Women 50-60 years old who have reached goal

I hope you get some more responses. I am getting close to halfway to goal, and I would love to hear about some success stories among those of us of a certain age

It's going to be slow, don't get discouraged! My first year on MFP I lost 45 pounds, the next year only 20. Yes, One Whole Year to lose 20 pounds. But it was fine with me, I was so happy to be down in the 'overweight' category of the BMI charts that I was never discouraged and felt like I was on track the whole time. The best part of this slow weight loss was that I solidified good exercise and eating habits over the 2nd year without trying to starve myself. It made the eventual task of maintaining doable!

I'm 58 and within 15 pounds of my goal (per various charts of what I should weight) and simply cannot lose any more - for almost 18 months I have been this same weight. I love how far I've come and have tried hard to to obsess about not hitting the magic goal but I have tried virtually everything - from calorie cycling to low cals to higher cals to Paleo and Primal, Weight Watchers (which got me the first 80 pounds gone), low glycemic....blah blah. If there is a secret for dropping that last bit of weight, we could make a fortune writing a book on it! LOL. I run, I exercise, I keep my calories around 1500 (though I've tried more and less for a month at a time). I occasionally wonder if a FitBit or Body Bug device might help me any. So, anyway, would love to see more ideas here!

I am in agreeance with your last statement, slow taking it off is the way to go, and to do this by how our clothes fit. Makes so much more sense to me. I am almost at a year here, 65 days exactly to go...and it is indeed coming off slowly now. Down 64 lbs and it is tough now.

But, when things get tough, the tough keep going.

Wishing you the best!

Rob

Diana, you know I am interested in hearing these answers. I have been so frustrated with this plateau.

I am bumping to come back and read more.

I'm 61 so a scosh outside your age range, but I thought I'd drop a note here. The big change came for me when I committed to a few MUSTs:

1. Log into MFP every day. And I have save for a week when I was out of the country with no online access. 450 days and counting.

2. Hold myself accountable for everything I eat. I manage this by logging every bite I eat. It's psychological for me. When I write it down I, in effect, own my behavior. Too, it helps me keep track of my boundaries - even when I exceed them.

3. Weigh myself weekly. Because I've been a serial overeater, I've used both weigh in and not weigh in approaches. Now I weigh in and use it as a compass-- it's directional as in when I see 154 on the scale I know I'm going in the wrong direction and adjustments need to be made. It also forces me to reflect on my eating patterns and when I do it's a lot easier to see where I need to make changes.

The above is what works for me. It may not work for anyone else, but find what does work by trial and error. Seeking out other ideas is a great start. Good luck to all of us.

Hi,

I'm 60. I started MFP two and a half years ago. The first year I lost 67 pounds and the second 28. I've been pretty much the same weight for the last six months.

I had one goal when I started: to not gain the weight back. I figured out how much I wanted to weigh, how much I could eat to maintain that weight and that was my calorie goal from day one. I also decided to only do what I knew I could keep doing for the rest of my life. So I've steered away from all the special eating or exercising routines that are usually suggested. If I was on a plateau, I treated it as practice for maintenance. If I was on vacation, I just tried to keep track as well as I could. If I really wanted something special, I ate it! If a new exercise made something hurt, I gave it up.

As I see it now, the losing weight part was just practice for the maintenance part. By the time I'd reached a weight I was happy with, I already was doing exactly what I needed to be doing to keep the weight off. Now I couldn't care less that it was very slow at the end. I care very much that I haven't gained any back.

I'd really like to lose another 8 pounds. Lately, though, I've come to realize that wanting to lose a bit more is probably the best thing for maintenance. It keeps me from getting complacent, from treating myself too often and it keeps me logging, exercising and weighing in. Almost every woman wants to lose at least five pounds so I'm really no different than other women who aren't overweight.

I have slowly increased my exercise over the last 30 months. I'm trying new things - long hard bike rides, Couch to 5K, I'm even considering a mini-triathalon. I'm very cautious though - I don't want an injury that could throw me off track.

My advice to everyone is to take it simply and slowly and one day at a time. The biggest mistakes I've made in the past were being too impatient for results and setting myself a weight goal. If I didn't reach it as fast as I thought I should, I got discouraged and quit. If I did, my reaction was DONE!! and went back to my old ways. Patience, persistence and preseverance are my watchwords now.

Jeanne