This is not medical advice. General information for self-tracking only. If you are under 18, pregnant or breastfeeding, have ever had an eating disorder or a difficult relationship with food, or are managing a medical condition, talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian before you change your calorie intake. Over 60, that especially means kidney disease, osteoporosis or a past fracture, heart disease, diabetes, or any medicine whose dose depends on your weight or your diet. Ask before you start a new exercise programme, too. The figures this site relies on are on the health sources page.

Does your calorie need fall after 60?

Yes, though not in the steady way the formulas imply. In 2021 a consortium led by Herman Pontzer pooled measurements of daily energy expenditure, taken with doubly labelled water, from people aged 8 days to 95 years. Adjusted for fat-free mass, expenditure held steady from about 20 to 60. It did not drift down through middle age. It fell after 60, and it fell even after allowing for the smaller amount of fat-free mass older people tend to carry.1

The calculators handle age more crudely. MyPlate uses the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which takes 5 calories off your resting rate for every year of age, in a straight line across adult life. For a woman of 66, 165 cm and 82 kg, on the lowest activity setting, the app estimates maintenance at 1,870 calories and sets a weight-loss target of 1,589. Give the same woman an age of 46 and the numbers are 2,007 and 1,706. Twenty years is worth about 137 calories a day at maintenance, in the formula.

The measured curve is flat until 60 and falls after it, and the formula is a straight line through the lot. I could not find a study that says how far that straight line ends up from measured expenditure in people in their seventies, so I would treat the number any calculator gives you, mine included, as a first guess. Your own weight trend over a few weeks is what corrects it, and the maintenance calories post goes through how.

What a calorie deficit takes besides fat

Weight that comes off is never all fat. Fat-free mass is everything that is not fat: muscle, but also water, organs and bone. A 2010 systematic review from Purdue University gathered 52 studies of energy restriction, exercise or both in overweight adults aged 50 and over. In 81% of the groups that only cut calories, at least 15% of the weight lost was fat-free mass. Among groups that cut calories and exercised, mostly with aerobic training, the figure was 39%. There was not enough consistent data for a formal meta-analysis, so the review counted groups rather than pooling kilograms.2

The clearest single test came from Dennis Villareal's group at Washington University in 2011. They randomly assigned 107 adults aged 65 and over with obesity to a year of diet alone, exercise alone, diet plus exercise, or no programme, and 93 finished. The two diet groups lost about the same amount of weight, 10% and 9%. The diet-only group also lost 5% of its lean mass and 3% of its hip bone density. In the group that dieted and exercised, the losses were 3% and 1%.3

The main outcome was a physical performance test made up of everyday tasks. The score improved by 21% in the diet-plus-exercise group, against 12% with diet alone, 15% with exercise alone and 1% in the control group. Strength, balance and gait improved consistently in the combined group. A few people were injured exercising.3

Which exercise protected the muscle

The same group ran a follow-up in 2017 to find out which kind of exercise did the work. They took 160 older adults with obesity and gave three groups the same weight-management programme plus aerobic training, resistance training, or both, against a control group with neither. 141 completed the six months. All three exercise groups lost 9% of their body weight.4

What that weight was made of differed. The aerobic group lost 5% of its lean mass, from 55.0 to 52.3 kg on average. The combined group lost 3% and the resistance group 2%. Hip bone density followed the same order: down 3% with aerobic training, 1% combined and 0.5% with resistance alone. Strength rose 18 to 19% in the two groups that lifted and 4% in the aerobic group, while aerobic fitness rose most in the two groups that did aerobic work. On the performance test, the combined group gained 21% and the other two 14% each.4

So walking or cycling on its own protected lean mass and bone least of the three. The authors concluded that weight loss plus combined aerobic and resistance exercise was the most effective of the methods they tested for function. Musculoskeletal injuries were again among the adverse events.4

A 2018 meta-analysis from the University of Campinas pooled six randomised trials in older adults with obesity that compared a calorie deficit with and without resistance training, three times a week for 12 to 24 weeks. Resistance training prevented 93.5% of the lean mass the diet alone took, 0.82 kg on average (95% CI 0.36 to 1.27 kg), and fat loss and weight loss were not significantly different between the arms.5 Six short trials are not many. But they point the same way as the two larger ones.

