Lose Weight. Another dream that is hard to do.

[AllDone]

I did what Jerry1 did; joined Weight Watchers. The whole points thing is kind of silly, but going to weekly meetings kept me motivated. Plus it was a nice framework for thinking about why I ate too much. I wound up shifting my meals around. I wake up hungry, so now I eat a big breakfast and a fairly large lunch, but dinner is often pretty minimal if I'm not hungry. Tonight I had a tangerine and a bowl of cottage cheese with Everything but the Bagel seasoning. Additionally, I don't snack and I eat a lot of the foods that I find the most filling. Anyway, that was 11 years ago and the weight is still good.

I had tried some of the restrictive diets, but they just made me obsess about the forbidden foods, plus low carb left me so hungry that I gained weight.

My mom lost 30 lbs between the ages of 81 and 84 by eliminating between meal snacks and has mostly kept it off (she keeps getting shorter though!) The pre-war generation was taught that snacking was unhealthy.

 

[Koolau]

I feel lucky that I don't have those urges. That said, I don't see an issue with an occasional treat if you can control it. To me, the key is understanding the pasta/bread/potato is a treat and not a healthy meal.

I find that those urges are brought on by blood sugar shifts - likely due to too much carb type foods. Perhaps there are other issues, but eating carbs really makes me hungry. (The phrase "No one can eat just one" comes to mind.) I'm sure YMMV.

 

[MissMolly]

Impressive. How did you do it?

The old fashioned way - counting calories. Measuring and weighing everything I eat. Tracking every morsel I consume, even something like "3 cashews". Every calorie is counted. After losing about 80 lbs I started going to the gym 5 days a week. I don't think that has really helped a lot on the weight loss, but I am building back some muscle so I feel stronger and my balance is better.

 

[mystang52]

I'm not a dietician/nutritionist. In the end, if one wants to lose weight it is "simply" a matter of reducing calorie intake. One can lose weight eating nothing but Oreo cookies, provided the total daily calories is less than calories burned. It may not be healthy, but it would theoretically work. Keeping the weight off requires ongoing discipline. The discipline does not mean permanent sacrifice, but one has to eat reasonably.

 

[Ronstar]

I lost 3 lbs in 2024. Exercise but not really a diet. Nothing seemed to work.

2 weeks ago quit 2 beers a day and increased running to three 5 mile runs a week. Lost 3 lbs the first week.

Now I don’t know if it’s because of no beer or increased cardio.

 

[aja8888]

I lost 3 lbs in 2024. Exercise but not really a diet. Nothing seemed to work.

2 weeks ago quit 2 beers a day and increased running to three 5 mile runs a week. Lost 3 lbs the first week.

Now I don’t know if it’s because of no beer or increased cardio.

I'd bet it's the cardio . Beer is good for you! Try giving up cottage cheese instead of beer.

 

[Ronstar]

^ what you say makes sense!

 

[EastWest Gal]

It's far more than calories in and calories out, especially as we age. Cardio is good for cardiovascular fitness but that alone won't cause you to lose weight. Cardio does not build muscle mass enough (that is my issue to a T). There are many factors-insulin resistance and high insulin levels, genetics, muscle mass. Older women find it very hard to lose weight. I went low carb/keto in 2017, stopped in 2019, then back to low carb in 2020. For the past two years I've tracked my weight and intake daily. I lost 30 lbs the first year and zero in the second year. I gained 5 lbs in the past 6 weeks doing nothing different. I'm working on keeping bone mass up and building muscle mass. I swim 5-6 miles per week, but I've backed off because I'm skiing this winter. I'm building my weight regimen. I'm still stuck. 1300-1600 calories per day.

It's something called set point. If you eat too little or don't exercise enough, your body adjusts your metabolic rate. In other words, it wants to be at a certain weight almost no matter what you do. It's very frustrating. I want a new set point! I've got 25 lbs at least left to lose.

 

[Music Lover]

One thing I do that is easy for me but surprisingly hard on people who know me, is to simply refuse to ever go out to eat in a restaurant. It's disappointing how many people I know can't think of anything else to do together than that.

I won't give up eating in restaurants because that's part of my social life, lunch with golf buddies off season a couple times a month, dinner out with friends, etc.

So I just order a small meal and/or eat half and take the rest home.

