Nearly 40 and weight not moving

Pretty sure age is not the Big Deal. (I'm 65 now, lost 50+ pounds at age 59-60.) It's not easy for anyone, and it's true that as we age, if we've been inactive, we tend to lose muscle mass and become less active, both of which reduce calorie expenditure. A tiny bit of that reduction tends to be metabolic, but the majority tends to be behavioral. Both are subject to improvement.

The first and biggest issue for many people is logging practices. Calorie logging is a skill, and it takes some time (and thought) to become accurate at it.

Another factor is expectations. No idea whether this applies to you, but many people's expectations are askew because of nonsense on reality TV ("Biggest Loser" is the classic) or tabloid headlines and similar nonsense in the blogosphere ("Lose 20 pounds in 30 days with the Dr. XYZ diet!"). Weight loss of a pound a week is a good rate, for anyone who's not well over 200 pounds. Even at higher weights, 1% of current body weight weekly is pretty fast, for someone trying to keep up a healthy normal life alongside that loss.

Also important is understanding that the scale can be a lying liar that lies, when it comes to fat loss, the thing most of us really care about. New exercise is only one of many, many things that can cause water retention (for muscle repair, in the case of exercise) and play peek-a-boo with fat loss on the scale. https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

There's also a common tendency to think that there's magic in "eating healthy", and that extra exercise will make a huge difference. Calories are what count for weigh management (though nutrition is important for health), and most common exercise burns remarkably few calories, compared to what most of us normally eat. What we do in daily life burns more calories than most of us burn via exercise, and that's a thing we can exploit, too.**

There's more, but I'll quit yammering. If you haven't checked it out, I'd suggest starting here:

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

Don't be put off by the jokey clickbait title. It's solid, serious information, and a good on-ramp to using MFP.

Stick with it, keep working at improving your process, and you'll start making good (slow and steady) progress toward your goals. Best wishes!


**http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1