60 yrs and up

Hi! I’m 63 and have issues with arthritis in my knees, hips and back. Need to lose 70 pounds…Yikes!!!! Please add me to the group…I definitely need the support of friends who understand how age affects weight loss.

Have a wonderful day!

@ridiculous59 - Love the photo of your dogs in the snow. I have my first ever snowshoe hike scheduled at the end of the month. What do you use for footwear? Rubber boots? Waterproof hiking boots? Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

@ridiculous59 - Thank you. 😍 Your guidance was just what I needed. We'll be on a groomed trail, so my hiking boots should work fine. I'll try to remember to post some photos after this adventure. 😁

ridiculous59 wrote: »

@BCLadybug888 So true....I won't miss 2022 at all!

@Sunny65Health Welcome! You've come to the right place 🙂 Just to be clear though, I don't think "age affects weightloss". I think our lifestyle is what affects our weightloss at this age. I'm also 63 and find that being retired and having free-range access to the kitchen is now my constant struggle. So that's not an age thing; it's a lifestyle thing. I can't adjust my age, but I can certainly improve my lifestyle. I can throw in some self-discipline and voila....I will see positive changes in 2023. It's so simple......just not always easy! Haha

I can't agree strongly enough with the bolded, from my own experience. IMO, it's not just the kitchen, but a couple of other factors as well, both of them luckily within our control.

One is that for many of us our daily lives tend to be less inherently physical than they were when we were young adults. Back then, we maybe had more physical jobs, perhaps more vigorous hobbies or social lives (dancing, frisbee, etc.), might have been chasing toddlers around the house, doing remodeling projects inside or out, etc.

I don't know about others, but as I aged I became more likely to hire others to do jobs I might've once done myself, in the realms of lawn care or home projects . . . or just to settle in and enjoy the environment I'd created via past projects. I also moved my social life more toward dining out (on richer foods!), and sedentary things like movies, concerts, etc.

It can be pretty subtle year to year, but the changes - for me at least - are pretty huge if I compare 20-something me directly to 60-something me! Those changes have calorie-needs consequences.

Those life changes, being less active, also have fitness consequences. In particular, as we age, statistics strongly suggest we tend to lose muscle mass, unless we work to retain it. Not only does a more muscular body burn more calories at rest (a little), but loss of muscle makes activity harder and less enjoyable. That can lead into a down-spiral of decreasing activity and decreasing fitness.

Just getting manageably more active, not just formal exercise but daily life stuff, can start to reverse that reduced calorie need. Adding some strength-challenging activity can gradually improve muscle and fitness, even at our age. Weight lifting is the most efficient option, but anything that's a little bit of a strength challenge has some beneficial effect.

Hello I am Sandra and would like your help to lose 50 lbs! Am over 70 years old

Hi everyone. I’d like to join your group. I’m new but not new, been on MFP before. Have decided to come back so I can track myself and get healthier. I’m in my mid 60’s and was told by my Dr. that my blood pressure is high as is my blood sugar. I’ve been given 3 months to get this under control or I’ll have to go on meds. I’m 5’2” and weigh 247 lb’s. It’s time for me to get serious! My problem is there are so many different “ways to eat” and it gets really confusing. How did y’all decide which way of eating to go with?

Anewme2023 wrote: »

Hi everyone. I’d like to join your group. I’m new but not new, been on MFP before. Have decided to come back so I can track myself and get healthier. I’m in my mid 60’s and was told by my Dr. that my blood pressure is high as is my blood sugar. I’ve been given 3 months to get this under control or I’ll have to go on meds. I’m 5’2” and weigh 247 lb’s. It’s time for me to get serious! My problem is there are so many different “ways to eat” and it gets really confusing. How did y’all decide which way of eating to go with?

Different people do best with different methods. IMO, it's key to be willing to try an approach, stick with it for a fair trial (4-6 weeks, usually), then assess. If it didn't work - or didn't stick for that time period - don't give up, just try something else. Patience and persistence pay off.

What I did was start logging my eating as completely as I could, the reviewed my food diary every day or two to find foods that seemed like they "cost" too many calories for my assessment of their filling-ness, tastiness, convenience, nutrition. Those were candidates to reduce or replace in my routine eating habits. Just keeping up this kind of approach, I gradually remodeled my eating habits toward calorie-appropriate, nutritious, practical eating, using foods I personally enjoy.

There are more details about that kind of approach here:

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

It's not the only way, won't be perfect for everyone, but it worked well for me - I lost from class 1 obese to a healthy weight in just under a year at age 59-60, and have been at a healthy weight for around 7 years since (now age 67). With the weight loss, my high blood pressure and high cholesterol became solidly normal, and my arthritis pain/discomfort decreased in both degree and frequency, among other excellent side effects.

Don't be afraid to try a method, see how you feel about it . . . keep it if you like it, try something else if you don't. Weight management is just a sequence of opportunities to experiment, self-analyze, and adjust until we get the results we want.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Anewme2023 wrote: »

Hi everyone. I’d like to join your group. I’m new but not new, been on MFP before. Have decided to come back so I can track myself and get healthier. I’m in my mid 60’s and was told by my Dr. that my blood pressure is high as is my blood sugar. I’ve been given 3 months to get this under control or I’ll have to go on meds. I’m 5’2” and weigh 247 lb’s. It’s time for me to get serious! My problem is there are so many different “ways to eat” and it gets really confusing. How did y’all decide which way of eating to go with?

