Diets

Artnan

I know how you feel, I haven’t been able to shift any weight over the last ten years or so, and like you, I’m quite a small eater

I did everything I could think of, and nothing made much difference, so a couple of years ago, I stopped dieting, stopped weighing myself, decided I’d know if I was getting fatter by my clothes, I have probably lost a few kilos, I don’t know for sure, but I’ve stopped obsessing about it

I have found counting calories is the only thing that works for me since turning 70. You can find out your Basal Metabolic Rate on Line, this tells you how many calories your body needs to subsist so gives you an idea of how many calories you should consume each day, in my case it is 1200. If you consume around this amount or a fewer amount of calories and are reasonably active you should lose weight. At first it is tedious finding of the number of calories in foods but I write them down in a notebook and you do get to know eventually; some food has the amount of calories on the packaging. It is a fact of life that to maintain a healthy weight most people can eat fewer calories as they get older and men can eat more calories than women.

The most useful thing I have done to cut calories is to cut out breakfast, leaving a period of about 16 hours between my evening meal and lunch. It is hard at first as I have always eaten breakfast but I am used to it now. For the two meals I have I limit carbs and have lean protein and vegetables or salad. I have two or three pieces of fruit a day because although some slimming clubs advocate it unlimited fruit is quite high in calories.

I have been to a few slimming clubs over the years but have found they are not to be a long term solution for me. I have lost 40 pounds since March last year and am managing to maintain my weight within two or three pounds.

Good luck with your efforts.

I read somewhere that it helps to cut down on foods that turn to sugars in your digestive system. I ought to do that - and cut down on sugar in my tea and coffee!!

I have no idea how old the OP is, but I put on weight after the menopause and had just the problems that the OP has described. In my case only put on a stone and a half, but allowing for the time it took me to gain the weight - about 5 years, for 15 years after that, nothing I did could shift the weight. Like you, the eat less, exercise more mantra got me nowhere. I tried every kind of diet. I even tried the Atkins Diet, which made me very ill but left my weight static.

Then about 15 years later, when I reached about 70, something changed, all of a sudden I had another go at loosing weight - and it went. I lost weight on the original 5:2 diet, but I do not think it was the diet I used that made the difference.

My theory is that the once hormone turmoil and changes of the menopause finally ended and the levels stabilised, my body returned to a state where weight loss was again possible. I say that as someone who had an almost symptomless menopause, so I do not think it a function of whether you had an easy or difficult menopause, but I think the hormone changes and disruption affect our ability to regulate our weight much longer than we realise and for some of us it leads to a weight gain we find very difficult to shift.

I put on weight after a couple of very difficult years of illness and bereavement.I lost it .well two and a half stones of it over 10 weeks last summer doing the 16/8 diet and cutting calories to 800 for the first month then 1200 .I feel I could lose another half stone or so and I started the fast 800 diet yesterday ,its by Michael Mosley and its basically what I did before .Hope to lose what I want within a couple of weeks .I'm 65.

I have lost around 14 kg in past 8 months and I have followed few very basic principles that helped me to lose weight. So, I feel I can share some of such tips here which will help you to fasten your weight loss process.