The Ultimate Guide To Losing Weight After 50
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You’re over 50 and you’ve decided you need to shed a bit of weight. Especially around your middle where it seems to collect now. Easy you think. I’ll just up my exercise, cut calories and Bob’s your Uncle, Fanny’s your Aunt. You stock up on lettuce, cottage cheese and celery. There are some secrets to losing weight that every woman carrying excess menopause weight needs to know and none of them say anything about starving yourself or cutting whole food groups out of your diet.
This blog post is designed to give you all of the secrets and insider information that will help you get started on your journey to health and wellness as well as help you maintain it. Here you can find the answers you need on hormone balance, stress, sleep, diet and nutrition, exercise, and mindfulness to help you maintain a healthy weight.
First…
Know why trying to lose weight after 50 is difficult
It’s no longer about the calories in need to be less than the calories out formula. Just increasing exercise and decreasing your calorie intake isn’t going to shrink your middle age spread.
Aging makes getting rid of weight, as a woman over 50, very different. Your metabolism has changed and your hormone levels are all over the place.
Women often ask “Is it too late for me to lose weight now that I’m over 50?” It’s never too late to make healthy changes in your diet and amount of physical activity you do that will improve your ability to lose weight.
Read these posts for more information on how weight loss works for you once your hit 50:
What Prevents Women Over 50 Losing Weight?
How To Increase Your Metabolism After 50 (To Best Lose Weight)
11 Tips To Lose Menopause Belly Fat And Keep It Off
The 10 Weight Loss Mistakes women in midlife make cheat-sheet
Develop the right habits and mindset to lose weight after 50
Continue with the habits that are already working for you.
Slowly make more changes using the information in this post to make it easier for you to lower your weight naturally.
This is an important step because it will help ensure long-term success and keep the weight off once it’s gone!
Read these posts for more information on how to go about making lifestyle changes that you can stick to and maintain easily.
10 Mini Habit Changes For Women In Midlife (That Lead To Amazing Health Gains)
Know what you need to do to be successful at losing menopause weight.
10 Best Tips To Make Menopause Weight Loss A Success
And it helps to have the right mindset to start with.
These posts will help with that –
How To Get Into The Right Mindset For Losing Weight
How To Lose Weight Without Dieting In Midlife
Do a detox to kickstart shedding some weight naturally
Detoxes are an excellent way to kick-start your weight loss journey. You may not feel able to go on a full cleanse, but you can try something like just drinking more water throughout the day!
This will help flush out extra fat and toxins in your system and give you energy.
Read these posts for more information –
The Best Whole Body Detox Cleanse: To Rejuvenate Over 50
5 Best Detox And Belly Fat Burning Smoothie Recipes
Keep your hormones balanced to give yourself the best advantage for weight loss
Find out why your hormones can become unbalanced. Know that it may not be what you yourself have or haven’t done. Hormonal changes are a normal part of aging.
Become in tune with how you’re feeling to better understand what hormones may be out of balance. This will allow you to do what is needed to rebalance.
Keeping your hormones in balance will ensure that you avoid muscle mass loss and burn fat effectively keeping your metabolism high.
Read these posts for more information –
How Do I Balance My Hormones To Lose Weight In Midlife?
The Signs and Symptoms of Estrogen Dominance in Menopause: How to Fix Them
Best Natural Solutions For Women’s Hormone Imbalance
How can a woman over 50 lose menopause weight?
Menopause makes it even more difficult to lose weight. With your estrogen and progesterone on the decline muscle mass is also decreasing which means less calories are burned of during the normal course of your day. Your body will also want to store more fat.
Read this post for more information –
How To Lose The Weight You Gain In Menopause
Do the right exercise
Shedding weight in your 50’s means doing the right exercise and moving more. Include exercises such as strength training, high-intensity interval workouts (HIIT), and Pilates that will help you retain muscle mass for the best fat burning.
Exercise to increase your heart rate which will burn calories and lose weight after 50
Find movement that you enjoy doing such as walking, dancing, or swimming.
Your exercise should make you sweat and feel a little puffed (towards the end) to burn fat effectively at this age.
Physical activity is critical to weight loss in midlife.
Read this post for a comprehensive look at ways to lose weight which includes a good section on exercise and movement-
The Best Ways For Women Over 50 To Lose Belly Fat
Exercise for increasing muscle mass
As you move into midlife your declining estrogen causes you to lose muscle mass.
When lifting weights aim for compound movements that work multiple muscles such as squats, deadlifts, rows, and presses.
Strength training is a must if you don’t want to continue to lose more muscle mass and want to maintain a healthy body weight.
