60 and never successful at losing weight

gcole1960 · February 2020

Hi everyone I am hoping to find the missing puzzle pieces. When I was in my 20's I weighted about 110 lbs and at only 5 ft tall that was not thin but not fat either. In my 30's I gave birth to my son and packed on some weight after I quit breast feeding. In my 40's I quit smoking, and got cancer and gained even more. Early 50's with menopause even more weight. Currently 172 lbs

Through all of it I tried every new fad from Starch blockers, weight watchers, Zoom, Low fat, to High fat Keto! Every time I lost only 5 lbs before all my efforts seem in vain. I think I have a slow metabolism or screwed it up completely due to all the poor diets, fasting, etc. because I only have a bowel movement 1-2 times per week. I'm not sure but all I know is I have never been successful at getting the lbs off.

Now I feel as though the struggle is for my life. Any suggestions? Whats the missing link?
Thank you,
Georgetta

cmriverside · February 2020

Set your Goals here to "Lose 1 pound per week." Set your Activity Level realistically according to what the Goals suggests.

Log food. Every bite.

Log exercise.

Stay with it.

It's about calories. Full stop.

Here, an excellent Primer:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

I lost 80 pounds at age 54 and I've kept it off using this site. Welcome, read everything. Log everything. Repeat daily until you're back at 110. I'm at my high school weight.

serindipte · February 2020

I use The Cookie Diet

1. Create account on MFP, enter your stats, goals, activity levels and allow MFP to set a calorie goal. (As much as we'd all love to lose 2lbs+ a week, that is only recommended for those with 75lbs+. For 25lbs -50lbs, set it at 1lb and for under 25lbs, go with .5lbs)
2. Buy a food scale.
3. Eat real food. Yes, real food you can buy at any grocery store! Weigh it, log it, and keep within the calorie goals. If you have calories left at the end of the day? Eat a cookie!!!

That's it! No magic pills, no restrictive eating.. Just cookies.

Seriously, though.. countless threads show up with this diet and that diet, this restriction and that one. So many question what to do if they really want dessert or to go out to eat.

Look at your calories as a weekly average rather than daily. If you want to indulge one day? Eat a bit less on the days leading up to it and then enjoy. Log it, watch your average and keep it around your goal calories.

lgfrie · February 2020

Take heart. You haven't screwed up your metabolism, because that isn't possible. That notion of ruining a metabolism is basically unhelpful Internet folklore that's screwed with too many peoples' heads. Your body needs a certain amount of fuel to pump blood, feed muscles, fire neurons, etc.; it will never suddenly decide it only needs half that amount.

Please do exactly what @cmriverside said. MFP's Goals tool (in the Goals tab, above) will not only give you an exact calorie target, it is also accurate as far as estimating the weight loss that'll result. All you have to do is hit that target everyday and then not eat further, rinse and repeat, and you will lose every ounce of fat that you want to lose.

I'm 56 so I kinda know where you're coming from as far as stages of life. We're not old-old quite yet, but we are past the stage of life of "I'm out of shape so I think I'll go hike the Himalayas for a year". But weight loss is very doable. I've been plodding along with MFP for 8 months & am coming up on 70 lbs lost. I'm at the lowest weight I've been since 2001, though I have further to go. All I've done is eat the MFP-suggested # of calories every day. It's the simplest thing. Scores of others are doing the same thing with the same results. You can do it too. My suggestion is not to try to outthink it or to be clever by trying to combine the elegant simplicity of MFP's approach with any fads. You don't need to calorie-count AND watch your carbs, or calorie-count AND drink apple cider vinegar, or calorie-count AND keto this or glycemic that or anything else. You just need to get your calorie # from the Goals tab and hit it everyday eating whatever you want, and you will lose all the weight you want to lose.

Forget all the carb nonsense. I had a rice dish for lunch, I'm having lasagne for dinner, and I am losing weight 100 % as fast as someone who's avoiding carbs. It makes no difference at all for weight loss.

gothchiq · February 2020

It sounds to me like you need more fiber and more water, in addition to weighing and logging everything you consume and getting whatever exercise is possible for you. If it all just seems overwhelming, see if there are funds/insurance money to see a dietitian or nutritionist to map out a food plan for you and make sure you pack enough protein, vitamins, etc into your allotted calories. I'm not young either and the level we have to cut down to does present an additional challenge. The idea is to come up with a sustainable, pleasant and nutritious eating plan that you can continue lifelong. Roasting vegetables instead of boiling them is a way to make them tasty. Without that I think my husband and I would both go mad LOL.

spiriteagle99 · February 2020

On your past attempts, how long did you continue the diet? How consistent were you? Did you have cheat days? Did you weigh and log every bite you ate? Were you exercising? Could the exercise have cause you to retain water?

