Is there a secret to losing weight in your 40s?

[Kathyparr]

I'm 43, definitely peri-menopausal. I've been trying to lose weight since January and not lost 1lb. I've reduced my calorie intake to 1200-1400 calories per day and I go to the gym three times a week following a full body workout designed by the gym. I also play sport once a week. My job has changed and I don't move anywhere near as much as I used to.

I'm 5ft2 and would like to lose 1.5 stone but it's just not shifting. Any advice?

@7poundstogo I don't find that carbs give me hunger pangs for more food. I eat a small meal, I'm full, I stop eating. Hormonal influences aside when I might want to eat everything in sight but I tell myself no.

It's not a bad idea to have general medical testing for any condition that could interfere with weight loss, but I find that maintaining weight is much more effective by weighing and measuring portions than counting calories. I started a long time ago when I brought lunch to work - sometimes I had too much and had to throw it away and sometimes I didn't have enough so I was hungry all afternoon. I used my own appetite and some online guides, and now I know the amounts I need for everything.

Also you mention that your job has changed and you don't move as much. Do you do a step count? I set a daily step count with a sport/fitness watch. I think it's good to keep active every day rather than a couple of times a week.
Good luck - you'll get there.

P.S. If you control your portion size and you get good exercise, your weight will come down over time (assuming there are no medical conditions). Also good to do sensible things like limiting the sweets, sugary drinks, high-fat meats; you know the drill! 😊

You don't have to do low carb. It all boils down to calories in vs calories out no matter how you do it.

Except that's not the case for everyone. I HAVE to calorie count AND limit sugar/carbs or I don't lose any weight. I tried for years simply calorie counting and burning and nothing shifted. I threw thousands of pounds at it and nothing worked. I ended up getting a temporary thyroid condition caused by not eating enough calories for too long a time and still didn't lose. I mystified personal trainers who insisted that as long as I was in a calorie deficit I'd lose. I'd only lose on 800 cals, which is unsustainable.

Then, after years, I found out I was prediabetic and insulin resistant. I stayed on the exact same 1400 cals but cut carbs and sugar and upped protein and lost 10lbs in 9 days. After 5 years of struggling to lose 1lb a MONTH on the exact same or more of a calorie deficit.

So if OP tries a calorie deficit and it's consistently not working, she may well be like some of us who can only lose by going low carb. We're all different and while weight loss isn't achieved without a calorie deficit, how that deficit is arrived at does matter for some women.

When i 'could only put it down to age', it was low thyroid. I take thyroxine now and the excess weight came off. Partly because had more energy to do more exercise, but it was still the cause of the problem. I've never had energy issues before or since.

Get checked out. I wonder how many people are 'putting things down to age' when they could fix the problem without getting younger.

Also, 'eating too much' is often put down to a simple failure of willpower on an individual level, despite the fact that most foods bought outside of the fridge aisle are very carefully designed to override our natural mechanisms that tell us to stop eating. We are being manipulated. Think about why you are eating too much. Do you eat too much broccoli? Too much steak? Too many beans? Do you drink too much olive oil? If not, then there's something that not-whole foods are mysteriously doing that whole foods don't, that makes you want to overeat them. I marvel at how little this is questioned, and people are advised to cut calories by having less of the foods that are designed specifically to make us eat more.

Doesn't work for me. 5'1 and I have to eat 1000-1200 to lose barely sod all each week.

I'm working in an hour of exercise each day now too.

20:4 is ridiculous. Most people couldn't eat 2 meals in that time, and living on one meal a day is absolutely miserable.

Depending on what you eat though.

I have just eaten my one meal. I had a big steak with loads of cauliflower and Brussel sprouts roasted in garlic and ghee, home made hummus with carrot and celery sticks, a bowl of full fat Greek yogurt with chopped almonds and walnuts on top.

I am completely satisfied and not miserable at all.

