I don’t see why that would be useful for those who eat fish like salmon and sardines.
Well, I’ve lost 49 pounds in the last three years (16 to go), and I turned sixty this week. I’ve lost about 65 pounds since 2004, and I went through menopause in 2005 (if I remember correctly). I found it much easier to lose weight AFTER menopause than before.
Tracking. Track what you eat (weigh and measure), track what you do. If you’re gaining weight, there’s an imbalance in there somewhere, unless you do in fact have thyroid problems. My guess? Juices and sweetened drinks. Most people do not realize how many calories there are in that little glass of orange juice (14 calories per ounce) or that big glass of nice cool lemonade.
I used to think it wasn’t a big deal to have the occasional chocolate bar–maybe once a week–but it turns out it is. When I track, I find out that one of those nice Ritter bars with the nuts is about 500 calories.
Food in restaurants comes in huge servings, unless you sit at the sushi bar and eat tiny perfect slices of sashimi. I love sashimi now, because it comes in tiny perfect flavor packed pieces and I can’t afford to eat too much!
Well, it sounds as if I need to embark upon some strength training. I will HAVE to adjust my attitude toward weights, trainers, etc. I know that weightlifting without the proper form can lead to a world of hurt. But I don’t want to have to be taught. I have real problems with some 25-30 year old guy or gal telling me to do things, telling me what I should be able to do. I confess that I feel genuine hostility in that type of situation. I guess I could ask H, since he lifts weights big time, but I feel the same hostility. They either need a shrink or a bar at the gym.
Most people don’t eat fish like salmon and sardines often enough to have a correct ratio of O3:O6, @ucbalumnus. Obviously there are exceptions to everything and there are people who eat well over the recommended daily values for certain nutrients, but most people don’t. The majority of people don’t hit those values, although CC does contain a wealthier and more educated population than average. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford salmon or other high quality seafood.
I think there are a lot of really good resources available for learning how to lift weights with proper form, @missypie. Depending on your goals, something like bodyweight exercises may be more appropriate because they are relatively low impact and have the same metabolic effects as lifting weights. The other thing is to take some time to make sure you’re nice and flexible before you do anything that could injure you. Many people have really tight hamstrings (myself included), weak glutes, and possibly inflexible/weak shoulders, especially rotator cuffs/rear deltoids. The first set of issues is a major contributor to lower back pain, and the second can lead to all sorts of problems with your upper body.
Dr. Kelly Starrett has some great resources when it comes to fixing pain and maintaining flexibility. Dr. Eric Goodman has a great lower back workout on youtube if you want to relieve lower back pain specifically. YouTube also has plenty of amazing channels for fitness related goals. There are tons of tutorials/instructional videos and people in every field, from Olympic weightlifting to yoga to crew.
Missypie, the Diet, Exercise… etc. thread has a couple of great experts in the strength training area: idad and MichaelNKat. Both are middle-aged guys who know this stuff very well. A weights routine for someone like you might not involve any weights heavier than 8-10 lbs! No gut ripping sets of Olympic deadlifts, no hauling gigantic tires across the gym parking lot, no other similar nonsense young CrossFit dudes like to do. Your body weight is an excellent and free exercise tool, too (planks, pushups, etc. )
Going with what @BunsenBurner said, one of the people on a completely different forum I’m on (it was actually a video game forum, go figure) is a physical therapist who wrote a book called Overcoming Gravity which is supposedly a great resource for learning various bodyweight exercises. I have no personal experience with the book, although it does have very positive reviews on Amazon and he has his own decently active subreddit.
Although deadlifts are great for you (if done properly)! They engage your glutes, back, abs, quads, and hamstrings as either stabilizers or prime movers. They also do a wonderful job of strengthening connective tissue and grip. But they’re not for everybody and I get that many people with injuries or a fear of the gym probably don’t want to jump into something that intimidating.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I will take a look!
@Missypie: the first personal trainer I hired (in 1999, when DH developed cancer and I worried I wouldn’t be able to help if I needed to) was a 60-year-old woman who’d been training people for twenty years. She knew exactly how far an obese woman with bad knees could be pushed and she knew how to motivate me. It is quite possible to find a good trainer who is not 25 and skinny.
