Article Contents
- Why Is It Difficult To Lose Weight After 40?
- Weight Loss Tips For Middle Aged People
- 1. Build Muscle
- 2. Increase Fruits and Vegetable Intake
- 3. Cook Healthy Meals
- 4. Eat Less Dinner
- 5. Allocate Time For Regular Exercise
- 6. Cut Back (or even Eliminate) Alcohol
- 7. Eat In Small Portions
- 8. Be Mindful What You Are Eating
- 9. Minimize or Quit Drinking Soda
- 10. Manage and Minimize Stress
- 11. Maintain Getting Good Quality Sleep
- 12. Make Sure Your Thyroid Is Healthy
- Final Thoughts
Have you noticed that many people these days tend to gain weight after 40 quickly? Perhaps, you’re one of these people. And while gaining weight is easy, losing it, on the other hand, is difficult.
If you can relate, read on as we cover some weight loss tips for people over 40 years old.
Why Is It Difficult To Lose Weight After 40?
If you’re like most people with age over 40, gaining weight is a breeze while losing it is a struggle. Most people simply accept the fact that it is just the way it goes. When one reaches this age, some changes occur.
In most cases, people accept it as if there is nothing that can be done about it. When a person hits 40 years of age, specific hormonal changes occur. Plus, with today’s hectic schedule and environmental factors, eating habits and levels of physical activities also changed.
Unfortunately, unhealthy lifestyle practices and poor diet can lead to negative hormonal changes. In some cases, it can lead to metabolic syndrome and obesity. The body stores fat easily instead of burning.
Unhealthy habits due to poor diet and unhealthy lifestyle practices cause a decrease in the body’s metabolism. In these weight loss tips, you will be able to increase your body’s metabolism and make your body a fat-burning machine.
Weight Loss Tips For Middle Aged People
Gaining weight easily at 40 is a fact. And, unfortunately for most people, they simply accept it as fact as if nothing can be done about it. Fortunately, there are many ways to lose weight at this age.
It is also a fact, a lot of people are physically fit and well at this age. Moreover, we can see a few individuals in their 80s or even 90s or even beyond that who are physically active. Additionally, they retain perfect memory, happy, and, more importantly, lean and healthy.
With that in mind, we’ll explore some of the known weight loss tips that are effective, natural, and, when followed appropriately, weight loss at age over 40 is easy.
121. Build Muscle
Building muscle is not just for bodybuilders. Studies1 2 3 have found that lean muscle decreases with age.
While this is a natural process, something can be done to slows down the progression. During the 40s, most people will start to lose lean muscles, especially women, when they hit menopause.
Lean muscles play a role in burning fat and calories. Hence, the less lean muscles there available, losing weight becomes more difficult. It is why one of the weight loss tips after 40 is to build muscles.
One of the best ways to build muscles is to exercise through strength or resistance training exercises. Experts have already proven that strength training preserves muscles in seniors. Additionally, high-intensity strength training has been seen to help seniors gain muscles.
Also, taking muscle-building supplements, along with strength training, helps gain and preserve lean muscles.
Of course, when it comes to diet, always prioritize in consuming muscle-building foods. Typically, these foods are rich in proteins, and you can also focus on eating proteins from plants.
112. Increase Fruits and Vegetable Intake
Increasing your intake of fruits and vegetables is one of the natural and healthy ways to regain ideal weight. Make sure your plate is half-full of vegetables each meal and making fruits as your snacks.
Fresh produce mainly, organic, contains more nutrients, including dietary fiber, that makes you feel full and satisfied. It prevents overeating and food cravings as whole foods keep you feeling full longer.
And, while fruits contain sugars, they are natural and absorb slowly by the body. It is one of the natural and healthy weight loss tips you should consider. Not many people these days are doing it. But you can, right?
103. Cook Healthy Meals
Another best among the many weight loss tips is preparing or cooking your own meals. Doing so, you will have full control on how you prepare it and of course, you can cherry pick the ingredients you only want.
For instance, you may want to stay away from fried foods. So, you can either grill, bake, or broil. Furthermore, it may be healthier if prepare green veggies as salads.
Of course, it does not mean you don’t eat out anymore. But, for most of the time, spend time preparing and cooking your food.
The more you do it, the more you know about the ingredients. When the time comes, you eat out; you know what to choose and what to ask when it comes to healthy choices.
94. Eat Less Dinner
Many weight-loss experts recommend calorie consumption during lunchtime or at least before 3 PM. Moreover, during nighttime, although the body seems to do nothing, in reality, it is doing a lot while we sleep.
Sleep allows the body to do healing and repair. For instance, the brain can only do its cleanup during sleep time. Additionally, by not giving the body more digestive load during night time while sleeping, it can do other vital functions such as rejuvenation and healing.
And, when you’ve done your homework eating healthy foods, you’re still burning fat and losing the extra pounds while you’re sleeping.
