The Easy Simple Healthy Way to Lose Weight After 50

For the last eight years, I have been writing about weight loss and ways to eat healthier. I always try to present an easy simple way to lose weight after 50.

In my work with women over 50, we find that they still have the ability to lose weight but it does require some focus on they types of food you eat and the timing of your meals.

Food doesn’t have to be stressful and you can enjoy eating foods you enjoy and also take care of your body. Of course you might have to make some changes, but they aren’t always as dramatic as you might think.

I tried to lose weight the first time when I was a young teenager. Looking back, I was actually perfectly fit and unfortunately I spent the next 50 years trying to figure out how to eat.

Here’s a picture of me at 62 with my grown daughter. While we might not look like sisters, I’m quite happy with the results of eating in an easy, simple, and healthy way.

Fortunately, I was never really good at sticking to a diet but I did get good at understanding how food affects our bodies, our brains, and our emotions.

The biggest problem with diets is that 95% of the time they don’t work long-term. Yet we all long for the perfect diet or a quick way to lose weight.

However, the answer to a better way is to make your eating as easy, simple, and healthy as possible and call it good. Along with that, learning to trust your body and the food you eat will create confidence, calm, and peace within you!

At the end of the post I will share more of my “how to posts” that will help you get started.

Losing Weight After 50: The Easy, Simple, And Healthy Way

The older I get, the more I look for the simplest ways to do things. When it comes to losing weight after 50, the easy, simple, and healthy way is the process I use and teach my clients. 

This post is for women who are looking for a holistic way to eat and live  and that want a long-term solution that doesn’t rely on deprivation or medication to get results. 

This is the pathway to a healthy relationship with your body, mind, and spirit and well as a way to manage your body weight without guilt or restriction.

What Not to Do to Lose Weight in an Easy, Simple, and Healthy Way

Right now, there are thousands of books available to buy. The weight loss industry itself is estimated to be worth from 90 to 200 billion dollars! 

When I look on Pinterest, I see hundreds of generic and many AI written blog posts with headlines such as:

• How to Lose 40 Pounds in 30 Days Without Starving
• Military Diet: How to Lose 10 pounds in 3 Days
• How to Lose 10 Pounds in One Week
• Lose 15 Pounds in One Week

Wow, with all this great information out there, why aren’t we all losing 10 pounds a week? I’m not saying they are all scams and AI, but a lot of them are. The exist just so you click on them but they don’t really offer anything new.

Here’s why. This type of weight loss program are complete bullshit. They are created to grab your attention and get clicks to the website where they tell you the same old stuff like drink more water and eat more fiber.

For your weight loss efforts you get more disappointment and frustration. 

These posts appeal to the part of you that wants to change quickly and believes that the only thing standing between you and your dreams is your weight.

This is completely wrong!

When you lose weight without taking your mental and emotional parts into account, you may get a smaller body but you won’t actually feel fulfilled or happy long-term.

The other thing is that quick fixes do not teach you how to eat. In my experience, most women have disordered eating. What I mean is that by the time you are fifty, you have decades of cycling through depriving yourself and binging.

Most women eat in a weird way that once upon a time was supposed to help them but right now, has led to overall weight gain and anxious and depressed feelings about their bodies.

A Realistic Weight Loss Journey

Don’t run away just because you read the word “realistic!”

After 50 years of reading magazines back in the day, or scrolling online now, your unconscious mind believes so many lies. 

This is important because 95% of our actions come from the unconscious parts of our brains. Nothing is working because you are literally following unconscious patterns that have been imprinted in your brain over the years.

That’s why when you see something like the word, “realistic,” you want to run. 

But every time you read a post like this, it begins the process of reprogramming your thoughts around weight loss.

My mission in life is to introduce women to easy, simple, and effective healthy behaviors. I do this by working with the whole you–not just the part of you that hates yourself. I do this by:

• Addressing emotional eating
• Dissolving old habits
• Teaching you to work with your appetite
• Dealing with triggers and lack of willpower
• Understanding your unique food cravings

It’s impossible to reach permanent weight loss goals just by counting calories and depriving yourself.

By being realistic I was able to lose weight in my fifties and maintain a consistent weight for almost 10 years now.

A healthy realistic way of eating, can not only help you have a healthy body, but it’s good for your skin and your overall feeling of wellbeing.

What Are Easy, Simple, and Healthy Ways to Lose Weight?

I’m going to keep this post simple! If you want to dig into more, I have so many other posts you can binge on that I’ll list at the bottom. 

