Women over 50 (menopausal) success stories?

karlabright455 · January 2018

I found an old thread from about 2014, but I'm wondering if some women who are over 50, have lost over 20 pounds, could share how they did it? I'm looking for specifics, like how many calories did you eat to lose weight, and how many minutes of exercise a day did you need to do? I started the beginning of January, and have lost only 3 pounds. MFP set my calories to 1340, and I exercise at least 30 minutes a day, and get 10,000 steps in a day (using my new cool Apple Watch). Any tips for a 55 year old, who needs to lose at least 40 pounds?

ITUSGirl51 · January 2018

I’m 51 and have lost 56 lbs since March 2017. I’m hoping to lose about 9 lbs more. I set MFP as sedatary and ate most of my exercise calories back. I started with 1.5 lbs deficit per week, but changed it to 1 lb after I had lost 30lbs. It was just too few calories to still have energy to work and exercise at a heigher deficit.

I eat between 1450 - 1750 a day depending on the exercise I get. I exercise pretty much every day about an hour or a little more a day. About 30-40 min in the gym on the elliptical or treadmill 3 times a week, 2 times a week I use the Koko weight training program (about 30 min) and then addition 15 min on the elliptical. I also take three 10 min brisk walks a day to get up from my desk at work. On the weekends I walk outside or play tennis or ride my bike or use my treadmill for an hour or a little more. The hour exercise is with a break after 30 min.

Weight loss is pretty slow but it adds up. I decided in March that it takes the time it takes but in a year if I stick to it I will be down 50 lbs.

I didn’t weigh for the first 6 weeks because I didn’t want to get frustrated. I always give up after a month because weight didn’t fall off, so I ignored the scale at the beginning. When I did weigh I was so disappointed in how much I still weighed, but kept going. I thought it’s better to keep going down slowly than to not lose or continue to gain.

I also took three vacation breaks. I don’t log during vacations, but I didn’t pig out everyday and stayed very active. I didn’t gain on vacations, but when I got back to it the weight came off faster.

It takes patience. You have to enjoy life during the process and don’t think about it as a short term painful experience and the it will be over. I also have learned if I go over a little the whole day isn’t blown so I might as well pig out. Going over 100 or 200 is better than going over a couple thousand calories.

I REALLY want to maintain this weight loss, so when it gets too hard or I feel like I’m starving I will up my calories 100-200 a day that week and maybe only lose .5 lbs or nothing that week. After that week I feel better and then go back down to a 500 calorie a day deficit to lose 1 lb again.

Also, I only weigh once a week. This helps me not focus on the scale too much and focus more on being kind to myself.

Edited to add I’m 5’8” and currently weigh 170. I’m going for the top of a healthy BMI at 161. I don’t need to be skinny. I wanted to lose weight to enjoy life. I started at a size 18 pant and now down to a solid size 10 pant in every designer. Some are a little big. That makes me really really happy!

tlsb2016 · January 2018

Hi Karlabright455, I fit your over 50/menopause profile. I lost 50 pounds last year and probably should lose another 2017. MFP started me at 1460 calories per day for a 1 pound/week loss rate. I’m guessing I started at a higher weight than you are, given the amount you want to lose. I focused on calories and walking for the first several months (and drinking a LOT of water - found I craved about 80-100 oz/day). At first, walking 10k steps would “earn” me about 200 exercise calories and that decreased as I lost weight. After about 6 months, I started craving more intense workouts so went back to the gym (July). I concentrated on cardio (elliptical, treadmill, bike). Just a few weeks ago, I started working with a trainer to learn the right way to do strength training. Over the year-end holidays (essentially December), I just focused on not gaining weight and that worked.

If you started at the beginning of January and have lost 3 pounds, that’s about 1 lb/week. That’s great! At that rate, you’ll be half-way to goal by the end of May. Slow but steady will get you there.

Just keep going and listen to your body. I’m still learning what works for me and what doesn’t.