 

[RetiredHappy]

I won't give up eating in restaurants because that's part of my social life, lunch with golf buddies off season a couple times a month, dinner out with friends, etc.

So I just order a small meal and/or eat half and take the rest home.

We have lunch in restaurants everyday and it's part of our daily "entertainment". We like old haunts and also new places to try.

 

[pacergal]

I have approached "dieting" by reframing it as a lifestyle change. A diet usually means something temporary until your weight goal is achieved or not.
Lifestyle is ongoing, something you incorporate in to your daily living. It may take me more time, but it makes me think of things in a longer frame of mind. I've dropped 20 pounds this year. Slowly, but surely, one pound at a time! So far, this time, they are have stayed off, I even lost another pound over the holidays, according to drs scale last week. That was my goal for 2024, to change my eating habits. 2025 is to keep it up and add more movement in my daily activity.

I also do not forbid any foods in my eating. That is a quick death of "dieting" for me. I simply allow myself to have the desired food, take a smaller portion, but enjoy eating it tremendously. And then am satisfied for quite a while.
I worked with a nutritionist years ago who told me this about foods "If it calls to you, ignore it. If it sings to you, allow it". Moderation is the key.

 

[sengsational]

I was maintaining my weight by eating one meal per day, as necessary. And 90% of the meals were made from scratch at home (real food, not processed), with the occasional meal and beer at a restaurant. When I say "as necessary", I mean that if my weight got up over a line on the chart, I started skipping lunch (I never was a regular breakfast eater as an adult). For me, the simplicity of meal skipping works; I've never counted calories and unless it's a camera, scale, and an AI that does it automatically, I never will.

Because of an extenuating circumstance, I let myself off the hook (adherence to the meal skipping lifestyle) this past summer while spending a lot of time away from home. I was eating an insane three meals a day! Then took a month+ long cruise. These 8 or 10 pounds that are "above the line" aren't coming off very easily. And I've become out of practice at skipping lunch.

I'm trying to build muscle mass and loose weight concurrently. So doing strength resistance stuff and rucking with 50lb. On the important side for weight loss (food), I'm going to tilt towards more protein, and compensate with fewer carbs. My carbs come from plants, but I do eat potatoes, carrots, apples, and stuff. So fewer carby plants, and I might try whey protein. But everything I do on the food side must work with my finicky digestive system, which is why I'm loath to change anything too drastically. But if it works, I'll keep doing it until the end.

From the above, you probably realize I don't believe in "diets." I believe in "lifestyle changes." If you can't do it for the rest of your life, then you should probably not bother, because I think big fluctuations in weight over time are even less healthy than a stable weight, even if it's more than you'd like.

 

[Koolau]

I lost 3 lbs in 2024. Exercise but not really a diet. Nothing seemed to work.

2 weeks ago quit 2 beers a day and increased running to three 5 mile runs a week. Lost 3 lbs the first week.

Now I don’t know if it’s because of no beer or increased cardio.

Unfortunately, 3 pounds in a week can be differences in retained food/water. Having said that, minus 2 beers/day and 3 5-mile runs does sound like a lot of reduction in calories to the body. (it takes about 3500 calorie deficit to lose a pound.)

 

[Ronstar]

Unfortunately, 3 pounds in a week can be differences in retained food/water. Having said that, minus 2 beers/day and 3 5-mile runs does sound like a lot of reduction in calories to the body. (it takes about 3500 calorie deficit to lose a pound.)

Thanks for the info! I've delved into this a bit. About 175 calories in a 12 oz pale ale. A stout can be 180-250 calories per pint. So 2 beers a day would be 350-500 calories per day.

So say 400 cal per day or 2800 per week

Apple Watch says my 5 mile runs are 750 each, and 1 hour walk is 400 cals
So 1 week of runs and walks is (3*750) +(4*400) = 3850

Combination of running, walking, and no beer calories for a week = 6650 cals or 1.9 lbs

But I was doing some hiking a while ago while maintaining or gaining weight, so really I can probably only expect running/walking/ no beer to account for 1 lb weight loss a week. So you may be right 3 lbs weekly loss probably included some difference in retained food/water.

I need to average 1.3 lbs per week weight loss to get to 180 on May 1, so I also need to reduce food calories by more than 1000 cal/week if I'm only losing 1lb per week from exercise/no beer. That should be doable.

