How to lose weight. Any advice?
 

Hi there.

I am riding form many years and at my 60 years it is difficult for me to reduce my body weight.

I understand that the body lose depends on the balance of calories, but I live with hungry during day.

I have tried many things, including drugs (Diethylpropion) prescribed by physicians without great results and with the drug risk.

Milk intake during the day help me to fill my stomach and the hungry sensation.

Any advises will be welcome

Regards

I lost 160 lbs. over 2 years at age 50. I changed my diet to all whole foods low carb. No processed food, no sugar, no bread of any kind, no rice, potatoes or pasta. Don't drink milk to fill up. Fill up on a large salad with a vinaigrette, olive oil based, dressing. Drink water and unsweet tea or coffee only.

The best way to lose weight is to saturate yourself with as much information about diet and exercise as possible. I never counted calories. In my opinion all calories are not equal. While it is certainly true that you will have to burn more calories than you consume to lose weight, different foods effect the body differently. Someone who is obese and has developed insulin insensitivity will produce more insulin to counter rapid blood sugar rises from highly absorbable foods than an athlete that just needs to drop a few pounds. Point being, not all diets work the same for all people, but if you obsess over dietary information enough, you will find what works well for you.

Overall, your diet needs to consist of the most balanced nutrition possible, while still containing fewer calories than you burn. If you simply look at calories in VS calories out, you may lose weight, but to be healthy while doing it you need a nutritionally balanced diet.


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Losing weight at 60 is ten times harder than at 50.

I'd recommend looking at a low carb diet with higher amounts of protein and fat but with an overall lower caloric content than your basel mataboloic rate. If you keep your total carb intake to 50 grams max on days you do not ride and to 100 grams on days you ride an hour or more, you will lose weight. Fat and protein are more satiating. As we get older our insulin sensitivity goes to hell. Anyway, I am sure many will disagree with me.

How much weight do you need to lose? What do you typically eat in a day?

Agree with the above. I would only add that for big weight losses, professional supervision is advisable and that maintaining muscle, even at the expense of some fat loss, is essential for health, particularly in older people. Another consideration often ignored, is some sort of behavioral program for learning to live with the desire to eat. I'm not here to advocate for any particular diet, but ketosis does blunt hunger for many people and can actually produce some euphoria.

I am going to be 64 yoa in a couple of months and since the the beginning of August have lost about 35lbs. No secret just started cycling again. I was 230lb and now 195lb. for several years I have done a long power hike once a week of around 16 miles at a fast clip plus about 5 miles 4 or 5 times a week but that really has not done anything for weight loss. I bought a new xoxo1 and since August have put on around 2000 miles on it. I have cut down on having a beer with every meal to maybe 3 beers a week and stopped drinking a couple cans of coke a day. Nothing else out of the ordinary.

Longer rides at lower effort (lower HR zone) go a long way for getting the pounds off of me. Harder efforts just have me eating back all those Calories during the next few days. If you are really serious about wanting to lose the pounds that are giving you trouble, then track everything you eat and drink so you can figure out the amount of Calories you consumed.

a random tip - animal meat protein will satisfy hunger & slow your metabolism which can help you sleep. for a while, during a period of body transformation I would have a chicken cutlet before bed. seemed to work pretty well

Protein is satisfying, but, respectfully, lean meat is actually the most thermogenic thing you can eat, viz., it speeds up metabolism because it requires the most energy to digest and absorb.

A friend of mine who fought being overweight for years did two things. One of them was to take up kayaking. The other tip he passed along to me was that when he gets hungry in-between meals he drinks a bottle of water and waits five minutes. If he is still hungry he drinks another bottle of water.

My own experience has been that modifying diet isn't enough, alone, for me to have any results. When I was cycling regularly and in the amount I was cycling at the time, I could pretty much eat anything I wanted and fought losing weight. I seemed to have lost the drive as well as the time to ride like that now. We take time for what we want and apparently, I don't want it enough anymore.

