Losing weight is hard, especially for women over fifty. I always hate when diet companies advertise that “losing the weight is not hard, it’s keeping it off that’s difficult”. I think both losing and maintaining are a struggle, especially for women during middle age. One major problem is that most of the time we eat without thinking — eating is more of a reflex than a controlled activity. For instance, if you work in an office and there’s a bowl of candy sitting on someone’s desk, most of us will just grab a handful and shove the food in our mouth. Nary a thought goes into it — the food is available and the reflex is just to eat it. And the worst part is that the action is usually not even remembered. That’s why it is so important to keep a food journal.