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losing weight after 35 is hard
- Thread starter Thornton Reed
- Start date
Take a look at your chicken and broccoli/cauliflower dinner. Outside of the cheese, you're not talking a lot of calories, and it's very filling. Imagine it was chicken parm and spaghetti instead. Both have cheese, so that's a wash. A shit ton more calories in the pasta vs. the broccoli/cauliflower. The sauce undoubtedly has more calories than the broth. The chicken in the chicken parm is breaded and fried, so it has more calories than your chicken.
Once you lock in on exactly how many calories are in certain meals, counting calories gets a lot easier. When I lost 50 lbs I used my fitness pal and after a month I had most of the meals I ate saved, and it was relatively easy to log entire weeks at a time.
I can't say how much it helped just replacing my unhealthy lunches with a salad and cottage cheese. Of all the changes to my diet, that was the biggest difference maker. Just having one or two meals a day that you can bank on being a certain amount of calories makes the process SO much easier.
When it came to exercise, it's really important to find something that you enjoy, because weight loss is all about transforming your lifestyle which means finding sustainable methods of weight loss. Don't rely on running for weight loss if you can't run inside in the winter, if you hate lifting weights, don't lift weights, etc. If you find something you really enjoy, it really helps with compliance in the diet. Which, as other have noted, is the lynchpin.
Weight loss for me is kind of like keeping a budget. If I don't go into each day with a plan, I'm a lot more likely to slip up. Take five minutes every day to plan out meals, make sure you have the groceries you need, and think ahead whenever possible.
oh yeah, and you should probably drink more water than you currently are. It helps a ton.
I can't say how much it helped just replacing my unhealthy lunches with a salad and cottage cheese. Of all the changes to my diet, that was the biggest difference maker. Just having one or two meals a day that you can bank on being a certain amount of calories makes the process SO much easier.
When it came to exercise, it's really important to find something that you enjoy, because weight loss is all about transforming your lifestyle which means finding sustainable methods of weight loss. Don't rely on running for weight loss if you can't run inside in the winter, if you hate lifting weights, don't lift weights, etc. If you find something you really enjoy, it really helps with compliance in the diet. Which, as other have noted, is the lynchpin.
Weight loss for me is kind of like keeping a budget. If I don't go into each day with a plan, I'm a lot more likely to slip up. Take five minutes every day to plan out meals, make sure you have the groceries you need, and think ahead whenever possible.
oh yeah, and you should probably drink more water than you currently are. It helps a ton.
The average man's diet is 2500 calories a day according to google. To reduce calories would mean making it 2000 calories a day. Or 20%?
What do you guys say about microwave meals under 400 calories as a way to diet without really thinking too hard? I'm talking about the good stuff too, not garbage TV dinner type stuff.
Yup that's the best way to look at it. If your maintenance is 2500 and you knock down to 2000, plus mix in a half hour+ of intense cardio and some weight lifting, you should be able to burn roughly 2 pounds a week. Easiest way to think of it is every 500 calories you slash is a pound a week.
There are no "good stuff" microwave meals. Checking your calorie intake is important. Not eating crap is important too.
Makes sense. Sugar/Carbs = Calories
I think the approach just makes it easier. I use to stare down "calories" on packages and do math. Now I just look quickly for 0 Carbs or very low carbs and go.
I really do suggest people focus more on carbs if they want to make it "easy". Process wise, it makes things far simpler. Eat a burger, but without bread. Eat a steak, eat cheese, eat veggies, etc. It makes it simple
Eating cheese is very dangerous for calorie sake. Yeah a slice melted over something is fine, but if you're snacking on cheese you can rack in caloriesquick.
lots of those microwave meals have a bunch of fillers or sodium is high on it. even if they are "healthy" labeled. probably just take one day out of the week to prep food.
It's definitely the most appealing diet. Steak, salami, and cheese are far more appealing than baked, poached, and broiled chicken breasts. Makes it a hell of a lot easier to stick to.
Cool, thanks. :) I've gone from being on the low end of the oveweight range to the high end of the overweight range on this BMI scale: https://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/Images/body-mass-index-chart.gif
Looks like to get back to where I was would be 8 weeks of consistency. And to get to green would be 9-10.
I've lost about 8 pounds in 5 weeks on keto (carb count approx 20g a day). No exercise or anything. Not overweight but wanted to attack this belly that started to form. It's not for everyone but it definitely works. Clothes feel looser and down a notch on the old belt. Only going to do it for another couple of weeks.
