THIRST US

Fit Over 40 – Minding Your Metabolism   by Robert Reddin

Getting fit when you are over 40 can present some dietary challenges particularly if we are to stave off the health conditions that start to appear in middle age. Some of these conditions are the result of lifestyle choices we made many years before. This is the second of a series of articles, each of which shows you how to overcome one of the five main barriers to being fit over 40.

There are five main barriers to staying fit over 40. The second of which is:

Minding your metabolism

When we were younger it seemed like we could eat anything we chose and not put an ounce of weight on. It wasn’t true, but as we probably had a more active lifestyle back then we were most likely burning up those additional calories. Now we are that bit older and a bit less active, it is all to easy to pile on the pounds.

Our metabolism converts the fuel in the food we eat into the energy needed to power everything we do, from moving to thinking to growing. We create our own metabolism by the choices of food we eat and our dietary habits. Consume more energy than you use and your body stores the surplus as fat. Being overweight increases the risk of developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes, so it is particularly important that we control our weight. We have to eat smarter, not eat less, if we want to do that.

When we restrict our calorie intake to below the minimum amount your body requires, it goes into starvation mode. When this occurs, your body starts to burn muscle tissue to get the extra fuel it needs. Your metabolism is also slowed down.

Healthy eating requires you to have a healthy balanced diet that provides enough energy to support your body. Eating six small healthy meals a day instead of two or three large meals makes it easier for your body to process the food into energy. That guarantees a faster metabolism, which turns your body into a fat burning machine. We are what we eat and that creates our metabolism. Our metabolism does not create us.

The previous article in this series, Fit over 40 -Know your body’s factory settings, can be found here.

In the next article in this series Diets Don’t Work I explain why weight loss diets don’t work and reveal the secret weapon you can use to get back to normal weight.

About the Author

Robert Reddin is a freelance writer who, for more than 7 years, has been writing about a wide range of subjects of interest to him. Robert has numerous off-line and on-line articles to his credit. You can get more information about being Fit Over 40 here

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