50+ Women & Training

Hey all,

Last year I did pretty well to lose the excess weight and my mum (and whole family) followed suit. Coming into the new year my mum has lost abit of motivation, the reason being over the 6 months she trained last year, she only lost 2-3kg and that all came back very quick over christmas. Soo, I want to help her fix her diet.

She already eats ok, Not at our standards but there's no fast food or any fatty foods, drinks diet soda stuff, weightwatchers biscuits etc, so the jump into a proper diet won't be hard but I feel like it's the only thing missing.

She trains hard doing about 4hrs in the gym each week, half running half weights (machines) and according to her HRM each session (3 sessions) burns 600calories. I will also be introducing her to some more weights excercises and HIIT.

Problem lies here, she's 51, desk job, going through menopause and has had a bad thyroid for quite awhile (very slow metabolism). Pretty much means it's very hard for her to lose weight as all odds are against her.

Should the traditional macros apply? 1g/kg Protein, 1g/kg fat? Can anything help the thyroid issue? Will lowering calories help her lose weight but make the thyroid issue worse? Is it even possible to lose weight at this stage?

@ 72kg and at a guess eating 1700-2000 cal a day, probably 60%carb/sugar 20% protein 20% fat diet at the moment roughly.

No mum jokes srs business only

Your mum sounds like she has everything against her for weightloss! Unfortunately alot of women at an older age are really breaking a lifelong habit to change diet and lifestyle, its fantastic that she is working out at the gym!
Speaking from experience, I put my mum on a diet of 1200 calories after Xmas, she was diagnosed with high blood pressure but all other bloods came back OK. She is also menopausal and very inactive.
Her 1200 Cal's came from 30% fat, 30% carbs and 40% protein. Her carbs were green veges, brown rice and Burgen toast for breakfast. Her fats were from fish mostly. She dropped all alcohol and never had a sweet tooth.
She has been losing 1/2kg a week, her only exercise is walking 30mins x 2 per day, her blood pressure slowly dropping.
Her starting weight was 110kgs! She is 4"9, so a very big lady.
Her calorie restriction and gentle exercise is working.
Alot of older ladies I work with blame poor thyroid function for them being overweight but I also know alot of ladies who have lost weight and maintained it with calorie restriction and gentle exercise.
I can't answer your question specifically with a few medical reasons in her situation, but I hope my mums situation can offer some guidence.

Steve said:

Should the traditional macros apply? 1g/kg Protein, 1g/kg fat? Can anything help the thyroid issue? Will lowering calories help her lose weight but make the thyroid issue worse? Is it even possible to lose weight at this stage?

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I'm not expert enough to answer most of these, but I'd have to say, for the last question, that surely it would be possible for her to lose weight. A lady at work (in her early-mid 50s) had good success losing weight under the guidance of a proper nutritionist.

If it was my mum I'd tell her to pay for a nutritionist and maybe save some money on gym fees by walking around the neighborhood rather than on the treadmill.

Thanks deep! Yeh she used to be like 45-50kg her whole life until I was born and destroyed her physique Metabolism has gone downhill from there. I see you set a 1200cal limit, I was thinking just lowering the calories down 200cal a week until we started seeing progress (~400cal deficit) but I'm a little worried too few calories could slow the metabolism down even further.

I believe she can lose weight but at times I think she falls back on the thyroid and her age as an excuse, hence the need for help. Odds are definitely not favourable.

DKD, Walking around the block doesn't help. She loves the gym and her exercise part of the program is doing really well. I beleive at her age she can lose weight but I don't want to screw up her metabolism even more in the process. Nutritionist could work if this new plan fails.

Steve said:

Thanks deep! Yeh she used to be like 45-50kg her whole life until I was born and destroyed her physique Metabolism has gone downhill from there. I see you set a 1200cal limit, I was thinking just lowering the calories down 200cal a week until we started seeing progress (~400cal deficit) but I'm a little worried too few calories could slow the metabolism down even further.

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Gradually reducing the calories is better, unfortunately in my mums case the doctor gave her a diet on paper that was basically water and virtually no protein. A crash diet!
Your mum has shown she can lose weight, just keep encouraging her. And be a good son and take her shoping for a new dress when she drops her next 3kgs!

Thyroxine?

Has she had her thyroid actually tested? What were the results?

She really needs to up her activity levels to increase her energy expenditure that she loses due to a poorly functioning thyroid.

Sticky said:

Thyroxine?

Has she had her thyroid actually tested? What were the results?

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Yep. Not sure on the results but she's on 150mg thyroxine a day.

Dave: yeh that's what were planning on doing. Will try and excercise as much as possible.

It should be more like 2g/kg protein, not 1g/kg. 1g is the recommendation for sedentary people.

Exercise-wise, "(machines)" is a meaningless explanation of her program, since machines could be leg extensions, pec deck and bicep curls, or it could be leg press, Smith bench press and lat pull down, as extremes of the spectrum. But certianly, the more compound, the more freeweight and the more full ROM her exercises are, the better.

In an ideal situation, I'd have her doing dynamic effort strength training and HIIT/circuit training. But don't push her to go harder/faster than she's able to do safely. It may take quite a while before she has the technical skill to do any DE work safely, for example, so I'd have her working on improving skill on the main lifts first and foremost.

RyanF said:

It should be more like 2g/kg protein, not 1g/kg. 1g is the recommendation for sedentary people.

Exercise-wise, "(machines)" is a meaningless explanation of her program, since machines could be leg extensions, pec deck and bicep curls, or it could be leg press, Smith bench press and lat pull down, as extremes of the spectrum. But certianly, the more compound, the more freeweight and the more full ROM her exercises are, the better.

In an ideal situation, I'd have her doing dynamic effort strength training and HIIT/circuit training. But don't push her to go harder/faster than she's able to do safely. It may take quite a while before she has the technical skill to do any DE work safely, for example, so I'd have her working on improving skill on the main lifts first and foremost.

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I chose 1g/kg because during the day she is pretty sedentary. But on second thought, that doesn't make sense due to the exercising every second day. 2g/kg it is.

She doesn't like doing all free weights for a few reasons but I will be trying to do as much free weights or cable work as possible. I scoped out the gym today for the best machines that work like a compound. Should be able to do a full body workout with squats (leg press) Bench (bench machine/pec fly) Press (OHP machine) and then do lat pulldowns, rows, chins and dips.

Not really keen on circuit training and I'm even a little worried about HIIT. I mean she's not frail lol but we have to be careful.

Taught her how to bench press today, was pretty funny. Pumped out 25kg for 3 sets of 8, just. Worked well but I won't be using them because she would definitely need a spotter.