Age & Metabolism

amdawells
amdawells Posts: 76 Member
edited November 16 in Social Groups
I'm new to this group, but I've been on MFP for about a year. Although my activity has had it's moments, I've become more consistent lately. I've never had to watch my weight & never really had to workout, even after having three kids. I'm 40, but when I turned 38, my metabolism went on hiatus & I gradually started to gain weight. The only reason I noticed was because my clothes. So, I started working out & logged everything. I tried to make a positive change in becoming more fit.

I workout in the morning after I take my kids to school. I don't eat anything beforehand because the workout that I do is all cardio. (I have issues with eating enough calories most days.) I'm not hungry when I wake up, sometimes I'll have a half cup of coffee, but most days I have to make myself eat. I've been working out every day for a month & I have been fluctuating between two to three lbs. in weight loss. Period. I thought if I stayed on a 1200 calories/day I would see some results, but I haven't.

I realize that everyone is different, but I'm wondering what I need to change to make my weight loss happen. I'm sure I'll need to eat more often, but what does a person do if they're not hungry?

Replies

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited April 2015
    First - realize you can effect hunger and until you know exactly how the body operates in that manner, you should use your brain not your stomach to decide eating levels.
    Just as many gained weight because they listened to their stomach, you can also undereat listening to it.
    So you feeling full, and your body being fully fed for level of activity - are not related.

    Are you actually eating in total 1200 calories daily with all that exercise?
    1200 is considered bare minimum just to get needed nutrients in from average diet, for a sedentary female, so as not to get vitamin or mineral deficient, but nothing about being caloric deficient by too much.
    You obviously aren't sedentary, neither in exercise nor in daily life with kids.

    So whether that 1200 is totally accurate or not, and actually eating a tad more, whatever level you are eating at in actuality is your maintenance level now.

    So 2 directions to go.

    You can only suppress your body so much to slow down.
    So you can keep eating less and less and eventually you will start losing again, probably not by much.
    Exercise isn't going to transform your body much, since that usually requires more energy usage, and if body is already slowing down, it isn't going to improve what requires more energy.
    Usually muscle mass is lost in bigger amount than normal.
    As body slows down max amount you may have several bad effects, hair growth slows or falls out, nails get chippy, skin bad, ect.
    May be hard to adhere to eating so low and binge, each binge making you eat more than your suppressed maintenance, meaning you actually gain fat then.
    Maintenance will be much lower eating level, and as many find, fail during maintenance and gain weight back easily.

    Or.

    Slowly start eating more each week or two, and get body back to full burning mode.
    Exercise can have better transforming effects.
    Then you take a reasonable deficit and still get full benefits from eating enough for body to be healthy.

    Only reason metabolism is said to drop with age is because average muscle mass drops as people age, because average people stop being as active and lose it.
    Eventually near end of life metabolism takes a nosedive, unless it's been going down slowly as you age because of lack of activity.

    It's not about eating more often, unless that is what works for you, but just about eating more.
    No non-fat stuff, fat is good and needed.
    Calorie dense stuff, broccoli mainly isn't going to cut it.
    Limiting food usually doesn't work long-term, so re-examine why cutting some stuff out if you are.

    Just need to eat more, do it in small steps.

    Follow the tools in the stickies as to how to do it.
  • Sumiblue
    Sumiblue Posts: 1,597 Member
    I'm 46 & I've increased my calories from 1300 to 1900 without gaining. I'm 5'2" tall, too. I lift heavy 3xweek & do minimal cardio. Today I'm aiming for 2000 calories.
  • Jennbecca33
    Jennbecca33 Posts: 321 Member
    Hi and welcome to the group! I agree with Heybales ^^^^. "It's not about eating more often... but just about eating more". 1200 is way too low. Too low of calories can/will completely stall weight loss. Like he said, begin slowly increasing your calories - eat 1300 one week, 1400 the next, etc. ) until you get up to the proper amount. You can figure your proper calories by using this calculator:

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    Make sure to choose the proper activity level for yourself and no more than a 15% deficit. You can read more about this in detail in the "Announcement" section of the EM2WL page. Right now your hunger signals are suppressed because you've been eating too little for too long. Your hunger will return as you begin increasing your calories - many people find they become ravenous when increasing calories because their metabolism is beginning to increase again. I hope this helps! Post back with any questions you have! Again, welcome!!
  • amdawells
    amdawells Posts: 76 Member
    Thank you @heybales for all your information. I believe most of it makes sense to me :) I'm so new to all of this & it really is an eye opener! I will definitely follow your advice & gradually increase my calorie intake.

    Also, @Sumiblue ... thank you for sharing! As wells as @Jennbecca33 ... I will look at that link you included in your reply.

    This is the start of a new beginning for me. I'm learning a lot about myself, my body & what it takes to keep it in shape. I'm kind of excited to see what happens next! :smiley:
  • geordiegirl27
    geordiegirl27 Posts: 307 Member
    I was like you a few years ago, found MFP found this group and did (mostly) do what was suggested. I slowly increased cals, had much more energy I remember one day on a run thinking wow this training is finally working, when I realised it wasn't the training it was fuelling properly.

    I lost weight and started to lift weights, just dumbbells but again increased the weight considerably more than I thought I could and took up other training circuit/interval based.

    I lost my way a little over the past 12-18 months with life in general and then illness but I am back on it now too.

    I could never go back to low cals again and I just need to get the bad habits I've picked back up kicked into place.

    good luck :)
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