58 years old -- what's realistic about weight at this stage of life? (posted in Midlife)

[Anonymous]

I signed up for Noom yesterday after reading the NY Times magazine article but I'm wondering if I'm just being unrealistic. I'm 5'5" and weigh 141. Before menopause I weighed 125 and weighed 120-125 for many years without effort. Menopause and COVID put pounds on me. I could probably lose a few pounds, but very slowly and with a lot of effort. Is it realistic? Should I try?

Note, I do not want to hear from the "No one should weigh over 110" crowd or "tell me everything you eat in a day and how much you fast" and "why aren't you doing hot yoga" or so forth. I'm reaching out to other women my age for your perspective. I'm not going to do something radical.

[Anonymous]

I don’t want to be snarky, but you just can’t blame menopause and Covid . Did you eat more, smack more and generally less active? Only you know the answer to this. We all are guilty of snacking when we shouldn’t and choosing the sofa when when we could be taking a walk. Only you can decide what you are willing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t want to be snarky, but you just can’t blame menopause and Covid . Did you eat more, smack more and generally less active? Only you know the answer to this. We all are guilty of snacking when we shouldn’t and choosing the sofa when when we could be taking a walk. Only you can decide what you are willing to do.

Thanks, this is exactly the kind of response I didn't want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I signed up for Noom yesterday after reading the NY Times magazine article but I'm wondering if I'm just being unrealistic. I'm 5'5" and weigh 141. Before menopause I weighed 125 and weighed 120-125 for many years without effort. Menopause and COVID put pounds on me. I could probably lose a few pounds, but very slowly and with a lot of effort. Is it realistic? Should I try?

Note, I do not want to hear from the "No one should weigh over 110" crowd or "tell me everything you eat in a day and how much you fast" and "why aren't you doing hot yoga" or so forth. I'm reaching out to other women my age for your perspective. I'm not going to do something radical.

Do you have a goal weight in mind? I think losing 3-6 pounds would make a difference in how you look and feel. You can decide from there whether to continue or maintain.

[Anonymous]

Sorry about the PP. Doubt she is a mid-50s woman. I am. It's tough. I went from 125 lbs my entire life to gaining 50 lbs last year. I won't be able to outrun or outexercise that kind of gain. I really think it's hormone-based, but the simple blood tests my primary care doctor ran didn't show anything (e.g., TSH normal). I'm debating seeing an endocrinologist, because my life and eating really hasn't changed that much to account for such a large gain (which is all in my midsection).

[Anonymous]

You're 58. It's time to just love the body you're in. The sexy train has left the station and the physically and emotionally healthy train has pulled in. Get on the healthy train and live your best life. 141 lbs at 5'5" is healthy range for sure! If you keep a bit extra, who cares?

[Anonymous]

55 year old woman here who’s watched her weight creep up into the overweight category.

At 5’5 and 141, you are at a normal BMI. It will likely take a huge effort to lose. Instead, I would focus on strength training. Step away from the number on the scale and look at lifting weights. You will feel better, and your clothes will fit better. And we need to maintain our strength.

My understanding is that Noom is based on a 1200 calorie diet. That’s hard to do.

Just my 2 cents.

[Anonymous]

Do get get adequate exercise? Is your typical diet basically healthy and portion size appropriate?

If so, don't worry about it. At our age, the Olympics and beauty contests are well past the event horizon.

[Anonymous]

Your BMI is normal. You’re need to diet is not.

[Anonymous]

I think you would be better to focus on healthy eating rather than the number on the scale. Focusing on Whole Foods each day is a good start. I like plan where I do not eat any snacks or sugar-based items during the week but allow myself to eat them on the weekends. That works out pretty well for me.

[Anonymous]

55 here. At 50 my weight started to creep up, hair loss, insomnia, night sweats. Worse for me was some concerning cognitive issues. The cognitive issues were the thing for me that made me alter my eating - otherwise, I'm with the other posters that talk about acceptance. However, changing my diet radically improved things for me on all fronts. As for the weight gain, I too knew it was not about my diet. I am a super-healthy eater, and had logged things for a while. Losing weight with the methods I used to use was absolutely not working. I felt hangry when I tried. So back to diet. I read that dementia is like insulin resistance for the brain, and I was experiencing what appeared to me to be insulin resistance (look at Jason Fung on the obesity code, Dale Bresden on Dementia). Dementia is also worse with inflammation. I basically went Whole 30/Ketoish, and then experimented with the timing of eating. YMMV, but for me, eliminating grains, dairy, legumes, sugar and reintroducing regular meat (I had been vegan/vegetarian for a long time). My carbs basically come from loads of vegetables, often roasted with olive oil, fish, chicken, eggs, meat and nuts. I am not shy with the fats. I eat very infrequently. I don't monitor how much of those things I eat. I am almost never hungry, feel great, and am at a normal (albeit higher than my 20s) weight and have maintained it for several years. I do not miss the things that I don't eat, which I would have considered impossible earlier. Honestly, bread tastes like mushy, awful paste now. Not interested. Most, most important to me is that my cognitive function returned to what it had been 15 years earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:55 year old woman here who’s watched her weight creep up into the overweight category.

