Please only reply if you're female and closer to 50 than 40

[IWillSurviveHeyHey]

Because how in the name of the holy cheeses does one loose weight at the age of 48, when nothing that used to work in the past, works anymore?

I am reasonably active and don't overeat although admittedly I do drink alcohol and have a weakness for sweets. This was never an issue before but clearly it is now. Simple I hear you say, stop drinking alcohol and eating sweets. But I have. And whist in the past I would have started noticing some change after a couple of weeks, nothing moves at the moment. In fact, I am just getting bigger and bigger.

I have extremely large thighs and I am only short so I feel really uncomfortable within myself. My only saving grace is that I don't have a fat belly.

I am a bit sick of being hungry pretty much all the time and still, it seems I need to accept that I've gone from a size 10 to a size 12 in the space of a year and I've been hungry for the most part. Well I don't want to accept that. I need to go back to a size 10 or by the end of 2018 I'll be a size 14.

Please help me.

I know loads of people recommend the 5:2, but I know I could never eat just 500 cals a day. I know you can pretty much eat what you like at other times (can you?) but if I'd worked that hard I'd resent the calories eaten on my "off" days. I'd still stick to 1200, lose weight quite easily, but become quickly obsessed!

I also think it's a big ask to expect someone who's never dieted before to only eat 500 cals, even for only 2 days.

Postnot Reading about 5:2, it is not optimum for women as are bodies work different to men's. 16:8 is recommended for women and is much easier. Lower carb or just plain losing weight also works for reversing diabetes and high blood pressure etc. There are many women who find fasting difficult especially if you have a history of disordered eating or dieting. This can trigger you back.

but I know I could never eat just 500 cals a day
Never say never

500 calories of the right sort of food is a LOT : think vegetable soup or veg stir fry or baked veg - if I pick my foods right I am too full to move after my 400 calorie fast day supper
the other hundred calories is used in milk for lots of cups of tea

It can also trigger migraines in those prone

It can also trigger migraines in those prone
Link please
as that has never come up in the 5:2 threads which have been running since summer 2012

Hi everyone

I'm mkore confused now with told to eat the exercise ones and then not to .

What is working for me is three meals with two snacks. I can't eat enough to keep me going without the snack as I don't want to force feed after my food issues before.

I'm getting fitter as I couldn't believe how far DDog and I have just walked in the first twenty minutes of an hours walk. I was out with her a little over an hour this morning and had an hours walk around the shop as well.

Calorie counting is definitely manageable for me.

Off to look at the TDEE now to see how it compares with what's MyFitnessPal has said to eat calorie wise.

MFP - 1350 calories
TDEE - 2067

Can you honestly not let yourselves relax a little & just BE over a size 10 when you're in your bloody 50's??

The problem is that in my exoerience, you don't just become a size 12, or 14, then level off, you keep slowly gaining more! I was always a size 10/12, and didn't have to worry what I ate at all, until I was about 45, and I suddenly realised I gained about half a stone. I started eating a but less and a but healthier, and lost a couple of pounds...
Forgot about it then and thought lifes too short to stress about being the same weight as i had been...a few months my clothes were tight, I checked my weight, and found I was nearly a stone heavier than my steady weight before 45. And ever since I've exercised more, eaten carefully, had smaller portions, refused all sorts if food that everyone else seems to enjoy (but never any very low calorie or faddy diets)..and still my weight slowly creeps up more!
I honestly used to think that people just did less and ate more as they got older, and they just needed to sort that out, but I seem to need about 1100 calories a day now (busy life, long walks at weekends), and it seems to keep dropping.
So wait and see (if you haven't already..), in your late 40's you may find yourself 2 dress sizes bigger over a year and wondering how that happened!

Can you honestly not let yourselves relax a little & just BE over a size 10 when you're in your bloody 50's??

I agree, pp. It gets harder and harder. Additionally, your shape changes (mine did, anywaanyway) and weight distributes itself differently. If i hadn't lost some weight, I'd look like a barrel, not because i was massively overweight but because my weight now goes on my torso rather than bum and legs.

Apparently it's a loss of muscle tone that's at least partially responsible for weight gain in middle age. Loss of tone=slower metabolism=weight gain.

Menopause can be a bit shitty so any enhanced feeling of well-being resulting from weight loss/fitness is worth the effort in my book.

Restrict carbs, especially sugar but not fats, lots of veg and walk whenever you can.

