Here are the best treats to lose weight as a woman over forty. Plus, we include what to look out for when choosing the right snacks for you.
One of the most common questions we get asked is: “How can I eat treats and lose weight as a woman over 40?”
We have worked with so many women in their 40s and 50s who felt stuck because they didn’t know what treats to have so they could still see results in the mirror. They were stuck in a position where they could either not eat anything nice, get fed up of dieting and then slip back into bad habits anyway… or give in, drink all the wrong things and see their weight going up every month!
And neither of these options really get you the results that you want.
So, most of these women tried to find a way that they could have the occasional treat, but still lose weight. But if you don’t know the best treats to fit in with your nutrition plan… it’s easy to end up having too many calories.
This can quickly lead to extra pounds creeping on around your middle – especially for women in their 40s and 50s who are already dealing with physical and hormonal changes.
But, if you know which treats to have (and which to avoid) you can enjoy eating what you like and not feeling deprived, but still get the scales moving and drop a couple of dress sizes! In our recent podcast, we reveal the best treats to have if you’re a woman over 40 looking to lose weight!
The best treats start with the basics
The best treats must meet the basic principles for women over 40. Here’s what to look out for.
Avoid hormone-disrupting foods (WADS foods)
You should try to avoid food which contain too much of the following:
- Wheat
- Alcohol
- Dairy
- Sugar
These foods are awful at disrupting the balance of hormones in your body, especially as a woman over forty.
Do our Diet Makeover (DM)
It’s important to get the right nutrients in the right quantities. For you, this will be not too much, and not too little. If you have too little, this can disrupt stress levels and make it very hard for your body to lose weight.
You need to balance your:
- Calories
- Protein
- Fibre
The amount you consume will be specific to your body weight, body type, height, age, hormonal situation, and it’s not all about calories!
Our Diet Makeover approach allows you to be flexible and still eat the foods you like. You can find out more here!
Consider a Bespoke Midlife Nutrition Plan (BMNP)
Setting up a bespoke plan for your body includes making sure it works specifically for you and your hormones. This includes things like your meal timings, caffeine intake, stress levels, HRT inclusion and other factors.
This holistic fine tuning allows you to see the results you deserve.
Hormonally balanced eating
Inside our Fit Over 40 program, we call this overall approach Hormonally Balanced Eating (HBE).
It’s important to consider balance, as whilst it would be perfect to eat clean all the time, for most people it’s not realistic or sustainable to NEVER eat something a bit interesting, decadent or exciting!
So, the other thing we look out for in terms of healthy treats, is that it meets the following three criteria:
- Nice and satisfying
- Not too many calories
- Not too moreish
So, what are the best treats to meet these criteria?
Here’s a list of some examples of the foods we recommend to our clients, so you can see the results you deserve.
- Jude’s Low Cal Vegan Chocolate Ice Cream, or other brands like Halo Top and Breyer’s do good options too
- These are not perfect nutritionally, but MILES better than full calorie ice cream!
- They are less than 100kcal for a couple of scoops, and usually less than 400kcal for a tub
- Another option is Hartley’s 10kcal Jelly & Halo Top Ice Cream – it’s like jelly and ice cream but lower in calories and more filling!
- Snack-a-jacks
- Buy the multi packs with small bags
- 60kcal each for big snack-a-jack or 78kcal for a small bag
- Dark-chocolate coated rice cakes/corn cakes are also good
- The Coconut Collaborative Salted Caramel Choc Pots
- Deliciously rich and chocolatey but only 110kcal per pot
- 3x less calories than other options and made of healthier ingredients
- Try our 20-second Protein Brownie recipe – 160kcal (about 3 times less than a regular brownie) rich, gooey and very filling
- Mix 20g chocolate protein powder (2/3rds of a normal scoop), 10g cocoa powder (1/3rd of a normal scoop), 1 square 90% dark choc, broken into bits, Splash unsweetened almond milk
- 20g of protein = very filling and helps with weight loss
- Protein analogy: like putting log on a fire
- Frozen grapes (just freeze white/red grapes)
- Very simple, but they go much sweeter frozen and taste like sweets!
- Dark Chocolate Lindt/Green & Blacks (85%+)
- 90% = 7g/100g of sugar
- 85% = 15g/100g of sugar
These are just a few of the healthy treats and snacks we recommend to members of our Fit Over 40 program, and it’s just one aspect of Hormonally Balanced Eating which means you’ll be able to lose 1-2 stone every 12 weeks, even in your 40s and 50s!
If you’d like to find out more about how Trinity can help you achieve your goals, click here!