How I Lost 40lbs after 40
Many of my friends have been asking me when they see me lately “What have you been doing?!” I’m guilty of oversimplifying, and I know it.. and that is not a helpful thing when you feel that’s it important to educate people on health and wellness. So I decided to write a blog post about it. Yes, I’ve lost a bunch of weight. 40lbs to be specific, over the past 8 months.
For those who don’t know me, I’m no stranger to fitness and sports nutrition. I’ve trained for various fitness/athletic endeavors since my mid-20’s (I’m 46 now), from bodybuilding to marathons to triathlons.. I know “all the things” about working out and about doing what it takes to feel good in my own body.
But those things that I knew worked in my younger years, like doing more endurance training and counting my calories and macros.. stopped working for me. High volume endurance training (like running and cycling) became too tough on my physical body and I started to experience chronic pain. Just simply doing a moderate amount of exercise (like strength training and HIIT), whilst counting calories gave me no results when it came to losing weight. Like many, I got discouraged and gave up.. twice... and as a result, I gained 25 pounds over the course of 2.5 years. I avoided the scale and kept telling myself “it’s OK, I’m getting older”, “I just need to be happy with who I am.” But I wasn’t.. happy OR OK with it. Not really. I was just a lie I told myself. My clothes didn’t fit me anymore; I didn’t like what I was seeing on my body, in the mirror or in pictures. And I definitely didn’t like the way my body felt.. suffering from daily low back and sometimes knee pain.
I finally had my “Aha!” moment in September of 2022. I was listening to an audiobook called “The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self” by Michael Easter (a book I highly recommend everyone read, by the way) and that’s when I realized.. that in my discouragement and a bit of laziness, I guess, I had also gotten complacent and WAY too comfortable with my eating and drinking, and exercise habits. I knew then that I needed to do better. So I could feel better in my own body. And in that moment, I knew that if I truly wanted to makes changes, I was going to have to get comfortable with being UNCOMFORTABLE. I was going to have to be hungry at times, turn up the intensity of my workouts and turn down invitations to social events.
I decided to finally get on the scale and stop ignoring it. I’m not sure why, but I was shocked when I saw 169.6 lbs staring back at me. (I’d normally be in the 130s-140s lbs.) Wow. I actually had no idea that I had gained that much weight. It happened so gradually that it took me awhile to actually notice. That was about 30 lbs heavier than what I would consider a “healthy” weight for me, and the heaviest I had EVER been in my life with the exception of being pregnant. Ugh. I was now officially motivated.
The book I was listening to not only encouraged me to get uncomfortable, it also taught me that going hungry for periods of time is actually beneficial for our bodies. I’ll admit.. I was actually anti-fasting until I opened my mind up to it. I mean, it was against everything I’ve ever learned about nutrition, especially sports nutrition...from the benefits of “grazing”, eating small frequent meals, the importance of eating breakfast, how “starvation” mode causes your body to hold onto weight, how important it is to eat before and after workouts.. and I think to myself.. well, no wonder most of the US population is overweight! We’ve been brainwashed to think we need to eat every hour on the hour, and to go without food is somehow bad orunhealthy. It’s actually not. Most other species don’t eat at the frequency we do.. so why do we?
So I made a plan.
I decided that I would do the things that have worked for me in the past, and also add in some intermittent fasting. I’m a big fan of experimenting with different lifestyle changes to see how they work for me.
This is what I decided my new plan would be:
- fast daily for 16 hours, eat for 8 hours (ish)
- start tracking my daily calories and macros and eat within my allotted calorie range
- stick to whole foods, a mostly Paleo-based diet and no more extra calories that my body doesn’t need
- continue daily exercise (consisting of strength, flexibility, mobility and cardiovascular exercise)
- be consistent
- be comfortable with being uncomfortable
Intermittent Fasting
For those not familiar with fasting or intermittent fasting, it’s allowing your body to go a period of time without putting calories into your body. There are many different schedules and ways to engage in fasting, from a period of time every day to going days or weeks without eating anything. After doing some research on women and fasting, and also given the fact that I like to engage in fairly rigorous daily exercise, I chose the 16:8 approach. This means that I choose two time blocks in a 24 hour day: a 16 hour time block where I would take in zero calories, and an 8 hour time block when I would do all my eating for the entire 24 hour period. I initially chose a schedule that I thought would result in the least amount of inconvenience in my life. I decided that I would eat during the hours of 11am and 7pm (or 12pm and 8pm), and then would fast 7pm to 11am (or 8pm to 12pm). (I knew I had to allow for some flexibility as you know.. schedules are not rigid.. and life and work happens).
**About 6 months into my fasting regime, I decided to switch my fasting hours to 3-4pm to 7-8am, so I now don’t eat past 3-4pm. Then I get up and eat before my workout (if I’m strength training) or after my workout (if I’m doing cardio). I did this for muscle building and for improving the quality of my workouts. It’s much harder to not eat in the evening, by the way.. but I’ve adapted! The other way was working fine for weight loss, but I wanted to increase my training intensity and work on building more muscle (just my personal goals).
Calorie and Macro Counting
I don’t care what people say.. calorie and macro counting are IMPERATIVE for losing weight if you are someone for whom weight loss does not come easy. If I’m not closely tracking what I’m eating, I’m not losing. Period. I’ve learned that I have a slow metabolism, genetically, and I don’t need as many calories as I seem to think I do, despite being an athlete over the past 20 years. Never once has the scale gone backwards without pointed effort on my part. I’m envious of people who can lose weight effortlessly.. but that is not me and certainly won’t be as I continue to head towards menopause.
