Age can come with a tremendous advantage in life. There are drawbacks, certainly, but there are a very large number of benefits that we’d never want to give up. We’re more confident being ourselves. We have already discovered many things that don’t work for us so that we have fine tuned our lives to do what works best.
We have a certain clarity that allows us to forget about the smaller issues in life and keep our sights set on the bigger picture.
When it comes to weight loss, though, the experience just isn’t the same as it was previously in our lives. It simply does not fall into the “gets easier with age” category with the hundreds of other great points. After all, fat burns more slowly, joints are a bit stiffer, and injuries happen more easily, though healing takes notably longer. After a long and busy day, particularly one that forced us to eat on the run, it can feel impossible to find the motivation to head to the gym, no matter how good we know it is for us.
Weight loss needs to be taken on as a strategy specific to this moment in our lives. It isn’t just a matter of eating next to nothing for a couple of days so that we can look fantastic on Friday night for a party. Instead, there is more of a strategy involved. Fortunately, the benefits of achieving a healthy body weight are more than worth the effort of developing new and healthful lifestyle habits.
The following tips will help you to be able to streamline your dieting efforts, lose weight with greater ease, and ensure that you’ll be set for better health throughout the rest of your sixties, your seventies, eighties and beyond.
• Concentrate on losing fat, not weight – stepping on the scale on a regular basis can be deceiving because what can look like weight loss (or weight gain) is actually not fat being added or taken away from the body. Instead, you may be gaining or losing fluids, muscle, or even bone mass. These can make a considerable difference on the scale but won’t do much for reaching your actual goal. Consider a body fat measurement tool to be a good investment, or have a physical trainer track your body fat levels at your gym. Your doctor can also help you to track your body fat levels if you have appointments there every few months.
• Drink lots of water – fluid retention and dehydration are your enemies when you are attempting to slim down and achieve a healthier body weight. As we age, the part of the brain that controls the feelings of thirst and hunger, the hypothalamus, sends weaker signals. This means that we don’t feel as hungry or thirsty as quickly. It isn’t until we are more dehydrated or have been running low on fuel for quite some time that those signals kick in. Therefore, we can’t rely on them to tell us when it is right to eat or drink. It is important to keep sipping at water all day regardless of whether or not we feel the need.
• Keep up a strength training routine – you may be walking or swimming regularly, you may be taking a cardio-friendly class at the gym, but strength training should remain a priority. It boosts your metabolism (fat burning), improves your balance, and makes it easier to keep up with your exercising as a whole!