Op, if your up for it, give it a go. What have you got to lose (apart from flab!)
If 2500 is your maintenance calories then yes, but 2500 is actually for a pretty big guy.
For example if I calculate TDEE for a 6'0" person you'd have to be 225 pounds to get 2500. That's obese.
The average height in the US is 5'9". To be a healthy bodyweight you'd want to be around 170 pounds. Maintenance calories at that weight is 2,126. So if you're heavier and want to go down you probably want to go further than just 2000.
Obviously not taking into account if you have a good amount of muscle, etc. This also depends on how sedentary you are. I'm calculating on being pretty lethargic through the day. Obviously if you have a fast paced moving job then sure you can move that upwards.
I'm actually even smaller, 5'3''. So I've gone from ~140 to ~160 in a few years.
yeah 2500 at 225 is for a sedentary person. If you're moderately active 2500 isn't super high at 6'.
Personally when talking about losing weight I always calculate on being sedentary because if you're wrong that's just a bonus. If you over estimate how much you move in the day then that's just gonna make it harder. And a lot of jobs nowadays are really sedentary. If you're in an office chair and driving into work for like 9 hours a day there isn't a lot you can do to balance that in a huge way.
That's fair, but also risky. You should look into calculating your basal metabolic rate rather than TDEE in that case.
Yeah when I was losing weight I was actually using BMR directly.
I wanted to hit things hard so my strategy was to figure out my BMR and beat that by about ~500 calories plus exercise on top of that. And also overestimate anything I didn't quite know by about 30% when inputting into the app.
I still somehow managed to have cake and pizza and all sorts of shit while losing 100 pounds over about 6 months.
I'm about your age OP, middle of September i was 237 pounds, weighed myself today again and I'm 221 pounds! No exercise, doing intermittent fasting, i eat from 7am to 3pm every day, normal breakfast, big lunch, just water the rest of the day. I also cut sodas completely out of my diet.
Those microwavable vegetables are the best. Seriously, often better than cooking them yourself as they're flash frozen immediately after picking. Add a little butter and pepper *boom* good microwave meal.
Here's another question, so long as they are zero calories and you aren't letting the snack cravings get to you, is drinking carbonated zero calorie drinks like La Croix or even a Coke Zero okay?
I've lost 35 pounds since April, and the thing that did it was replacing soda with seltzer water, calorie counting, and allowing myself to eat out at times, but only buying the smallest portions of things on the menu. Like, I'll get taco bell once every week or two when I feel like I need it, but I'll just get one thing off of the menu instead of 3 like I used to. Also, I started making more spicy food to force myself to eat slower, and over time my body just recognized when it was "done" eating a meal before I felt super full.
Fighting that "full" feeling has been a gigantic challenge for me, since I was definitely raised to be a "finish everything on your plate" person. I used to feel pretty bloated and bad after most meals, since I was essentially overeating every time I made or bought food. I'd definitely advocate for calorie counting. A pint of beer on my calorie tracker is like 300 calories for the IPAs I like, and if you have 8 a weekend, that's enough to completely throw off any progress during the week.
This is also coming from someone who has a heart disease that prevents strenuous exercise. I have a desk job, though I do spend most evenings at rehearsal for theater stuff which provides some moderate exercise. It's all about the diet, IMO.
Fighting that "full" feeling has been a gigantic challenge for me, since I was definitely raised to be a "finish everything on your plate" person. I used to feel pretty bloated and bad after most meals, since I was essentially overeating every time I made or bought food. I'd definitely advocate for calorie counting. A pint of beer on my calorie tracker is like 300 calories for the IPAs I like, and if you have 8 a weekend, that's enough to completely throw off any progress during the week.
This is also coming from someone who has a heart disease that prevents strenuous exercise. I have a desk job, though I do spend most evenings at rehearsal for theater stuff which provides some moderate exercise. It's all about the diet, IMO.
I really wish there was an easy and accurate way to track my calorie intake. It would take me about an hour a day to attempt to correctly input all the things I eat into MyFitnessPal.
try weight watchers? it just assigned a point value to all your food and it's easy to scan stuff so you know how much it's worth.