ITUSGirl51 · January 2018

tlsb2016 wrote: »

Hi Karlabright455, I fit your over 50/menopause profile. I lost 50 pounds last year and probably should lose another 2017. MFP started me at 1460 calories per day for a 1 pound/week loss rate. I’m guessing I started at a higher weight than you are, given the amount you want to lose. I focused on calories and walking for the first several months (and drinking a LOT of water - found I craved about 80-100 oz/day). At first, walking 10k steps would “earn” me about 200 exercise calories and that decreased as I lost weight. After about 6 months, I started craving more intense workouts so went back to the gym (July). I concentrated on cardio (elliptical, treadmill, bike). Just a few weeks ago, I started working with a trainer to learn the right way to do strength training. Over the year-end holidays (essentially December), I just focused on not gaining weight and that worked.

If you started at the beginning of January and have lost 3 pounds, that’s about 1 lb/week. That’s great! At that rate, you’ll be half-way to goal by the end of May. Slow but steady will get you there.

Just keep going and listen to your body. I’m still learning what works for me and what doesn’t.

@tlsb2016 has a good point about exercise. I didn’t start with all that exercise in the beginning. Even at 225+ lbs I was actually already going to the gym 4-5 days a week and doing the elliptical for 30 minutes, but I was over eating 1000s of calories at night, so it didn’t help that much. So when I decided to make a change, I added the three 10 min walks a day and started walking 45 min on the weekends. The more I lost, the better I felt and then added more walking and activities on the weekend. After losing 25 lbs I started the Koko weight training and more weekend activities.

YadaYadaYada64 · January 2018

I’m 53 and have lost 33 lbs since September. I have my cals set 1200, and I feel free to eat back my exercise cals too (usually an additional 200 per day from a 4-5 mile walk). I’m 5’5”, and want to lose 24 more. For me the key has been consistent, accurate logging. If it’s too hard to figure out how to log something, I don’t eat it. (There have been a few exceptions during the holidays where I just logged “misc - 3000 cals”, lol. Helped keep me accountable, and MFP would remind me when I closed the diary for the day where that kind of eating would lead me!)

getsmallerhikelonger · January 2018

First off - 3 pounds in a month is absolutely fine!

My mom is 56 years old and she lost 100 pounds in about a year. She didn't track calories, but tracked macronutrients in the start until she got into the rhythm of how she wanted to eat. The biggest thing was that she followed the ketogenic diet - very low carb, and similar amounts (in grams) of protein and fat. She didn't exercise consistently and mostly ate intuitively, but the weight still melted off with the way she was eating. She is astoundingly healthy now.

DebLaBounty · January 2018

Your weight loss rate is perfect! One pound a week is what I wish I’d done. I set MFP to lose two pounds per week, and despite lifting weights I lost a lot of muscle mass in my arms. Not a great look! So keep going as you are.

I started MFP in May and lost 30 pounds at the age of 57. This month I turned 58 and am maintaining at my goal weight.

saraw6 · January 2018

DebLaBounty, does one lose as much weight as the system says when we first set it up? As for your arms, can you regain the muscle and improve their appearance? Unfortunately, my own arms have this problem when I lose weight as well. I don't really get loose skin, but there is flab.

rheddmobile · January 2018

I'm only 49, but I've been menopausal 2 years, had an ovary removed last year. Down 113 lbs in a year.

You don't mention how close you are to goal - it's harder to lose the less you have to lose. When I was morbidly obese I could lose 3.5 lbs a week on the calories MFP gave me to lose 2 lbs. Then my weight loss slowed and was about 2 lbs a week when I was just ordinary obese, and it slowed still more when I was in the overweight category. Now that I'm normal weight, it's more like a half pound a week.

For most of my weight loss journey I was eating between 1600 - 1900 gross calories and doing about 45 minutes of exercise a day in three short sessions - about fifteen minutes hardcore cycling (HIIT, should be wringing wet with sweat at the end of 15 minutes), lifting as heavy as I was able on a legs / arms / abs rotation, and doing Zumba about fifteen minutes. I had to work up to being able to do intense exercise, but I always went as intense and short as I could.

