Wrix Fitness: Lose Weight After 50!

What is the Best Way to Lose Weight Fast?

My Story Continues: How I lost weight after 50.

If you who want to hear the WORST, read on! I left my story returning to work after my sons got old enough, and by then there was, as my husband put it, much more of me to love….I know from my younger days that my ideal weight is 135 pounds. (Pictures of me in my 20’s are on the page “What’s the Quickest Way to Lose Weight?”) At my highest, I was more than 70 pounds overweight, tipping the scales at over 200! I had trouble finding a picture of the FAT me, but this is the fattest picture of me I hadn’t already destroyed. Please look back and compare this picture to my younger shots – and this was after I’d already lost 15 pounds, a few with each diet plan I tried. Pathetic!

That was when I decided to take back control. I started trying out long-term approaches I could stick with for the long haul: support systems, eating plans, even diet pills. Some helped a little, but they weren’t something I could stick with. Some I found and didn’t even want to try because maintaining a healthy diet is even more important as you get older. Some just plain don’t work. I think I tried every plan out there. I spent way too much money, and even worse I grew more and more frustrated and discouraged.

Please be honest with yourself right now. You don’t have to admit it to anyone else, but please admit it to yourself. You have to change something in your life if you’re going to lose weight. I can tell you one thing that you absolutely need to change: what and how you eat. You have to eat less to lose weight. And that means fewer calories. Period.

If, like me, you need to lose quite a bit you are going to have to change your eating habits. This means a lifestyle adjustment, at least for a few months. The South Beach Diet worked beautifully for me. I feel healthier and more energetic than ever, I never feel hungry, and my doctor is thrilled with my new healthy diet. The BEST part is that I lost seven pounds in the first two weeks, and my belly shrank so much right away that I actually began to feel beautiful again.

It took me years of struggling with my weight before I found my answer. I want to save YOU from all that wasted time and energy. There are quite a few approaches to weight loss that have a lot going for them, everything from quick fixes or quick starts to support systems and new approaches to nutrition education.

What finally worked for me was finding an eating plan that helped me to learn healthier eating habits. This was a few years ago, before the South Beach Diet was available 24/7 online, and I had to find the book in a bookstore. I looked at the plan’s first week, which is quite restricted, and almost didn’t even try it! For the first two weeks the only carbs allowed are vegetables. I’m not going to lie you I am not going to lie to you, the first 2 days were HARD. I think the second day was the worst. What kept me going? Even just on my second day of retraining my body not to crave carbohydrates my stomach began to shrink noticeably. Really! And by the end of the third day I stopped craving the high-sugar and high-starch foods (sugar and white flour) that had always been my downfall. What made it even easier was stepping on the scale at the end of my first week. I had lost 4 pounds!

The best part? By changing my eating habits to healthier whole grains and almost no sugar I did not feel hungry – ever! If you have tried other diet plans, you know what I am talking about. The South Beach Diet is more than a diet – it is a much healthier way of eating. It can be quite a change, and it took me a while to get used to eating whole grains and avoiding white flour most of the time. My doctor is thrilled as my blood pressure is down to normal and my blood sugar level is no longer showing in the dangerous “pre-diabetic” category. And I haven’t had this much energy in years!

Once I found the plan that worked for me, I got fairly quickly down to 165. In a few months I had lost over 40 pounds! I was down into the official range of “overweight” and finally out of the “obese” category. What a TERRIFIC feeling! (And, ladies, suddenly my husband couldn’t keep his hands off my new body. Wow! Just like being young again!) Though I still wasn’t saving pictures of myself, so I can’t show you.

Once I got my weight down far enough to get off the “diet” plans and just keep eating healthy food (my weight continuing to fall slowly) I found that it was OK to give in to temptation … once in a while. There is NOTHING that I have to give up forever. The South Beach eating plan works!

Once I got below a certain point, losing the rest became easy. It was easy to continue to motivate myself when I actually liked what I saw in the mirror! I’ll post a more recent picture of me as soon as I can (with a bit of help from Clairol...)

My answer was changing my metabolism, and making food choices that left me feel fuller longer. I have found the best diet both to help me get started and for the long haul. I don’t know about you, but to me it is critical to find something that is easy to follow and that will show results on the scale the very first week. I have posted a lot of information on this website. Look around, explore. I have more information and a lot of hints and tips. But get started on your new body today!

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