The hip loses a little bone, and no scale shows it

A 2015 meta-analysis from the University of Sydney pooled 41 publications on diet-induced weight loss in overweight or obese adults who were otherwise healthy. Bone density at the total hip fell by 0.010 to 0.015 g/cm² after 6, 12 and 24 months of dieting. Bone density in the lumbar spine did not change significantly. Markers of bone breakdown rose in the first two to three months. The authors judged the hip loss small next to the metabolic benefits of losing excess weight.6

That review covered adults of all ages. In the two Villareal trials above, the diet-only and aerobic groups lost about 3% of hip density, and resistance training cut that to between 0.5% and 1%.34 The Wake Forest researchers whose meta-analysis I come to below name this as the theoretical long-term worry in older adults: muscle and bone lost with the weight might leave people weaker and more likely to break something.10 These trials measured density, though, not fractures, so I cannot tell you what a 1% or a 3% drop at the hip does to anyone's chance of breaking it.

For anyone tracking, the point is simpler: a kilogram of muscle leaves the scale exactly the way a kilogram of fat does, so calorie tracking cannot tell you which one you lost. What changes the mix is what you do alongside it.

Protein when counting calories after 60

Protein is the other half of keeping muscle, and two posts here cover it in detail: why the daily protein target moves up after about 65, and whether protein per meal matters more with age. The short version is that the PROT-AGE study group, convened by the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society, recommends at least 1.0 to 1.2 g of protein per kilogram of body weight a day for people over 65, at least 1.2 for those who exercise, with one exception: people with severe kidney disease who are not on dialysis may need to limit protein instead.7 A 2016 meta-analysis of 20 randomised trials in adults over 50 found that those on higher-protein diets during weight loss, defined as at least 25% of calories or 1.0 g/kg a day, kept more lean mass and lost more fat.8 If the weight is coming off on a GLP-1 medication instead, the trials that measured lean mass on those drugs, and the protein advice that goes with them, are in counting calories on a GLP-1.

MyPlate sets protein at 28% of calories on a weight-loss target, which clears the 25% line in that meta-analysis. For the 66-year-old woman above, a 1,589-calorie target gives 111 g of protein, or 1.35 g per kilogram of her current weight, inside PROT-AGE's range for someone who exercises. Because the protein is a share of calories, it falls if the calorie target falls, so it is worth checking the grams against your own weight rather than assuming. And if you have kidney disease, the number is a question for your doctor, not for an app.

If the weight comes back, it comes back as fat

This one matters most if you have dieted before. Researchers at Wake Forest followed 78 postmenopausal women for a year after a weight-loss trial ended, measuring body composition throughout. While they were losing, every kilogram of fat lost took 0.26 kg of lean tissue with it. Among the women who regained 2 kg or more, every kilogram of fat that came back brought only 0.12 kg of lean tissue back.9

Not every woman regained, and how much they regained varied enormously. The authors say the health consequences "remain to be seen".9 But the arithmetic is uncomfortable. On those ratios, someone who lost ten kilograms and regained it all would end up at the same weight with more fat and less muscle than they started with. That is the argument for losing at a pace you can hold, which the post on fast or slow weight loss goes into, and for treating the end of a diet as the start of maintenance rather than the end of tracking.

Is losing weight after 60 safe?

For people with obesity, the randomised evidence says it does not shorten life, and may lengthen it. That runs against a lot of observational research, in which older people who lose weight die sooner. Rapid weight loss that nobody planned carries a poor outlook in old age, and an observational study cannot easily separate that from weight people chose to lose. So a group at Wake Forest looked only at randomised trials, where the weight loss was assigned.10

Their 2015 meta-analysis took 15 randomised trials of lifestyle weight loss that lasted at least 18 months and reported deaths. Between them the trials enrolled 17,186 people, with a mean age of 52, who lost 5.5 kg on average. The weight-loss groups had 15% lower all-cause mortality (relative risk 0.85, 95% CI 0.73 to 1.00). In the six trials whose participants averaged 55 or older, the figure was the same (0.84, 95% CI 0.71 to 0.99).10

Those numbers have limits. The upper end of the main confidence interval touches 1.00, which means no effect at all, and the authors wrote that weight loss "may be associated" with lower mortality. Only three of the trials limited themselves to older adults, and the authors call for more trials in this age group specifically.10 So the honest summary is that planned, moderate weight loss in older people with obesity has not shown harm on this measure. Weight that falls when you were not trying is a different thing, and a reason to see a doctor rather than a reason to celebrate.

