Losing weight over 50

debrakannan wrote: »

Hey - I’m looking for compadres on this journey of losing weight over 50!!!
What do I eat, when and how much??!! What exercise ideas- I want to lose about 30lbs.
Deb

I was past 50 when I started on MFP and lost weight just fine using the calorie goal it gave me (in fact, I lost weight faster than predicted and had to increase my calorie goal eventually, but I seem to be an outlier).

You can eat whatever you want (barring allergies, intolerances, and other medical issues). You can eat as much as you can fit in your calorie budget. Experiment to find what kinds of foods and what kind of eating schedule are most helpful to you in adhering to your calorie budget. Not everyone is the same. Some people are volume eaters, so they do well with foods that aren't calorie dense, e.g., watery, fibrous foods like salads, soups, nonstarchy veggies, and low-sugar fruits. Some people find protein and fat disproportionately satiating for the calories spent on them. Some people are "moderators" -- if they can have a small portion some desired foods like chocolate every day or a couple of times a week, they're fine. Others are "abstainers" -- they can't stop at a small portion of their trigger foods and need to just give it up entirely.

Find an exercise you enjoy, or at least don't hate, because you're more likely to stick with it. Better yet, find several kinds of exercises you enjoy, or at least don't hate, so you can
* have some variety (for many people, you will be more likely to stick with it, plus if you're only tolerating, not enjoying, the exercise, you may feel more like doing it if you give yourself a choice -- "Would you rather do X or Y or Z?" instead of "you must do X" -- hey, it works for toddlers!),
* get the benefits of cross-training (working different muscles, generally reducing risk of injury), and
* potentially have options when weather precludes outdoor exercise, or your gym is closed, etc.

When I started out, I mostly just walked -- and most of that was just adding walking integral to my day, not dedicated walking for the sake of walking. E.g., get out of the subway a stop earlier on the way to work or walk to a farther station at the end of the day; walk to the library, restaurants, or shopping on the weekend instead of driving (I'm fortunate to live within a couple of miles of two somewhat urbanized areas); when driving, choose distant parking spaces. I also started walking up the stairs to my 10th floor office -- at first, the last three or four flights were really hard!

Eventually I joined a gym, found some dance classes I enjoyed (ballet, folk, zumba), and started lifting. There's also a track for walking and running around the perimeter of the main gym space, plus treadmills and stationary bikes, so I can do my cardio there if I can't get outside and there are no classes going on when I can get to the gym.

I tried the yoga classes at the gym, but they were in a cinder-block, windowless, smelly room that reminded me of the high school wrestling practice room that we had to do gymnastics in on rainy days, because kids doing outdoor phys ed activities that session would displace us from the portion of the relatively bright, airy basketball court where we usually set up the gymnastics equipment. So I found a local yoga studio with a beautiful loft space where you can see the sky and tree tops while you practice. When I go to the beach (my most typical vacation), I walk the shore to the next little beach town and back at least once a day, walk the residential streets to enjoy the landscaping and see what home construction projects are going on, and rent a bike for both leisure rides and to reach places I don't want to walk to but don't need the car to cart stuff home. If I do a road trip vacation, most hotels and even motels have exercise rooms of some kind, and I always try to build walking or hiking into my sightseeing.