Also, for basic body-weight strength training, which is a great place to begin, this is a good set of exercises: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-minute-workout/
Thank you all for your ideas. It’s sounds like enough of us are in the same boat. I think I need to get myself back to the gym in addition to walking. I’d rather be outside, especially in the summer, but I need to do something. I also think I will pull out my WW info and start tracking again. Ugh. I did WW for a little while after my second child was born. I just afraid of what will happen this winter if I’m gaining like this now.
What I recommend to my patients and what I follow myself is a whole food predominantly vegan diet (I allow up to one meal per week with animal products). Just go to Youtube and watch Dr. Neal Barnard’s “Breaking the Food Seduction” or any of Dr. John McDougall’s videos. These are comprehensive videos that tell you why you’ve gained weight, the health impact, and what you can do about it.
Working out is important, but it is 10-30% of the weight control. The food we eat continue to be the main problem. But if you want to work out, you don’t have to do much. Just walk at a fast pace for 1-1.5 hours continuously. Also use a heart rate monitor to know how much calories you are burning. I use a Polar H7 bluetooth to my phone. I burn close to 800 calories during my good walks and about 500 calories doing P90X. So, the walking has become the way I actively burn calories and P90X my passive way of burning calories by building more muscles.
Dr. McDougall also has an inpatient program, I think it is 10 days, where he feeds his patients and teach them how to change their lifestyle for longterm health. It isn’t too expensive. It’s something I hope to do one day and you may want to look into it.
missy, I’ve had three trainers. One was a man my age, another a man older than me, and the third a woman in her 30s.
Tracking food is so much easier on a smartphone. The apps (I use MyFitnessPal) make it much less painful.
Bunsen – I understand what you are saying about how we need to adjust that bare minimum calorie count, that just doing things like making dinner raises it. But I know people who are incredibly sedentary. My husband can easily go 24 hours and walk maybe 500 steps (since he works at home and has been known to spend 12+ hours sitting in front of his computer). I have a morbidly obese friend who asked to be friends with me on the Fitbit app, and her step count for a week was significantly less than what I do in a day. Granted, she may not be wearing it, and kudos to her for wanting to be active – but I haven’t seen her numbers in weeks so I have to assume she’s back to not doing anything. She gets out of breath walking half a block.
Frugal doctor, I just want to take one exception to how many calories you burn while exercising. I also wear a heart rate monitor and have a garmin so I’m pretty positive of my exercise habits. I suspect that I am a smaller person than yourself and burn less than half of what you are burning. Heck I run and burn much less than you are! I promise I am not a slow walker either.
I have always been a small thin person. Now that I am older I have to work harder. Eat less, exercise more. I also feel that I’ve had to adjust my new normal. I can’t be as thin as I used to be. It’s hard, very hard. But to try and look and be as I was even 10 years ago, probably isn’t going to be.
I see and meet women who are very thin at my age. And I see what they have to do to be that way. I don’t want to live on salad and work out 3 hours a day like someone I know. Who obsesses over every thing that goes into her mouth.
But I do want to be healthy and have good numbers at my yearly physical. So I work at that. But trying to find balance.
I think that I shouldn’t post here. But I guess I did anyways lol 
missypie, my trainer is 40 (a guy), and one of the trainers at my gym is a woman in her 50s. They’re not all 20somethings.
I think more important than age is personality fit. It’s like finding the right therapist. It doesn’t matter how many degrees and certifications they have, or how much your co-worker loved them. If it doesn’t click between you, not much good work is going to be done.
Maybe another thing to look for is the makeup of the clientele. There are some young hardbodies at my gym, but there are a lot of women (and men) my age too. I’ve even seen a few 80 year-olds. So it is not an intimidating place to be, and that matters a lot to me.
Your first session should be mostly talk. Your trainer should work up a thorough assessment, not just weight but also BMR, and baseline strength (I had to do a couple of planks and wall sits). He should check your posture and gait, and record all of your physical conditions including those which limit what you can do in the strength arena. And he should be open to your desire not to be bossed too much. But in my admittedly limited experience, they really are not drill sergeants. They’re teachers and encouragers.
And finally, your trainer should discuss goals, and not just number goals (weight). I told mine that my intermediate goal is to look fabulous in the black dress I’ve bought for my cruise later this summer, and every couple of sessions he mentions it. When I hear “This is going to give your shoulders a nice curve in that black dress” , that’s really motivating for me.
