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Entering our 50s is a major milestone. Besides the numerical event, our body will have experienced a steady decline in health and a phase of menopause. These changes can often evoke feelings of stress, confusion, and anxiety, leaving us feeling a little lost.
We assure you that this is completely normal, but you must adapt! This is where you altering our nutrition comes in.
Today, we will discuss the ultimate diet plan for a 50 year old woman. We key nutrients, health concerns, how to assess your goals, and a 7 day meal plan to boost your energy levels and overall health.
Understanding Nutritional Needs at 50
The fifth decade of our lift comes with a handful of challenges. Throughout our 40s our physiological naturally slows as our bone density and muscle mass decline. This can lead to a gradual loss of function.
For women, this is exacerbated by menopause, the slowing down and cessation of the reproductive system. During this time estrogen and progesterone levels fluctuate and decline, bringing on a host of symptoms, such as hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disruptions, decreased bone density, increased inflammation, weight gain, and appetite.
Daily Caloric Intake and Macronutrient Breakdown
For many women, the biggest struggle they face is sudden weight gain. This is due to a decrease in appetite and a decline in energy expenditure. That is why we must make adjustments to calorie and nutrient intake.
For women, the recommended daily calorie intake is 2,000. This is the amount of calories your body burns at rest and the amount you can consume to maintain weight. This figure decreases as our energy expenditure declines, however, it can be difficult to reduce calorie intake with the increased appetite.
This is where nutrition comes in!
We need to start consuming foods packed with protein and fiber. Protein helps us maintain muscle mass and keeps us fuller for longer. Fiber increases volume and also improves satiety. This will allow us to reduce the calories, without increasing hunger.
One of the key factors is our macronutrient breakdown. These are our proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Balancing these is essential for weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight.
Below is a standard macronutrient ratio:
- Carbohydrates: 45%–65% of total calories
- Protein: 10%–35% of total calories
- Fats: 20%–35% of total calories
These figures can vary based on your training goals and diet.
Key Nutrients for Women Over 50
Supporting our body with correct nutrition is essential for our long-term health. Below is a list of key nutrients for women over 50, including nutrients, recommended daily intake (RDI), and the food it's available in.
Nutrition is one of the best ways to manage the symptoms of menopause. Below, we have listed the purpose of eating nutrients, and how it can reduce the symptoms of menopause.
What you will notice is that many foods share nutrients, which will make things easier when it comes to planning and preparing meals.
Supporting Bone Health
As we age bone health our bone mass can decline as a result of hormonal imbalance and inactivity. When our bone health and density decrease, the risk of osteoporosis, fragility, and fracture increases.
The main determinants of bone health are mechanical stress and nutrition. Mechanical stress in the form of muscle contractions and gravity is essential for the remodeling, regeneration, and preservation of bone health. This can be achieved through regular exercise and physical activity.
Regarding nutrition, calcium, and vitamin D are essential for bone health. More than 99% of the body’s calcium is stored in our bones. Calcium-rich foods including low-fat dairy, yogurt, spinach, tofu, and soymilk are all great ways to boost your recommended daily intake. To enhance absorption, we can step outside to get our vitamin D from the midday sun.
Hydration and Its Role in Health
Correct hydration is a vital component of all nutrition plans. Water is essential to many of our body’s functions including heat regulation, digestion, cognitive function, nutrient absorption, skin, and joints, many of which are impacted by the decline of our reproductive hormones.
Our skin is a prime example. When our estrogen declines, there is a decrease in collagen production, resulting in decreased strength, and elasticity. This increases wrinkles, dry skin, itching, and sagging.
Water can be consumed to reduce the energy intake from calorie-dense drinks including soda, juice, and milk. Furthermore, drinking water regularly throughout the day can increase satiety, and stop snacking, reducing calorie intake.
We recommend carrying a water bottle with you at all times. This will ensure you are adequately hydrated, reducing calorie intake, and supporting overall health.
Sample Diet Plan for a 50 Year Old Woman
Now that we have explored the importance of nutrition, key nutrients, and hydration, it is time to show you how it all comes together.
Below is a sample diet plan for a 50-year-old woman, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and healthy snack options to kickstart your healthy eating plan.
Breakfast Ideas
- Grilled Chicken Omelet with Spinach, Red Pepper, Onion, Low-Fat Cheese
- Overnight Oats with Low Fat Greek Yogurt, Mixed Berries, Honey, Cinnamon
- Poached Eggs with Quinoa, Tomato, Avocado Wholegrain Toast
- Protein Shake with Banana, Berries, Greek Yogurt, Almond Milk
Lunch Options
- Meditteranean Chicken Salad with Cherry Tomatoes, Yellow Pepper, Red Onion, Black Olives, Cucumber, Feta Cheese, Garlic, Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, Salt, and Pepper
- Grilled Chicken Salad Wrap with Romaine Lettuce, Tomato, Avocado, Red Onion, Light Mayo, Low-Fat Cheese, and Wholemeal Wrap.
