I need to lose 3 stones but it seems an impossible task. Please help me.

[ApolloandDaphne]

i am age 61, 5'6" and about 14 st 7lb. I have a dodgy hip and so exercising is difficult.

I don't know where to start really. I think losing weight would help my hip issue. It's just me and DH at home.

DH is tall, lean and a runner. He eats a lot and loves all the carbs. Would think nothing of eating a huge bar of chocolate, pack of biscuits, family bag of chips etc. I think i need to ditch carbs.

I am retired and do all the shopping and cooking. DH works long hours and is often home late. I hate eating late. I also can't deal with loads of treat food around the house.

I don't want anyone to know i am trying to lose weight, especially not my DM. She is a tiny 6st and likes to crow that she doesn't deny herself but just look at how thin she is, you get the idea.

We like to socialise and go out a fair bit or have visitors to our house and i don't know how to factor this in.

My perfect scenario would be to go away to a retreat for 6 months and have someone cook for me and help me heal. I am tired and sore a lot of the time.

Sorry this is a bit of an essay. Where do i even start? Any advice would be helpful. Thank you.

@Bessica1970 . I was going to say similar . I’ve just lost 3 stone with the aid of saxander . Well 2 and a half and then the last 7 pounds without . It was a liberating experience , being free of the endless food chatter , having time to prep a healthy meal rather than fill my face in a hangry fit as soon as I walked in the door . When I stopped the sax I thought it would be hard to continue losing but it wasn’t too bad . I had developed some good habits and I could stick to them . Mostly followed low carb , high protein, fast800 type diet . Still am.

@ApolloandDaphne and hello from another thread.

I'm a couple of years older than you, the same height and was 14st 1-1/2lb. As you may recall I had a health scare in the summer. Metabolic stuff going on and drugs for a chronic condition had knock on effects. It kick started me to do the following:

Month 1: gave up alcohol, still abstinent.
Then due to through the roof cholesterol and a mildly fatty liver, I gave up saturated and trans fats, all refined carbs, wheat (except for one slice of wholegrain bread pw and one small serving of wholewheat pasta), red meat except for once a week, and all sugar, except that in fruit.

I have not gone on a diet per se and I am not reducing quantities of food. I am trying to walk an additional 3000 steps a day from a low base. The diet is very healthy and much more fruit and veg. No cakes, pastries, pies, puddings except fruit, sweetened drinks, cream, fatty cheese, etc.

Since mid July I have lost just shy of 20lb. Better than the weight loss is that every ache and pain has disappeared and my back is no longer stiff (two collapsed vertebrae due to osteoporosis) and a bit of osteo arthritis in a couple of fingers and I suspect my left hip. My tummy is much better and every little patch of eczema and my dandruff have cleared up.

I feel so much better for it. I'm convinced I may have a wheat intolerance and that may have been the cause, but honestly the freedom from pain will not turn me back to my old ways or to experimenting with adding in a bit of this or a bit of that.

Good luck.

Hello @RosesAndHellebores I think I know the thread you are on and I am ashamed to say I've rather fallen off the wagon. I will be back though. I feel sure my health issues will get better if I lose weight and eat more healthily. Not just my hip but my lethargy and bloating. I think giving up the carbs is the way to go. Well done to you for making such good changes in your lifestyle. It's not easy as age creeps up!

Please list what your at in an average day

Then we can make suggestions

But from the sound of it, it's basically cutting out junk

Which is alleviated by not keeping it in the house

Check out the doctors kitchen app, tonnes of really tasty, filling, healthy recipes. The focus is on culinary and lifestyle medicine not weight loss, so no calorie counting or restricting food intake. I am losing weight steadily without feeling hungry.

I will let you know later. I'm out for dinner (in the US) right now!

A bit younger than you and was 13.7 stone a few months ago. Joined SW and have lost 2 stone 7 so far. Am very tempted by sweet stuff around the house so just didn’t buy it. If your DH wants it, tell him to buy it himself and keep it out of your way. Only my DH knows I went to SW and a friend in another country. It sounds like your head is in the right place for taking action. I didn’t want to weigh or count calories so only weighing I do is porridge and sometimes pasta/rice even though latter two not required to be weighed on SW but trying to eat sensible portions.
A big thing for me is that I didn’t want to feel deprived so I had chocolate every evening using the syns allocated and it was a fairly decent amount, not just one square. It meant my meals were healthy and never felt deprived. Snacks during the day were blueberries mainly, cut up apple etc and I was very strict for first couple of months. I’m less so now but I can more easily see that if I decide to overeat the wrong type of food, weight goes up and give myself a talking to. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Here are some example of what I eat in an average day.