 

[Aerides]

I lost 3 lbs in 2024. Exercise but not really a diet. Nothing seemed to work.

2 weeks ago quit 2 beers a day and increased running to three 5 mile runs a week. Lost 3 lbs the first week.

Now I don’t know if it’s because of no beer or increased cardio.

It's the beer. Both the calories and the metabolic impact, especially consumed late in the day slowing things down, and impacting sleep (even just a little).

Reminds me of this:

 

[imjustawarrior]

Carbs and salt have an impact on retained water. This last summer after a week of vacation and eating whatever I wanted, I was 12 pounds heavier. After I went back to my normal diet, I lost all 12 pounds. That is about 1.5 gallons of water.

Losing 3 lbs/wk for a long time period would be very difficult. That would be a 1500 calorie deficit every day. Your body would go into starvation mode and your metabolism would crater. It is doable the first month or two if you reduce your water weight.

 

[skipro33]

My keto diet I began on December 1st, after returned from San Diego for Thanksgiving, has morphed into a Carnivore diet. I've been losing weight without having to cut my meal portions. Started at 196 pounds and now at 180. The best part is that I can eat as much as I like of the things allowed on first the keto and now the carnivore diets. I'm never hungry, if I do feel I want to eat, then I eat. It's just limited to what's available on the carnivore diet. There are several variations of the diet, so I got a cookbook to help me with options. For example, this book allows small amounts of non-meat items. Like a few chopped up onions, mushrooms, avocado, etc. Not every day, and not a lot, just something to add flavor. Last night I fixed stuffed mushrooms with my kabob Jamaican Jerk chicken. Stuffed with ground pork, chopped green onion, garlic powder, mozzarella and parmesan cheese. 8 mushroom caps and maybe a couple tablespoons of the green onion.
But it's more than losing the weight, I've done that in the past. This time the weight loss is different. I used to keep the gut even when I was restrictive intake dieting, eating tiny portions and under 1,000 calories a day. This time the first thing to go was my gut. Then my thighs. At 180lbs, I'm fitting into the same size Levi jeans I wore in high school at 34 inch waist. Before starting, I was wearing 38" waist, so I lost 4 inches in my waist in 6 weeks. There would have been no way I'd get the 34" Levis over my thighs, but now they have plenty of room, so lost it in the thighs too. The 2nd chin; gone.
I'm feeling very positive about myself, and there are other side effects: I'm sleeping much better. I used to get around 5 hours of sleep a night, now I'm able to sleep 7 to 8. I'm no longer feeling hungry all the time either. For breakfast I have a waffle made of bacon bits, an egg and parmesan and mozzarella cheese in a waffle maker. Along with my coffee, this holds me until maybe 3 pm when I'll have a snack of a couple slices of deli Black Forest ham or smoked turkey breast. Dinner tonight will be 1/2 a cup of spaghetti squash with Alfredo sauce, shrimp scampi in butter and parm cheese. The squash is allowed in limited amounts and I appreciate the roughage. Some say this isn't real carnivore diet, but it's in the carn cookbook, and it's working, so I'm going for it. Ha!
I am 5'10" and at 180, my BMI still says I'm overweight. Midrange of BMI 25 is about 160 pounds, so still another 20 to do. Even if that takes me a year to lose that, I'm just glad I'm able to finally diet where i can eat as much as I want and never feel hungry like I used to all the time.

 

[Koolau]

It's the beer. Both the calories and the metabolic impact, especially consumed late in the day slowing things down, and impacting sleep (even just a little).

Reminds me of this:
View attachment 53878

Yeah I did weight watchers at w*rk years ago. First week, the girls were getting 1 to 3 pounds loss and the guys were more like 8 or 10 pounds! The girls were really frustrated. I suggested it simply showed that guys were just full of... it. That lightened the mood a bit. Subsequent weeks were harder to square up with the girls. It's definitely unfair (but then, all that extra metabolism means guys don't live as long I guess.)

 

[rembrandt]

I used to take the Ayds appetite-suppressant candy, but it was discontinued because it sounded like the disease. Bad break for them.

 

[Koolau]

^^^^^^^^

I recall Paul Harvey advertising AYDS and thinking "how unfortunate that they chose that name some time in the past."