Dinner Recipes
- Air Fried Lemon and Garlic Salmon with a Quinoa Salad (Corn, Red Onion, Avocado, Lemon Juice, Goat Cheese, Cherry Tomatoes)
- Overbaked Portuguese Chicken Salad with Green Peppers, Plum Tomatos, Cucumber, Cilantro, Red Wine Vinegar, Chili Garlic Paste, Salt
- Tofu Stir Fry with Red Pepper, Broccolini, Garlic, Honey
Healthy Snacks
- Soy Sauce Hard Boiled Eggs with Sake, Mirin, Sugar
- Protein Yogurt with Fruit and Nuts
- Whole Wheat English Muffin Pizza with Tomato, Olives, Oregano, Mozzarella Cheese
- Dark Chocolate Almond Cluster
7-Day Diet Plan for Women Over 50
Creating your meal plan is a big task, however, it is an exciting time when you can begin changing variety and experimenting with different foods.
The key is to keep things interesting, without overly complicating things. Consider making meals with similar foods each week. Then change up the recipes. This will streamline the shopping and preparation process.
Once the week is over and it's time for your next weekly shop, change your ingredients for the following week. This ensures variety without breaking the bank each week.
Below we have prepared a 7-day diet plan including a list of ingredients to show you how to streamline the shopping and preparation process.
Sample Weekly Grocery List
Day 1: Meal Plan (Estimated Total: ~1,800 calories)
- Breakfast: Grilled Chicken Omelet with Spinach, Red Pepper, Red Onion, Feta Cheese, Wholegrain Toast (~400 calories)
- Lunch: Grilled Chicken Salad Wrap with Romaine Lettuce, Tomato, Avocado, Red Onion, Light Mayo, Low-Fat Cheese, and Wholemeal Wrap (~450 calories)
- Dinner: Air Fried Lemon and Garlic Salmon with a Quinoa Salad (Corn, Red Onion, Avocado, Lemon Juice, Goat Cheese, Cherry Tomatoes) (~600 calories)
- Snack: Protein Yogurt with Fruit and Nuts (~350 calories)
Day 2: Meal Plan (Estimated Total: ~1,700 calories)
- Breakfast: Overnight Oats with Low Fat Greek Yogurt, Mixed Berries, Honey, Cinnamon (~400 calories)
- Lunch: Mediterranean Chicken Salad with Cherry Tomatoes, Yellow Pepper, Red Onion, Black Olives, Cucumber, Feta Cheese, Garlic, Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, Salt, and Pepper (~450 calories)
- Dinner: Overbaked Portuguese Chicken Salad with Green Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumber, Cilantro, Chili Garlic Paste, Salt (~600 calories)
- Snack: Protein Shake with One Scoop, Banana (~300 calories)
Day 3: Meal Plan (Estimated Total: ~1,800 calories)
- Breakfast: Poached Eggs with Quinoa, Tomato, Avocado, Wholegrain Toast (~400 calories)
- Lunch: Overbaked Portuguese Chicken Salad with Green Peppers, Plum Tomatoes, Cucumber, Cilantro, Chili Garlic Paste, Salt (~450 calories)
- Dinner: Air-fried, Honey, Soy, and Garlic Chicken with Brown Rice and Steamed Vegetables (~600 calories)
- Snack: Protein Shake with Banana, Berries, Greek Yogurt, Almond Milk, Flaxseeds, and Chia Seeds (~350 calories)
Day 4: Meal Plan (Estimated Total: ~1,700 calories)
- Breakfast: Whole Wheat English Muffin Pizza with Tomato, Olives, Oregano, Feta Cheese (~400 calories)
- Lunch: Honey, Soy, and Garlic Chicken Wholemeal Wraps, Romaine Lettuce, Tomato, Avocado, Red Onion, Light Mayo, Low-Fat Cheese (~450 calories)
- Dinner: Quinoa and Black Bean Stuffed Peppers with Feta Cheese (~600 calories)
- Snack: Protein Yogurt with Fruit and Nuts (~300 calories)
Day 5: Meal Plan (Estimated Total: ~1,800 calories)
- Breakfast: Grilled Chicken Omelet with Spinach, Red Pepper, Red Onion, Feta Cheese, Wholegrain Toast (~400 calories)
- Lunch: Tofu Stir Fry with Red Pepper, Broccolini, Garlic, Honey (~450 calories)
- Dinner: Baked Lemon and Paprika Chicken with Quinoa and Stir-Fried Vegetables (~600 calories)
- Snack: Protein Shake with Banana, Berries, Greek Yogurt, Almond Milk, Flaxseeds, and Chia Seeds (~350 calories)
Day 6: Meal Plan (Estimated Total: ~1,750 calories)
- Breakfast: Poached Eggs with Quinoa, Tomato, Avocado, Wholegrain Toast (~400 calories)
- Lunch: Whole Wheat English Muffin Pizza with Tomato, Olives, Oregano, Mozzarella Cheese (~400 calories)
- Dinner: Air Fried Lemon and Garlic Salmon with a Quinoa Salad (Corn, Red Onion, Avocado, Lemon Juice, Goat Cheese, Cherry Tomatoes) (~600 calories)
- Snack: Protein Yogurt, Dark Chocolate and Almond Clusters (~350 calories)
Day 7: Meal Plan (Estimated Total: ~1,750 calories)
