As midlife sets in, maintaining a healthy weight often becomes harder. Tricks that worked in the past, like cutting down on wine or sugar, no longer seem to work, either.
Even slender Samantha Cameron, now 50, has apparently been affected. In her 30s and early 40s, staying in shape was easy, she said recently, “but then I hit 43, I just put on three-quarters of a stone. Suddenly you don’t quite fit any of your things and I got really bloated.”
At first she tried doing the 5:2 diet – eating normally five days a week, then having just 500 calories on the other two – but “I just couldn’t do it, I literally couldn’t speak in the evening, I had to go to bed at 7pm.”
She has recently found a solution: the 5:2 principles, but with 800 calories on the “fast” days, and says she’s “loving it” and “the bloating’s gone”. Alongside three weekly workouts, she says it’s helping to keep her trim: her goal is “to hit my 50s in almost as good shape as I hit my 40s.”
If you’re struggling to maintain your weight and fitness post-50, here’s why – and…
