How to Create a Weight Loss Plan That Actually Works After 50

Looking for a simple food plan that helps you lose weight after 50 without dieting?

In this episode of Outlook for Life, nutritionist and healthy ageing coach Ginny McArthur shares a simple framework for creating a personalised food plan that fits your lifestyle, supports menopause weight loss, and adapts to life's inevitable challenges.

Fresh from eye surgery and with hip replacement surgery only weeks away, Ginny reflects on how our nutritional needs change during different seasons of life. Whether your goal is weight loss, fat loss, maintaining your health, recovering from injury, or simply having more energy, this episode will help you create a food plan that works with your life rather than against it.

You'll discover why so many diets fail, how to identify the right nutrition priorities for your current season, and the simple steps to create a realistic eating plan that delivers results without feeling restrictive.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why most weight loss diets fail after 50

• The importance of adapting your nutrition as your circumstances change

• How menopause, injury, recovery, stress and lifestyle can affect your nutrition needs

• The difference between a fat-loss season, recovery season and maintenance season

• How to identify your primary health and nutrition goal

• The simple food planning framework Ginny uses with clients

• Why including foods you genuinely enjoy is critical for long-term success

• How to create a sustainable approach to weight loss and healthy eating

Key Takeaway

The best food plan isn't the one that looks perfect on paper.

It's the one that fits your life, supports your health goals, and can adapt as your circumstances change.

Join My Upcoming Workshop

Write Your Perfect Food Plan

If you're tired of starting over every Monday and would like help creating a food plan you love, can stick to, and that gets results, I'd love you to join me.

In this practical workshop, you'll learn how to:

✔ Create a personalised food plan

✔ Match your eating plan to your current goals

✔ Build meals around foods you enjoy

✔ Simplify healthy eating

✔ Create a plan you can maintain long-term

Date: Wednesday 24 June
Time: 7.00 pm NZ Time
Investment: $27

Details and registration: Click Here

Connect With Ginny

Website: https://www.outlookforlife.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ginnymcarthursoutlookforlife

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/ginny.mcarthur.2025

About Outlook for Life

Outlook for Life is the podcast for women over 50 who want to lose weight, improve their health, gain energy, and age strong.

Each week, nutritionist Ginny McArthur shares practical, evidence-based advice on weight loss after 50, menopause nutrition, healthy ageing, food planning, strength training, plant-based nutrition, and healthy habits that help women thrive in midlife and beyond.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Topics Discussed: Weight loss after 50, food planning, menopause weight loss, healthy ageing, nutrition for women over 50, weight loss mindset, recovery nutrition, healthy eating habits.

#WeightLossAfter50 #MenopauseWeightLoss #FoodPlanning #HealthyAgeing #WomenOver50 #NutritionForWomen #HealthyEating #WeightLoss #MenopauseNutrition #PlantBasedNutrition

Episode Transcript

Hi everybody! I've been thinking about food plans a bit this week.

I've actually had time to do some thinking, because I've been recovering from an eye operation,

And I had to take a week off.

training. I was allowed a short amble around the block, that was basically it.

Honestly, when I can't exercise,

I feel like I'm imprisoned. It's just awful, awful, awful.

But anyway, that got me thinking about a workshop I have coming up next week, which is

About how to create a weight loss plan,

that will work for you,

as you age. You know, it's basically for women who are 40, 50, 60,

Plus. And…

So, reflecting on that in regards to my situation, which is recovering from an eye operation,

My hip, my first hip replacement is 7 weeks away, so I've also got that coming up in…

wings, and there's someone who's always exercised knowing that

in the immediate future, that's going to be pulled back.

is quite challenging.

But, I also know that because of that, I'm gonna have to alter my nutrition.

So my nutrition is going to become…

Less about supporting my body,

through exercise and more about supporting my body through recovery, and I also don't want to be gaining body fat.

And I want to try and avoid losing as much muscle tissue as I possibly can.

through this period where I'm kind of doing prehab for my hip, and then I'm going to be doing, obviously, rehab and rest and recovery,

the other side of it. And it made me think that, you know, a lot of women

Um…

Try and force themselves to follow the same nutrition plan.

Irrespective of what is going on in their life.

Irrespective of the season of their lives.

