Over 50 and finding it harder then ever to lose weight...

Well you came to the right place. My doctor said exercise is great for a million reasons, but when it comes to losing weight it's 20% exercise, and 80% food intake. This site will show you how to calculate how many calories you should stick to if you want to lose weight. Track everything and stay under that amount and you'll lose. You don't need to be hungry- there are many threads here on low cal, filling foods. And yes, I agree. I'm also a woman over 50 and it is indeed harder...but it's possible.

montyeva1114 wrote: »

Wow... I wasn’t expecting so many responses. Well, I’m inspired. Well I’m starting today! I just went for a 30 minute run and I am going to log all my food. I will watch portions. Here goes! Thank you.

That's a really good plan.

Your OP said "I realize that just writing down what I eat is not the answer." While logging is not the only possible way to lose weight, it is a really excellent way to manage two things you mention in your OP: Eating less, and doing that in a way that will help you stay as happy and satiated as possible while doing it.

Satiation is very individual, but logging what you eat will help you begin to see which foods "cost" a lot of calories, but don't contribute enough to your nutrition, satiation, or happiness to be worth those calories. You can gradually remodel your eating to stay pretty satisfying, but on reduced calories. If you want to exercise more, that's great for fitness, and will earn you some extra calories to eat, but it's technically optional for weight loss.

I'm (1) menopausal (since my 40s when chemotherapy put me in hard-stop menopause), and (2) hypothyroid (quite severely, but treated properly with 175mcg synthroid which I take like religion). Using MFP helped me lose from an obese weight to a healthy weight back in 2015 at age 59-60, after decades of obesity, and stay at a healthy weight since, without materially changing my exercise routine (like you, I was already active).

Go, you!

Forget gluten free unless medically recommended. By sugar free, I presume you mean no added sugar and not naturally occurring sugars.

If you're depriving yourself from day one, you're destined to fail.

Eat the foods you love and stay in a calorie deficit and lose weight. That's it.

It is odd isn't it? As cars get older, they get less and less fuel-efficient. Humans seem to work the other way and hardly need any fuel to keep going after menopause.

suzygoff51 wrote: »

I agree it is hard to lose weight after menopause. I’m 68. It takes me a good month to lose five pounds. That’s on a 1200-1300;cal diet. Slower metabolism, less active in general since retiring last year. Have started walking 3,4 times a week. Logging all intake and reducing portion sizes is helping.

How much are you wanting to lose? I think 5lbs a month is a good rate of loss. You should be proud of yourself. I think sometimes the difficulty in losing weight is that we are expecting too much of ourselves. At 5lbs a month that is 60lbs in a year...slightly over 1lb a week.

Well done Pipsqueak - you sound to be doing all the right things and you look great on this too

(Mind you, HRT should be keeping you free of all the menopause-symptoms... including slower weight loss.)

Hi, I’m just getting back to MFP. I’m over 55 and finding it hard due to menopause as well. I need to get a hold of this because I’m starting not to feel well. I’m 50 lbs overweight. I hope I can find some friends on here. I feel so isolated and sure would like to find some motivational buddies.

Here's my experience:

56 year old female. 100 pounds overweight. Working fulltime at a desk job. Spent years running three very active kids to sports and other activities. And of course, volunteering my time for those activities too. Then the kids all moved out and I took a hard look in the mirror. Didn't like what I saw or where my future health would end up if I stayed on the present course.

That was four years ago. I've since lost 90 pounds (but always fighting with the last 10) and I am loving life right now.

To me, menopause wasn't an issue. Or if it was, it was more than compensated by the fact that I could finally focus on ME and my health. I treated my weightloss journey like a part time job. I read everything at the library on fitness and nutrition, discarding some info with a roll of the eyes, and filing other info away in the back of my mind
Food prep was part of this "job". So was exercise. I started slowly with deep water running and walking. And progressed to at least an hour a day of some kind of movement: yoga, nordic skiing, snowshoeing, paddling, weights, cycling, hiking, spin class, running, or cardio machines at the gym. I kept lots of variety so that I didn't get bored, and never had any "over use" type injuries.

My husband was very supportive, usually coming with me hiking and skiing. He lost 15 pounds and looks and feels much healthier too.

Decide what's important to you. If its your health, then jump right in and make it your priority. Move. Log your food. Manage your time to make it happen. Its not complicated.

I can really agree with ridiculous59. Losing weight has been possible since the 'nest' emptied and there has been time to spend on me. I have had the luxury of being able to try different things to see what works.

I have noticed that I'm more fuel-efficient now than I was as a youth, and that weight does move off more slowly (though I do more regular exercise -due to large dogs). However, it does move - despite the menopause.

Time seems to be the thing that really swings this for me.

I'm losing about 1lb a week but keeping it off so I think that good (nice and steady). It had become harder as I have got older (56) particularly belly fat which seems stubborn to move, but with persistence it is working ,,my main problem is exercise if I push myself too hard my knee, hip, ankle and back play up and I end up in pain, the trick is to find ways to balance the exercises around how my joints are feeling and not to be afraid to stop and have a rest.