Weight Management Tips For A Healthy Life

We often tend to think of weight as something we need to lose instead of seeing our weight as simply one aspect of our health. I prefer to see our weight as part of our whole self and I want to talk about these weight management tips for a healthy life.

Okay, I know many of you want to know how to undo 20 years of an unhealthy lifestyle choices and get to a healthy weight ASAP.

Maybe you’ve even looked at some of those kinds of posts online, but losing 20 pounds in a week isn’t a long-term solution to your problems.

Instead, I encourage everyone to look at weight management as a collection of healthy habits that eventually become your new normal, allowing you to enjoy your food, your body, and your life.

Weight Management tips for a healthy life might sound so boring compared to a quick-fix diet. But the problem with diets is three-fold. 

One, diets are difficult to stick with because they are restrictive and often women who are on diets are hungry and deprived. You either end up quitting or overeating and gaining even more weight.

Two, diets end. Even if you get to your goal weight, you haven’t learned the real skills of eating foods you like and eating enough to be satisfied. In addition, you probably haven’t addressed emotional eating or the anxiety of what is the right thing to eat. 

Three, diets have a 95% fail rate. Yes, I know it worked that one time back in the 90’s. But we have to get real here. Diets do not work long-term for most people.

There is no magical diet that will have you back in your younger body. Even if you do lose all the weight you think you should, you will still have an aging body.

Why You Want to Manage Your Weight in Healthy Ways

Maybe your health care provider has told you to lose weight. Or you have some health problems like high blood pressure or you’ve become pre-diabetic.

Most often my clients are simply unhappy and depressed about their current weight, eating habits, and how they look in the mirror. 

By this time it is beyond just vanity, it’s become a source of pain and anxiety to feel so out-of-control with food or their weight. 

Diets just don’t address enough issues to be helpful long-term. Our bodies are complex and so is our weight. Instead of just losing weight, I recommend you take care of your whole self.

I say this with a heart full of love. You are a whole being. You aren’t just a body-size or a number on the scale. You have a history of loves, trauma, hurts, and all your patterns and protections that have been put in place over the years.

Losing weight or even deciding to maintain your current weight is an opportunity to heal in so many ways beyond just the physical. 

So, I continue to offer healthy weight loss tips to give women a safe way to eat, nourish their bodies and souls, and learn to love their whole selves unconditionally.

How I Learned the 5 Weight Management Tips for a Healthy Life

I’ve developed these tips over the past 10 years. I started my own weight loss journey 10 years ago when I was 52. I lost enough weight that I was finally happy in my body for the first time ever.

But as I’ve said, losing weight is only part of the long-term solution. I wanted to enjoy my new body forever. So, I first figured out what was working for me and why.

A few years later, I became certified in life and weight loss coaching, and began working with other women that struggled with their weight and body image.

Over the years I had tried every diet out there and had been successful a couple of times, yet in my forties and early fifties, I didn’t believe that I could lose weight until I did. 

In my experience, women over 50 can lose weight. It may require more precision around eating than before but most can still enjoy the foods they like as well as not feeling deprived. 

5 Weight Management Tips for a Healthy Life

I created this particular list to be simple and doable without creating any sort of diet. Your mindset and emotional health are the keys to taking care of your body and breaking decades-old patterns.

You have a lot of beliefs about what you should do that are deeply ingrained. It takes time to retrain your brain to think about yourself differently.

I’ll list some of my favorite posts to help with this down below. Remember, every success you have starts with a belief. Weight loss and having a body you enjoy is no different.

So, let’s dive in!

Learn Why You Engage in Emotional Eating

Most eating is for emotional reasons. At 50 and beyond our actual appetites are not what they used to be. Most of us need to concentrate on getting enough nutrition in our smaller meals. 

Yet, most women have a habit of eating beyond their hunger and eating too many sweets and processed foods.

Don’t feel bad. No matter how bad it seems like your habits are, it’s not because of lack of willpower or something wrong with you.

A lot of foods are addictive and yet we don’t really address this. I do. And I don’t think it’s possible to manage your eating without addressing the emotions behind much of your eating.

We often think we eat to manage our emotions. But it doesn’t actually help us manage our emotions at all. Eating, and especially eating high amounts of sugar is akin to black-out drinking.

We do our best to use the numbing effect of food to deal with our lives.

So, while it sounds uncomfortable, feeling what we actually are feeling is essential to a long-term approach to your eating.

The process to do this is simple in approach. When you feel an urge to eat when you aren’t hungry, just let that urge be there without trying to make it go away.

Ask yourself if you are hungry. If you aren’t ask yourself what you do need.

If you are hungry eat something.

For more on managing your emotions, read this post: How to Feel Your Feelings and Not Drown in Them

To help with strong sugar cravings read this post: 10 Steps to Get Through an Intense Sugar Craving

Commit to a Compassionate Approach

Okay, this has to be said. Most of you treat yourselves horribly and the way you talk to yourself is just plain old mean.

You cannot mean-talk yourself into eating better. It might work for a short time, but overall, it just makes dieting even more miserable.