- Breakfast: Overnight Oats with Low Fat Greek Yogurt, Mixed Berries, Honey, Cinnamon (~400 calories)
- Lunch: Tofu Stir Fry with Red Pepper, Broccolini, Garlic, Honey (~450 calories)
- Dinner: Mediterranean Chicken Salad with Cherry Tomatoes, Yellow Pepper, Red Onion, Black Olives, Cucumber, Feta Cheese, Garlic, Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, Salt, and Pepper (~600 calories)
- Snack: Protein Shake with One Scoop, Flaxseeds, Fruit and Nuts (~300 calories)
Top 4 Weight Management Tips
Managing weight can be a challenging task. The careful balance of a calorie deficit, reducing calorie-dense foods, or sudden restrictions, these hurdles have people giving up on their weight loss goal. Here are our top weight management tips to help you lose weight.
Start With Small Calorie Deficits
When you start your weight loss journey, start with a small calorie deficit. In the beginning, it can be tempting to drop your calorie intake for rapid weight loss dramatically. However, this can lead to great feelings of hunger, leading to frustration and possible failure.
Furthermore, it also leaves little room for reduction when the weight plateaus.
We recommend starting with a small calorie deficit. For example, if your daily calorie intake is 2,000 calories, decrease your intake by 300 calories to 1,700 calories.
This small reduction will be less noticeable and when spread across four meals, it will become more manageable. This will also leave you plenty of room to make further decreases when your weight loss plateaus. This enables you to decrease your intake again by 100-200 calories which will again not be as noticeable.
Prioritize Protein & Fiber
When it comes to maintaining a calorie deficit, we must prioritize nutrient intake. While we can simply reduce calories, it can leave us feeling hungry. During a calorie deficit, we must base each meal on a lean source of protein, and fiber, to improve satiety.
Each meal should contain approximately 30g of protein and a source of fiber such as fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, or whole grains. This will give your meals additional volume to keep you fuller for longer.
Stay Hydrated
As mentioned, hydration is an essential part of weight loss. When we go through nutritional adjustments, our body can signal feelings of hunger and cravings, when in fact these feelings may just be boredom or thirst.
Regular sipping of your water bottle can eliminate the feeling of hunger, and help you ride out the next few hours until your next meal.
Adjust To Maintenance Calories
A big key to successful weight management is adjusting your calories for maintenance. A big mistake many make once they have reached their weight loss goal is to continue in a calorie deficit. However, once you have reached your goal, you don’t want to keep losing weight, you want to stabilize it.
Here is an example. Say your daily intake is 2,000 calories per day and for the past 12 weeks, you have been consuming 1,600 calories and have successfully achieved your weight loss goal. You can now safely return to 2,000 calories per day to maintain your weight.
Often people stay within the deficit in fear of putting the weight back on, only for it to be unsustainable long-term. This leads to binges that exceed 2,000 calories per day, leading to weight gain.
If you do adjust to maintenance calories and feel the weight creeping up again, you can simply create another small deficit to manage your weight.
Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Diet
Switching over to a healthy diet plan comes with a range of challenges. Below is a list of tips to help you maintain a healthy diet to ensure you make a long-term positive change to maximize results.
Meal Planning and Preparation
Planning and preparing your meals in advance is a great way to ensure you stick to your healthy eating plan. Each week consider performing a weekly shop and doing your meal prep in one day. While this may take up a good portion of your weekend, it will reduce meal time during the week.
Moreover, having healthy meals ready to go is invaluable for those days when you come home tired and lacking the energy to cook. In most instances you will likely reach for the take-out app, resulting in a calorie blowout. Having your meals ready will ensure you stay within your calorie limit, enabling you to adhere to your diet plan.