I would look at it as a body recomposition thing, thus changing your body to be more muscle, less fat. That's the idea, right? Muscle burns calories, fat does not. So IME the easiest thing to do is to put on muscle. IOW, go to the gym. Start with light weights, gradually increase the reps, then gradually increase the weights. Don't increase your calories, just your burn. There are lots of good books on weight training out there. For sure it will improve your cycling and your whole life.

I had a funny thing happen yesterday. I had a doctor's appointment. At my age, 77, doctors will ask you to stand up from a chair, because a heckuva lot of Americans can't do so unaided, especially older folks. So I just jumped out of my chair, feet a good 6" off the floor. She had quite a fun look on her face. I go to the gym and am also losing weight from doing so, BMI of 23. I've been doing pulling routines on Tuesday, pushing (which includes legs) on Thursday and Saturday. The other days, I either go for a 3-5 mile walk or ride my rollers for an hour. It's fall here in the PNW and finally raining. It's a good time to hit the gym, especially at my age.

If you have a significant amount to lose, you may want to employ certain stratagems. For instance, you might drink a couple glasses of water before any meal or have a very large amount of something low calorie and low carb before your main meal for satiety. I like to have copious amounts of broccoli, or cabbage at the beginning of a meal so I'm not tempted to eat a whole chicken. I also employ intermittent fasting. When I started, I would get weak and starving in just a few hours without calories and thought I had to eat 3 meals a day and snacks. I started stretching the time between meals and consuming more fats and protein gradually. I don't get hungry or weak now on a 20-4 IM fasting schedule every day. It's a lot easier for me to maintain a caloric deficit on just one meal a day.

No less than 90 grams of Protein at less than 1800 calories a day...

Recent studies show older people need MORE protein than younger folks, espeically when exercising. Apolgies I do not have the studies to reference at the moment but make sure to get enough proteein. Muscle lost at this at is age is lost. Read what CCFBOY wrote, very important

edit, never mind, didn't initially understand your point

Here's the study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4924200/

I supplement with chocolate flavored whey protein. Regarding the leucine mentioned in the study, I add a gram or two to each dose of whey. Also see: https://www.bikeforums.net/fifty-plu...-days-ago.html

Absolutely!

so what you were saying maybe was eat a fatty meat before bed?

my point about meat before bed, was to have that, instead of something else snack-like or dessert-like one might have in the house, like fruit, chips, pretzels, cookies, ice cream etc

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear. Minor point, but I was taking issue with the statement that it would slow down metabolism. The effect is actually the opposite.

Thanks a lot for your reply.
My problem is the anxiety I feel. So I eat anything, specially at night after my training workouts.
I weight 207 lbs .
My target weight should be 187 lbs.
Warm regards

Change of diet as others have said and also add some resistance training to build and maintain muscle as you age.

Look into natural ways to treat anxiety. What is your workout like? I ask because strenuous exercise is known to relieve anxiety. Breathing exercises can be very effective. Any type of activity that you enjoy that takes your mind into the moment, and out of any other thinking can be great as well.

Hi there.
It seems that we need to teach to our body to increase the fat oxidation.
I found this article.
alancouzens.com/blog/improving_fat_burning2.html

You aren't going to teach a 60y.o. body much, if anything, new. I weighed 203 (but liked it) several years ago. Then I got the Flu (no Covid then) and wound up 185(!) after it was all over. Worked back up to 195, which is kind of where I like to be. Just got sick again, and I can tell I've lost significant weight but don't have a scale at home and haven't been back to the gym yet. For anyone with weight to lose I can recommend The Flu™ as a sure fire way to drop significant weight for as long as your fever runs. Keeping it off means some denial in your future. Sweet things are out: cakes, cookies, pies ... dead to you. Don't kill yourself though. Cheat once a month or so or you will FAIL. A gym membership is just about mandatory since it isn't always possible to bike. Me and mine are pretty good about riding in rain and the dark and extreme cold but even we have to draw the line at glare ice on the road! So access to cardio equipment and, yes, weights, is necessary to maintain a neutral calorie situation over the longer term.