More recently I've taken up running, and run two or three times a week with two or three strength days a week. I'm currently eating at maintenance and it seems to be about 2100 - 2400 gross calories at the exercise level I've been doing.

The main thing I notice about my age is it's easy to get stress injuries if you go too fast, and I take longer to recover than a younger person. It takes me three days to get over being sore after a hard strength workout, so I've gotten used to just working through it. I also need two rest days in a row per week so I have at least one day when I feel rested.

It's definitely worth getting a trainer to show you how to do strength training, which is critical for preserving muscle when eating at a deficit. Since lack of muscle is one of the reasons older people need to eat less, you want muscle. But if you don't want injuries, it's a good thing to progress slowly until your tendons and ligaments are used to stress - if I could go back and do something differently, that would be it.

MCLA4mom · January 2018

I have several clients who are over 50 and were able to lose weight by eating 6 small meals a day and balancing their blood sugar. They also made sure that they drank lots of water, got enough sleep, watched their stress level- etc. The other thing they did was focus more on strength training than on cardio.

The_Ta · January 2018

I am pretty certain that most of the good points were made already. Your weight went on slow, so you want it to come off slow. Water weight causes big fluctuations, and knowing what causes water gain (too much sodium, heavy exercise, drinking too little water) should be considered. Probably the biggest cause of people not losing weight is the dreaded inaccurate logging/thinking you burned more calories. There’s a great pin and flowchart that discusses it.

I’m only 43, but the removal of my ovaries puts me squarely in the menopause category. I am down 30 lbs since mid September. I scheduled MFP to take me down 1.5lbs/week. I generally will eat back no more than 50% of my exercise calories generated by FitBit because they always seem to disappear during the day. I make sure to hit over 10k steps 6 Days/week and I strength train 3 Days/week. I left my macro goals alone, and I only make sure that I hit my daily fiber and protein goals. I weigh myself weekly.

I am currently on a 2 week diet break because I was getting fairly weak. I didn’t want to run myself down and catch the flu, so I quit the gym and ate maintenance calories. I’m still on full calories, but I added the gym back this week.

I hope this helps. Feel free to add me if you want to peak at my food journal. All in all, I think you are probably doing all the right things and just need to give yourself time.

PowerliftingMom · January 2018

I was 55 when I started my weight loss journey in 2014. It took me over a year to lose 53 lbs. And I led a very sedentary lifestyle for 30 years. I started out doing 100% cardio, then slowly added strength training in. Now I do about 95% lifting and minimal cardio. I consume 2200 calories and became a competitive powerlifter. BTW, it's a myth that your metabolism changes as you get older because it doesn't. People just become less active, and therefore, tend to start gaining more weight. I started bulking over a year ago and gained a significant amount of muscle mass. I'm currently prepping for my 8th meet and hope to qualify for Nationals again in 2019! Just make sure you are eating enough and losing the weight SLOWLY. The faster you lose weight, the more muscle you will lose

SueSueDio · January 2018

karlabright455 wrote: »

I found an old thread from about 2014, but I'm wondering if some women who are over 50, have lost over 20 pounds, could share how they did it? I'm looking for specifics, like how many calories did you eat to lose weight, and how many minutes of exercise a day did you need to do?

The amount of calories you need to eat varies from person to person, depending on your starting weight, height, age and activity level. If you've set up your MFP profile correctly, it'll tell you how many you need.

I'm 52, 5'6" and very sedentary. (And now "officially" menopausal.) I do very little purposeful exercise, and I've lost weight just fine through counting my calories. I started two years ago at 217lbs (my highest weight was probably about 220, a few months earlier) and I'm currently sitting at 146 - I'd like to lose a few more, but the closer you get to goal the slower it is and the more accurate you have to be! I take plenty of "maintenance breaks" to give myself a mental and physical rest from restricting calories, and I usually time these for holidays and birthdays or other special occasions. In the summer my schedule changed and I stayed at maintenance calories for about three months, and successfully kept my weight within a 3lb range for the whole time.

