Weight Gain With Age: Prevent It With Your Diet

Time brings more than just experience and wisdom. As the years go by, it is inevitable that a few extra pounds will show up. No matter how healthy your habits were or what mistakes you made in your diet, you will always notice some form of weight gain with age.

If you have always been worried about how much you weigh, we want to assure you that after you turn 40, you need to pay even more attention to it. At this stage, factors begin to change how the body functions each day.

If you were never worried about your weight, you also need to pay attention. In fact, these extra pounds can show up when you least expect it. You may also notice that the strategies you used in the past no longer work. Exercising and eating healthy will no longer be enough.

More complications with age

A sedentary lifestyle, hormones and the wrong diet throughout your life make it difficult to maintain your ideal weight. After turning 40, everything becomes a little more difficult.

The American Council of Exercise says that at this age, your metabolism slows down. Therefore, you burn 300 calories less than when you were full of youth in your 20s.

Add all this to the complications of life, lack of time to acquire personal care, family obligations, work and in many cases lack of interest in being healthier.

Because of this, you need to use other strategies in addition to diet to avoid uncontrolled weight gain with age.

Sarcopenia: Less muscle, more fat

There are several reasons why people experience weight gain with age. We want you to understand that you are not the culprit. Nature itself causes it. Now that you know the origins of this condition, we want to give you some tips you can put into practice.

This usually happens because sarcopia occurs as the years go by. It is a process where you experience a significant loss of muscle mass.

With this condition, from the age of 30, you can lose between 3 and 5 percent muscle mass per decade. This means that when you are 40, you burn 200 calories less than when you were 30. As you know, more calories means more fat, and thus weight gain.

However, there are other reasons as well:

Decline in hormones

Hormones change over time. In both men and women, there is a  decrease in hormone production. Women usually reach menopause when they are around 50 years old. At 35, there is already an imbalance between the production of estrogen and progesterone.

On the other hand, after reaching the age of 30, men’s testosterone levels decrease by 1% each year. This hormone is what protects them from weight gain. However, as it decreases, it is difficult not to experience weight gain with age.

Lack of training

Over the years, people stop doing physical activity. With that, weight gain is inevitable because fat has more room to accumulate. With that said, you should continue with your exercise routine or maintain physical activity.

Tips to prevent weight gain with age

Below we will show you a number of tips so that age is not synonymous with weight gain. We recommend that you ask a professional for advice and to follow the process:

• You need to maintain your muscle mass. Remember that fat burns fewer calories than muscle. Therefore, it is important that you do activities that challenge muscle tissue, both to strengthen and maintain them.
• Include a lot of protein in your diet. This will help you repair your muscles and make them grow.
• Pay attention to the total calories you eat. Every calorie counts, and there are plenty of sweets and refined products. Avoid them or eat them in moderation.
• Do not forget the diet. The goal is to maintain a healthy diet. Therefore, look for healthy recipes. If you eat out, ask for dishes with lots of green vegetables. It’s about learning about being healthy, as well as having good habits.

Now you see that the solutions are not that complicated. If you follow a good diet, you should continue with it, but with more control and effort.

If you are already training, include more strength training exercises. Over the years, it becomes easier to gain weight. Therefore, you need to take care of yourself even more. After all, we must always put our health first.