Yes, it’s a pain. It’s time consuming at first (it gets better), but in my case it’s necessary to reach my goals.. and so I think it’s worth it. I use an app called MyFitnessPal. I follow the app recommendations, as far as how many calories I eat every day. (I get to add more for exercise!) I also follow the macro recommendations as closely as I possibly can, which means that I aim to get 40% of my daily calorie intake through carbohydrates, 30% through protein and 30% through fat. I am very diligent and detail-oriented and I like numbers, so I try to get as close as I can every day.
MyFitnessPal recommends that I eat 1500-1800 calories per day (depends on my exercise for the day). If I don’t work out, I eat 1500-ish calories. If I do a workout where my Apple Watch says I burned about 250 calories during my workout, I eat around 1750 calories for the day. (As I said, I like my apps and my numbers). It also says I should aim for about 135g of protein per day, which I make sure to get every day. Dietary protein is super important for women, especially as we age, and it’s also important for muscle building.. and one of the best ways to lose fat is to gain muscle.
Now, 1700 calories can be a lot of food or a little bit of food, depending on your food choices. Since I prefer to eat as much, volume-wise, as possible, I stick to whole foods: fruits, veggies, lean meats, and whole grains (and a little bit of oil).. and minimally processed foods. This doesn’t leave much room for alcoholic beverages,snacks or desserts, so I’ve also massively cut back on the amount of alcohol I consume and cut down on extra desserts and snacking, which has also been super helpful.
My Diet
My daily diet consists of some combination of the following:
- Animal proteins, such as chicken, lean beef, venison, eggs, turkey, shrimp, salmon, and tuna
- Sweet potatoes, white potatoes and other winter squashes
- Plain Greek yogurt and cottage cheese (I opt for the full fat cottage cheese)
- Vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, spinach, peppers,
green beans. I don’t do many salads, as they can be “expensive” as far as
calories go. Dressings and other toppings can add a lot of dietary fat.
- Brown or white rice, and sprouted grain bread
- Avocados (I have an addiction)
- Plantains (no one thinks of these, but they are awesome fried and a great source of complex carbs), berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries,cherries), apples
- Olive oil, avocado oil and butter
- Protein powders, such as pea/rice and whey & Superfood powder w/
coconut milk or water as the base
- Occasional protein bars (I love the Clif Builder bars)
I try to stick as much as possible to the Paleo way of eating, which doesn’t include foods like rice (grains) and yogurt/cottage cheese (dairy). I try to get my protein and carbohydrate sources from “Paleo” approved sources, but I often still come up short so I add in some other foods to get where I need to go.
I prepare 99% of the food I eat. I plan, I grocery shop and I prepare everything and that is what I eat every day. If I eat out, I try my best to choose places where I can either look up the foods on my app (like Panera), or I stick to entrees that have the simplest ingredients (like a steak, baked potato and steamed veggies).
For drinks, I do water and tons of green & caffeine-free and calorie-free herbal teas, as that’s often what gets me through my fasting hours. Tea & coffee are fine, but you cannot add any calories to them, like cream and sweeteners.
Exercise
I exercise daily, and I believe in fairly rigorous exercise. I like challenging myself. I like the way it feels to work hard, to be strong, to sweat. To look at a workout and doubt whether I can complete it and come out victorious on the other side. It just feels good to me. I like being able to hike mountains, lift heavy things (including myself) and know that I’m prepared to handle whatever life throws at me.
So exercise has never been a problem for me. I’ve done pretty much everything when it comes to exercise. I decided to focus more on strength training when I started fasting, and started doing CrossFit about 2 months after. And also moderate intensity swimming mixed in for cardio (good workout, less impact on the joints). More muscle = less fat. (I also fasted around my workouts if they fell in my non-eating window, and lo and behold, I didn’t die or pass out from not eating). I do about 60 minutes of day of moderate to intense exercise. I skip days only if I feel like my body needs or I absolutely can’t get it in due to family/life obligations.
Consistency
I knew I had to be more consistent in my eating and restriction. Eating well all week and then letting loose Thursday evening through Sunday.. doesn’t work for me. I started saying no to a lot of social functions, much to my husband’s dismay. Social functions are not that much fun for me if I am not eating and drinking like everyone else. It can be a little painful, actually. Drinking alcohol is a really slippery slope for me. Too many times the “one drink” I plan to have turns into 5. I’ll make exceptions on special occasions and vacations, but I’ve learned to pick and choose and that I don’t have to accept every invitation thrown my way. And not every single weekend. I go to bed earlier more often now, and I set goals for myself. “I will stay consistent until <this next event>”. Also, planning workouts in the mornings, even on weekends (and making myself accountable) helps motivate me to go to bed at a decent hour.. but I’m also at the age where staying up late really wrecks my whole next day, so that helps too.
Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
Honestly, sometimes it just plain stinks and I don’t like it at all. I just want to slide comfortably back into my old habits... go out to dinner, have some drinks... but then I remind myself that I wasn’t really happy then either. That’s why I decided to make changes! Yes, I’m hungry sometimes and I miss dinners and drinks with my husband and friends, but my progress motivates me and I know I am healthier abstaining. It may not be forever, but I had over 2 years of bad habit-inducing weight gain to undo.. so I’m still going strong into month 9 of my “new” habits. I’m still motivated to continue on and see what I can really achieve.
I’m actually somewhat shocked at my own transformation. I thought as a woman in my mid-40s that I would not be able to attain a physique to actually be proud of, especially because I had kinda “let it go”... but I was wrong.. and now I know.. it IS possible to make changes at any age, if you really want to.