Old age spread? Any solutions.

I agree with Venus, I seem to swell and grow around the centre if I eat bread and over do general carbs. I d however have a very healthy appetite and make up for a lack of these with a great deal of nuts, organic dates, avocados, and so on.

Grannyjacq1 I used to have what I optimistically described as a "boyish" figure i.e. no waist to speak of. I took up 5:2 fasting and along with weight loss, a waist appeared, which generally hovers between 29 and 30 inches. That's well less than half my height. (Waist to height ratio is highly significant for health.) Losing your waist could indicate visceral fat, which is the worst kind, wrapping around your internal organs!

Most calorie restriction diets, the only slimming diet that works, have you reducing calorie intake every day so you are hungry every day. That takes huge determination and may lead to failure or yoyo dieting, where muscle is lost but goes back on as fat. Intermittent fasting targets fat deposits but doesn't tend to deplete muscle.

5:2 fasting also requires determination but, if carried out correctly, means you are hungry on two days a week rather than every day. Received wisdom suggests that women need 2000 calories per day but that's "the average woman"! We are all different! If you think about it, at 5'6" and a practising karate black belt, my calorie requirement is very different from my 4'10" friend! Look up TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) so you are guided about calorie intake on your non-fasting days, then, why not give it a go? The fast diet website is a great resource.

Is it bloating?
Sometimes my tummy sticks out a bit if I eat broccoli and wheat.

I’ve found it slims down again if I follow a ketogenic diet with fewer than 20g carbohydrates.

Doing some yoga breathing also helps with Banda locks,
and Pilates is excellent for tightening up the seven layers of muscle within your abdomen.

Regular gym situps and planks won’t do any good at all.

Contact a Pilates instructor, or yoga teacher,
increase nuts, avocados, olive oil, and salmon and drop the carbs.

If you’ve no time for that and it all sounds like a bother, get a hulahoop, put on some dance music and swing your hips!

Yes. It's a fact of life. I am a gym rat and was once a fitness consultant. I used to have a 23" waist. Now it's about 29" but I have a "six-pack". Go figure that one.
I really don't care. It's the way it is. Make it an excuse to go out and buy new clothes!

Sadly I think body type can make a difference. I'm short bodied with barely a gap between my bottom rib and my hip bone so any extra weight tends to make me more apple shaped as my hips are slim. My weight is pretty stable and I'm not really overweight so I just try to dress to highlight my good points rather than my thick waist and try to smile.

Same here. The only thing which helps me is Spanx or any control foundation garment, it doesn’t have to be Spanx, cheaper editions are good. It needs to be high waisted and end up under your bust.
They also help my bad back and give me a feeling of support.

Here's a solution. Not very comfortable but one must suffer to be beautiful!

I am about to reach 67 soon I am active but noticed some of my favourite dresses are tight from the bust down. I have managed to undo seams darts etc with some success. I have bought Slim fast to see if I can drop a few inches.

As you age the cartilege disks between our vertebrae thin. Women can expect to drop an inch in height for every decade after 60.

Losing length in the spine means hips and rib cage are closer together so the distance skin has to go in and then out again between the two is limited. The result is a larger waist.

I am 80. It has happened to me int he last 5 years and I watched it happen to DS's MiL some years ago. She is 7 years my senior.

Me too but although I’m very active and play tennis regularly I don’t exercise any particular bit of me.
Time to get the slender tone belt out maybe?

Have you lost height ? I’ve lost wt , but clothes no looser ! But I’m definitely shorter so I guess that’s why

I fear it is a fact of life. Our rib cages expand with pregnancy, our ligaments soften and dont hold us "up" the way they used to and sadly we are biologically programmed to deposit more fat around our middle.
Even thin people thicken round the middle -it's just that they may have further to go, especially if they are tall before it becomes noticeable!
(Dare I mention that even Meghan seems to have thickened round her middle while the rest of her is stick thin!)
Live with it, embrace your curves!

I am the same, it is a real problem because I don't have fat anywhere else dieting would leave the rest of my body as skin and bone.

I do sit-ups and plank to tighten the muscles in that area but it doesn’t really seem to be working, I hope somebody else has a solution.