Irrespective of the changes,

Um, in their physiology,

And their lifestyle, you know, generally. And the reality is that our nutrition needs evolve as our circumstances change.

Your food plan should support your life, not compete with it.

And I know many of the women I work with

feel like their nutrition is competing with their life. They're constantly trying to be good,

They're constantly trying to eat less.

Instead of using their nutrition to support

their current circumstances and lifestyle.

So, you know, most diets, that four-letter word, most diets

fail, because they're written for this imaginary, perfect life. You know, they're written for this life where there's no stress,

There's no injuries, there's no grandchildren or children running around your feet.

There's no travel, there's no menopause, there's no post-menopause. In fact,

there's pretty much no life.

And it's clearly just not gonna work. I mean,

When was the last time that you had a great week and you thought that you'd finally got your head around your food, and you'd got that sorted,

And then life happened…

And everything fell apart.

you know, that… and then you blame yourself, right? You think that you're useless,

And you're hopeless, and you're broken, and you can't do it…

I see this every day, in fact, I was… a lady messaged me this morning, saying exactly that.

You know, I was going along fine. I had a week with lots of social situations. I looked at the scales, they've gone up, I feel downhearted, I feel useless, I feel like I can't do anything right.

My answer is that it's about

changing your food plan to support

eating out all of the time. I have some clients who never cook. They never eat at home. I don't even know why they bother having a kitchen.

But they are successfully able to lose weight, because it's about the choices that you make,

And it's about… I treat my food a bit like a budget,

Am I spend that budget wisely. For ultimate enjoyment, but also, I guess, for the best results.

And learning to do that

It's a skill. So the problem isn't you.

The problem is that you're trying to follow a plan that probably doesn't fit your life, or certainly doesn't follow the season of life.

that you find yourself in.

So, you know, you've got to think about where are you at? Are you at a point in your life where your nutrition

is really primarily there to support your fat loss.

Are you at a time in your life where

your nutrition is there. Like, me at the moment, to support ultimate recovery.

and healing. Healing and adequate calories are going to be my

top priority, I'm going to need lots of protein for tissue repair, I'm gonna need all of the different fruits and vegetables, which luckily I love.

For all of the different colors, for all of those different polyphenols, and I'm going to make sure that I say really well hydrated.

a season… your season of life at the moment, one of performance? Like, are you trying to… like, I have some clients that are trying to do their first 5K, or their first 10K, or…

power left, or, you know, like me at the moment, I do have one goal I need nutrition to support, and that is my dead hang goal.

My goal is to

achieve, I can do 90 seconds at the moment, just.

I want to be able to achieve a 3-minute dead hang before my first hip surgery.

So, I need to eat well to support that, because my training, I'm finding it quite hard.

And so I need to support my body

for recovery, right? Every day, post-training, and I need more carbohydrates before training.

Um, is it just a time where it's about maintaining? Where it's about keeping where you're at,

And enjoying life, or maybe it's towards work, you know, working towards

ultimate, or optimum health.

It might be that you're aging and you're aware that you really need to do something about your strength.

So that you don't end up as a frail little old lady. You know, there are just…

so many different…

reasons to eat.

And to eat… eat well.

So the best food plan, it's not the most perfect plan, it's the one that matches where your brain and your body are at right now, and what your body needs right now.

You know, I… a lot of it…

You know, when we're fighting ourselves, I could choose to really complain about not having been able to, well, be in prison, and not having been able,

to, uh, train over the last week. I could sit here and moan about that.

Or, I can try and…

you know, improve my nutrition to increase my recovery. I could try and ignore advice and out-exercise my eye recovery, which

would not… would not go well, or I can just work with where I am right now,

and adjust my nutrition accordingly. And I think this is where many women get stuck,

You know, we try to eat how we ate when we were in our 30s or our 40s. I have so many women that say to me, well,

You know, when I was 30, I used to go out and I'd run for 10Ks, and then I'd come back and I'd go to the cafe, and I'd have my cake and my muffin,

Um, you know, because I'd earned it, surely I'd used up those calories, so now I can have those calories back. I can have…

a slice, or a muffin, or a cake, or whatever it is.

But in reality, that doesn't work anymore.

We might have got away with it when we were in our 30s or early 40s,

But hormones are not forgiving, you know? And suddenly you find that you cannot outrun those food choices.

anymore. You know, life has changed, and it's okay, you just have to learn how to tweak your nutrition plan to accommodate that.

