60 yrs and up

@tnh2o

I think it gets easier. It gets routine, that's for sure. It doesn't feel like a lot of work to me at all. Not really at all. The only time it feels like work is when I can't find a good entry in the database. I had one the other day, and it's only because I've started keeping a closer eye on protein. I was low one day, and it didn't make sense. There had been several (like six) entries in the database for an item I ate, and they all had the same calories. I selected the one that had grams as a serving size. Well... I didn't realize at the time that it didn't have nutrition information - just calories. I went back and found another entry, and that added eleven grams of protein to my day.

@Sjtaitc and @KerryITD, welcome to the MFP Community and this group!

Sjtaitc wrote: »

Hi, I’m 59 yrs old, I’ve lost weight in the past but now it is harder then ever, I believe after menopause your metabolism slows down making it harder, hoping to succeed,Started 40 days ago, have lost 5 lbs, it’s a slow start

Hey, 5 pounds in 40 days is almost a pound a week . . . that seems pretty great, to me. That's around what I averaged during weight loss (better part of a year). If you can keep on your current average, you'll be down around 45 pounds in a year. That would be great, seems like?

Recent research suggests our metabolism doesn't slow down much from 20s to 60s, and even after that the decline is slow.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8370708/

However, yo-yo losing and regaining - if that's what's happened - can result in losing a little bit extra of lean body tissue (like muscle) during every weight loss episode, then regaining mostly fat afterward. That gradual depletion of muscle mass slightly lowers our calorie needs, plus makes movement less easy/fun/automatic, so each round of weight loss becomes a little more challenging than the last.

Even without yo-yo-ing, our muscle mass decreases with age if we don't challenge our strength routinely to remind our body that we want to keep that muscle mass. Also, most of us at 60 have daily lives that require less movement than our young lives did. (We may have more sedentary jobs, less physical hobbies, we're not chasing toddlers or hands-on doing home remodeling and maintenance like we once did, maybe have social lives now more centered on eating out or sitting in theaters or family rooms, and things of that nature.) It's gradual: The changes sneak up.

The good news is that those things are reversible via strength training, good nutrition (especially but not exclusively adequate protein), and intentionally working to gradually increase daily life movement (not just exercise).

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

By the time I lost weight (at 59-60), I'd already been in menopause for around 15 years. (It came early in my case, brought on by chemotherapy for stage III breast cancer.) Also severely hypothyroid (though properly medicated). Weight loss is still possible, IME. Not easy every second, of course . . . but achievable, with persistence, and worth the effort.

KerryITD wrote: »

Hi all, I've been on MFP for over 10 years but am too inconsistent to ever have the progress I want. I'm 64, have about 50 lbs to lose, and it's becoming more imperative with every ache and pain lol.

I think you're on the right track. I certainly found that becoming more active and losing 50-ish pounds did reduce aches and pains, plus make life more fun and rewarding in other ways. I know consistency is tough, but it gets easier (and less time-consuming) with practice. Plus IME the payoff is huge, in improved quality of life.

I'm a big believer in trying to find the easiest routine compatible with accomplishing my goals, rather than thinking in terms of extreme restrictive eating rules and punitively intense exercise. Going hard takes motivation, discipline, willpower . . . all things that are in short supply for me as a hedonist aging hippie flake.

If I can do it, I think most anyone can.

tnh2o wrote: »

I've been on MFP for years but have only recently gotten serious about logging all my food.
I log even when I've gone off the rails and even if my food intake wasn't ideal it was never as bad as I thought it would be.
It really feels like a lot of work, but oh so necessary!
I was surprised today to discover my recommitment has only been for 22 days.
It does get easier, right?

@tnh2o, it does seem like a lot of work at first, especially when it's unfamiliar and non-routine. It takes a little of that willpower (that I don't do very well! ) at first, during the learning curve. After awhile, it's quicker, easier, and actually habitual to the point of being autopilot. I still log most days (not all) in year 7+ of maintenance, and it's a rare day when it takes anything close to as much as 10 minutes a day.

For me, that 10 minutes is a tiny price to pay for all the benefits of being at a healthy weight, including less need to spend time, money or angst on my former health issues like high blood pressure (gone), high cholesterol/triglycerides (now solidly normal), or routine osteoarthritis pain (now much reduced in both frequency and severity).

But, yeah, it takes some time to get there - learning efficient ways to use MFP, getting recent/frequent foods populated to reduce lookups and accuracy checking, etc.

Best wishes to all of you, and to any other new readers I may've missed greeting by ID!

New day - fresh start. I need to lose 35 lbs by end of May. Gotta make my goal to qualify for 2nd knee surgery. It's the same 35 pounds I lost for knee surgery LAST year. First surgery went great, want the 2nd. Gotta stay committed to the outcome.

tnh2o wrote: »

Ten minutes to log? That's like one of those 30 minute recipes that takes me an hour and a half.

I've been practicing for nearly 9 years. It gets faster. 😆

I'm home/here! Is there anything you want to talk about? I'm doing well with logging my food but not doing well with weight loss, what's up with that?