This self-critical part of yourself IS trying to help but her methods often have women depressed and anxious after years of this.

You don’t deserve depression or anxiety! It’s not because of your weight or your eating; it’s because of how you talk to yourself. 

Promise to Eat Enough at Meals

I don’t promote eating fewer calories, low-fat, ditching the carbohydrates, or adding too much physical activity. 

At first, I don’t even care what you eat, just get it contained to three meals. But before you do that, you’ve got to eat enough at your meals.

This can be difficult for a lot of woman. We’ve been taught to watch our portions or to eat certain kinds of foods. When we deprive ourselves too much at meals, we tend to more than make up for it later.

As a kid, I loved meals! They were the highlight of my day. I loved having a hearty lunch or dinner and while I didn’t realize it at the time, I was a healthy, fit kid.

It wasn’t until I began questioning how I ate that I began to hate my body and try to deprive myself. I remember once at summer camp feeling so big, I didn’t eat for two days. 

The beginning of my troubled eating and body image began as a teenager. And for decades I didn’t truly enjoy meals; they became something I didn’t trust anymore.

Maybe you can relate?

My biggest rule, is to eat enough at meals. My clients tell me this is the game-changer for them. It is the one thing you can do that will change your relationship with food radically.

In the beginning, just practice eating enough that you feel satisfied at each meal. In the beginning, you might overeat a bit, but when you allow yourself to eat enough, you will start to enjoy your meals and not overeat. 

You won’t overeat because you don’t have to! Your body and mind will trust you, knowing that there is always another good meal to come. 

Stop Snacking Between Meals

Along with eating your meals, I recommend eliminating snacking. It’s been estimated that our snacking habits significantly increase our daily calorie intake. 

Even worse, most people tend to chose high calorie and low nutrient choices. Not only that, but many of you are eating snacks instead of meals.

But the most important reason to not snack is that it helps you retrain your hunger cues and your hormones can work the way they are supposed to.

You are supposed to get hungry! That’s your cue it’s time to eat. Then you are supposed to feel full. Then you don’t eat until you feel hungry again. Our bodies know what they are doing!

When you stop snacking, you will retrain your hunger cues. When we eat around the clock, we don’t experience true hunger or true satiety. 

When you eat before you are hungry, you throw it all off. You never give your body a chance to do what it is supposed todo.

We were led to believe that we needed to eat around the clock. But most of us don’t. Most of us eat way too often. Our bodies never have a break from trying to keep up with all the food we eat.

Snacks are rarely an adequate replacement for meals. They tend to be grab and go kinds of foods and often are processed foods.

For women who are used to snacking, I encourage you to start eating more at your meals. Then if you feel the urge to snack, always check in with yourself and ask yourself if you are hungry. 

If you are hungry, then have something to eat and plan to eat more at your meals. If you aren’t hungry, ask yourself what you really need. It may be something like a rest, a walk, or to connect with another person.

As you transition to not snacking, try to have snacks that mimic meals. Have some protein, a healthy fat, and a vegetable or fruit. 

Get Embodied Through Exercise

One of the things that may change for you as you get older is that you won’t be able to lose weight through exercise.

I had always depended on walking to help me manage my weight from the time I was 20 until I was almost 60. And then exercise seemed to not make a difference in my weight.

Exercise still made a difference. I felt better, stronger, more balanced, and flexible. But it didn’t help me lose weight and it didn’t help with my tummy or waist. 

My activity level is important to me. I feel so much better when I’m moving and exercise has so many benefits beyond helping with weight loss.

Exercise helps you be in your body, as in you really feel your body. This is important because many women disassociate with their bodies. 

Women tend to ignore their body’s needs. They will work through their lunch times. They will not rest when they are tired. They even put off going to the bathroom!

For many women exercise is yet another way to punish their bodies rather than a way to feel pleasure in their bodies.

Yes, exercise can provide pleasure for your body! 

I love all kinds of movement.

• Aerobic activity workouts
• 40-60 minutes of brisk walking or slow walking
• Yoga, Pilates, and Barre inspired workouts
• Hiking or a bike ride

It’s all good to me. I actually try and do something every day. I find that it helps me connect with my body and get the kinks out from working at a computer so much of the time.

Weight Management Tips For A Healthy Life

If you want more specific information about how to eat, then I suggest reading my post, 10 Steps to Lose Weight After 50. This walks you through the process I use with my clients.

It can take a while to retrain your brain to see your body, what you eat, and what you weigh differently.

Most of us were brought up in extreme diet culture. Most women literally do not know how to live without either being on a diet or planning to be on a diet.

But I promise you, your life will feel so much better when you let go of the idea that you have to diet to be more worthy in some way.

And when you believe that you are worthy and deserve to eat and to love your body, that’s when you will finally find the peace and acceptance you have craved for so long.

10 Steps to Lose Weight After 50

How to Live in the Moment, Be Present, and Happier and Stop Worrying

3 Things You Can Do to Stop Gaining Weight

How to Stop Cravings

How to Not Get Derailed From Your Diet