So, I have a kind of a bit of a formula that I work through with my clients, and

I start off with looking at what their goal is.

you know, what are you trying to achieve right now in this season of your life?

Is it fat loss? Is it that you want to improve your cholesterol, or lower your blood pressure, or your HbA1c, or are you trying to get into good shape pre- or post-surgery?

Is it that you've lost your mojo? Is your sole focus to try and get your energy back?

So that you can live a full and active life.

Or is it gut health?

Do you know that you… you know your immune function isn't what it could be, your digestion isn't what it could be, maybe your skin and your hair and your nails reflect that, and you want to really work on improving your microbiome and your gut health.

I think it's great to pick one.

The great thing about the kind of nutrition that I practice

is that when you pick one, the others tend to fall into place. So, for instance,

I have clients, their goal is to lose 10 kilos.

They spend 12 weeks with me, they lose 12… 10 kilos,

But they also drop their cholesterol, they come off their blood pressure medication,

Um, their HbA1C, which was pre-diabetic, comes back down to normal, they suddenly find they've got more energy, and their gut health improves.

So, I'm… I guess I'm lucky in the way that I choose to eat and the way I choose to.

teach people to eat, basically can fill in all of the boxes, but

I would still advise you to choose one thing. Have one primary goal, not 10.

Because that never works very well. And then you want to think about, you know, what are your non-negotiables,

What are your three to five habits

that you can put on WeWork, as you know, in Outlook, with a habit tracker. You can put on your habit tracker,

These are the non-negotiables that you're going to do daily. Don't make them too hard.

Make sure they fit in with your life.

So, it could be as simple as,

You know, I'm going to eat two handfuls of vegetables with my lunch and two handfuls of vegetables with my dinner. I'm going to eat two to three pieces of fruit a day.

I'm gonna make sure that I achieve 30 grams of

protein at every meal. I'm going to make sure that I have

adequate fibre.

Uh, I'm going to stop eating after dinner.

I'm gonna work for that 12 to 14 hour fasting period, which is so vital.

Especially for women over 50. As we age, it becomes really important.

I'm going to make sure I drink at least 3 litres of water.

Or I'm gonna walk daily. I'm gonna track my steps, I'm gonna make sure that I get those

7,000 steps every day, if that, you know, if that's possible for you. So think about what

those things are. Make it simple.

Make it specific, make it something that is easily repeatable, that you can have on the habit tracker,

And you can tick off daily,

As you go. Then, you also, obviously, when you're looking at that, you've got to take into an account

count…

your real life, so that you can design how you fit those goals in around your real life. Like, are you working?

Because do you have to take food to work with you, or are you eating out quite often?

Do you have to travel? Do you need portable snacks in the car? Do you need to know where you can buy healthy lunches?

And what… what facilities do you have in your hotel or your motel? Can you cook? Do you need to know where you can eat out and get healthy choices?

Um, are you caring for grandchildren? Are you going to have

tempting snacks and foods around,

that you're going to have to put some boundaries around. Are you baking for grandchildren?

I don't dare unless I leave it there, but if you are baking for grandchildren,

you know, what boundaries are you going to put around that?

To make sure that you're not overeating, and you're not causing inflammation, and gaining weight by eating

healthy baking,

that's more than you need, because if you're eating more than you need, there's only one place it's going to go, and that's into your storage. And we know where that is and what that is.

Uh, are you exercising in the mornings or the evenings? Because you're going to have to fuel around your exercise, you need to eat around your exercise. That's really, really important.

Are you just cooking for yourself, or are you cooking for family?

And how are you going to make that work? How are you going to adjust that so that you're not having to bloom in while cook?

two or three meals a day, you know, every night, two or three different meals.

Because whoever wants to do that, you know, it not a fantasy life where

you are going to be able to go tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. It's real life, and so you've got to be able to accommodate

All of that stuff.

It's really important that you understand

simply how to balance your blood sugars, so that you're keeping your body in a state

Where you've got good blood glucose to fuel your brain and your body,

But you're also dining in and burning body fat as a fuel. So we want two energy sources going all of the time.

There is a little bit of a skill in learning how to do that.

Once you've got it, it's easy. It's locked in there. But doing that is really important.

For energy and for fat loss.

