Losing Weight Over 60 Is Hard – Here’s How I Did It Eating What I Like

The word “diet” scares me.

I remember one time being extremely irritated and moody because of a fad diet I was following. In the middle of playing with my grandchild, I unintentionally raised my voice at him and made him cry.

I felt absolutely terrible. And I made sure to apologize and spoil him for the whole week.

Needless to say, I quit that diet since then and promised myself to never follow restrictive weight loss plans that just made me irritable ever again. 

Since then, I reverted back to eating what I wanted out of comfort and ease of mind.

While my mood went up, so did my weight, and my health took a hard turn for the worse.

The next thing you know, I had gained weight very quickly and was suddenly approaching 180 pounds. My heaviest weight ever.

While I knew that your metabolism slows down after 50, I was not expecting to feel the changes almost overnight.

It was as if I blinked and suddenly had put on a noticeable amount of weight.

So, there I was, 64 years old, when I realized I had to lose weight if I wanted to enjoy life again. I felt like a prisoner in my own body, unable to take longer walks with my grandkids and out of breath from simply going up the stairs.

If I had continued that way, I wouldn’t have much of a life to look forward to.  

Fortunately, with a little outside guidance, I managed to slim down back to 145 pounds, and I feel much healthier now. 

Able to keep up when playing with my grandkids, regularly go for walks, and even took up gardening during the pandemic.

The 60s are the new 50s, anyone?

All this without counting calories or going to the gym.

The best part is, the weight is off for good, and I still get to enjoy cooking. I eat what I like now without counting calories or torturing myself with slow diets.

I’m not afraid of cravings anymore, and I’ve never felt better mentally.

If you’re anything like me and the thought of losing weight in your golden years scares you, my experience below can help you avoid some of the mistakes I made.

I learned these lessons the hard way when I was losing weight, but you don’t have to.

Here are my 3 biggest takeaways that can help you too. I only wish I knew them beforehand. 

1. Progress isn’t always linear

I’ve been on a bunch of diets in the past. 

Some successful, others less so.

But the main takeaway from my journey is that progress isn’t always linear.

When you expect the number on the scale to go down since you’re on a caloric deficit diet, it doesn’t always work that way.

And believe me – I tried just about every diet under the sun. I was even taking diet pills at some point.

I would lose weight, only to gain it right back shortly after.

Most fad diets recommend skipping certain types of food like carbs.

But most restricting diets just didn’t work for me. Because, once you reach my age, you’ll have learned that if you deprive your body of certain nutrients, you feel the effects real quick.

I, personally, love eating and cooking food. Cooking a big meal for my family brings me a lot of joy, and it’s one of my favorite things to do.

And whenever I would take out a certain meal from my diet, I would crave it the next day. 

I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m craving something, I want to seek it out even more. I get irritable, sometimes even angry. To the point where it’s written on my face and my family members can sense it too.

Cravings then lead to emotional eating. Which then affects my mental health and makes me feel worse about myself.

Nowadays, I no longer have to rely on my willpower or deal with constant cravings at all.

Progress isn’t always linear. 

This was one of the biggest lessons that helped me lose weight and keep it off.

2. Everyone has an opinion about weight loss

If you’ve ever told anyone at some point that you’re trying to lose weight, you might have noticed that almost everyone will make a comment about it.

Family members, friends, neighbors, and so on. Everyone has an opinion or a piece of advice they swear by.

Have you tried drinking more water? Try this weird and crazy diet my aunt swears works! Don’t eat that, eat this instead!

Sometimes, people will even question why you’re passing up on treats. 

“It’s just one small slice!” they’ll claim. But we all know how that goes…

It’s not even that they’re doing it maliciously, they’re just “trying to be nice.”

I remember saying “no thanks” to the extra portions of my daughter’s brownies at dinner once. 

It’s amazing how defensive people get over what you’re not eating. But they didn’t seem to care when you were overeating.

And then, there are people offering conflicting advice on losing weight.

Some people swear by fasting. For others, it’s meal prep.

For me – it’s neither!

Because my body is different. My taste buds are unique, and the way MY body reacts to what I eat is also completely individual. 

Not to mention I don’t have the energy to fast or the time to prepare all of my meals in advance while taking care of my house or looking after my grandkids.

All the popular new diets I’ve been burned by follow a “one-size-fits-all” approach. 

Usually, they’re marketed for young women in their 20s or 30s!

They were not designed to cover MY specific nutritional needs or lifestyle. 

Most diets don’t even consider women above the age of 50 who have completely different nutritional needs! Our bodies are so different that what works for me may not work for someone else, and therein lies the problem with diet books.