85. Allocate Time For Regular Exercise
Another best of the weight loss tips is exercise regularly. During exercise, the body releases irisin, a weight loss hormone. This hormone does not only helps get rid of fat but also prevents fat from accumulating.
One of the most effective exercises for weight loss is HIIT or high-intensity interval training. The good thing about HIIT is you don’t need to spend long hours exercising.
HIIT only requires a few minutes to half an hour of an intense full-body workout that you can at home or anywhere using your bodyweight.
Of course, don’t ignore the simple exercises like walking and running as both are very effective and offers many health benefits other than weight loss.
Between desk jobs, commutes, and family activities, many 40-somethings don’t have a lot of free time to work out.
But it’s important — for your weight and your overall health — to fit in at least 2 1/2 hours of moderate physical activity (like brisk walking or light yard work) every week.
76. Cut Back (or even Eliminate) Alcohol
Cutting back or even eliminating alcohol from your lifestyle is helpful for weight loss. Alcohol contains calories. In fact, it is one of the hidden sources of calories. So, one of the weight loss tips you should consider is to cut back alcohol consumption.
If you can eliminate it, the better. However, for most people, it may be difficult to do. But, do something to minimize booze. The NIH alcohol calorie calculator says;
- 12 oz of beer has 150 calories
- 5 oz glass of red wine has 125 calories
- 1.5 oz shot of gin, whiskey, vodka, rum, and tequila has 100 calories
If you are not careful, these small amounts can add up.
67. Eat In Small Portions
Among the vast array of weight loss tips, portion control is one of the most popular. And it is true. However, there is a catch about portion control. When you do portion control, make sure the foods you are eating are whole foods.
When you do portion control, take full control of the food you are preparing. Hence, cooking your meal is crucial and keep it in small portions. Of course, it is a good idea to spread several small meals throughout the day.
If you do portion control while eating the right kinds of foods, it is not necessary to count your calories. If you practice portion control and become good at it as a habit, you can go for intermittent fasting.
Intermittent fasting is a way of eating, involving calorie and time restriction. It is effective for weight loss purposes but also an immune system booster, and the study finds it regrows the pancreas on diabetic patients.
58. Be Mindful What You Are Eating
Mindfulness has many health benefits, including weight loss, when you apply it to your eating habits. So, how to eat mindfully?
49. Minimize or Quit Drinking Soda
Sugars are empty calories referring to refined and added sugars. And sodas contain a high amount of fructose, which is a type of sugar that is not quickly metabolized by the body. As a matter of fact, for most people, sodas are among the hidden sources of sugars.
The more you drink it, the more sugars you are consuming. Overconsumption of refined sugars has terrible effects on our health like heart problems, cancers, depression, and even those who are not yet born.
There have been studies a few decades back where the sugar industry attempted to hide the health risks of sugar. It is why minimizing sugar consumption matters. Of course, we should not forget the risk of diabetes, weight gain, and obesity.
So, stay away from sodas or at least minimize it while putting your effort towards eliminating it from your diet.
310. Manage and Minimize Stress
Stress causes weight gain and among other unhealthy consequences like cancers, heart disease, hair loss, and male infertility. So, why stress makes you fat? It’s because of the stress hormone cortisol.
Therefore, spend time finding at implementing ways to manage stress. Since we are focusing on natural means, effective stress management includes grounding, yoga, tai chi, meditation, and regular exercise.
211. Maintain Getting Good Quality Sleep
Sleep deprivation has been mentioned in the video above to cause weight gain or obesity. Lack of sleep especially when it becomes chronic does not only causes weight gain but among other serious health consequences such as;
Hence, as part of your weight loss routine, aim to get quality sleep regularly. Among the weight loss tips, this may be one of the most non-obvious and yet the side effect of weight gain is apparent.
One recent study2 says even with just one night of sleep deprivation causes weight gain and muscle loss, as well.
112. Make Sure Your Thyroid Is Healthy
Considering your thyroid health is one of the potential weight loss tips especially if you’ve done everything you could and yet no results. Although thyroid problem relating to weight gain affects only around 5% of people, is worth checking.
Most of the time, it affects women and people who are 60 years old and above. Other symptoms of thyroid problems besides weight gain include depression, fatigue, and pains in muscles and joints.
Consulting your doctor would be a good idea to get an exact diagnosis.
Final Thoughts
For some people, this information can be overwhelming. But don’t try to do them all at once. Check one or two that caught your interest and do it. Later, as you make one or two of these weight loss tips a habit, add more and so on.
As you may also notice, the majority of these weight loss tips were already covered in the past. We are merely summarizing it there for people looking for weight loss tips can find it one page.
Moreover, if you’ve done everything but lost motivation in continuing following these tips, seek support. Perhaps, find someone who has similar weight loss goals as yours.
Most of the time, having a buddy with the same weight loss goals keeps the motivation high.
Lastly, if you have a hard time controlling your overeating habits, you may find it helpful to take appetite-suppressing supplements like PhenQ. It is one of the cheaper alternatives to an FDA-Approved weight loss pill.