Losing weight after 50, HELP!

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  • henrystock01
    henrystock01 Posts: 12 Member
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    1900 calories seems a bit high to me. I am 72 years old and a man. I think they recommended 1500 calories for men and 1200 calories per day for women.
    I've been trying to do this now for a month and a half and I have lost about 12 lbs.
    I find that if I actually use all 1500 calories it goes even slower for me. I am more successful if I can keep it down to about 1300 calories.
    I work out by doing water jogging for about an hour three to four times a week
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,267 Member
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    henrystock01 wrote: »
    1900 calories seems a bit high to me. I am 72 years old and a man. I think they recommended 1500 calories for men and 1200 calories per day for women.
    I've been trying to do this now for a month and a half and I have lost about 12 lbs.
    I find that if I actually use all 1500 calories it goes even slower for me. I am more successful if I can keep it down to about 1300 calories.
    I work out by doing water jogging for about an hour three to four times a week

    1200 is the minimum goal MFP will give a woman; 1500 is the minimum goal MFP will give a man.

    It's not that MFP recommends 1200 to women: Quite the contrary. It will never give women fewer goal calories than that. It wants people to get a certain number of calories in order to get minimally adequate nutrition.

    I'm female, not much younger than you are (68), 5'5", and weighed 131 pounds (59 kg) this morning. I'd lose around 2 pounds a week if I ate as little as 1200 calories (not that I'm trying to lose any material amount of weight anymore!). If you read other replies above, you'll find that multiple 50+ y/o women report losing well on calories quite a bit above 1200. I did, too, when overweight/obese (at age 59-60).

    Personally, I wouldn't want to lose 2 pounds a week (let alone more!) unless I weighed well over 200 pounds. Others may choose to accept higher health risks from fast loss, however, especially if substantially obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications.

    At our age, sarcopenia (muscle loss) is a health risk in general, and the risk is increased if fast weight loss is in the picture.

    Fast loss increases other health risks, too, not to mention makes sticking with loss harder than necessary for many, risking failure and weight yo-yos.

  • doodleb1954
    doodleb1954 Posts: 6 Member
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    If you have just started, one thing I do have to say is it takes time. You may be building muscle, which is heavier that fat. I am 69 and have lost 30 pounds over the last year. It has been slow and I have, at times, lost hope. And in those times, I find that I eat out of control. You will have ups and downs and times of plateauing. Which I do frequently. I will lose about 5 pounds, plateau going up and down a few pounds, and then I will re-evaluate what I am doing and make some adjustments. I do mostly strength training, which burns more fat than aerobic exercise. I just increased my weight on my exercises and am at a plateau for now because I am building more muscle. I can tell by the soreness. LOL! I know that given a few more days, I will begin to lose weight again. I try to stay under my calorie limit. It does not always work, but usually I am only a few calories over. I also try to watch my carbs and get healthy fats (avocadoes, avocado oil, etc) into my diet. Which does help. I do know that it takes constant review and changes over time to lose it. Changes not only in your physical fitness routine, but also you diet. I hope this helps.

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