Um, what are foods that you love?

So this is where diets often fail, because they don't include

foods that you genuinely enjoy. What do you genuinely enjoy eating?

And where can that fit in?

Because if you genuinely love chocolate cake, it is pointless going on a diet where you never get chocolate cake again.

Because you are just on a diet, and when you come off the diet,

It's like pushing that beach ball down under the water in the swimming pool, you're on a diet,

You push it down, you push it down, you push it down. Eventually, you let it go, and it pushes out of the swimming pool,

And chocolate cake, here we come, baby, because I haven't had any for 12 weeks. That's not what we want. That's not sustainable.

We want a life that includes chocolate cake.

It just can't include too much of it, but it can be there. It can absolutely be there. Or whatever your thing is. You know, a plan that's built around…

deprivation won't last.

a plan that's built around foods that you love and enjoyment,

will last. That's a huge message, and that is something that…

I've learned through my clients, through myself, but, you know, remember, I lost 30 kilos, so I've been at the coalface.

Um, but… but, you know, I've seen this with my clients.

time after time after time. It's got to be realistic, it's got to be enjoyable.

Because how you lose weight…

is how you're going to keep the weight off.

So it's pointless committing to eating chicken and broccoli for the rest of your life if you hate chicken and broccoli.

We have to do it in a sustainable way that you want to do.

The other thing is, remember, when you embark on a food plan, like, maybe we'll create a food plan together for you.

You're not marrying that plan.

I've just told you I want you to fall in love with that, but you're not marrying it, right? It's not for the rest of your life.

You are allowed to change it.

Now, we don't want to change husbands,

Well, if we do, not too often…

I'm on my second one. I don't want another one. It's enough.

For most of us, hopefully one is enough.

But we don't want to marry our food plan.

That food plan has got to be able to adjust. It has to be able to adjust as life changes,

As you'll seasons change, as your goals change, your plan has to change too.

And I see a huge part of my job

of teaching you how to do that.

And how to still end up with something.

that works for you and gets you to that goal that you started with, whether that goal is

fat loss, or whether that goal is lowering your cholesterol, or your blood pressure, or whether that goal is increasing your energy or improving your gut health.

your plan has to be adjustable and still able to get you there.

That's what I think. So, you know, my last week has been frustrating, because there's been a lot less

exercise. I…

have had to give time over to recovery.

I've had to be patient.

Which, if you know me, is not one of the gifts that I have.

Um, but in these circumstances, right, it would be easy to go, I'm not exercising, so I've got to eat nothing that I love, and I've got to eat way, way less.

But nutrition is not about punishment, it's about support. So it's turning it around.

And going, right, what do I need to support my recovery?

That isn't gonna make me feel bloated and bleh, that is going to maintain my weight while I'm recovering.

So that your goal… your goal isn't to eat perfectly, but your goal is about nourishing yourself.

through that season. So, for me, it was nourishing my body through the recovery.

Um, so, having said all of that…

If you've ever wondered why,

Diets work, or Ginny's Food Plan works, for a few weeks, and then it all falls apart.

It's often because that plan is not specific to you. It does not fit your life.

And that's exactly why I've created next week's workshop, which I started talking about at the beginning.

The workshop promises that, by the end of the workshop, you will have a personalized plan

one that suits your goals,

fits your lifestyle, one that is built around foods that you actually enjoy.

And that is realistic in terms of how much time you have to prep and prepare foods and cook.

And one that can evolve.

going forward as your life changes.

So, I'm looking for, basically, women who are tired of starting again every Monday,

Tired of feeling guilty about what they eat, tired of being on that rollercoaster of being good, and then being bad,

And throwing the towel in.

Women that want a plan they can actually live with, the workshop is next Wednesday.

7pm, it's $27, that's all just $27.

I'd love to help you create your own version of a sustainable

food plan, because the best food plan isn't one that looks perfect on paper, it's the one that supports you in your life,

Through the season of life that you are in today,

and helps you become the woman who you want to be.

tomorrow. Have a fabulous week, everybody. I'll put the link for the workshop below this episode.

Um, if you've missed it, I'm sure that there will be a rerun, so just have a look for that link.

And have a fabulous week, all of you.

Um, hope that you're able to get out there and exercise and do the stuff that you love.

And I will speak to you next week.