How many times have you said, “Everything changed with my body when I hit [insert the age it happened]”?
There comes a point where everything about maintaining the body you’re accustomed to living in seems more difficult. Your jeans become a little tighter and your arms seem a little more wing-like. You feel like you’re paying close attention to what you eat, but the effects are different.
Something has happened and you don’t like it.
It’s easy to chalk it up to age and/or hormones and forge on…with bigger pants and a heavier feeling year after year as you struggle to understand what the heck is happening to your body. You feel like you have no control over the outcome because, well, it’s just part of hitting 35, 40, 50, and beyond.
But what if I told you that a study published in 2021 in the journal, Science, tosses the our-metabolism-inevitably-slows-as-we-age theory out the window?
The beauty of this study is that it puts YOU back in control of your body.
The bad news is that it puts YOU back in control of your body.
Read that again.
What the study found was that metabolic rate, when adjusted pound for pound of the same lean to fat mass ratio, does not change for humans between the ages of 20 and 60. Said another way, metabolism remains consistent from early adulthood, into middle age.
And to throw another curve ball into the mix—again when adjusted for body size and composition—there is no metabolic difference between men and women. The bombshell finding was that there is no metabolic rate change at menopause either.
So, if a declining metabolism isn’t to blame, what IS going on? What is responsible for what seems like inescapable weight gain as we go through life?
It can be explained by lifestyle changes, defined by shifting priorities that result in moving less, maintaining less muscle, and nutrition habits that don’t support ideal body composition or happy health outcomes.
These lifestyle changes fall into four buckets. Which one applies to you?
The Workaholic
Work is EVERYTHING. It means long days, little sleep, and a lot of take-out. Workouts are sporadic and your fingers traveling the keyboard at a rapid rate is the most purposeful movement you chalk up regularly. You’re probably noticing a softer middle and less muscle in your limbs. You might be able to hide it in business attire, but once you hit the pool deck, you’re feeling less than confident.
The Busy Parent
You have three kids going in three different directions ALL THE TIME. It’s hard enough to keep up with taxi duty, laundry, homework, and being a sous chef to their fascinatingly frustrating individual food preferences. You’re eating on the fly, snagging their leftovers, hitting the drive-through frequently, and stress eating your way through bags upon bags of Fishy crackers. The body you loved is a thing of the past because what they need trumps any self-care you might be dreaming about.
The I Just Can’t Be Bothered
Life might not be crazy for you, but that’s sorta the problem. You’re in a rut where it’s easy to come home and melt into the couch after work. The lack of demand in your life means you have SO much time to spare that you can always do that fitness and nutrition thing…tomorrow. Your body isn’t where you want it to be, but you kind of stopped caring awhile ago.
The Empty Nester
Life is EASY! The kids are gone and you have free-dom. It’s lunches out on a whim and lots of social get togethers—with appies and cocktails on repeat. You’re active and doing the things you love, but it isn’t outpacing the extra calories consumed living the life you love. You’re less focused on aesthetics, but suddenly the implications are creeping into your health outcomes—increases in blood pressure, cholesterol, visceral fat, and bodyweight are starting to raise your doctor’s eyebrows.
No matter what category you identify with, your priorities have changed. Movement and nutrition have been pushed below the demand of your career, your kids, or the freedom to live impulsively.
And although your metabolism hasn’t slowed with age, with the lack of focus on working out, a decrease in lean muscle mass has occurred.
Lean muscle is important to this equation because the more you have, the higher your metabolism. On average, lean muscle burns about six calories per pound, while fat mass burns around two calories per pound.
Studies have shown that muscle mass tends to peak and decline around the age of 30, if you don’t put in the effort to build it and keep it. This is why it’s harder to maintain how athletic or “toned” you look as you tiptoe towards the next decade.
You also move less, and less vigorously, than you did in years past and without an adjustment to your food intake, it’s becoming harder and harder to recognize yourself in the mirror.
Your bodyweight may stay the same, but with every passing year, you’re losing muscle and replacing it with fat. Your rising body-fat percentage increases your risk for high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes.
So, what do you need to do?
Put yourself back in the driver’s seat: You are not a victim of your hormones or your age.
Do resistance training: Lift weights, use resistance bands, do body-weight exercises.
Eat adequate protein: Protein contains amino acids, which are the building blocks of muscle. Adequate protein means eating at least 0.7g per pound of bodyweight. If you’re not keen on weighing and measuring your food, at least aim to eat a palm-sized serving of protein with every meal AND snack.
Move more: Burning more calories is contingent on being active, from walking, to gardening, to playing with your kids, to doing errands on foot, to doing more purposeful exercise activity. It all counts.
Pay attention to what you eat: Consider filling up on less calorie dense, more nutritious foods like vegetables and fruit. Improving the quality of your diet by replacing high calorie, processed foods will decrease the calories you consume, while also increasing your intake of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
Eat at home more: Restaurant food is high in fat, sodium, sugar, and excess carbohydrates, which will inevitably drive the scale up and your health down.
Manage your food environment and your emotional responses: The co-founder of Precision Nutrition, espouses what he calls Berardi’s Law: “If a food is in your house or possession, either you, someone you love, or someone you marginally tolerate will eventually eat it.”
Asja’s Law is that if you’re tired, stressed, overwhelmed, or just bored, the likelihood goes up that it will be YOU who eats it. Don’t bring things into your house that you don’t plan to eat. That plan will fail.
Consume less alcohol: Consider that every nine-ounce glass of wine is equivalent calorie-wise to eating two bananas. Next time someone asks you to share a bottle of wine, ask yourself whether your calorie intake warrants splitting a bushel of bananas. Alcoholic drinks are one of the sneakiest ways to take in extra calories.
Wrapping it all up, the best way to counteract what seems to be an inevitable age-related change to your body is to stop believing it’s inevitable.
YOU have the power, YOU have the control—don’t offset the responsibility to time. Consider what you’re eating each day, build and maintain muscle, and move more.
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