Weight loss over 40

[colleen178]

I am 47 and need to lose about 30 pounds. I do not eat very much so my doctor told me that I have slowed my metabolism down tremendously. I used to be a heavy Mt.Dew girl then switched to diet. I think this was worse because it made me crave sweets big time. I have now given up on soda all together and the cravings seem to have subsided. I'm still not a great eater but I'm trying. Exercise isn't my favorite either but I'm trying. My question is what diet pill will help a 40+ woman who carries her weight in the hips, thighs, butt area. I'm looking for a metabolism booster that has no caffine or anything that will make me jittery. Thanks so much for any advice anyone can give me.

[EasyEJL]

You really need to work out the food part first. Are you tracking what you eat? there are sites like www.fitday.com that make it fairly easy to see what you really are taking in calorie wise. You have to be taking in less calories than you expend, thats the only way to loose weight. no pill will raise your metabolism by any extreme amount by itself. There are some that can help you, but not without getting the diet and exercise at least close in the first place. You need to start there, and add in a metabolism booster later. Start with walking at least 20 minutes a day, thats something that requires no equipment, and anyone should be able to do it.

Unless your doctor hooked you to an oxygen machine for 15 minutes and ran gas tests, he can't guess as to whether your metabolism is slower or not. Thats just an easy line they use.

[colleen178]

I am dieting. I'm trying to eat breakfast and lunch everyday which I usually didn't in the past. I'm eating more fruit, gave up soda, diet and regular completely, drinking more water. I eat cereal for breakfast and salad or soup(low fat) for lunch. I throw in some fruit or a protein bar in between. Dinner is a problem because I hate to cook most of the time so I don't always eat healthy then. My sweet cravings are not as bad as when I drank diet soda all day and I have lost 1 lb in the last couple of weeks. I live in a cold climate and it's getting cold and rainy so walking is not for me but I have joined the gym and will start going next week. Because of the not eating much during the day for years my DR said that my metabolism had slowed down. Anyway, I would still like to know if there is something out there that might kick start my metabolism and help me lose weight a little faster. I'm not looking to just sit around and do nothing and have a pill do all the work I am sincerely trying to become healthier, exercise and eat right. Thanks for any suggestions.

[EasyEJL]

See when the doctor says "your metabolism slowed down" all he really means is that you lost muscle mass. You really need to track your eating specifics, and see how many calories you take in, and what the split is between protein, carbs + fats. Most people will do better on a fat loss diet if they lower carbs, and raise protein + fat to make the calories right.

plug your stats into here

http://health.discovery.com/tools/ca...sal/basal.html

that will give you your base calories used not counting exersize (within a give or take limit). Once you do the correction factor for activity (say multiply by 1.3 for doing light to medium cardio 3x a week in the gym, plus other day to day activity.

to really raise your metabolism, you need to start raising the level of activity, to add some muscle. We're not talking about you getting huge biceps, but just trading off a few pounds of the fat for muscle instead. So what you want to do is spend a month or two even at break even calories, so your body has enough nutrients to add some muscle. Then go 300-400 calories below that afterwards.

As a safe metabolism booster, green tea + green tea ecgc extracts are pretty helpful

[colleen178]

Thank you so much for the advice. I will take you up on it and will let you know in a week or two how it's going. Thanks again!

[colleen178]

I just signed up for fitday. Thank you so much! I really think that this will help me tremendously! You are the best!

[EasyEJL]

Great, its critical to have the details down, then you can really look at it over the span of a week or month and look at how much you took in vs how much exersize you did, and how much weight you lost (or strength you gained) and make changes accordingly to suit your goals