Senior women

sheriduke47

Would love suggestions on how to lose weight for a woman in her 70’s

AnnPT77

Hello, and welcome!

I'm a woman close to your age now, 69, lost weight from class 1 obese to a healthy weight with help from MFP at age 59-60. I was already menopausal, plus severely hypothyroid (medicated) at that point.

From that experience, my sense is that weight loss isn't lots different for seniors than it is for others of any age: Figure out our personal calorie needs, eat manageably less than that. It's simple logistically, but of course not easy psychologically or physiologically every single second. Doable, though, if a person commits to it.

When doing calorie counting here, the routine is to set up your profile, ask for a sensibly moderate weight loss rate, get a calorie goal. The formula will take age into account. Then, log food and stick close to that goal on average, like +/- 50 calories daily averaged over a week for 4-6 weeks. At the end of that time period, there'll be enough data to average to verify that that's the correct goal for us, since MFP just tells us what's average for people similar to us. We can use arithmetic at that point to adjust (personalize) the goal going forward if necessary.

That's the basics. Many of us find that once we start logging what we eat now, certain things jump out as easier calorie cuts. It's fine to take a little time to get to the calorie goal while staying reasonably full and happy, before seriously starting the 4-6 week trial period. The time is an investment in succeeding.

Since I like to see success for everyone, maybe especially people in my own demographic, I'll rattle on about some other stuff, but the above is the essential stuff.

A few differences at the detail level for aging folks may be that we tend to have lower calorie needs than similar-size younger people, possibly are more likely to have physical limitations, may need more medications that increase appetite, and that sort of thing. Some of the physical limitations and medication issues apply to younger people, too, though.

Some of our lower typical calorie needs arise from a lifestyle that's gradually and subtly become less physically active over decades. I don't know about you, but my jobs at 20 were more physical than the ones I had at 40+, and later came retirement. I also tended to get less physical activity from transportation (having a car to drive everywhere vs. biking or walking to the bus), from hobbies (crafts and such rather than playing frisbee or other games with friends), from home care (more DIY projects at first, now enjoying the fruits of that), from social life (more theatres and dinner parties vs. dancing or games), etc. That reduces daily calorie burn, often without our even noticing.

The lower physical activity from those things can contribute to loss of fitness and muscle mass that will happen if we don't take steps to prevent that to the extent possible. That can create a down spiral where movement becomes more difficult and less fun, so we do even less of it, accelerating the decline in calorie expenditure and fitness.

If those apply for you like they did for me at one point, they're things we can gradually and sensibly work to reverse by intentionally increasing daily life movement (that "park further from the building" kind of stuff), and adding manageably challenging exercise . . . ideally fun exercise, but at least tolerable and practical. Strength exercise can be especially helpful, anything that manageably challenges current strength.

For people of any age, I'd caution against aggressively fast weight loss. Slow and steady wins. But that may be extra true in our age group. Again, not sure if this applies to you, but I'm less resilient to physical challenges or stressors than I was at 20. Fast weight loss is a physical stress. Health risk can increase. That's not good, right?

There's a bit of nutrition difference for us, too: We tend not to absorb certain nutrients as well as young people do. That's some micronutrients (some examples are vitamins B2 and D, iron, calcium, magnesium), plus protein.

A good start on the micronutrients is to ask a doctor to order blood tests for those things as a guide. Improving eating may help some of them, others may need to be supplemented. For protein, we can usually get enough through food, but it's important to spread it through the day, not concentrate it all in one or two meals.

I'm not great with structured diet plans or those trendy named diets. I used a process that's more like "gradually remodel your eating", which is described here:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1

No one set of tactics works best for everyone, but that's what worked for me. I've been at a healthy weight for about years now since loss, after around 30 years before that of overweight/obesity.

I think I've rambled long enough now - too long. I learned a lot by reading posts here in the Community, especially in the "Most Helpful Posts" subsection of each topic area, so I recommend that.

I'm wishing you success - IME the quality of life improvement is more than worth the effort!