diet or exercise.

    And there are other factors.

    Try not to focus too much on the scale.
    Focus on building better habits.

    Stick around.
    One step at a time.

    This is a long game. A marathon.
    Not a sprint.

    And welcome to MFP!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,429 Member
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    whitewesties8268 wrote: »
    Hi to both
    I have the same problem 2nd week on the plan, 1st week I dropped 3lbs 2nd week dropped zero, so disappointed have tracked every day, I am not an exerciser, apart from walking dog, I am expecting eating less and healthy should equate to weight loss so now I am thinking why am I bothering

    @whitewesties8268, a week, two weeks - not enough time to assess progress on a new routine. That's true for everyone, but especially if the person happens to be a female who has monthly hormonal cycles. (Some women only see a new low weight once a month, though that's more extreme than average.)

    One common pattern: Drop a big-ish number of pounds right away, then stall. Part of the drop is reduced water retention, part of it is fat loss. Maybe think of it as the body having a "what the heck?" moment because of sudden changes. The body tries to rebalance water retention, and that masks fat loss progress that is actually happening. It's just that the person doesn't see it on the scale because the water weight increase hides it.

    Water fluctuation is part of how a healthy body weight stays healthy. We don't want to meddle in that, because our bodies know what they're doing. We should let them. What we can do is understand that this is normal.

    Even very fast fat loss is only a few ounces per day. Water fluctuations (and the amount of food waste in the system that's eventually going in the toilet) can vary by several pounds from one day to the next.

    By sticking with a given regimen for 4-6 weeks (at least one whole menstrual cycle for those who have them) can let us average the results over the whole time period, and get a more realistic idea of our progress. Even then, if the first couple of weeks look wildly different from what follows, I'd suggest ignoring those first couple of weeks, and continuing on for a couple more.

    Losing any meaningful amount of weight is going to take weeks, months, maybe even a small number of years if seriously obese. It requires patience and persistence. If the routine is so extreme we can't stick close to it for that kind of time span, we need a different, more sustainable routine.

    Hang in there. While you're waiting long enough to see reasonable averages, I'd suggest reading this thread, especially the article linked in the first post. It's informative, and perhaps reassuring.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

    Best wishes!

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