At 5’5 and 141, you are at a normal BMI. It will likely take a huge effort to lose. Instead, I would focus on strength training. Step away from the number on the scale and look at lifting weights. You will feel better, and your clothes will fit better. And we need to maintain our strength.

My understanding is that Noom is based on a 1200 calorie diet. That’s hard to do.

Just my 2 cents.

+1 it's the muscle mass loss which slows the metabolism. I need to also do more strength training. I do a lot of stretching due to sciatic issues, which flares up with too much leg exercises. I am going to concentrate on core exercises via planks.

FWIW. I'm 52, 4'11" and now 118. I was about 108 to 113 in my early 40s, and then late 40s when I didn't exercise much, I was a whopping 125. At my size and build, that is too much. I cut back on what I ate, generally try to eat healthy and varied diet (I don't follow any fad diets, but I don't each much cheese or bread, but I do eat rice). I love pasta and found that Barilla protein plus pasta is awesome -- tastes great and low carb, higher protein. When I had gestational diabetes, I found this pasta, and my glucose number was pretty low after eating this. My nutritionist was amazed at how I could eat pasta and keep my glucose low.

It's definitely harder to lose any weight at this stage. Your metabolism has slowed down so much, and inconjunction with muscle loss, you have to work harder and eat less to lose any weight.

GL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I signed up for Noom yesterday after reading the NY Times magazine article but I'm wondering if I'm just being unrealistic. I'm 5'5" and weigh 141. Before menopause I weighed 125 and weighed 120-125 for many years without effort. Menopause and COVID put pounds on me. I could probably lose a few pounds, but very slowly and with a lot of effort. Is it realistic? Should I try?

Note, I do not want to hear from the "No one should weigh over 110" crowd or "tell me everything you eat in a day and how much you fast" and "why aren't you doing hot yoga" or so forth. I'm reaching out to other women my age for your perspective. I'm not going to do something radical.

I’m a couple years younger and a little taller than you but perimenopause was not kind to me either. Frankly, the only thing that worked for was increasing my exercise to include HIIT workouts and strength training, logging my food into MFP, eating fewer carbs, and sticking to 1200 calories a day as best I could. My kids were away at college so DH and I didn’t have tempting snacks on hand. I hit my goal # and have been maintaining it ever since. I still exercise and eat well but I eat more than 1200 calories now. It’s a tough process but even if you drop 5-10 lbs I guarantee you’ll feel better. I suggest setting smaller, more reasonable goals when you start. Don’t try and focus on going from 141 to 120. Maybe try to hit 135 then see how you feel.

[Anonymous]

I'm 58 and I took off weight and kept it off with intermittent fasting - basically, don't eat breakfast and don't eat anything after 6pm.

[Anonymous]

I am a year younger than you and 5'2". I went from 140 to 125 in last 3 months mainly by what will now be called IF and skipping one meal. However, as a result of eating in a shorter time and skipping one , I ended up feeling better and the dosage of BP, thyroid meds were reduced.

So I think losing pounds is the way to go to feel healthy. I could not care about how I am looking anymore because I realized that as an older woman, I am invisible to people and that is very liberating. What is important is that we have energy, strength, our faculties intact, we remain active and social and we create a enjoyable and connected life for ourselves.

How did I lose my weight? Quite unintentionally. I was in a caretaker role and it was exhausting. I was basically waking up early (6 am), skipping my breakfast, doing a lot of household work - and then eating a large lunch which was basically vegetarian with whole grains, several types of veggies, salads etc. I was really eating heartily like a peasant because I used to be starving by the time lunchtime came. I then had an early dinner (hearty again- loads of food and also indulging in dessert) by 7 pm and then in bed by 9 or 10. There was no junk food except the nightly desserts. Unfortunately, I was not able to exercise, even though my day was physically exhausting in that time period. Another thing was that I did not have connectivity where I was to be on DCUM.

To maintain my weight and keep off the meds etc - I am now reevaluating how to structure my day on my own, so that I am doing the physical work of looking after the household, exercising to elevate heart rate, sleeping and resting well, eating good nutritious food (without limits or portion control) twice a day, and socializing.

In my caretaker role, I was without options in how my day unfolded. I was thrown headlong into doing what I had to do. Now, I am out of caretaking and have all the time in the world and to create a healthy schedule is entirely up to me. The challenge is that I procrastinate and there is all the time-suck that happens with DCUM. If I don't change myself, the weight will easily creep up again.