So, I’ve found that the solution is to get back to basics. 

3. If you want weight loss to be permanent, it can’t be a diet – it has to be a lifestyle change

This was the most important realization I had in my weight loss journey.

Up until a year ago, I was convinced that I had done so much damage to my body that it was too late to go back to feeling healthy and happy. 

And it wasn’t that I just felt old and overweight. I could feel it in my bones. As if my joints were screaming out for help.

I was in pain. 

The way things were looking, it was like I had a direct flight ticket to dangerous health problems like heart diseases, breathing problems, blood pressure, and high cholesterol. 

I would end up staring into the mirror, looking at my body in shame – thinking this was it. I had done irreversible damage to my body, and I was too old to make a change.

I thought ALL women in their 60s and 70s were going through the same painful aging process with gaining weight and body aches.

But this was not the case as I was soon to find out.

At my lowest, one of my closest friends reached out to me to go on a walk together. I hadn’t seen her for a while, so I thought it would be nice to catch up.

I put on my oversized clothes to hide my flabby stomach fat, as tradition whenever I would go out of the house.

My comforting thought was that at least my friend would be in the same boat, probably dealing with weight issues too. So, I’d have someone to complain to. 

What happened next completely changed my approach to weight loss altogether.

I was convinced that my lifestyle choices had done irreparable damage to my body. That it was simply too late to feel healthy and happy with how I look.

At 67 years “young,” my friend looked her best since she was 57. All dressed up in tight and flashy running clothes as if she was going to compete in a marathon.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. We went to drink tea at her house after the walk, and I was determined to find out her secrets.

“It’s not as complicated as you think,” she would go on to explain.

“It’s all about what you eat and what you don’t. Then, you just slowly start replacing your meals with healthier recipes,” she said.

I have to say – at the time when she was explaining her “secrets,” I felt underwhelmed. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I couldn’t see myself writing down up to 100+ recipes to have with me at all times.

But then she dropped the bombshell.

Apparently, there’s a personalized weight loss plan that takes your age, weight, health history, and even taste buds into consideration to do most of the work FOR YOU.

The thought of tracking calories, counting macros, and thinking of 1,000+ recipes and alternative meals scared me.

I’m by no means a nutritionist! I don’t know enough to make this work – I remember my doubt starting to creep in.

But thanks to the app my friend told me about, I didn’t have to do any of this!

Here’s what I did instead.

The free, 2-minute quiz that solved my weight loss puzzle

Now, obviously, I didn’t just take a quiz and lose weight immediately.

You still have to watch what you eat if you want to lose weight. It’s not magic…

Calories in, calories out. The basics still apply. To maintain a stable weight, the number of calories you eat needs to match the number you expend. In other words, you have to eat under a certain number of calories if you want to lose weight.

So, most of the weight loss comes down to what you eat, planning your meals, your recipes, and more. 

But with PerfectBody (the company that creates personalized weight plans for you), all this becomes a breeze.

The app did everything for me. Things that frustrated me like tracking calories, planning meals, looking up alternative meals – all done for me.

All I had to do was just follow the recipes (which included most of my favorite meals) the app gave me.

It sounded too good to be true, but like I said – a lot of weight loss comes down to the basics. 

So, don’t look at it like just a weight loss journey. 

Losing weight is a lifestyle change. 

If you do it right, you can keep the weight off for good, continue eating your favorite meals, and start enjoying your favorite things like playing with your grandchildren.

I couldn’t keep up with my grandkids before. Now that I’m right behind them when they’re running, their smiles fill my heart with joy and make everything I went through worth it.

I’m not even counting calories these days. I just eat what the app tells me to.

It’s like having a personal nutritionist in your pocket who holds you accountable and holds your hand each step of the weight loss journey.

And now, whenever I’m craving something unhealthily sweet, PerfectBody recommends a healthier alternative that still hits the spot and fills me up just as well – without all the negative side effects.

My life has completely transformed, and I’m never going back.

The best part is I feel that the weight is off for good. Not like those fad diets where it’s temporary only for it to sneak up on you again.

It took me probably up to a half year of trying diets on-and-off until I found PerfectBody.

If you’ve been burned by other diet and weight loss programs in the past like me, then PerfectBody just might be the cure for you.

And if you’re anything like me, it’s not just about weight loss.

It’s about being able to enjoy life again. 

About being able to say “Yes” to spending time with your family and grandchildren, going on hikes, and feeling comfortable in your clothing (I can finally wear a bathing suit again without feeling weird).

For the first time in a while, I’m enjoying life again and eating what I like. With no guilt or embarrassment with how I look.

And I hope you can experience this for yourself too.