Forget the number, how do my pants fit?

cherdesigner

I am 45 years old female. Mother to 1 child. I am 5’5” and started this app at 144lbs. I started the app because my weight kept creeping up. I am looking to get between 130-135lb. My goal weight is less of a number on the scale and more of fitting into all my clothes so I don’t have to buy more clothes. The last few years my metabolism has really slowed down and it’s a real challenge to lose weight. My whole life I have hovered around 125-134lb but now it seems I am adding more pounds for no reason doing the same thing I’ve always done. I hope this app works out for me.

csplatt

That’s what I focus on too! If my work pants fit, we’re good. The scale really varies depending on age and muscle mass and water retention and hormone cycles. Different ages I’ve needed to be different weights in order to be the same general size.

barabaradem

Yeah, I think metabolism definitely slows with age. Fit matters more than the number now, for sure. It’s kinda crazy how things change even when your routine doesn’t. Wishing you the best with your goals.

AnnPT77

Recent research suggests our metabolism doesn't change much from 20s until around 60 or so, after which it declines quite slowly for a period of years.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8370708/

Overall calorie expenditure does tend to decline with age, and does so faster in some people than in others.

Much of that decline is about common - but not universal - behavior trends.

I don't know about you, but my job, home life, social life are all less physically active at my current age (69) than they were in my 20s. As we age, we tend to have more sedentary jobs (or retire, eventually); do less transportation with public transit that requires some walking, or less biking for transportation, and drive door-to-door more instead; have social lives that may be more about dinner parties and theaters than dancing at the club or playing frisbee and things like that; have completed a lot of DIY projects to make a nice home and garden, and are now enjoying the fruits of those past efforts; aren't chasing toddlers every day any more; have more disposable income so hire out some maintenance chores we'd have formerly done ourselves, or are now using machines to assist what used to be hand tools; and more.

On top of that, if we haven't done things to challenge our strength all along the way, we gradually lose muscle mass as the years wear on. That means a slightly lower calorie burn at rest, because a pound of muscle burns around 4 more calories per day than a pound of fat . . . but more significantly, that loss of muscle specifically and fitness generally means that any type of movement is harder and less fun, so we may gradually do less and less of it, thus accelerating the loss of muscle/fitness, creating a sort of down spiral.

If that sounds grim, it's not: Either of those general things, the amount of movement in our days - both formal exercise and daily life movement - plus our fitness/muscle mass, are things we can improve even as we're aging. Improving either or both will increase our calorie needs, and that's true at pretty much any age.

I don't personally like focusing on "metabolism", if that's thought of as some doom-laden thing and we're a hapless victim of its decline. I'm not saying those improvements are going to be easy every minute, or that results will be fast . . . but we can chip away at positive changes. Sticking with that over a period of time can add up to some surprisingly good results. That's been my experience, anyway.

Best wishes!