According to research, when people hit their 50s, maintaining an optimal body weight becomes much more challenging. Whether it’s a sedentary lifestyle, imbalanced nutrition, or metabolic changes – all these factors contribute equally. There are top 5 Factors that Make Weight-Loss Harder after 50 which were discussed below.
William Yancy Jr., M. D., Director of Duke Lifestyle and Weight Management Center in North California says that there are many hurdles like arthritis and chronic heart diseases that impede the maintenance of healthy body weight after 50. These medical conditions affect mobility, stamina, sleeping habits, and diet leading to a compromised body-weight ratio.
This necessarily doesn’t mean that you will accept an imbalanced weight as a part of the natural aging process. We have enlisted the factors that are responsible for this along with the possible solution to each. Go through them!
Factors that will help
Loss of Muscle Mass
According to the American College of Sports Medicine, by the age of 50, a person has lost almost 10% of their muscle mass. This reduced muscle mass drastically affects the way calories burn in your body.
Metabolically, muscles are more active than fat, it has the ability to burn much more calories per gram and helps you lose weight faster. Yancy says that having higher muscle mass as compared to fat helps your body to burn more calories, hence the weight.
The only way to increase your muscle-to-fat ratio is by regular exercise and increased protein intake. Moderate exercise is good to start with, but weight lifting is actually a secret to building muscle mass.
Hormonal Imbalance
After the age of 50, estrogen in females and testosterone in males start declining drastically. It causes the body to store much more fat in the region where it gets challenging to lose pounds. The decreased estrogens cause the fat from the thigh region to shift to the abdomen in females.
It builds insulin resistance that further adds to the weight gain, making the weight loss process much more challenging. Moreover, in men, the falling testosterone levels cause muscle mass to reduce that further slowing the metabolism.
How to deal with it? Yancy suggests that you have to limit starches and refined sugar intakes while prioritizing a high-protein and whole food diet.
Reduced Metabolism
There’s a contradiction in the fact that either metabolism reduces with age or not. According to the research published in the journal Science, the metabolism remains constant between 20-60 years and muscle mass doesn’t change as well; however, metabolism drastically declines after the age of 60.
The resting metabolic rate is determined by the number of calories burnt per unit of time at rest. The metabolic rate depends upon muscle mass; it reduces with age with the declining muscle mass, says Holly Lofton, M. D., Director of NYU Langone Medical Weight Management Program.
You can restore your normal metabolism by regaining the muscle mass back to normal. Add a high protein diet including fish, eggs, meats, and nutritional supplements complemented with strenuous exercise.
A Sedentary Lifestyle
Due to increasing age, we become less active owing to lack of time, stiffness of joints, or low energy levels. Elder people spend 60-80% of their time sedentary, says the research published in Geriatric Physical Therapy.
A few major exercise sessions might not be that effective in maintaining a healthy weight in the long run. The change in weight is maximum in slow walkers who walk at 3.5 miles per hour, despite that total body fat loses at all the walking speeds.
Altered Sleeping Habits
According to research, sleep deprivation leads to increased weight. A study from the journal BMJ Open Sport and Exercise Medicine suggest that when a person sleeps less, he tends to eat more in the next day with an increased appetite. It is because of increased secretion of hormone ghrelin that boosts appetite and reduced levels of leptin that inhibits hunger.
You can improve your sleeping habits by getting adequate sleep every night for 7-8 hours.