Different people do best with different methods. IMO, it's key to be willing to try an approach, stick with it for a fair trial (4-6 weeks, usually), then assess. If it didn't work - or didn't stick for that time period - don't give up, just try something else. Patience and persistence pay off.

What I did was start logging my eating as completely as I could, the reviewed my food diary every day or two to find foods that seemed like they "cost" too many calories for my assessment of their filling-ness, tastiness, convenience, nutrition. Those were candidates to reduce or replace in my routine eating habits. Just keeping up this kind of approach, I gradually remodeled my eating habits toward calorie-appropriate, nutritious, practical eating, using foods I personally enjoy.

There are more details about that kind of approach here:

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

It's not the only way, won't be perfect for everyone, but it worked well for me - I lost from class 1 obese to a healthy weight in just under a year at age 59-60, and have been at a healthy weight for around 7 years since (now age 67). With the weight loss, my high blood pressure and high cholesterol became solidly normal, and my arthritis pain/discomfort decreased in both degree and frequency, among other excellent side effects.

Don't be afraid to try a method, see how you feel about it . . . keep it if you like it, try something else if you don't. Weight management is just a sequence of opportunities to experiment, self-analyze, and adjust until we get the results we want.

Thank you for your input. I found your article very enlightening. I know I need to cut back on sugar to get my blood sugar down and I heard low carb is also good for that. My daughter suggest cutting back on salt (sodium) for the high blood pressure. MFP has me set at losing 1 lb a week with 5000 calories with 50% of that being carbs. Seems to be a little high to me. I’m actually leaning towards low carb without the high fat and see how that goes.

How did y’all decide which way of eating to go with?

I'm 68 (well, 69 next month) and like you, was confused about where to start. First, I've managed to lose 31 pounds in 3.5 months. Second, I had a few personal "rules" before I began: (1) I wouldn't eat anything I didn't like; (2) I would eat something each day that I really liked; and, (3) I wouldn't put a plan in place that I wasn't willing to stay with for the rest of my life.

Most important step to begin was to log all my food here in MFP. Completely and accurately. That requires a food scale, because it was important to understand portion size and realize what I thought I knew I really didn't! MFP offers a huge database, and I recommend selecting the entries with the green check mark, as they've been verified. I also entered custom foods, meals and recipes...time-consuming but only once!

Then, like an onion, I began peeling away foods, literally stripping them from my pantry and refrigerator and eating: packaged/processed foods, sugars, sugary drinks, pasta, potatoes, rice, bread, crackers, chips, cookies. By logging what I ate and watching the scale, it became clear very quickly what needed to happen.

Next I began adding in foods: protein 3 times a day, about 20-30 grams each meal: chicken mostly but also lean beef and pork, plus lots of roasted veggies. I discovered skyr, a type of yogurt from Iceland made with nonfat milk that's high in protein but low in carbs and calories...and is a wonderful base for a dessert! My favorite is vanilla + a few sprinkles of sugarfree chocolate pudding mix + sugarfree whipped topping. I also discovered flavorful low cal/carb condiments like salsa, mustards, etc.

Then, I was able to use MFP to pre-plan a week's worth of meals using the foods/dishes/recipes I knew were working for me, so that I had "a track to run on" which allowed for variations and surprises...as long as I accurately tracked them and then understood what I saw/didn't see on the scale.

Speaking of which, for me I found that I benefited from weighing on Thursdays and Sundays, because each time period felt like a manageable chunk of time in which to both stay focused on a short term goal + see results from my efforts.

I also began adding daily exercise of some kind: at first, 10-15 minute walks, building up each week, some combination of adding more walks per day and adding 5-10 minutes. I tried to climb a flight of stairs each day. When I became just a bit more fit from the walking, I added gym time (senior discounts!) on a bike, treadmill, or elliptical...again, 10 minutes and increasing slowly.

I gifted myself the gear I needed: scale, food scale, walking shoes, socks, iWatch, a hot/cold knee wrap. I also built in "rewards" for myself but ONLY for my efforts: if I worked my activity plan and logged all my food for two weeks, then I would get a foot massage, etc. My January challenge is to "close my rings" on my iWatch every day: 500 Move calories, 75 Exercise minutes, 12 Stands.

Regarding the diet that I discovered worked for me: target is 50 grams of carbs per day plus 90 grams lean protein, eating in an 8-hour window ending no later than 5:00pm, plus lots of water! I learned from my doctor recently that as we age our bodies don't use protein or water as efficiently, so we need more.

Between Thanksgiving and New Year's I still managed to lose 5 pounds, and was able to sail thru the holidays by using the 3-bite dessert rule: first bite is "Hello!", second bite is"Yum!", and third bite is "Goodbye Now". Because I decided ahead of time to enjoy family holiday meals, I wasn't surprised at what the scale told me. However, I also thought ahead of time about what I most wanted to eat, and didn't waste calories on the rest.

Hope any of this helps!

Start anywhere, keep at it, track what you're doing and what's working for you. You can do this!