I am new to the site and Forum.
I’m a 49 years old and just got back into lifting about a month ago. I am sad to say, I haven’t been committed since ~2007. My primary motivator was to get my two boys, 11 &12 into a good full body training routine for a solid sports conditioning routine. BTW, they love it!! So I thought, WTH, it’s never too late to get back into shape myself.
It took me only a few weeks to get back to the weight and reps from my previous routine 10+ years ago-there’s a catch though. I am not seeing any fat loss results. I realize I am almost 50 and that my body has aged but I would think I would experience some sort of fat loss. I measure results by how well my jeans fit-and they’re pretty tight right now. I don’t get obsessed with the scale because I am a guy that can experience a 5# weight flux in 203 days. I can say, my wife and I see results (definition) in my upper body and legs-but the tight jeans are frustrating.
My program:
Diverse, full body 3-4 days a week with alternating Peloton. I rest on sundays or when I am really sore.
Supplements:
I take creatine and beta arginine and protein supplements.
Diet:
I really don’t eat a lot of junk food-we eat pretty healthy, not crazy healthy. I am leery of fad diets/restrictive diets as I end up binging on them. Also, I have a history of diverticulitis so it is very important that I get fiber from a grain source to not trigger a flare up.
Any thoughts, help advice is very much appreciated.
There’s no real secret to it: to lose fat, you have to eat less. Training is helpful, but the fact of the matter is: you can’t outrun a fork. It can take an hour to burn 500 calories through exercise, and less than a minute to eat 500 calories.
Of course, you should not eat junk, but the most important element in losing weight and burning fat is to consume fewer calories than you expend. The first step is to find your calorie balance, for which there are many formulas on the Internet. These calculators also calculate based on your physical activity. To lose weight, for example, by about 1 kg. /2.2 lb / per week you should cut somewhere around 15-20% of your calorie balance. It also depends on how much you are overweight. For example, I am 220 lb and train three times a week. At my age, height and weight, he estimates that in order to be balanced and maintain weight, I need to eat 2,500 calories a day. To lose 1 kilogram a week I need to take about 2100-2150 calories.
Through my competitive years I used what I call “The Idiot’s Diet”.
Off season I ate fairly clean, but most anything I wanted.
My first step to lean was to remove all sugar from my diet, i.e., desserts, soda pop, etc. In your case, give it 4 to 6 weeks to check results (I liked to weigh every day at about the same time and same circumstances. I weighed at Publix after I left the gym with my gym clothes on.)
Step two was to remove all processed foods and start doing 30 minutes of walking six days a week. And lean toward eating basically the same thing every day. Your plate will look like 1/3 lean meat, 1/3 starchy carbohydrates, 1/3 green vegetables.
Step three, which you don’t need to do except for peaking for a competition, is to begin reducing the starchy carbs and increasing the cardio. I never did more than 90 minutes of cardio (45 minutes twice a day).
I call it The Idiot Diet because I never bothered counting calories. I used a feedback system. If I wasn’t looking like I wanted, I made an adjustment. If I was losing weight too fast, I ate more carbs. I always tried to eat 200 grams of protein every day regardless of the time of year. Don’t leave off the essential fatty acids, i.e., fish oil or flax seed oil.
At your age, you really need to see where your hormone levels are. Having low Test will definitely impact your ability to lose fat and add muscle mass.
Don’t get disheartened until you get this checked. You may be doing everything right but with a faulty endocrine system.