I did a lot of yoyo dieting over the years. I'm 63 now but started dieting in my teens. I tried a lot of different things, but was rarely consistent enough to see good results for long periods of time. Most diets were too restrictive, so in a fairly short time I'd quit. The few times I stuck with it and lost a fair amount of weight (35 or so lbs) I went back to old habits once I had lost the weight, and of course it all came back.

I've had very good results with MFP. Logging everything I eat, eating back my exercise calories, and being consistent over the long term has allowed me to maintain a 55 lb. loss for the past 5-6 years. The best part, for me, is there are no forbidden foods, no required foods. I eat what I want -- generally healthy but with some treats -- and as long as my calories in are about equal to my calories out, my weight is stable. I do exercise a lot (mostly walking and running), both so I can eat more and because I enjoy staying active, but how much of that you do is up to you.

AnnPT77 · February 2020

Lots of good advice above!

While food choices are important for nutrition and satisfaction, calories are what determine weight loss.

We can manipulate our calories via eating or exercise (or daily activity) or a combination, but eating is the key variable for most.

It's an intense half-hour-ish on the rowing machine for me to burn 250 calories (and I'm a conditioned, experienced 64-year-old long-time rower), but it takes less than two minutes to eat 250 calories of peanut butter on 100% whole grain crackers ("healthy foods", amiright?

) - zero time to just skip them, or some other food that's easy for me to trim out of my day.

The link below is what I did on the eating front, at age 59-60 (while hypothyroid, if that matters), after 3 decades plus of obesity, to lose from an obese body weight to a healthy body weight (around 50 pounds) in less than a year, and stay there for 4+ years since, without significantly changing my exercise routine:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1

You can do this, too, with that method or any other that's (1) sustainable for you, and (2) gets your calorie intake somewhat below your calorie expenditure most days for a fairly long period of time.

Usually, a slow and steady (but sustainable) weight loss rate is going to result in more weight loss in the same calendar time, compared to fits and starts of unsustainably punitive, extreme, very-restrictive, possibly-faddish diets . . . and be pleasanter, besides.

Best wishes!

AnnPT77 · February 2020

gcole1960 wrote: »

Hi everyone I am hoping to find the missing puzzle pieces. When I was in my 20's I weighted about 110 lbs and at only 5 ft tall that was not thin but not fat either. In my 30's I gave birth to my son and packed on some weight after I quit breast feeding. In my 40's I quit smoking, and got cancer and gained even more. Early 50's with menopause even more weight. Currently 172 lbs

Through all of it I tried every new fad from Starch blockers, weight watchers, Zoom, Low fat, to High fat Keto! Every time I lost only 5 lbs before all my efforts seem in vain. I think I have a slow metabolism or screwed it up completely due to all the poor diets, fasting, etc. because I only have a bowel movement 1-2 times per week. I'm not sure but all I know is I have never been successful at getting the lbs off.

Now I feel as though the struggle is for my life. Any suggestions? Whats the missing link?
Thank you,
Georgetta

Afterthought on the bolded: I agree with Gothchiq that fiber and water are the big variables . . . but getting too little dietary fat can also be a problem, and it's especially common among people trying to cut calories, since fats are very calorie-dense.

Your metabolism is OK, I promise. Repeated rounds of fad diets can have a negative effect on body composition, but that's not "metabolic damage", and it can be reversed (plus the effect on calorie expenditure isn't huge).

The classic mechanism is many, many rounds of extreme diets that mostly involve salads/veggies and possibly lots of cardio (but not enough protein or strength exercise), followed by rounds of regain that involve overeating and little/no exercise (but still not enough protein). Lose fat and some muscle during the weight loss phase, regain nearly entirely fat during the regain; repeat enough times, and we can end up with less muscle mass than if we'd avoided all that nonsense. Strength-challenging exercise is what reverses that. It needn't be "heavy lifting" in some objective bodybuilder sense of "heavy" right off: It just needs to be something that challenges our strength, wherever that is right now.

gothchiq · February 2020

@AnnPT77 quick question. I don't see a lot of loose skin on your arms in your pic and I would like to achieve a similar result. I'm 51 years old and don't want to be wearing an oversized skin bag when I drop the last 15 lbs. Any advice would be great (and useful for others here I'm sure, not just me.)

