Hi Marg
I'm sorry to hear your dissappointing news of a 6 pound weight gain after 8 weeks instead of weight loss. I'll try to answer some of your questions.
No, it is not. There are many members here who are older than you and doing fine. I'm 4 years older than you for a start.
Let me just check that you are not going through an early menopause? When my estrogen levels hit an all time low last year I stopped losing weight. Now I'm on HRT with my estrogen levels balancing I'm losing weight again.
This is not an easy question to answer as everyone is different and for some people it takes time for their bodies to heal before they lose weight. The fact that you are exercising and improving your body shape is certainly converting fat to muscle and so some of your weight increase could be down to this.
I got a shock the first week I went to the gym as I gained 3 pounds.
What you need to ensure is that you are eating enough and that your carbs level is around 30g a day. As you are doing quite a bit of exercise you will need more carbs and keeping them low for too long is not always a good thing.
Although this is not a calorie based way of life you do need to eat enough calories and so you should be eating around 10 times your bodies weight in calories each day. Too few and your body will think you are starving it and stop you losing weight. Too many and your body will get all its energy needs from what you eat. If you need to check this out join
Fitday.
What I would say to you is keep low carbing. My own weight loss is slow and you can see my progress in my photos in my signature. However, I love this way of life and feel so much better for it.
I wish you every success. You might want to weigh yourself once a week from now on. Remember to always weigh at the same time of day as your body weight can fluctuate around 4 or 5 pounds during the day.