Age and menopause has no real effect on your ability to lose weight. We do need a few less calories as we get older, but the more active you are the more you can eat! I maintain on a little under 1700, so if I moved more I could fit more treats into my day.

(I've eaten all the foods I love and enjoy eating, just less of them. The only things I've cut out are those that I decided were too high in calories and not delicious enough for the "cost".) My plan for this year is to get more active and to try and find a sport I can enjoy.

I would definitely recommend some kind of strength training, though, right from the start! My big regret is that I didn't do this (even though I knew I ought to), and now I'm smaller but flabby.

Read the stickied threads in these forums, they're full of useful advice! Your most valuable tools in this journey will be a food scale and patience. Lots of patience.

You can do this! Don't let age be a barrier to becoming the person you want to be.

pinuplove · January 2018

@SueSueDio Congrats on officially making menopause!

SueSueDio · January 2018

pinuplove wrote: »

@SueSueDio Congrats on officially making menopause!

Heh, thanks! One year is the landmark, right? I just hope it stays official now that I'm here... I am so done with that *kitten*.

before58 · January 2018

Love this thread......I am 57 and just struggle .....but I have always set for a loss of 2 pounds as of course want it quick I think I will also set for 1 pound and live life as well.....I personally just want to eat healthy and try not to get wrapped up I what the latest diet is .....portion control, water and exercise ....time to just do it

judefit18 · January 2018

I'm approaching 61.
Lessons from my 50's: just past my 50th birthday I lost 50 lbs.

In the 10 years since, I've realized that any extreme diet or extreme exercise is really hard to sustain, so I've learned to be a little gentler with myself. I'm in "healthy BMI" range, have a tendency to "float up and down" about 15 lbs, but mostly stay fit :-) It was trial and error, finding exercise I love and can keep at (and that varies, my attention span is short)

Persistently eating well, tracking calories and daily exercise of some sort is all I can do- when I become that oppositional teenager again, it gets away from me. So my goal is to be consistent for the next 10 years.

Menopause? Piece of cake- it's all been better since!!! :-)

vanmep · January 2018

I’m 52. I’ve lost 35 pounds since January 2016. My initial goal was to lose 1/2 pound a week but that seemed too hard and it ended up being an average of about 1/3 pound per week - more than that at the beginning, less near the end of last year. I’m hoping to lose about 10 more this year. I did it by entering my info into MFP and letting it calculate my numbers. I committed to logging every morsel that went in my mouth even (especially) if it was over my calorie goal. I found activities I enjoy doing - walking my dog, riding my bike to work, yoga and did at least one of them every day. That’s it! Good luck to you!

prgirl39mfp · January 2018

I am not 50 yet ( 46) and going through menopause and all these tips are wonderful. I have lost 30 lbs and gained all back because of my bad eating habits. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on all your accomplishments.

fionawilliamson · January 2018

Just turned 52 and I can't believe how hard it is to lose weight. I am obsessive about tracking and truly feel I am honest about my tracking of what I eat. I exercise every day and never eat back all of my exercise calories. I have MFP set to lose 2 pounds per week but have not come close to that in the last 3 months. I understand that progress is progress even if it's slow. I am determine to not give up.

AKTipsyCat · January 2018

I just turned 50, and am ONCE again starting on my weight loss journey. I started on the 1st of January with Whole 30, because I suspect part of my problem was inflammation and some food intolerance.. I'm on my last day of the plan and have not had heartburn, (which I was getting regularly) and have lots more energy than normal and my mood is just BETTER. I've lost about 9 pounds this month, and I know as I add some of the foods back, that the rate won't be as fast - but I also know that some of the foods I was eating WERE triggers and I feel like I have more of a handle on what my body can work with. Another benefit is that I'm over the cravings for carby, sweet foods and my morning coffees went from being over 250 calories of my day - to about 40.

Women over 50 (menopausal) success stories?

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