What the evidence does not settle

Where to stop. Most posts on this site name BMI 18.5 as the floor, because the NIH/NHLBI guidelines define a healthy weight as 18.5 to 24.9.12 For people over 65, that range may sit too low. A 2014 meta-analysis of 32 studies, covering 197,940 community-based adults aged 65 and over for an average of 12 years, used a BMI of 23.0 to 23.9 as the reference. Mortality was 12% higher at a BMI of 21.0 to 21.9 and 19% higher at 20.0 to 20.9. It did not start to rise at the top end until a BMI above 33, and being overweight was not associated with higher mortality at all.11

That is observational. People with a low BMI in old age may be thin because they are already ill, although the authors found that excluding early deaths and pre-existing disease did not markedly change the result.11 It does not show that losing weight down to a BMI of 21 harms anyone. It does make me unwilling to suggest the bottom of the standard range as a goal for someone in their seventies, and it is a reason to agree a target weight with a doctor rather than with a calculator.

Whether it is worth it below obesity. The trials of muscle, bone and function above all recruited older adults with obesity. Since overweight in over-65s was not linked to higher mortality,11 I could not find a trial that settles whether someone of 68 with a BMI of 27 gains anything from losing weight. They may have good reasons, such as knee pain or blood sugar, but the trials here do not answer it for them.

What happens after a year. The longest of the muscle trials ran 12 months and the meta-analysis of resistance training covered trials of 24 weeks at most.35 None of them shows whether the lean mass kept at six months means fewer falls or fractures ten years later.

How to count calories to lose weight after 60

Start with a doctor, and bring the questions above: a target weight, whether your bones or kidneys change anything, and whether any medicine you take needs watching as the weight comes off.

Keep the deficit moderate. The trials that protected muscle best took off 9 to 10% of body weight over six months to a year.34 MyPlate's weight-loss target is 15% below its maintenance estimate, and it never shows a target below 1,200 calories a day for women or 1,500 for men, the floor the NIH/NHLBI guidelines set for anyone dieting without medical supervision.12 A small, older, less active person can hit that floor sooner than they expect, because the 15% comes off an already lower number.

Lift something, and walk as well. Resistance training is what protected muscle and bone in the trials, and combining it with aerobic exercise did most for everyday function.45 Some participants were injured,4 so if you are new to it, the first few weeks are worth spending with someone qualified to teach it.

Hold protein near the PROT-AGE range while you are tracking macros for fat loss, and check it in grams against your weight.7

Track more than the scale. The scale cannot tell muscle from fat, and the trials judged success by what people could do: the performance test, strength, balance and walking. A note now and then of what you can lift, or how the stairs feel, is a rough version of that, and it is the number I would watch alongside the weight.

And stop if it starts to feel wrong. If counting calories is making you anxious about food, or the weight keeps falling after you have stopped trying to lose it, put the app down and talk to someone you trust or a professional.

Common questions

Should you count calories to lose weight after 60?

It can work, and the arithmetic is the same at any age. What differs is what you need to protect. In a one-year trial of adults over 65 with obesity, those who only dieted lost 5% of their lean mass and 3% of their hip bone density; those who also exercised lost about as much weight but only 3% and 1%.3 Talk to a doctor before you start, especially if you have kidney disease, osteoporosis or take medicines affected by weight or diet.

How many calories should I eat to lose weight after 60?

It depends on your size and activity, so there is no single number. As one example, MyPlate gives a 66-year-old woman of 165 cm and 82 kg with low activity a maintenance estimate of 1,870 calories and a weight-loss target of 1,589. Whatever a calculator says, do not go below 1,200 calories a day for women or 1,500 for men without medical supervision, the floor in the NIH/NHLBI guidelines.12

What is the best exercise for losing weight after 60?

Resistance and aerobic training together, according to the largest trial in older adults. All three exercise groups lost 9% of their weight, but aerobic training alone lost the most lean mass (5%) and hip bone density (3%), and the combination improved physical function most.4 Some participants were injured, so start with someone qualified.

