Let’s take a look at the real reasons why shedding those extra pounds becomes more of a challenge after your 40th birthday, and what you can do about it.With each passing year, we all know that it gets more difficult to lose weight. You might hit the gym twice as hard as you did in your 20s, just to achieve half the results. Dieting, supplements, and exercise don’t appear to have the impact they used to. But this is just the way it is – getting older means your metabolism slows down.
What’s going on here? How can doubling down on your workout efforts yield such underwhelming results? The unfortunate reality is that our bodies undergo significant changes as we age, and these changes affect nearly every process in the body, including digestion and metabolism. By the time we’ve reached our 40s, most men’s bodies don’t respond to exercise and diet modifications like they used to.
Here’s the thing: it’s not just your metabolism that’s putting a damper on your fitness. So what can you do? Just keep doing the same thing over and over again at the gym, expecting different results? That would be pure insanity. But doing nothing at all means you’ll be less healthy, and basically sitting around as your waistline expands.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the real reasons why shedding those extra pounds becomes more of a challenge after your 40th birthday, and what you can do about it.
Reason #1: Slowing Metabolism Adds 15 Pounds Per Year!
Your metabolism really does slow down as you get older. Once you hit the big four-oh, your resting metabolic rate declines by between two and five percent, every ten years.
Your resting or basal metabolic rate is basically how many calories your body burns to maintain normal operations while at rest. The body uses these calories to fuel digestion, respiration, circulation, and to maintain a normal temperature.
If your BMR burns 150 fewer calories than it used to per day, you’ll gain about 15 pounds in a year if you maintain the exact same lifestyle as you did before your metabolism began to lose momentum.Let’s say your basal or resting metabolic rate was 1100 calories when you were 30. By 40, it may have dropped to 1045. By age 50, it could be as low as 1,000 calories.
These unburned calories get stored as fat, of course, and it doesn’t take much for this stored energy to add up to a steadily growing waistline. For example, if your BMR burns 150 fewer calories than it used to per day, you’ll gain about 15 pounds in a year if you maintain the exact same lifestyle as you did before your metabolism began to lose momentum.
The good news is that it’s not that difficult for most men to cut a few calories per day from their diets. Simple lifestyle changes such as avoiding fried foods and sodas (even diet), seeking out high-protein, low-calorie meals, and going out for an after-dinner walk can be enough to compensate for the metabolic slowdown typically associated with aging.