AnnPT77 · February 2020

gothchiq wrote: »

@AnnPT77 quick question. I don't see a lot of loose skin on your arms in your pic and I would like to achieve a similar result. I'm 51 years old and don't want to be wearing an oversized skin bag when I drop the last 15 lbs. Any advice would be great (and useful for others here I'm sure, not just me.)

I have no magic, sadly.

What I think:

There's a genetic component, for sure.

Beyond that, what I'd say is that skin is an organ, and the things that keep other organs healthy are also likely to keep skin as healthy as practical, thus elastic and perhaps more likely to be willing to shrink. That means sound well-balanced nutrition (enough protien, enough healthy fat, plenty of varied, colorful veggies and fruits), regular exercise (ideally cardiovascular and strength, challenging but not excessive (excess = stress)), good hydration (not crazy-much, just adequate), as good sleep as one can manage, and a sensibly moderate weight loss rate (not crazy fast).

My loose skin was much worse at goal, and continued to shrink at least into year 2 of maintenance (maybe longer). Because of my personal weight distribution patterns, I lost more weight between my ribcage and knees, though I did lose some inches on my arms. At the risk of TMI, my derriere looked like a bulldog's face right after weight loss, and I think now (4+ years later) looks pretty much like any other woman my age who's been at a healthy weight long term.

Another observation: Many of us - me included - look worse part way to goal weight than we will at goal, in terms of perceived loose skin. Fat cells can deplete anywhere in our fat mass (not neatly starting from outer layers then proceeding inward). That means that fat areas may get squishy and sort of floppy, and people think that's loose skin. True loose skin is thin layers, like wrinkles in a medium weight fabric (maybe corduroy or denim). Think about the skin you can pinch up on a bony body part, like kneecap or back of hand. Thin! Things that are 1/2" plus folds or rolls probably still have some subcutaneous fat conspiring with gravity to keep the skin stretched out. When that fat depletes further, skin in those areas can begin to seriously shrink. Skin shrinkage, IME, lags behind fat loss, and is a slow thing in itself.

I'm not saying all subcutaneous fat can be lost without getting to an undesirably low weight; that's going to vary individually. I'm simply saying that impressions before reaching goal, or when first reaching it, may not be the final result. (I'd note that some of the reports here of skin removal surgery have included the person saying that the surgeon removed some remaining fat in addition to just skin.) Long term, recomposition (continuing strength training at maintenance weight, with decent nutrition) could lead to further improvement, too.

Finally, about the arms: I find that most women (every single one I've discussed this with in real life) are misidentifying relaxed triceps muscles as part of their loose skin or fat. I ask them to stretch one arm out straight, then take the opposite hand, and grab the "loose skin" "chicken wing" "bingo wing" "flap" on the extended upper arm, putting their finger tips close to the upper arm bones, and hold on.

Next, I've had them flex that extended arm in as "bodybuilder-like" a pose as they can accomplish: Upper arm above shoulder level, elbow bent, hand curled down/in toward the inside of the arm, consciously/conscientiously tightening every single muscle they can feel, especially those underneath the upper arm. Anything that firms or tightens up when we do that is muscle, not fat or loose skin.

I'm not saying there's no fat or loose skin. I'm saying that in many cases, a big chunk of what women identify as fat/loose skin is actually relaxed muscle. It's 100% normal among even quite fit women (and men) to be able to extend an arm horizontally but otherwise relaxed, shake it hard, and get some floppy mobility in the upper arm. If relaxed muscles were tightTight, how would we move our skeleton around? Relaxed is relaxed, so somewhat slack. The long muscles, in a horizontal position, relax and hang a bit, under the influence of gravity. (Thighs will do the same thing, but we don't usually see them in the same way.)

That women often misidentify their triceps and hate them as "arm flaps" is one of my pet peeves.

In my case, I think I'd done myself a favor (in this and other ways) from starting to be pretty active even while obese. When I lost fat, I was quite surprised to see some kinda cute li'l ol' lady muscles show up.

I don't think the same result is out of reach for people who start being active later (I only began in my mid/late 40s), but the process and sequence might be a little different.

I hope that helps, because it's pretty much all I've got. :flowerforyou:

P.S. The avitar photo is me at age 60, shortly after reaching goal (few months, IIRC). I don't think I look much different now, at 64, but truth in advertising compels me to say that.

60 and never successful at losing weight

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