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?

Zero UPF/100% whole foods and limited sugar. I eat around 1800 calories a day doing this and have to consciously eat more to maintain my bmi of 19.

Also make sure your hormones are balanced (HRT if necessary) and cortisol is low otherwise you will gain tummy fat. Less cardio/more strength training helps lower cortisol. Don't overdo the exercise. The diet is the key factor.

So much information and advice to pick through, thank you.

I'm going to keep it simple for now and have started the IF with the zero app. I've started on 16:8 last night. Do those of you who do IF do it every day? I selected three times a week as I thought I could coincide that with the gym. I do weight training at the gym, only a little cardio to warm up and cool down. Osteoporosis runs in my family so I'm trying to avoid that. I'm also sticking to 1200 calories a day for now with an aim to reduce carbs and up protein.

Should have mentioned I do a 3k walk with the dog every day but could definitely up the pace &/or length.

You can but fast like a girl has days where you don’t fast on the hormone feasting days. Worth a quick read

Osteoporosis runs in my family so I'm trying to avoid that

Keep weight training, take HRT and take Calcium with added Vitamin D and K.

If you're trying to avoid osteoporosis, you need to strengthen muscle. If you want to strengthen muscle, you need to fuel that. Eat the muscle building and energy giving stuff, and use the kcal you eat to fuel the exercise, doing enough exercise to have to burn a little fat too, and do this until you gradually lose all the fat you want to use.

We are encouraged to cut kcal and exercise, eat smaller portions etc, but who is overeating broccoli and salmon? Who is over eating chicken and steamed veg? Who got overweight because they overate salad? Eating smaller portions of everything (so, smaller main course and smaller pudding, for example) can starve the body of what it needs. We don't need to cut down on the healthy stuff. Measuring portions of healthy food is unnecessary, because we don't overeat them.

can i ask why 1200 gross calories per day? That is a diet only recommended for the totally sedentary (ie people on bed rest / comas). You need to aim for 1200 net calories - ie if you’re working out most days and walking 3k you should be eating between 1400-1600 cals to lose weight.

The 2000cals per day trope needs to be adjusted for modern life, and then again for peri/post/meno women.

Most of us find we have to reduce calories to a ridulous amount at this point in life. 2000cals a day would see me at 20st in no time, and thats with an hour of intense exercise 6 days a week.

@JuniperJanet

It's not a 'trope', it's an average. We're all supposed to be adjusting it for ourselves already. Some of us are doing fine on that amount, some need more. Most would benefit from more exercise, and a healthier diet, rather than indiscriminately dropping kcal intake. 2000kcal of meat and steamed veg isn't getting you to 20st any time soon, if you're exercising 1 hour per day most days. Unless you're very short, in which case the average kcal requirement will need to be amended.

@Watchkeys 2000 Calories a day comes from 1968, when we had a lot more physical jobs to do and a lot less automation, transport and entertainment that involved sitting on our backsides. It does need to be adjusted for todays living, IMO.

@JuniperJanet

2000kcal per day comes with a recommendation of what you're meant to be eating, how much you're meant to be exercising, and the information that it is an average, and therefore needs to be tailored for each individual. It doesn't matter if it came from space in the 1300s where everybody could fly. It has always needed to be adjusted, and that is part of why it makes sense. Your assumption that people don't seem to know that it needs adjusting shows that you, like them, have not understood it fully.

I'd be about 16stone if I was eating 2000 calories a day! I gain on 1500! Wouldn't say I was unusually sedentary but I drive, have a cleaner, get click and collect groceries weekly and 50% of my job is desk based...very different to grandmother who walked and used public transport, had 5 kids to run around after and was still breastfeeding youngest, cleaned the house from head to toe several times a week, didn't own a fridge/freezer/washing machine/hoover so was walking into the village daily, washing by hand, sweeping carpets & beating rugs daily,
waitressing at night and picking potatoes every summer in the 60s when the 2000 calorie thing came about.

I honestly didn't know that the 2000 cal was outdated when I attempted to lose a bit of weight 10 years ago. I still have the food diary I kept. I was so proud when I was eating 1800 cals a day. Looking at the weigh-ins from back then I only managed to lose half a pound in 3 months. No wonder folks got very overweight back then!
I do think people know what to do now. Just a case of doing it.

You can't disprove an average with your own individual experience. Otherwise I'd be bringing the kcal recommendation up from 2000!

Exactly.

I'd gain on 1400+ per day.

Meno adds a completely different spin to this too, as most posters on here state they need to stay around 1000-1400, 1600 at absolute most in order to not gain.

Been doing intermittant fasting and low carb and lost a stone since january

most posters on here state they need to stay around 1000-1400

Yes, but most posters on here aren't in a particularly good place with their weight, are they? So you're basing your need to adjust the kcal requirement for a healthy weight person on a bunch of opinions from people who aren't at a healthy weight. The 2000kcal per day is a recommendation for a person who is already healthy. It's a fat-maintenance diet. To stop someone with plenty of lean muscle and a healthy amount of body fat from losing their muscle or fat. It doesn't work for weight loss, and was never designed to.

How do you know they aren't at a healthy weight? A lot are, they need to reduce their calories in order not to gain.

And its posters in meno on here MN.

Calorie requirements depend on so many variables. Age, hormones, daily activities/work/exercise, food preferences - I'm sure there are many more.

When I was young I could eat and drink anything, didnt really exercise in a formal way, never had to think about calories. Now I'm 70 I'd gain weight very quickly if I didn't watch what I eat/drink, and if I didn't exercise I'd lose muscle and run to fat.

I don't obsess over my weight and I don't count calories, but experience has told me what and how much I can eat. What improved my fitness more than anything was finding a workout routine that I enjoy - namely weight training with Caroline Girvan.

Calorie requirements depend on so many variables

Yes. People seem to think that if you eat more kcal you gain fat, and if you eat less, you lose fat. It's so basic it's laughable. Where do they think the energy comes from to keep hair healthy, for example, or to maintain appropriate hormones to enable good sleep, or to regulate temperature, or myriad other functions our bodies perform, minute to minute? Loads of things can and do go out of whack if the body isn't fed enough kcal, without the body fat being changed at all. This is why we see many people try to lose weight by dieting, and they get depressed, they can't sleep, their overall condition declines, and ultimately, they give up.

Quite why it's so hard to see that it's not a simple case of 'cut kcal = lose fat' is beyond me. It's like people think that the body is like a car. Fuel in = energy/fuel storage. They forget that you can take the wheels off, or drain the oil, or remove the gearbox, or shoot the driver.