10 Tips to Maintain a Healthy Weight in Your Forties

Whether you are at your ideal weight or are still trying to lose weight, you will want to at least not gain weight because this trashes your goal. At the very minimum, you want to maintain a healthy weight. I’m in my forties and a common complaint I hear from other women my age is how difficult it is to maintain, and lose, weight once in your forties. I’m not perfect. I’m trying to lose more weight, but, I’ve learned some tricks to help me maintain a healthy weight while still trying to lose weight. I’m going to share my ideas here. I sincerely hope my ideas help you with your weight goals. I have confidence in you:)

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Whew! It’s no lie. This is very tough to do as we age, but you can do this! I know you can.

1. Eat Less Carbs…How? I’ll tell you my tricks.

In order to eat less carbs, I substitute the carbohydrates with something else. The three big ones I often do to maintain a healthy weight are very simple and easy switches.

Substitute Rice Cakes for Bread for Lower Carb Meals & Snacks

The first one is to use rice cakes instead of a bread product. So, for breakfast or lunch, I may have peanut butter on a rice cake instead of on bread or toast. It works great for spreads, fruits, and even hard-boiled eggs. Anywhere you might use bread, just substitute a plain rice cake.

I often try to do at least one meal a day where I substitute rice cakes for bread and when I want a snack, a rice cake is a perfect choice as it fills you up and is satisfying. Top it with something to make it even heartier, and yummier.

Use Cucumber Slices with Cheese instead of Crackers

This is an easy thing to do. Simply slice (peel if desired) a cucumber and top cut cucumber with slices of cheese. It tastes good and gives you that crunch you might miss not having a cracker. Adding salt and pepper to the cucumber before topping with a cheese slice is extra yummy too, of course optional. Keep cucumbers sliced in the fridge for an easy grab for a snack.

Eat One Low Carb or Carb Free Meal a Day

This is easy to do also. I ensure I have either a low carb or carb-free meal once a day and it really seems to make a difference for me in reaching my goal to maintain a healthy weight. I’m not good at eating zero carbs, so this type of plan works well for me to maintain my weight while still trying to lose weight. Woohoo! We all want success!

2. Drink More Water

This is an easy one to do and it makes a difference. Your body needs the water anyway, and if you down a glass of water when you’re hungry, you might just fool your stomach into thinking you ate something because it’s full. It may not work for you but it works pretty well for me. Try it out:)

3. Keep Veggies Washed and Ready in your Fridge at all times

This is an easy no-brainer trick to do. If you have a bunch of already ready to eat veggies in your fridge all washed and cut up, you are way more likely to grab the veggies when you are hangry. Prevent the hangry binge! It takes just a bit of prep time to peel and slice the veggies. Store them in your fridge in a container. A good trick is to store carrots and celery in a container of water to keep them crisp over time. Thanks for that one Mom!

4. Substitute Veggies for Chips with Your Favorite Dip

I love queso dip and tortilla chips, but sometimes I don’t want the carbs that come with tortilla chips so I make a platter of veggies to scoop up the dip with. This is also a very healthy idea for a party platter in addition to an everyday snack at home. Just do the prep work ahead of time and enjoy the easy healthy snacking.

5. Drink Vegetable Juice as Your Snack

Ever heard that sometimes when you are hungry, you are actually just thirsty? And if you’d like something heartier than water because perhaps you are hungry, drink vegetable juice. I love the V8 tomato vegetable juice. It’s filling, low in calories, and very healthy. If you don’t like it, try the V8 V-fusion mix of vegetable juices and fruit juices. They are very delicious and make a great snack by itself.

6. Eat Just a Little Bit of Carbs to Satisfy Your Craving

This is an easy one to do and it’s highly satisfying because you still get to taste it. Here are some examples:

• eat half of a bagel instead of a whole one
• enjoy an open-faced sandwich with just one slice of bread
• eat 1-4 crackers and stop…eat enough just to get the flavor and satisfy your craving
• make a cauliflower crust for your pizza
• eat a sliver of that birthday cake or half of a cookie instead of the whole
• cut your normal pasta portion in half and fill half your plate with vegetables or salad
• buy low carb tortillas
• eat a meal of fried eggs, cheese, and salsa without any added carbs

7. Enjoy a No Calorie Tea in Your Cocktail

Make your happy hour happier! It’s nice to unwind with a cocktail, but the mixes or soda pop can be loaded with calories and sugar. To keep great flavor and keep the calories low, I use either Crystal Light or tea to mix with alcohol for a lower-calorie, and lower-carb, happy hour.

My favorite way to do this is to take a tea bag and plop it into a mug of water and cold brew some tea. I love vanilla chai tea so I use it to mix with flavored vodka such as raspberry, lemon, or clementine. The flavor from the vodka makes the adult beverage very yummy. Any kind of iced tea would work great for a drink mixer.

8. Try on Your Summer Pants or Swimsuit as Motivation

If you try on your summer pants/shorts/capris or swimsuit in the winter and the clothing doesn’t fit … that’s a huge motivator to keep losing weight, and a guidepost to maintaining a healthy weight (great for those who avoid stepping on the scale, like me). You might find that the clothing doesn’t fit you when only a few months ago you happily wore the shorts. Time to get seriousl If it fits, then awesome, you are staying on track, even better if it’s too big!

9. Eat a Small Amout of Protein as a Snack

This is an easy one to accomplish as keeping a small snack of protein in the house can be a simple thing. Have a small handful of nuts or a single hard-boiled egg as your snack. Eating protein can help fill you up enough to last until the next mealtime. I love to hard-boil a bunch of eggs so they are ready in the fridge when I want them. This protein trick works great for kids too.

10. Exercise, Move, Groove, Shake that Body

You knew I would say this one, and since it’s a no-brainer, so I saved it for last. Just get up and move about your house, your backyard, or your neighborhood. The best way for maintaining a healthy weight is to exercise every day, or the majority of days in a given week. Even if it’s a shortened workout, even ten minutes, still do it. Working out has always made a huge difference for me in preventing weight gain and maintain a healthy weight.

I do a variety of exercises and I don’t do the same things every workout but more like spread out over the week. Here are examples of some workout activities I do:

• yoga
• floor exercises like leg lifts, crunches, side crunches
• use light weights in your exercise routine, like two-pound and five-pound handheld weights
• take a walk
• swim
• go on a treadmill, hold hand weights, watch a show or read a book on your phone or kindle
• go on a bike ride

I hope you found these tips to maintain a healthy weight helpful. These are things I do to help maintain my own weight.

Eat well and enjoy life!

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