Returning you now...

 

[ERD50]

I do believe each person is so different as far as metabolism goes, not to boast or trying to outdo what other have said, but I eat more baked, sweats than the normal person. I know not good for you, but my point is it doesn't make a difference with my weight.

But not very different. Everyone's body temperature is pretty close to 37 C ( and that round number was converted to the impression of preciseness to 98.6 F). I'd bet your ability to eat more is tied to your daily physical activity.

And this article says not much difference:

Does metabolism vary between two people?

examine.com

Resting Metabolic Rate

One study[1] noted that one standard deviation of variance for resting metabolic rate (how many calories are burnt by living) was 5-8%; meaning 1 standard deviation of the population (68%) was within 6-8% of the average metabolic rate. Extending this, 2 standard deviations of the population (96%) was within 10-16% of the population average.[1]

Extending this into practical terms and assuming an average expenditure of 2000kcal a day, 68% of the population falls into the range of 1840-2160kcal daily while 96% of the population is in the range of 1680-2320kcal daily. Comparing somebody at or below the 5th percentile with somebody at or above the 95th percentile would yield a difference of possibly 600kcal daily, and the chance of this occurring (comparing the self to a friend) is 0.50%, assuming two completely random persons.

To give a sense of calories, 200kcal (the difference in metabolic rate in approximately half the population) is approximately equivalent to 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, a single poptart (a package of two is 400kcal) or half of a large slice of pizza. An oreo is about 70kcal, and a chocolate bar in the range of 150-270kcal depending on brand.

 

[ponyboy]

Like others said, keto or carnivore diet.

I do a sort of carnivore. Lots of steaks, eggs, spinach and some fruit. I will also eat chicken and fish with broccoli. Basically avoid all breads, rice and pasta. Avoid sugar.
The whole portion control theory is BS imo. You can still portion control garbage food, that's a problem. That's like saying only smoke 5 cigarettes a day vs a whole pack. Still not good for you.

When I switched over to mostly meat/eggs...the bloat went away in my body. I went from 158 to 150...holding steady. I'm 5'10" so I know I'm relatively thin already, but even I saw a big difference. Two things I really enjoyed about ditching crap good ..no more heat burn and my lower back pain improved a lot. Guess sugars/carbs inflamed your body?

Good luck, op. It's tough. When you're ready to lose weight you will. It's almost all mental, imo.

 

[Pellice]

Having some success with restricted-time dieting (9 hour window, not very different than previous schedule). PLUS, measuring and counting calories, to the point of weighing ingredients going into recipes. I'm making part-rye rolls today, and the amount of rye flour going into the recipe is 312 calories. Along with bread flour, of course, and the small amounts of sugar, salt, yeast, etc. (also counted). It takes time, though the calorie counting websites make it much easier. But there's different paths for everyone.

 

[imjustawarrior]

Calorie counting may sound burdensome, but it can be pretty easy. I probably only eat about 20 different foods on a regular basis. A lot of those foods (e.g., vegetables) have practically no calories. One can look up the calories for the foods and just remember them or write them down. I know my bowl of oatmeal (oats, flax seed, cinnamon, protein powder, banana, blue berries) is 400 calories. I eat that 6 days a week. 3 chicken tenderloins grilled and as many vegetables as I want is 300 calories.

After a while, one can get a feel for how many calories are going in. The more difficult part is measuring the calories going out. With a little work, one can dial all this in, but the calories going out changes as one loses weight and adjusts caloric intake.

 

[engineernerd]

Is it me or is it a dream for many retiree to stay fit and lose weight.

I talked. I promised. I determined. I dedicated..... but the pounds keep on winning and I end up heavier as the year goes by.

Please help me. Any "easy" recommendation or anything that you do if you don't mind sharing...

Enuff

My big problem was my sweet tooth/sugar addiction. What worked for me was cutting out sweets and simple carbs completely for 6 months. It was surprisingly easy to continue after that. My taste buds "forgot" what it was like to eat those things I used to crave.

I got the idea from one of Dr Joel Fuhrman's books about 10 years ago. He promised that if I (the reader) followed his diet STRICTLY for six months, I would discover that I no longer missed other food at all and it would be easy to continue on the diet.