How much protein do you need after 60 when losing weight?

At least 1.0 to 1.2 g per kilogram of body weight a day over 65, and at least 1.2 if you exercise, according to the PROT-AGE study group. People with severe kidney disease who are not on dialysis may need less, and should ask their doctor.7 In trials of adults over 50 who were losing weight, higher-protein diets kept more lean mass.8

Is it dangerous for older adults to lose weight?

Planned, moderate weight loss in people with obesity has not been shown to be. A meta-analysis of 15 randomised trials found 15% lower mortality in the weight-loss groups, though the confidence interval reached no effect and only three trials were limited to older adults.10 Weight loss you did not plan is different and is a reason to see a doctor. Over 65, mortality was also higher at the low end of the usual healthy BMI range.11

What should a food tracker for weight loss after 60 show?

Calories and protein in grams, at a minimum, and it has to be quick enough that you keep using it. MyPlate logs a meal from a photo or a sentence and shows protein beside calories, but it does not record workouts, strength or bone, which are the other half of losing weight well at this age. No app measures those for you.

Lose the weight, keep the rest

Counting calories after 60 decides how much weight comes off. It does not decide what that weight is made of. In the trials, diet alone took noticeably more muscle and hip bone with the fat. Resistance training, ideally with aerobic work alongside, kept most of it, and protein of at least 1.0 to 1.2 g per kilogram helped too.

The parts nobody has settled are where to stop, whether it pays for people who are overweight rather than obese, and what any of it means for fractures. Those three are worth a conversation with a doctor before you set a target.

Sources

Every figure above traces to one of these. If you find a number that doesn't match the source it claims, tell me and I'll correct it.

  1. Pontzer H, Yamada Y, Sagayama H, et al. (2021). Daily energy expenditure through the human life course. Science, 373(6556):808-812. Read on PubMed →
  2. Weinheimer EM, Sands LP, Campbell WW (2010). A systematic review of the separate and combined effects of energy restriction and exercise on fat-free mass in middle-aged and older adults: implications for sarcopenic obesity. Nutrition Reviews, 68(7):375-388. Read on PubMed →
  3. Villareal DT, Chode S, Parimi N, et al. (2011). Weight loss, exercise, or both and physical function in obese older adults. New England Journal of Medicine, 364(13):1218-1229. Read on PubMed →
  4. Villareal DT, Aguirre L, Gurney AB, et al. (2017). Aerobic or resistance exercise, or both, in dieting obese older adults. New England Journal of Medicine, 376(20):1943-1955. Read on PubMed →
  5. Sardeli AV, Komatsu TR, Mori MA, Gáspari AF, Chacon-Mikahil MPT (2018). Resistance training prevents muscle loss induced by caloric restriction in obese elderly individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutrients, 10(4):423. Read on PubMed →
  6. Zibellini J, Seimon RV, Lee CM, et al. (2015). Does diet-induced weight loss lead to bone loss in overweight or obese adults? A systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 30(12):2168-2178. Read on PubMed →
  7. Bauer J, Biolo G, Cederholm T, et al. (2013). Evidence-based recommendations for optimal dietary protein intake in older people: a position paper from the PROT-AGE Study Group. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 14(8):542-559. Read on PubMed →
  8. Kim JE, O'Connor LE, Sands LP, Slebodnik MB, Campbell WW (2016). Effects of dietary protein intake on body composition changes after weight loss in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutrition Reviews, 74(3):210-224. Read on PubMed →
  9. Beavers KM, Lyles MF, Davis CC, Wang X, Beavers DP, Nicklas BJ (2011). Is lost lean mass from intentional weight loss recovered during weight regain in postmenopausal women? American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 94(3):767-774. Read on PubMed →
  10. Kritchevsky SB, Beavers KM, Miller ME, et al. (2015). Intentional weight loss and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials. PLoS One, 10(3):e0121993. Read on PubMed →
  11. Winter JE, MacInnis RJ, Wattanapenpaiboon N, Nowson CA (2014). BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 99(4):875-890. Read on PubMed →
  12. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH (1998). Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults. NIH Publication 98-4083. Read the guidelines →

The formulas and limits behind MyPlate's own numbers, with their citations, are on the health sources page.