Weight loss for women over 50 years old is essentially the same as it is at every other age, except where it’s not. After all, the premise is the same. To burn through more body fat you need to adjust your lifestyle, particularly what you eat, but also your physical activity level, your stress control, your sleep quality, and other influential factors.
There are a number of reasons that weight loss for women over 50 can feel as though you’re trying to run a marathon straight up a mountain when the same effort would have been an easy stroll not too long ago. They can include everything from changes in the body to various ways that your lifestyle is different than it used to be.
Among the leading factors people have identified when they’re struggling with a dieting and exercise lifestyle include a slowing metabolism – particularly due to hormonal changes – a more sedentary lifestyle, and a different diet. If this is combined with other issues such as a medical condition, injury, mental illness, or anything else that can affect the way your body controls its weight, it can feel impossible to keep the pounds from climbing let alone to burn off excess.
Weight loss for women over 50 may come with its own line of challenges, but this doesn’t mean it’s impossible. In fact, there are likely a few things you’re doing that you can easily change to give yourself a substantial advantage. Consider making the following tweaks to your lifestyle.
Eating restaurant food – whether eating out, getting take-out or ordering delivery – typically comes with substantially more calorie, sugar, sodium and fat intake than foods you would prepare at home. When that is combined with a slower metabolism and a different hormonal balance, it can mean fat gain catastrophe. It can also make weight loss for women over 50 considerably more challenging. Of course, you can still eat out, just make sure you’re not doing it all the time. When you do, make strategic meal choices.
Make sure your diet is giving your body everything it needs – and isn’t overloading on what it doesn’t – to make the dieting battle easier. Concentrate on adding protein, fiber, whole foods and healthy fats to what you eat, particularly in the morning.
Generally speaking, women tend to focus nearly exclusively on cardio workouts. That said, strength training is equally as important, particularly as we age. Muscle loss is a serious trend over time and strength training can combat it. By supporting the preservation of lean muscle, you can keep up your metabolism, maintain your strength and prevent injury at the same time.