Breakfast: 8 am
Slice of toast with avocado and a poached egg
Porridge or weetabix with berries
Full fat Greek yogurt, berries and granola

Lunch: 12 noon
Sandwich with egg mayo or ham and salad
Soup and bread
(Probably a packet of crisps here too)

Dinner: anything from 6-8 pm
Chilli and rice
Risotto
Pasta and sauce
Ready meal if going out early
(Mostly normal type dinners)

Snacks:
A biscuit or two mid morning
Cheese and crackers around 4pm as I am horribly starving
More crisps sometimes and chocolate. I am always very hungry late afternoon. I don't eat much fruit as I'm not keen but I can eat it. I love vegetables and salad. I am a not a fussy eater. I also enjoy wine but I am trying to cut this out as much as possible.

Exercise:
Short walk with dog in the morning. She is old and can't go very far. My sore and very inflexible hip means I struggle to do much. I joined a gym so I could swim but is makes my hip ache badly. I am also a part time student and sit at a desk a lot. I do need to move more and would welcome suggestions.

Try orlistat tablets. They stop 30% of the fat you eat from staying on you. It can give you runs though if you eat something high in fat. You poop out the fat, it's like oil. You can buy them online or get them from your gp

This was my keto diet I combined it with intermittent fasting so I missed breakfast and ate between 1-9pm only. I lost 3 stone in four months going from 13 to 10 stone which makes me a size 10/12 for my height. I are the same thing every single week with the only variation if I ate out of the house. I was never hungry.

DIET 30-50g carbs a day

Dinners :

Wed Bolognaise and green beans and beef tomatoes

Thur omelette and low carb salad Cucumbers
Iceberg lettuce Celery White mushroom Spinach

Fri fire cracker chicken n green beans

Sat slow cooker keto stew ( freeze rest) lamb

Sun salmon and broccoli

Mon steak and green beans

Tue chicken curry n cauliflower rice

Lunches

Home made soup make two for the week alternate freeze etc.

Omelette

Boiled egg salad

Tuna salad

Cottage cheese salad longley

Bacon and tomato in large lettuce “wraps”

Snacks
Ice lollies
Low carb fruit
Low carb fruit smoothies
Flaming hot Cheetos

I lost 2.5 stone on Michael Mosley’s Mediterranean diet. Although there is an option for ‘fast 800’ which is 2 meals a day, he acknowledges that is too severe for many people so you can do three meals a day (1200) calories and still lose weight. I often had/have the Greek yoghurt with berries and nuts and seeds for breakfast.

There is now an app which makes it even easier.

I paid about £120 for the 12 week programme which was fantastic because not only does it give you a meal plan ( but you can swap meals in and out once you know which ones you like) but it also has a supportive community plus daily exercise videos and mindfulness. You can select your exercise level and they are really brief but effective. I have inflammatory arthritis and managed/manage most of it with adaptations.

After the 12 week programme I signed up to continue at £10 per month and still (2 years) later use it for meal plans and exercise. You can move into the maintenance plan once you’ve lost what you wanted to and go back to the weight loss programme whenever you need to re correct eg after Xmas or a holiday.

There are also great resources for understanding the importance of factors like sleep, fibre etc.

You can set up your profile to decide how many meals a day, whether you want to do keto ( less than 50g carbs a day), vegetarian, etc.

I am a similar age to you and I know it just gets harder and harder but I can honestly say that I feel better now then I had for years. the med diet is anti- inflammatory and I believe really has helped reduce the severity and frequency of my flare ups.

I did buy a good pair of digital scales and some measuring spoons, a spiraliser and a steamer basket.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

Why don't you buy one of those weighted hula hoops, you'll burn calories off using that and also tone up.

I have arthritis in my lower back and my hip so I don't think I would have the flexibility to do this.

I always enjoyed yoga and Pilates but now I struggle to get on my hands and knees and do any movement. I hope that losing weight will improve this but I need gentle easy exercise right now. I am open to suggestions.

Try something like this.

I decided to take small steps starting now even though I'm on holiday. I had an omelette for breakfast and eschewed the toast or the fried potatoes and took fruit as my extra. I'm now having coffee but no cake and I've walked a fair way. I feel good.

Wow! Good for you OP!

The arthritis sounds hard, but you will definite find things easier if you shed the weight.

My arthritic knees really improved as I lost weight and gradually upped my walking.