Yes, I know we can make time for anything we want, but 1.5 hours cuts significantly into my non-work, non-sleep time. Those of you who live where you can be surrounded by some level of natural beauty should count yourselves fortunate.
The thing about trainers is that typically a trainer is associated with a gym. At my gym, there is a choice of 3. I think I’d have to join a different gym to have a different selection of trainers, and there are factors such as distance, cost, opening hours, etc. to factor in.
Yes, I’m full of excuses. I hate exercise. I’ve always been exceptionally unathletic and it doesn’t take much gym-adversity before I’m taken back to junior high PE class, being yelled at, being chosen last. See, I really do need a shrink.
I downloaded the 7 minute challenge app. My 19 year old D does that one.
Lots of good info on this thread. I just wanted to point out that 1200-1500 calories is probably more than some people think. I try to stay below 2000 for maintenance, and maybe dip to 1500 when I need to lose a few pounds. I’m a 6’ male, I expect shorter women should be consuming less.
Just as a silly example:
breakfast: 1 egg, 80 calories
lunch: In and Out cheeseburger animal style, 480 calories (400 if you skip the spread)
dinner: In and Out animal style, 480 calories
snack: corn on the cob, 60 calories
total: 1100 calories
If eating like that for a day sounds reasonable but you have issues with your weight, then barring a medical issue you’re likely eating more calories than you think…
Remember that 3500 calories = 1 pound. If you’ve been gaining 12 pounds a year, that’s taking in roughly 900 calories extra per week, or 130 per day. That’s not much at all, maybe an extra apple per day or half a cookie. It’s that tiny bit extra per day that adds up.
That scoop of pineapple sherbet I had last night was 130 calories. Darn!
I had never weighed more than 125 pounds in my entire life – and after I started transitioning and went on HRT, I generally weighed 115-120 – but all of a sudden a few years ago, in my mid-50s, I found myself weighing 130 (without changing the way I eat) and most of the clothes I wore didn’t fit anymore; I had to start wearing size 6 or 8 petite instead of 2 or 4. Perhaps fortunately, I was ill a few weeks ago and didn’t really eat for four days, and as a result I lost 15 pounds in that time-period and went back to 115. I think it’s probably easier not to gain weight than to lose weight, and I’m going to do what I can to stay under 120. What makes it simpler, I suppose, is that I’ve been unemployed now for over a year, and my savings are dwindling rapidly, so I never eat out anymore except occasionally with my son. Basically, I just nibble. (And even when I do eat out with my son, he often offers to pay for it, since he’s got a paid internship this summer. Although my parental instinct always to pay, no matter how old he is, usually kicks in. The same way, I suppose, that even when my father was in his 90s, he always insisted on paying for me and my son whenever we ate out with him.)
Re: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-minute-workout/
That workout seems to work the chest (pushups and dips) but not the back. To balance out, back exercises can be added. Pullups are the obvious one, but if you cannot do one, assisted pullups (with bands or on the counterweight assisted pullup machine at the gym) and negative pullups (start at the top and try to go down as slowly as possible) can help you work up to one, and weighted rows can otherwise by used to work the back muscles.
Looking at some calorie burn estimates, it seems like the typical approximate burn for walking or running was something like (weight in pounds) * 2/3 * (distance in miles), though running was slightly higher than walking. So if you weigh 150 pounds and walk or run 5 miles, your approximate calorie burn is 500 calories. Note that if you walk or run faster, you will cover more distance in the same amount of time and burn more calories in that amount of time.
“Remember that 3500 calories = 1 pound. If you’ve been gaining 12 pounds a year, that’s taking in roughly 900 calories extra per week, or 130 per day. That’s not much at all, maybe an extra apple per day or half a cookie. It’s that tiny bit extra per day that adds up.”
Not exactly correct. Human body can’t gain weight indefinitely. The more it weighs, the more “maintenance” calories it needs. Let’s use me as an example. Let’s assume I sit on my butt all day long and only need 1300 to maintain my current weight. If I eat 130 extra per day as in the example above, I will gain roughly 12 lb in a year. That’s close to 10% of my body weight!!! But… just because I gained weight, my BMR also went up! At some time, I will reach the point where 1300+130=1430 will be my new caloric “sweet spot” - where I will not be gaining any more weight unless I add a few more calories to my daily consumption.