60 Plus

Hello and welcome to you both!

Honestly, I don't think weight loss/maintenance is dramatically different for us in our 60s than is for younger people. The tactics are identical: Eat at the right calorie level on average, don't try to lose weight silly-fast, ideally get good overall nutrition, try to include manageable amounts/types of additional movement into our days (daily life stuff or exercise).

For that reason, I'd say this: Don't hesitate to jump into the accountability groups/threads, challenges, and that sort of thing here in the Community with participants of all ages. Our goals, methods, and the speedbumps we may encounter along the way are more in common than different.

What's different for us in our 60s is the context of our lives, and the fact that most of us require fewer calories now to maintain any given weight than we would've required when lots younger.

Mostly, the calorie-needs difference isn't "metabolic". It's that our lifestyles have gradually, subtly gotten less physically active over the decades, and if we haven't done anything to challenge our strength along the way, we've lost muscle mass.

I don't know about you, but my lifestyle at 20-something was very different from my lifestyle now at 69: Less physical job (no job now, in retirement); fewer DIY projects around the home that I do myself rather than hire out; more convenience appliances and tools doing work for me that would've been physical effort back in the 1980s; fewer physical hobbies and social activities; less bike/walk for transportation and more door-to-door driving; and more. That stuff adds up to quite a difference in calorie needs.

On top of that, there's the muscle mass issue. A pound of muscle only burns a tiny number of calories more per day than a pound of fat. But a pound of muscle probably makes it a little easier and more fun to move, so we move more without even thinking of it. A pound of fat just weighs us down, makes things harder.

The good news is that those are things we can change at any age: Move more in daily life, add some manageable exercise, make some of that exercise strength training. It doesn't have to be punitive, can be a gradual increase that's manageable. As long as it's mildly challenging, progress will occur.

Success is possible in our age group. There are quite a few people here who have succeeded. It's essential to believe it's possible, important to commit to the process, and key to pick personalized tactics that work well for us as individuals.

I actually think we have one advantage over the young'uns: At this stage of life, we have lots of experience achieving big life goals by chipping away at them in small, persistent steps. I'm talking about things like getting an education, pursuing a job or career, learning home improvement/home-making skills, raising a family, managing finances, and more.

The same skills and traits apply to weight loss and fitness: Make manageable positive changes, then build on those over time. Be persistent, be semi-consistent . . . maybe not perfect, but pretty good the majority of the time. That still works.

I'd been overweight/obese for around 30 years when I joined MFP at 59. I lost weight down to a healthy weight, and have been at a healthy weight for 9+ years since, now age 69. I started being active earlier, but still not young: That was in my late 40s/early 50s after cancer treatment. I was lucky to stumble into a sport Iike so much that I'd do it even if it weren't good for me, but it is.

Truthfully, I'm a hedonistic aging hippie flake, a woman with a severely limited budget of willpower, motivation or discipline. I figure that if I can do these things, most any regular adult probably can, too.

Suspend disbelief. Commit to the process. I predict you can surprise yourself with the results, after some weeks/months. That time is going to pass anyway. The only question is whether we're making progress toward our goals, or staying stuck. Progress is possible.

I'm wishing you success: If your experience is anything like mine, the quality of life improvement is huge, more than worth the effort it takes to accomplish it.

Best wishes!