Advice from experienced losers in their 40s please!!

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  • kenyonhaff
    kenyonhaff Posts: 1,377 Member
    Hi...lost 45 lbs and almost 44 in 10 months and skinnier than that in college.

    I didn't want to log. I didn't want to measure. But just exercising wasn't working so I had to do something different.

    So I logged and discovered my portion sizes were wrong and I needed fewer carbs and more protein. Although exercise was important I didn't have to be extreme about it.

    Just that difficult and just that easy.
  • gabriellejayde
    gabriellejayde Posts: 607 Member
    I'm 50 now, but I'm down 75 pounds since April (7 months ago). Currently 180lbs. I have a desk job and a long commute, so I'm lucky if I walk more than 5000 steps a day. I lost the weight from diet alone. 1200 calories.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    I lost weight faster in my 20s because I:

    1. Had an active job rather than a desk job
    2. Had more muscle

    Now that I am in my 50s with a desk job, being active requires a lot more planning and discipline. It's not my age that's the problem; it's my lifestyle.
    /pushes away from the computer to go work out/
  • onematch
    onematch Posts: 241 Member
    I'm 47 and have lost 50 pounds over the past 6 months. It's definitely a lifestyle change for me, and not 'all or nothing'. I know from years of experience that that type of approach results in failure.
    I've chosen a lifestyle I can live with that still allows me to see progress on the scale. I log everything I eat. I limit (but do not cut out completely) processed carbs and sugars. I still eat fruit daily and drink wine weekly. I aim for high protein and less than 100 grams of carbs per day.
    This works for me and doesn't make me feel deprived.
  • rhiawiz57
    rhiawiz57 Posts: 906 Member
    yes, i have to carefully track calories now that i'm over 40. what you don't really know can hurt you. and why can't you track calories long term? my 67 year old dad has been a daily tracker for 7 years after taking off 45 lbs, and it doesn't bother him to keep tracking. he says this is how he knows he's still doing what he needs to do to be healthy. i'm going to follow suit, because whenever i was "rejecting" careful counting and saying it wasn't realistic or sustainable, i was gaining weight!
  • sksk1026
    sksk1026 Posts: 215 Member
    I'm 48 and losing weight steadily but I log all calories and my exercise-earned calories. It's so easy to overeat by just a couple of hundred calories which can tip you into weight maintenance instead of weight loss. Why don't you log everything for a month just to become aware of how many calories you really are eating, and then switch to eye-balling it? What you are doing isn't working so you need to try do something else. Part of weight loss is about experimenting to see what approach works best for you. It's too early to conclude it's your age! Even 1 week of calorie counting might be helpful.
  • ttreit
    ttreit Posts: 59 Member
    edited November 2017
    Log for at least awhile if only for the educational purposes of really ingraining caloric load for various foods and weigh yourself at least weekly.

    After awhile if you want to get away from logging foods go for it, but keep weighing yourself. If your weight is not doing what you want (if it's not going down and you want it to or if it's going up and you want to maintain) just go back to logging until the scale is in your happy place.

    Don't feel like you have to log your foods for life if you just don't want to do that. But you need a data point and the scale can provide that. Just be committed to logging whenever you need to in order to keep the scale where you want it.
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