New to community

Welcome!

You aren't the only one who gained the "COVID-15" or more.

The best few tips I can think of are:

• Plan to go slow. If you are trying to lose weight, remember you didn't gain it in a month or a year; take the slow route to help assure success. Then it will be easier to maintain when you reach goal.
• Don't plan any strategies you aren't willing to continue indefinitely. Only do things that are sustainable in the long run.
• Plan on having a reasonable calorie deficit, on average, each week. Best if you can manage a small deficit each day, but if you miss a day, don't fret. Just keep going forward. Stick to it.
• Yeah, that's it's own point: STICK TO IT!
• Set reasonable but challenging goals. Set long-term and short term goals. What are some specific goals you have set for yourself?
• Check in often. Don't stress if the scale is up for the day. Look over the long term trend; weight loss is not linear. You'll have up and down days. Over time, if you maintain a deficit, you'll trend down.
• Exercise is very healthy for fitness. It can contribute to a calorie deficit and aid in weight management. You still must manage your food intake to assure a calorie deficit. Logging your food and your activity in MFP will help you get an idea how to slowly adjust your target for success.

You can do this; just keep sticking to it!

Hello! I'm "new" "back again" these last few weeks! I also gained 15-20 over covid period. Really bad snacking, alchohol "cocktail hour.. whenever!" habits formed over the last 2,3 years. I'm looking to lose belly fat and get into the 140 lb range. I'm 5'2" and just turned 60 so metabolism very slow! I am very active walking my dog twice a day and started back to group fitness 3x per week. Good luck - we got this!!!

I don't know who @mtaratoot is thinking of, because there are quite a few non-big over-60 women who've used MFP to lose weight and/or improve fitness.

Me, I'm not "small", but more like average, at 5'5", SW 183 on 4/17/2015 (yes, that exact day), at a healthy weight by early 2016, and still in that range today, CW 132 pounds this morning at age 67 - up a little since the holidays myself, TBH, but that'll drop back down, no worries.

Mtaratoot's tips were great. I endorse every word.

And yes, I'll take the bait and talk about "metabolism". Turns out that recent research is finding that our metabolism is pretty steady from our 20s to 60s.** So, what the heck makes it seem like managing our weight is harder?

I think the answer is "habits". Many of us gradually, subtly, unconsciously have a declining activity level as we age. As a bit of a cartoon exaggeration, our 20s look like more jobs with a physical component (maybe waitstaff or factory), low budget so more biking/walking (including walking to public transport), social activities that can be vigorous (frisbee, dancing, whatever), maybe chasing toddlers, doing bigger remodeling/garden/home dec projects hands-on to both save money and make a nice home, and that sort of thing. As we get older, maybe we're a little more financially settled, have cars to drive from our doorstep, are more likely to have sedentary office jobs, are getting the empty nest stage where we can enjoy the nice home and garden we worked so hard to create, social life involves more movies/theater/dining out with richer foods, maybe hire out or have machines that make routine chores take less physical effort, and so forth.

With reduced activity in those realms, if we don't resume exercise that we may've done before life got busy with kids, demanding careers or homemaking, we can start to gradually lose muscle mass, lose cardiovascular fitness. When that happens, being active - even moving vigorously in daily life - subtly starts to feel harder, less fun . . . so we're inclined, perhaps, to do even less. There's a spiral down of activity and capability that can start.

Cumulatively, from things like that (which vary individually of course), we can burn maybe hundreds of fewer calories daily, just from living our daily lives differently. (Yes, really.) It's so slow and subtle that we don't even notice. Eating just 100 extra calories on average daily above our needs will lead to gaining up to 10 pounds every year. That 100 calories is an extra pat or two of butter, a tablespoon more of creamy salad dressing, a small one of those coffee drinks with flavorings, an extra tablespoon of peanut butter . . . just one of those things, not the whole list. It's not much. Even 100 calories of reduced activity is a small thing, just maybe watching an extra hour of TV or something . . . and it can be a combination of eating more and moving less. Subtle stuff!

The good news is that eating, activity and muscle mass are under our direct control: We can reverse the cycle. It may not be easy every second, but it's not some immoveable obstacle like "metabolism"

Use Mtaratoot's tips. You can do this. Lots of people here do, and you can be one.

Wishing you success!

** https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34385400/