I am almost 49, and am just beginning a slow weightloss plan , and I'm sure I'll be 50ish when I finally arrive at my goal. I have discovered that my lifestyle for my entire adult life was gaining weight slowly (as I periodically lost weight and cleared the red, just to gain slowly again). I want out of this, and to change my lifestyle for a maintenance I can live with . I am only now 48, but realize when I finally get through the rollercoaster, I will be in my fifties, and I realize the older we get, the more careful we have to be about what we eat. The bottom line is, I am going to try something that I've not heard about before. I'm calling it the Drift Diet, or Maintenace Lifestyle... . What I plan to do is to use the maintenance requirements for the goal weight I want to be, plug that in, call it my lifestyle, and drift toward it. By the time I reach my goal, I will have gotten a year or so practice living that maintenance too already. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

For instance; I have been gaining weight into obesity through my forties, am now 182ish (down from 184) and likely eat well over 2000 calories daily on average. I looked up the calorie requirements to maintain a 135 pound body at 50 years old, and came up with a good round number of 1700 (see results below) for walking 5 times a week. I know that some days are more sedentary than others, but that's a good round for now, given that i am going to push walking 5 days a week, and be more active with chores etc.


RESULTS - GUIDELINE ONLY -- (calculated for female , 135lbs at FiftyYearOld. I am now 49yrs and 182 pounds, wanting to lose about 45-50 lbs over time).
Maintenance for 135lbs: 1736 Calories/day
Fat Loss from 135lbs: 1389 Calories/day
Extreme Fat Loss from 135lbs: 1080 Calories/day

My big question is, do you think 1700 calories per day sounds about right for any other moderate weight loss program ?

Hi Hermit Girl - to our little corner of 3FC. Your best bet would be to ask your doctor's advice. Other than that, weight loss is so varied, for each individual, that I think you should give 1700 calories a try and see for yourself. What works for others may not work for you. So give it a try for a few weeks, then adjust accordingly. (Keep in mind that the first 2 weeks' losses of any weight loss program are not accurate indicators of how successful you will be as time goes on.) One thing that does seem certain is that if you haven't gone through menopause yet, your losses will tend to be better each week than if you have. Please jump in one or both of the daily chat threads here for encouragement, support, and friendship.

Hallo Hermit Girl, Good that you are going to tackle your problem now as I found that once past the mp stage it has been very hard to get weight shifted. Added to that the various medication that you may find are necessary as you get older has a profound effect on weight loss as well.
Wish you well with your programme.

HermitGirl, that house in your avatar is wonderful!

I think we each have to do what we think is right for us. Everyone has different needs. We each have a different metabolism, bone structure, lean body mass, genetic make-up, food history, health history, etc.

When I first signed up at 3FC, I read everything in the Living Maintenance section of the forum. It helped me tremendously. There are many posts there by women who wrote about what they did to get to their goals. You can ask questions in that forum, too.

Reading all those threads helped me to see that I could do whatever I needed to, in order to be where I wanted to be, regardless of someone else's way of eating or views.

Congratulations on taking good care of yourself now.

Gotta say, I think your "drift" technique is a great idea that I will be stealing!