Hunger is triggered by a release of a hormone called ghrelin. We can program our ghrelin release. It takes about a week. You can decide on one meal a day, or ten. Neither is uncomfortable, and nor is anything in between, if it's what you're used to. If, culturally, you had been raised on one meal a day, eating two or three would look just as ridiculous as eating one does now. We are conditioned and programmed so much that we don't even know it's happened, most of us.

Intermittent fasting, 1000 calories a day and being subsequently joyless are the only way I lose nowadays. It's an absolute bastard tbh.

Bodyslims. It's the only programme that worked for me. It is a 10 week online course that has 3 areas of focus.
The first is calorie intake. For weight loss, calorie is king but composition is queen. It is very hard to stick to a diet of 1200 calories, but eating the right composition of food is the secret to sticking to it as you won't feel hungry.
The second is excercise.
So yes, eat less, move more.
But the 3rd is the most important, in my opinion. Your head, understanding your habits, understanding the chemical causes of cravings, understanding how little micro decisions lead to the slippery slope of diet failure.
I found it fantastic.
The regular seminars and the twice daily video all helped me stay on track. I have lost almost one and a half stone, 7 weeks in. I would highly recommend it.

I think it depends on personality as well, this sort of "fasting" is extreme and can get a hold of some people. My DPs SIL swears by 20:4. It's "the only way she can lose weight".

She looked great shortly after she started three years ago but she never stopped 20:4

She's very clearly anorexic and using "fasting" as an excuse. She must weigh about 5 stone and has lost a lot of hair, we're all worried sick about her, she's absolutely skeletal and constantly catching all sorts of infections from being run down. But it's "fasting", not "starving" because she "never gets hungry these days and I'm so full I could easily forget to eat at 4pm!"

She managed to get to her mid/late 30s without ever developing an eating disorder then got addicted to the weight falling off on 20:4 and can't get back into the habit of eating normally. It's quite frightening really.

Fair enough. Everyone is so different aren't they?

If I eat a biscuit I'm climbing the walls!

Welcome to meno 😭

Muscle weighs the same as fat it’s just more compact. A pound is a pound. A pound of jelly is the same weight as a pound of rice but they take up different amount of space. Fat is soft and fluffy and muscle is tight and compact.

OP if you are doing a lot of cardio you might find better results in change in your shape if you do focus on weights/resistance, it has for me significantly but yes, it’s harder now we are older. Try to move around a lot more during the day as even small movement counts towards expending energy in some way.

There are other carbs other than biscuits 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Ive just eaten sourdough bread with chicken and potato soup, it won’t make me want to go eat biscuits

It would me. Any carbs are a slipperly slope to disrupted insulin, ghrelin, leptin, and THE CRAVINGS, for me.

You need to further reduce what you eat to lose weight. We need less food as we age generally anyway, if you don't walk to/from work , you really have to watch what you eat. No treats or snacks are needed for anything. Bodies are made in the kitchen, toned through exercise (weight training)

Also no food after 6pm

https://www.precisionnutrition.com/calories-in-calories-out

We need less food as we age because we lose muscle mass, largely because of inactivity. We are being made to believe that physiological changes brought about by sociocultural habits are 'natural' changes in our bodies. They're not. If you are more active in later life than you were in middle age, you will need more food.

@Watchkeys I think a lot of people think they can drive everywhere, spend the evenings drinking wine and watching tv and not gain weight/still lose weight. My fear is having a flat ass as I get older. I do a lot of hill walking and sadly can't access a gym but I hope it keeps it reasonable. I bounce on a gym ball watching tv too. Every time I curse not being able to drive and the big hills I am thankful for the exercise I'm provided with. Sometimes it helps except in blazing heat or more frequently ice cold eastern winds blowing off the Pennines.
I think everybody should do their tdee before embarking on any kind of diet. Operating on misinformation isn't going to get anyone very far.

Just to double check, when you say intake is 1200 - 1400 per day, is that total consumption or net adjusted for calories burnt?

I don't eat back exercise calories, otherwise how am I getting a deficit?