I honestly find those trackers make it way worse. The best I've found is keeping a small notepad or keeping a note on my phone that I add a rough estimate of what I ate. It sucks not all things are calculated for you, but it's worth the effort.
I've lost 120 or so the past 2.5 years. Never did anything out of the ordinary, The times periods where I would do more "movement" (life, yard work, etc) I would see an uptick in weight loss, but you by no means have to go to the Gym 3 times a week, etc. Though, it does HELP, but I was the type that if I went into it knowing I had to do this or that, I would just revert back to my old ways eventually. This time I around, I just changed the diet and have been holding strong since.
I don't see how this is possible unless you're eating wildly different every single day. Even then that's way overestimating the work if you have a food scale. After a while of doing things you'll have meals saved and can throw them in really quickly.
My cousin is currently on a similar yo yo cycle to what I used to be and I'm tryin gto break him away from that. That being said he gains and loses around 50 pounds a year where he diets for a few months and eats whatever he wants the rest of the year. He never does any form of cardio or weight lifting at all, he's one of the most sedentary people I know. He still loses the weight. What I try to sell to him though, is lets say he does a 20 week diet. If he just did cardio a few times a week, he'd have burned 15 more pounds by the end of the diet, or he could end his diet weeks earlier.
I'm 36 and just lost over 100 pounds this year. But I exercise an hour every day so I don't have to worry about eating and drinking so much. Hell yes it was hard at first. It gets easier. If you live a busy life, having access to something like a treadmill can help. You can try and squeeze in a 30 min workout before or after work.
Reading the OP more it seems like you do workout a fair amount. In the end you have to weigh things. If you're not gaining weight and can live healthy the workouts all the time might not be worth it. Also, strength training seems more like what you should focus on as opposed to cardio.
Reading the OP more it seems like you do workout a fair amount. In the end you have to weigh things. If you're not gaining weight and can live healthy the workouts all the time might not be worth it. Also, strength training seems more like what you should focus on as opposed to cardio.
CICO is always the way to lose weight and getting older does not change that. I do, however, think getting older does make all of your fat seem to gather/settle in your belly and ass and getting those areas back to normal is harder work than if you were younger.
This guy knows whats up. You wanna use sports to lose weight faster? Lift. Bigger muscles require more food. Worked great in my case :)
I guess there are specific ingredients that are good for microwaves (hooray for popcorn!), but whole instant-meals are usually filled with flavor enhancers, perservatives, too much salt / sugar and so on. There are very bad, cheap and trashy instant-meals for the microwave and others that are "just" bad. I don't think that there is a single instant-meal for the microwave that would count as healthy or that you should focus a diet on.
whats the best way to diet for a picky eater?
im in the same boat as OP where im 35 and need/want to lose weight but everything i try i get bored of whether its trying to exercise or diet
im in the same boat as OP where im 35 and need/want to lose weight but everything i try i get bored of whether its trying to exercise or diet
What has worked for me, and what I think a lot of people should do, is eat more fiber, like a LOT more. Oatmeal, wheat bread, stuff like that. It really helps you feel full longer and makes those awful hunger pains go away.
Main problem is, if he does get down to his "normal" weight, or a "goal weight", and if he doesn't have the discipline to maintain that weight, then why even bother with trying the diet? It s a life style change. I've slowly added back in "treats" but basically I gave up a ton of stuff to make the maintaining part work. I still have a ways to go, but I am confident that I will reach where I want to because I know I have the discipline now. Doing it Keto was also helpful because it meant my system lost the feeling of sugar. It was hard for me to diet will still taking in carbs of any kind. 120 pounds in 2.5 years isn't that fast. Some people lose 120 in a year. But I don't care. croping the weight hella fast then just going back to who you were will just catch up to you. Unfortunately I had to get rid of things I eat that I love, but that doesn't mean every once in a while I can't still have it.
How do you assign points to food though? Scan what, pre-packaged foods with barcodes?
What if you make your own meals?
To accurately find out the calorie intake you would have to measure the amount of each ingredient, find out how many calories X amount of that ingredient is, tally it all up, then divide it by your portion size. That is a huge effort.
I know MyFitnessPal has preset meals like 'mushroom risotto' but given that the presets are extremely unlikely to be the exact recipe and amount as whatever you've actually consumed, it's likely that the sum total of your daily calories could be significantly inaccurate.
Even just the first meal I had today - muesli, simple enough right?