This next part will address easy, simple, and healthy as these relate to your body, mind and spirit. That’s a fancy way of saying we’re going to apply everything to your physical, emotional, and mental needs.

Easy

We live in a complex world and eating and taking care of our body is portrayed as being immensely complex. However, instead of a world of lean, fit, and happy women, we have a world of anxious and depressed women who feel hopeless about food, their bodies, and their eating.

In addition, women spend immense amounts of money to try and lose weight believing that happiness lies in a smaller number on the scale. 

This is NOT easy my friends!

Eating does not have to be difficult. Most of us remember a time when food wasn’t such a big deal. We ate three meals a day. In my house we didn’t really snack either.

The first thing I work on with clients is learning to eat real meals. Most women do not eat enough at their meals. They are so conditioned to watch their portions and fat, so they often leave the table unsatisfied.

When you are hungry because of a restrictive diet, you are vulnerable to snacking, binging, and overeating later. Your brain’s response is to go crazy at a later time to make up for being deprived at your meal.

However, when you eat enough at your meals, you will feel comfortable and you will be able to not eat until the next meal.

You’ll know when it’s time to eat because you’ll start feeling hungry. It’s a beautiful feeling.

Not only do you nourish your body but you nourish your spirit by eating enough and eating foods you enjoy.

Our bodies really aren’t meant to eat around the clock. This is the first time in the history of humans that we have such an abundance of food.

The easiest way to deal with food is to eat meals. Three meals works for a reason even though it sounds old-fashioned. But it is the one thing that my clients say helps them the most.

Simple

Recently I was at a big bookstore just to browse and putter around. I used to buy cookbooks all the time and I still enjoy looking through them.

With the explosion of books, cooking shows, and the internet, we’ve made food really complicated.

I enjoy cooking but I have also simplified it. I rarely ever use a recipe to cook meals. 

When I shop, I think about the week ahead and I plan for the proteins. So I start with what my entrees will be and I plan to get a couple of meals out of each of those.

I do not cook a different meal each night!

For example this week I bought salmon (sauteed one night and salmon patties the next), ground beef for spaghetti, and a rotissiere chicken. I plan for one evening out for dinner.

I also love leftovers for lunch. But I buy simple salad, soup, and sandwich things for simple lunches.

Next I decide on vegetables and fruits to eat with the main dishes. I like to include lots of colors and types. If I am not eating bread or pasta, I will buy potatoes, carrots, beets, and winter squash for more carbohydrates.

Finally, I plan for some treats. I rarely make dessert, but I do enjoy some chocolate. I keep a big jar of individually wrapped chocolates and occasionally will have a couple of those.

I also like individual ice-cream bars and keep some of those in the freezer for an occasional dessert. 

You can cook in a simple way. We all know how to steam, bake, saute, or grill. Use butter, olive oil, and avocado oil liberally for cooking and to enhance taste.

Add a little bit of extra with chopped nuts, avocado, olives, fruit, herbs, and spices.

Healthy

Healthy can mean many things to many people. When I think of healthy I think of healthy for my mind and spirit as well as my body.

If your only focus is losing weight at any cost, you neglect your body, mind, and spirit. It becomes a painful experience.

That is NOT healthy my friends!

Healthy = Consistency

For long-term weight loss, you have to address your whole self and how you really eat.

We all have this idea of a “perfect diet,” but this just does not exist. One problem with thinking there is a perfect diet, is that it keeps you from eating a realistic diet. 

Does this sound familiar? I’m not going to eat good enough, if I can’t eat perfectly. The idea of perfect keeps us from eating overall healthy.

What is healthy? It’s a combination of protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats. We need them all. In food terms, meat, vegetables, fruits, and fats and oils. Everything else is extra. 

I also believe healthy means not eating around the clock or eating too much. The easiest and simplest way to do this is to only eat at meals. 

Once you are eating at your meals, then you work to make each meal as nutritious as possible, allowing for a couple of meals a week that are more fun. 

When you are consistent with how you eat, you can discover for yourself what works for you and what doesn’t. Your brain changes in response to your healthier habits and your transformation will not just be in your body.

How to Get Started With Your Own Easy, Simple, Healthy Way

Here are three posts to get your started on your own easy, simple, healthy journey.

10 Powerful Tips to Lose Weight After 50

This is my most comprehensive article on the process of losing weight after 50. It digs into the mindset as well as practical eating tips.

Weight Management Tips for a Healthy Life

This is my most recent post on managing your weight. These are 5 simple things you can incorporate easily right now.

How to Love Yourself When You Don’t Know How

I love this post! In all my years of working with people, I would say that not being able to love yourself is the root of every single problem you have.