Do You find it harder to lose weight the older you get?

Don’t you hate it when you think you’ve been ‘good’ all week but the scales barely move down a notch?

I mean, years ago when you went on a diet the weight just seemed to fall off your body with hardly any effort, right?

So what’s changed and what can we do about it?

First, let’s look at the facts…

From around the age of 30 years we naturally start to lose lean muscle tissue. Known as sarcopenia, (Latin for muscle wastage) this unfortunately coincides with our bodies laying down more fat – a double whammy! After age 50, you’ve guessed it… things get significantly worse.

As our lean tissue depletes, so does our body’s metabolism causing the dreaded ‘middle age spread’ in both men and women. This often makes us feel lacking in confidence and lowers our self esteem, lowering our energy levels and making us feel moody or stressed.

So what can we do about it?

Well obviously we can’t do much about getting older but we can delay the effects somewhat by tweaking the following 4 key lifestyle elements:

  1. Diet – a clean, unprocessed diet rich in lean protein, good carbs and healthy fats will definitely help our bodies to lose fat and become leaner, whatever our age.
  1. Exercise – build muscle using free weights and/or resistance at least twice per week. Include cardio at least three times per week to reduce body fat and keep your heart and lungs healthy too.
  1. Mindset – Research now shows that positive daily affirmations are extremely powerful in helping us achieve our goals. Meditation/mindfulness is also very useful in clearing the mind so that we can focus on whatever it is we are trying to achieve.
  1. Sleep – Good quality sleep (at least 7-8 hours per night) is crucial for good health. Our bodies repair themselves during sleep and lack of sleep has been shown to affect stress hormones that stimulate appetite causing food cravings (usually high fat/sugar foods).

So now I’ve given you the facts, does that make sense?

Try implementing the 4 lifestyle elements and please let me know if it helps.