burnthesheep wrote:
It's all about something you think you can handle doing the rest of your life.
If you can't maintain an app or logbook everyday the rest of your life, it won't work. Balance.
This is absolutely false. Losing weight and maintaining weight are two fundamentally different things. Maintaining a significant deficit for months on end is NOT a trivial task. This get more difficult as one gets older and our metabolism starts to slow down, and our ability to out-swim/bike/run our appetite declines. It takes serious discipline to hold a deficit of 500/1000 cal/day for 6-10 months at 50. The OP is 60 (I think that's what he said).
Frankly at 35, you haven't begun to see what I mean by that. For better or worse, I've done the in-season out-of-season weight gain/loss thing since I was 24. I turn 50 in 3 months. In my 20s and 30s, frankly, I never looked at a log book. I got on the bike or went for a run, and lost weight. So, I've seen what it takes at every age between 24 and now 50, year over year. It ain't the same.
It was a chore to eat enough to maintain weight back then. I have notes from a coaching session with my coach when I was 33, where he tells me to, "...just fucking eat....eat ice cream if you have to, but just fucking EAT!"
At 50, if I do not log, I do not lose <period>. I've tried many times. I think, "ok, smaller portions, no <this, that, the other thing>..." I make what I think are the right adjustments. But, a month later nothing has changed. I get out the "app", I set a calorie target, I start logging...voila, 3-4 weeks later I'm 3-5 lbs lighter and on a downward slope---at which point I can adjust my target up or down based on the slope I'm looking to maintain.
Once I reach my "race weight", I stop logging food. I still get on the scale every day: 1) to stay up on my hydration, 2) to keep an eye on my race weight. I set an upper threshold, based on normal weekly fluctuations. If my weight goes above that threshold, I'll take some action...but, frankly that doesn't happen. As long as I'm training I naturally eat to maintain. The real risk is when the training volume changes significantly (eg, off-season) where the habitual appetite comes into play during that transitional phase. Again, logging during that phase helps to minimize the "gain".
The difference between 20s-30s and 50s-60s is that us older folks start from a lower BMR, and also have a lower top-end and ability to "just burn off the extra".
What you say above IS true for nutritional choices such as deleting sweet soda, and fatty burgers, adding higher fiber foods, and more vegetables, etc, etc. THOSE are lifestyle changes, and should be treated as permanent changes. But, portion control for losing weight, vs. maintaining weight...logging is an EXCELLENT tool for that job---and it is NOT required once desired weight is achieved.