Most people over 40 who come to the gym have lost the same stone three times. Diet, drop, drift, regain. The problem is never willpower. It is that starving and running is the wrong tool for a body that has less muscle than it did at 25.
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The four things that work
- Protein first. Protein at every meal. It keeps you full, it protects muscle while the fat goes, and it is the one change that makes every other change easier.
- Strength training, not just cardio. Muscle is what keeps the weight off after the diet ends. Two or three coached sessions a week with weights that go up.
- Walk. Eight to ten thousand steps on the days you do not train. It is where most fat loss quietly happens, and it costs nothing.
- A small deficit with a finish line. About 20% below maintenance, for eight weeks, measured at both ends. Not 1,000 calories forever. Work out your numbers here.
The things that do not work
- Cutting out whole food groups. You will last three weeks.
- Six days of cardio. Your knees and your evenings will not forgive you.
- Weighing yourself every morning and reacting to it. Look at the weekly average.
- Waiting for Monday, January, or after the holiday.
What eight weeks usually looks like
Steady fat loss, a noticeable drop in waist measurement, strength up across the board, better sleep. The exact numbers are yours and depend on what you do. The week 1 and week 8 tape tells the story.