Can you get fit after 40?

I can't get on with 'diets'....i often hear myself saying i'll go on one but my type of 'diet' consists of exactly the same thing as i always eat (i try to keep it healthy for the most part) but i use a slightly smaller plate....when it comes to exercise i just push my self that bit harder in what i do if i feel a few pounds need to come off

 

I decided to shed some pounds and get fitter this year. Haven't started on the fitness yet, but I started looking at my calorie intake using MyFitnessPal.com. It has a huge database of foods, and it was not hard to use it to record how many calories I was eating. Bit tedious though ... but my meals are similar-ish, day to day, so I did some "What If's" instead of religiously logging each meal and feeling like a Geek weighing all my food before eating it!). Snacking, mainly on Hobnobs, was my biggest issue ... but I already knew that

Someone suggested fasting to me, and I've been doing that. Nothing to eat from supper, which ideally needs to be finished by 9pm, no eating after than until lunch the next day. Only black coffee or water in the morning.

I started having "Breakfast" (cereal / porridge) at noon, but then decided I preferred Lunch instead. I was getting hungry by around 4pm and snacking as before, so decide to have "breakfast" at 4pm.

So now I am basically having the same meals as before, definitely same size portions etc., just not at the same time, and not in the same order

Doing that, and absolutely nothing else different, I have been shedding 1.5 lbs a week, week on week, for a month now.

I don't feel hungry in the morning - I was expecting to, but I just don't. I don't feel any less sharp mentally, but I have a desk job, so its not like I'm trying to run a marathon in the mornings.

Never been on a diet before in my life, its taken me probably 30 years to accumulate an excess of 1.5 stone, so I've never really seen it as a big problem, but I am amazed how easy it has been to switch to this routine. No idea if others would fine it as easy, but if you are wanting to shed some pounds I wish you luck, whatever method you try.

 

That's amazing, @Kristen. I know scientists disagree with this, but I've often thought that the time you eat food seems to make a difference. However, my rule would be no eating between 6pm and breakfast. Late night snacking is bad news, IMO, but I suppose all snacking is. Especially hobnobs, hope they were chocolate-free ones.;-).

Also, staying up really late seems to counteract any calories eaten. Remember those heady student days of staying up half the night? I never put on weight then, no matter how many gravy-soaked chips I'd eaten at 2am.

@Derbyshire, I can understand why you might want to graze from a bowl instead of sitting down to a meal. I always eat more in those long, endless types of meal with too many courses. Also, dining with family or friends there's always a temptation to keep on picking away as you chat around the table. Just one more roastie, shame to waste it. However, I do need to feel that I've had a proper, tasty satisfying meal otherwise I just think about food all evening afterwards.

 

@Kristen, that's basically what we do black coffee for t'other half and black teas for me. If I am real hungry I have a muesli bar. It's what we did when we worked (both office orientated) and have continued into our now leisurely lifestyle.

 

If I told you they were chocolate free no one would want to visit me

 

Oh, I think we would, Kristen!

 

I've met all three of you less than a year ago. None of you had so much as an ounce of surplus flab as far as I could tell.

 

I'm same shape as last year, definitely carrying some excess though. However, its an excess that I haven't worried too much about, and doesn't show that much ... but it has increased year-on-year, and I now notice it whereas I didn't really/much before.

No idea how accurate these things are, just based on Age, Weight, Gender, but its a starting target:



I seem to remember my teenager weight being 77kg ... maybe I have misremembered and it was 70kg. Anyways, at current loss-rates its just a couple of months to get down to 76.8kg and I would be well happy to settle for that.

 

The thing to remember about BMI is it is a very, very rough guide. Categorising someone as overweight or obese based on BMI alone is not constructive, for one very simple but vitally important reason. It takes no account whatsoever of muscle mass.

I wonder how many heavyweight boxers would call themselves obese. BMI would put them all in the obese bracket.

Years ago when I was in a gymn, the personal trainers there completely rejected BMI altogether, and chose instead to use either the magic electronic thing that measured your fat/muscle ratio, or as a more simple measure when for a ratio of hip size to belly girth.

Unfortunately for me, whatever measure we choose, the result is going to be the same. I have too much belly

 

Sorry Shiney, I didn't notice you claim to be overweight otherwise I would have said

You were also as thin as a pin when I met you.

 

Blimey, I'm fractious from low blood sugar by 4.30 pm, how the heck do you stick it out till then without fainting or grabbing the nearest pie?

 

Yeah, but I'm about half a stone heavier than I was 6 or 7 years ago, and I'd kept roughly the same weight throughout my life. There are clothes I can't wear because I've got fatter. At 5'2" you don't have to put on more than a few pounds to look a bit chunky!