Women over 50, different % balance?

I think my problem lies with being lazy and not as active since I hit 5o. Plus putting on two stone being on three cruises lol

mamapeach910 wrote: »

I'm 52 and menopausal and "thought" I was eating well until I came to this site. I was eyeballing portions, and thought I was consuming the amount of calories my doctor recommended. I was so far off. Accuracy is key. I blamed menopause, I blamed my thyroid, I blamed other medical conditions I have (and I have a boatload of them).

It was none of those things. I was simply eating too much.

As far as macros are concerned? It really all comes down to personal preference. I feel best eating a moderate amount of slow-digesting carbs so my macros are something like 40/45 30 30/25 (Carb, Protein, Fat) and I try to get around 100 g of protein a day.

Get a digital food scale so that your logging is as accurate as it can be. Use the correct food entries from the data base. I usually confirm the ones I chose with product labels or a Google search. Once you have that sorted, go ahead and add exercise. I exercise when my health issues aren't acting up, and it contributes to an overall sense of well-being, makes me more fit, gives me more calories to eat (though I don't generally eat back my exercise calories, it's nice to know they're there), burns additional calories and preserves lean muscle mass.

This. A thousand times this. Unless you have medical issues, macro balance comes down to personal preference. I lost all my weight eating 55% carbs, 15% protein, 30% fats. And I've maintained that loss for over two years. Like the above poster, I am a 52 year old woman.

In my experience, people who aren't losing weight and believe they should be aren't tracking their food or exercise calories accurately.

One last suggestion. Try to minimize how much sitting you do. Besides being terrible for your health, sitting hardly burns any calories. But standing up and moving about frequently and often will add quite a few calories to your daily tally. On days where I'm up and about most of the day, doing this, doing that, running errands etc, I burn about 400 calories a day more than on my uber sedentary days. And yes, I have an office job. I still move a lot. Sitting makes weight loss much harder.

Best wishes!

I am 50 years old and have lost 105 lbs in 16 months using my fitness pal and a fitbit. I eat 30% CHO, 30% protein and 40% fat. CHO is only from fruits and veggies and dairy...no refined CHO (no bread, pasta, etc. although I do eat brown rice and other whole grains on occasion). Walk/jog combined 5-6 miles a day with strength training twice daily. I have gone from size 24 to size 14 during this time. I am in better shape now than at any time in my life (overweight since I was 6). Key to me is creating a new way of eating. I plan everything on Sunday for the week. Cook lean meats to have in fridge for putting easy meals together. pre-portion healthy nuts and snacks into single servings for grab and go. Prepare a 'salad box' with ingredients ready for a salad for lunches or dinners. Bake sweet potatoes so they are ready to reheat. I plan and log my meals for the day in the morning BEFORE i got to work so I know what I am eating for the day. Alcohol which used to be a daily glass of wine with dinner is now limited to twice a week. While a little hard at first, after settling in to this routine its now a habit. I don't think twice about eating refined CHOs when I used to crave bread and butter.

Make it a lifestyle and not a diet and things change! At least they did for me!

Just one more thing, again from experience: Weigh yourself once a week, and measure once a week. Weighing daily makes me feel discouraged and negative. If you really are logging everything you eat accurately and exercising to break a sweat, don't sweat the results each day. They will come, albeit slower than you'd like. And at the very least, you won't GAIN more weight.

I have to chime in on how things change as we age. I was very active through my 20's and 30's. I never had to count calories or watch my food choices. I had 2 children in my early 40's, and while I was not as active as before kids, I lost the pregnancy weight fairly easily, again without counting calories. Then the hot flashes and weight gain started. Now I am trying hard to lose the almost 35 pounds I gained over 2 years. I am counting (including weighing) and I am reasonably active. I know that before this would have been enough to get the weight off. Now every pound is a struggle. I am also learning what works with my balance of protein/carbs/fat as well as what is satisfying for me to avoid binges.

It is not impossible, as a number of success stories in this thread point out, but don't kid yourself that is not harder past a certain point in the aging processes. My expectations had to reset accordingly and belief in the process has been the only thing to carry me through sometimes.

I'm 61 and have lost 14 pounds since November. I count my calories and stopped drinking sodas, starbucks and plan my meals ahead of time. But the worst thing I can't control is the increase in sagging skin on my arms and face due to my weight loss. I am 5' 2", weigh in at 140 now and my goal is 130. What are you Ladies doing to avoid the sag?