Fighting Midlife Weight Gain
Why do so many people gain weight in midlife?
Blame it on hormones in convergence with poor lifestyle choices, overeating, not exercising enough, and stress.
But hormones only account for about 2 to 5 pounds. The rest is the result of overeating, poor lifestyle choices — such as not exercising enough — and stress.
How can I not be one of those people who gains?
The keys are three: mind, mouth, muscle.
Use your mind to control stress. If you walk around and everything is stressful, you have a problem. You may respond to stress by making poorer lifestyle choices, such as not eating healthfully and not exercising enough.
Look at your nutrition — in terms of quality, quantity, and frequency of eating. You should eat often.
Quality is all about eating whole foods, fruits, and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein.
Processed foods are bad. Anything that comes in a family-size bag, turn in the opposite direction and run.
Quantity is where a lot of people fall. The majority are baffled by what a serving size should look like. When eating out, and in doubt, eat half of it or less.
Be accountable for calories. You need a general idea of how many calories you need. An average woman, not an athlete, in her 40s or 50s, needs about 1,500 to 1,600 calories a day, on average, if she is exercising. A middle-aged man, average height and not an athlete but exercising, needs about 1,800 to 2,000.
Muscle, of course, refers to the need to exercise and, of course, to weight train.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.