Boosting Energy Levels
An excellent way to improve diet plan adherence is to boost your energy levels. We have already spoken about the effects of protein and fiber on our satiety levels, however, there are a range of other foods we can eat to give us a boost of energy and improve satiety.
Foods including, bananas, nuts, oatmeal, yogurt, sweet potato, and dark chocolate are all great for providing sustainable energy. These foods are great for snacks to curb hunger and cravings, or to bulk up main meals.
Incorporating Physical Activity
Physical activity is a powerful tool for enhancing the effects of weight loss and improving overall health. As we enter our 50s and many of the body’s systems begin to slow down, we will experience a decrease in muscle mass and bone density.
During this time, there is also an increased risk of chronic illnesses including, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, and dementia.
Exercise can reduce the effects of chronic illness. As mentioned, mechanical stress in the form of exercise can help us maintain lean muscle mass and bone density. Exercise can reduce the impact of type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, and cardiovascular disease while enhancing function and quality of life.
Adding exercise in the form of resistance training, regular walking, or recreation activity is an excellent way to load out joints, manage weight, and reduce the effects of chronic illness.
Eating Out Healthily
One of the biggest difficulties is maintaining healthy eating when we head out for a meal, which often derails the diet for the night.
Fortunately, there are several things you can do to reduce the impact of a night out. If you know about the meal out days or weeks in advance, account for it in your calorie intake.
This can be done in two ways. You can reduce your calorie intake during the day, allowing for more calories to be consumed for your meal. Or, if you plan your calorie intake for the week, attempt to absorb into your weekly calorie limit. This can be done by reducing your calorie intake by 100-200 calories each day for the week. This will leave you with an additional 1,400 calories for that meal.
And if all that sounds too hard, consider treating yourself and marking it down as a cheat meal. Cheat meals are a great way to maintain your sanity during those long stretches of clean eating.
Staying Motivated
Dwindling motivation has claimed its fair share of healthy diet enthusiasts. During your diet plan your motivation and willpower will be tested as you will be faced with opportunities to eat out, binge eat, or give it up due to frustration.
One of the most effective things we can do is monitor your progress. Tracking your progress with photos, scale weight, measurements, and monitoring your energy levels is a great way to keep your present within your diet.
When we face hurdles or plateaus in our weight loss journey, it can be easy to focus on things that aren’t working. Whether it's lower energy, cravings, or our weight plateauing, the feeling of failure can set in, making us want to throw in the towel.
Keeping track of your progress will give you solid evidence of how far you have come. The pictures will provide visual proof of your success, while scale weight, measurements, and resistance training records will give you numerical evidence of your physical activity success.
All these combined will help keep you motivated, and push you forward on your weight loss journey.
Final Thoughts on Diet and Health for Women at 50
Making a positive change to your nutrition can help you regain control of your health. A healthy diet is more than just a calorie deficit. It enables us to retain muscle, support bone mass, improve energy, and boost cognitive function while reducing chronic illness.
If you are considering changing to a healthy diet in your 50s, ensure you build your meals around a source of protein, calcium, vitamin B, omega-3, and fiber, and don’t just focus on the scale weight. Monitor your progress through energy levels, measurements, strength, and function.
Combining these elements will give you the best chance of success for your diet plan. Improve your overall health, and enhance quality of life for decades to come.
FAQs
What is the best diet for a 50-year-old woman to maintain health?
A balanced diet rich in whole grains, lean protein, healthy fats, fruits, and vegetables is ideal. Including foods high in calcium and vitamin D can help support bone health, while fiber-rich foods assist with digestion and heart health.
How many calories should a 50-year-old woman eat daily to maintain a healthy weight?
Calorie needs vary based on activity level and metabolism, but generally, a 50-year-old woman should consume between 1,600 and 2,200 calories per day. Consulting with a dietitian can provide personalized guidance.
What nutrients are most important for women over 50?
Key nutrients include calcium and vitamin D for bone health, omega-3 fatty acids for heart health, fiber for digestive health, and protein to support muscle maintenance and overall vitality.
Are there specific foods women over 50 should avoid?
Women over 50 should limit processed foods, added sugars, and high-sodium items. Reducing the intake of trans fats and overly refined carbohydrates can help maintain heart health and stable energy levels.
What lifestyle changes can support a healthy diet for women over 50?
In addition to a balanced diet, incorporating regular physical activity, staying hydrated, managing stress, and getting adequate sleep are essential. These lifestyle habits can help improve metabolism, support mental health, and enhance overall well-being.
