It can be done. The above before and after photos capture the remarkable change my body went through in 8 months. It wasn’t a fad diet and total exercise time per day was limited to about 30 minutes. After basically 13 years of doing zero exercise and eating way too much I was slightly out of shape. To say the least. I had zero cardio and had a hard time putting on shoes. Tipping the scales at over 300lbs at 6′ by any definition of the word clinical or otherwise I was obese. Everyone kept telling me that after the age of 50 it just wasn’t possible to drop weight like you could when you were young. I took that as a challenge and with the careful monitoring of my doctor I set out to reach my target weight of 170lbs.
I switched to eating one meal a day, I chose dinner and limited my calorie intake for that one meal to around 1500 calories. I did not restrict myself from any foods but the total calorie intake for the day had to stay at 1500 calories or less.
Fridays was beer battered fries and a taco salad with a pint or two of good stout beer.
Yes at first adjusting to just one meal a day took awhile, but after about 3 days my body adjusted. Don’t get me wrong by the time dinner rolled around I was ready to eat.
Saturday was usually oven baked rosemary potatoes, vegetables and some form of sausage.
Sunday was home baked peperoni pizza. If you make it yourself you can cut back on the flour and measure the cheese out so you can actually eat just over half a pizza without breaking the 1500 calorie limit.
Monday was flank steak with caper sauce , roasted vegetables and potatoes and a green salad.
Tuesday was of course tacos. 3 soft chicken tacos with beans and avocado.
Wednesday followed the Mexican theme with three beef tamales and a garden salad with ranch dressing.
Thursday was probably the lightest calorie day and potentially the healthiest meal of my week. It was smoked trout, garden salad (ranch dressing), and whole wheat French bread with butter. Most of the calories came from the baguette and butter.
Another weekday option was roasted chicken breast with chicken gravy (look at the calories in chicken gravy it will shock you how few are actually in it) potatoes and mushrooms. Garden salad on the side.
Another weekday option. 2 chicken burgers with oven baked sweet potato fries and sauce.
Spaghetti with meatballs and garlic bread is not out of bounds as well.
Even a bacon double cheeseburger with onion rings falls inside the lines. The reason I believe this strategy worked for me was that after eating my one meal for the day, I was genuinely satisfied. I was not hungry for more and my body did not feel like I was starving myself.
I do think you could do it without the exercise but the weight loss would be slower. On average I was burning about 400 extra calories per day from the exercise. I will say that once I reached 180lbs what they say about the last 10 pounds is true. I had to up the exercise amount considerably to break through that barrier.
Needless to say my doctor was thoroughly impressed with my weight loss. I managed to reverse all traces of early onset diabetes and lowered my blood pressure from a dangerous 155/110 to 120/70. Resting heart rate fell all the way to 38bpm. Every indicator at the end of my journey said I was the epitome of health. My doctor even suggested I gain a few pounds but to a cyclist that is just blasphemy.
My advice to anyone wanting to drop weight after 50 is just do it. Consult with your doctor first before engaging in any exercise but plan your meals ahead of time. Enjoy your meal and don’t snack. Snacking is likely the one major cause of weight gain. The only food I totally eliminated from my diet was potato chips, honestly that was all. The other thing I would say is step on a scale everyday and write it down, it may not go down everyday but when it does, it makes it a lot easier to wait till dinner time. Results will come, give it three weeks and if you don’t see a drastic change I would be surprised.
If you do decide to exercise the best advice I can give is take it slow. The one major hurdle than anyone who is completely out of shape risks tripping over when beginning a weight loss journey is injury. It is far too easy to do way to much out of the gate and find yourself laid up and putting all the weight back on.