I get what you’re saying Ta1kinpeace but I am fairly confident I have my weight and calorie measurements correct and there’s nothing underlying that would affect it, I’ve lost 91lbs since November 2016. I’m talking specifically about my sedentary TDEE

My sedentary TDEE is 1718 cal. I can lose weight eating 2100/2200 cals so this must still create a deficit. The TDEE calculator says that heavy exercise is 2469 cals a day, which does tie in roughly with my Fitbit. I didn’t think my exercise (see below) would fit into this category but I’ve got weeks of data to go on now.

If I eat at 1719 and do my exercise routine (about 12-15k steps a day 6 day’s a week, including 3 x 30mins slow running then my deficit is about 750 cals a day on average. That was fine whilst I had more weight to lose at the beginning but by last summer I didn’t have enough energy to run if I ate that and started losing lots of hair so I think that deficit was too aggressive for me.

I made a spreadsheet of Fitbit weekly cals burned versus Nutracheck cals eaten recently and I am pretty much where I expected to be in terms of weight loss, there was a difference of about 8lbs more than expected working off the data , about 10% approximately so either I under record my food by that or my Fitbit slightly underestimates my calorie burn. I think I did read somewhere that TDEE values vary by plus/minus 10% so that would fit.

I guess if you are a bit older, lighter and shorter the figures will be closer together.

Yearofyou
Your TDEE is the amount of calories you need to stay where you are
MFP will be the number of calories you need to lose weight

If you set MFP to maintain it will tell you your TDEE give or take the variation between calculators.

One cool method is to work out your TDEE at your ideal weight and five years older as it drops with age and eat within that limit - as then you build sustainable long term habits.

It is SO much harder now.

I have a fitbit so can see how many calories I burn. To burn 2000 calories I now need to have a very active day- a Zumba class PLUS 10,000 steps.

I find being hungry and denying myself really difficult. I eat healthily, exercise hard 4 times a week.

It is bloody depressing. I have gone from a size 10 to a big 14 in the last 4 years. I have not eaten more or exercised less. I look like my mother who never exercised and ate rubbish. Aaaaaaaggghhhh!!!

How can TDEE be accurate though? It can only be an approximation, surely?

I just use BMR and add on exercise calories if i do anything. I put it into MFP which then calculates net calories.

Fitbit is better though, as it does the calculation for you.

Fitbit is using the same data sets as the TDEE calculators

I'm going to stick with my 1200 per day for the time being, talkin but yes, having a creative fiddle with that calculator is quite illuminating.

It kind of bears out the idea that you need to eat progressively less as you get lighter.

I think you have to do what works for you being aware of the data that I’d there is to assist you. I agree with everything Ta1kinpeace* is saying, just that for some people using the sedentary section of the TDEE calculator might not be entirely appropriate and one of the higher activity levels might be a better fit. But you’ll soon know from how you feel and what your weight does and you just amend accordingly.

A Fitbit or similar makes it easier maybe as you have all the info at hand and can motivate you to get moving.I was very shocked at how little i move on a Sunday unless I make an effort. Hope i’m making some sense, apologies if i’m not -recovering from flu.

It is hard but having seen the state my Mum ended up in the alternative is not very palatable .

Thank you Talk1Peace. I'll go by MFP as I have 2-3 stone to lose.

Step count - 14988
Walked 6.3 miles
Calories burnt 658

This book is worth a read in my opinion
thesecretlifeoffat.com/

Hey guys, I got back on track last week after motivation from this thread and lost 2.5lbs in my first week! Yay me!

I find losing weight is actually pretty easy ONCE I've got into the right mindset. (I'm 47 btw).

BUT I find it hard to get into the mindset. Once I'm in it, I'm fine.

BUT BUT I find being out of my routine throws me totally, and I cannot successfully maintain (or carry on losing) during these breaks in routine. And as these are school holidays, these breaks occur approximately every 6/8 weeks. If we stay at home, it's not too bad. If we go away, it's a disaster, especially if I go to UK.

Over Christmas I gained 3 kilos. In 2 weeks.

This I suppose effectively makes me a yo-yo dieter, which isn't great health-wise, and isn't great mentally. It's also not a real reflection (dieting, giving up, gaining, dieting...) it's just I need routine, and being in control of what I eat, and being out of routine doesn't work for me. As my youngest is 9 (and I'm a teacher ), I have many more school holidays still to come, so finding a solution to this would be great!

It is one of the great myths of the "diet industry" that you can stay the same weight
its utter bilge
at may gym are lots of ultra lean gym bunnies and instructors and yoga teachers
they all joke about their weight fluctuating by up to 3lb in any week depending what they have eaten.

Excess food is not laid down as fat for several weeks.
Strict intake control for two weeks in January and Christmas bulges are gone.