Yoga too is good. Many of the strength moves used in yoga include a group of muscles and you get the added benefit of using the breath which works to bring down the strength and help with detoxing.
Read these posts for more information –
The Most Important Exercise For Women Over 50
6 Best Yoga Asanas To Reduce Belly Fat: Women Over 50
What should a 50 year old woman eat to lose weight?
Eating well and getting the right nutrients is one of the secrets to losing belly fat naturally for over 50. Go for a diet that is mainly plant based with a smattering of animal protein and plenty of healthy fats.
Include foods such as lean meats, fish, fruits, and vegetables.
Eat plenty of healthy protein. Don’t forget plant proteins such as nuts, seeds, and legumes like chickpeas and lentils. This can improve your resting metabolic rate so you basically burn more calories in your sleep.
Make sure you drink enough water to flush out the toxins from your body as well as staying hydrated for workouts.
What foods should you avoid if you want to lose weight over 50?
Avoid added sugar and refined sugar products in your diet which can lead to insulin resistance. These are foods like biscuits, cakes, low fat yoghurt and many breakfast cereals.
If you are insulin resistant your body is in fat storage mode and it can be difficult to switch it back although with good lifestyle changes not impossible.
French fries and potato chips are full of empty calories and usually fried in unhealthy fats so also should be avoided.
You should steer clear of poducts made with white flour as they can spike your blood sugar levels and lead to craving more.
Read these posts for more information –
Are You Getting Enough Water? The Effects Of Dehydration On Your Health
Eat According To Your Metabolic Type For Easier Weight Loss In Midlife
5 Best Detox And Belly Fat Burning Smoothie Recipes
My Top Five Tips For Low Carb Clean Eating In Midlife
10 foods To Eat And 10 foods To Avoid To Lose Menopausal Weight
13 Reasons Why You Struggle To Lose Weight On A Low Carb Diet
5 Best Foods For Energy And Weight Loss
Keep your stress levels low
Stress is the enemy of weight loss success for over 50s, so you need to make sure that your stress levels are low, and if they aren’t then look at ways in which you can reduce them. Consistently high stress leads to elevated cortisol levels which can cause overeating and insomnia both of which can drive you to gain weight.
Read these posts for more information –
How To Reduce Stress To Lose Weight In Midlife
13 Easy Ways To Decrease Your Stress Now
Get plenty of quality sleep
Good sleep is another one of the secrets to losing weight naturally. Studies have shown that people who don’t get enough quality sleep may be more likely to gain excess body fat!
Get at least seven hours shut-eye per night, make sure your room is cool enough to help you fall asleep easily, and try not to keep your phone in the room or use any light-emitting gadgets.
Read these posts for more information –
How To Sleep Better At Night Naturally
Try Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting is a great way to get rid of some weight. Try it for 16 hours and then have an eight-hour window in which you can eat your meals.
If 16 hours is too much of a stretch for you start with 12 and gradually build up to it.
Read these posts for more information –
What Are The Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting For Women Over 50?
Stop Bloating and Menopause Weight Gain With Intermittent Fasting
Cut Sugar out of your diet
Cutting sugar out of your diet is possibly the best and first thing you should think about when you want to lose fat. Sugar plays havoc with hormones and increases your chances of insulin resistance so cut it out completely! You will be amazed at how much better you will feel very quickly.
Start reading the labels on every food item you buy at the grocery store to make sure there are no hidden sugars in them which will slow down your weight loss efforts.
Make sure that you are eating enough calories to lose weight which sounds counterintuitive but sometimes you need to be eating enough to fuel you body for the next day. Protein is especially good for this and doesn’t have the same impact on your body weight as empty carbs.
Read these posts for more information –
How To Quit Sugar Easily And Improve Your Health
Take a Magnesium supplement
Taking magnesium supplements can help with weight loss as magnesium helps muscles to relax which in turn means they are more efficient at burning fat!
If you have trouble sleeping then take some before bed as it also helps with insomnia.
Read these posts for more information –
The Best Supplements For Energy In Midlife
Avoid weight gain when the holiday season rolls around
Don’t put all your hard work to waste by letting yourself go during the holiday season. This is a difficult time for some people who struggle with food intake and weight gain.
Read this post for more information –
How To Avoid Weight Gain Over The Holiday Season In Midlife
This post has been written as a comprehensive catch-all post on the secrets to weight loss over 50. If you can’t find the answer to your question please comment and I’ll try to help.
Jane,
Live your articles on the weight loss struggle for women over 50. What flaxseed do you recommend?
Thank you!
Maria Dodge
Hi Maria, Thank you so much I’m pleased you get something out of them. I don’t get too precious about brands but where I can I do get organic. Hope that helps.
Jane :)