I type that in MFP and hundreds of options come up - ranging from 80 to 500 calories.
I didn't have a brand though, I made my own large batch with a base and then added dried fruits, nuts, seeds and protein powder in varying quantities.
I don't know precisely how much I ate, I just filled a bowl, no idea how many grams or cups it was.
It's tempting to just pick one and think 'close enough' but it could be hundreds of calories out, so what's the point?
I totally agree, but he says he'd rather be fat and happy. The thing that concerns me is his fathers history of heart issues and clogged arteries, especially given how healthy he was prior to passing :/
Yes but if you stop with sugary things you wont crave them anymore at all which is great.
Yeah, I eat a fairly varied diet. Breakfast consists of one of a few things usually so I entered those, but lunch and dinner vary a lot.
I don't have a food scale, and find it hard to find time to cook these days. What if you grab something from a street food stall or a restaurant, how would you measure the calories in that? There's just no way of being precise about it which makes it all feel kinda futile to me.
Come on technology, hurry up and invent some sort of chip I can install in my throat to record and analyse everything I consume!
Weight Watchers has pre-assigned points to food items. So if you eat some chicken, you search for the kind (chicken breast, thigh, etc) and tell it how much you ate and it assigns it a point value. If it's prepackaged stuff with a barcode, you can scan the barcode and it'll tell you how many points it is. When you sign up you tell it what your goal is and your current height and weight and it assigns a daily point value. Your goal would be to stay within the point value so you aren't overeating, or stick below if you want to lose weight.
You can also build your own meals based on calories and stuff but I never used that. I generally eyeball it because the differences aren't that dramatic. But you can get specific with measurements, add a bunch of items to a meal and then pre-save it so next time you can just search for it again without having to do all the manual work.
What can you eat that doesn't have sugar and actually have some semblance of taste? (I hate salads and need to lose 15 lbs)
I'm 35. 36 in less than a month.
We have similar stats. I was a little lighter than you. I'm 5'11" and 158lbs. I've lost 10lbs in the last 3 months and I've gone from 25% body fat to 18.2% body fat in 2 months. You can do it.
It really is about Calories In. Calories Out. Also doing some exercise can help but diet is everything.
This but should caveat that as you get older, your RMR will decrease thus meaning that if you eat the same amount of food a day at 35 as you did at 21, you will gain weight.
The whole metabolism kickstart thing is such a nonfactor. Just factor in CICO (Calories In, Calories Out).
It is going to have to be his idea then. Who buys his food?
As I mentioned up there, carbs caused me to continuously be hungry and as a result I would eat too much, too often. I felt like I had to because I was hungry. You are supposed to eat when you are hungry, right? So I would tell myself, well I'm hungry, so it is okay. I would literally have 800 calories in the morning then 4 hours later my stomach was going ape shit with hunger pains. Hungry? I'm supposed to eat. So that made me fat and happy.
It might be a situation though that he only increases his food intake and he just keeps gaining. That's basically what happened to me.
A lot of places are required to post calories, so it's really not too hard. Yes there are some local restaurants where you don't know, but I personally overestimated those and really you shouldn't be going out that much that it'd swing things wildly like that. You can usually find something equivalent. And after a while you know what's going on if you're doing it well.
Nothing is ever going to be 100% precise, I guess until you microchip yourself because there's just a lot to account for. But once you get going it gets so easy to just pop it into the app.
I don't eat them, but looking at some of the 'healthy' microwavable meals, they don't look too bad. Probably doable in a pinch, but no, I wouldn't focus a diet around them.
30 checking in, I can't say that it has been specifically harder now as compared to 20 in terms of biology. I bet its mostly lifestyle differences that's all. When I was 20 I went to the gym 4 days a week for 1 hour sessions, now I don't have the care for that.
Also when I wanted to lose a lot of weight a few years ago when I lived by myself, I just did extreme dieting and controlled my calories for every meal.
Now when you live with someone it's a little harder to deal when they don't have a need for dieting and you are both preparing meals for each other.
Also when I wanted to lose a lot of weight a few years ago when I lived by myself, I just did extreme dieting and controlled my calories for every meal.
Now when you live with someone it's a little harder to deal when they don't have a need for dieting and you are both preparing meals for each other.
Weight loss is 90% dietary. Also, weight lifting is much better/efficient for burning fat than cardio.
Technically HIIT is the best/most efficient fat burning method.