It is normal when you get obsessed with the thought of losing weight and getting back in shape even after the 50s. Most of the time, adults over that age still manage to maintain their weight, body, and posture and some are successful in getting back at it as well. However, for the majority, maintaining a healthy weight, good body figure, and eliminating extra body fats can be a challenge as your age increases.
Since your body gets weak as years go by, unhealthy lifestyle, habits, and poor diet plan can greatly contribute to metabolic changes which makes it hard to reduce body fats for people over 50 for both men and women. We’ll give you attainable tips and tricks if you want to lose weight after 50.
Losing Weight After 50 For Men and Women
Men and women tend to undergo a different process in terms of losing weight after 50 because of several factors such as the speed of metabolism and hormonal changes, especially for women. During menopause, the lack of estrogen results in to transfer of fat to the middle section of the body.
The fats stored in the abdomen actually increase the risk for women to have a stroke, diabetes, and heart disease. So in conclusion, losing weight after 50 for men seem to be faster and easier compared to women. Metabolism of men also slows down as they age. However, they do not have the same hormonal changes that women undergo.
Ways to Improve Metabolism after 50 For Weight Loss
To lose weight, you first need to keep in mind that the focus must also be on slowing down your metabolism. Metabolism has something to do with the process of digestion of the food you take inside your body. To do such, take note of these three easy ways:
- Train and improve your strength
You probably focused more on cardio during the early years, but you need to be aware that to be able to burn a high amount of calories at rest, the muscle mass must be increased and focused on. With the aging process, you lose muscle mass. So it is important to strengthen it now to increase your metabolism.
The digestion of food intake if you are at 50 years old is slower that is why there will be more stored fats. To prevent having unnecessary fats in the body, you need to be active by doing exercises and other activities where your stored energy will be utilized.
- Eat your breakfast
Aside from the fact that breakfasts are the most important meal of the day, they actually energize and fuels up your body preparing you for a pile of works and activities for your whole day. Skipping it would increase the chance of you being hungry which leads to a tendency of overeating all throughout the day. What’s best is to eat a large scoop for breakfast, moderate lunch, and a little or light dinner.
- Eat more lean protein
Foods that have high protein content are chicken, fish, egg, and tofu. Eating an increased amount of protein would fit your stomach and would help you keep full throughout the whole day. This may also help you in building your muscle mass which in turn can help you boost and improve your metabolism.
- Foods good for digestion
Several studies and articles state that spicy foods like capsaicin (a substance that is found in chili peppers) can boost metabolism, just make sure you drink a lot of water. Also, green tea could greatly contribute to improving the process of digestion.
How to Lose Belly Fat After 50?
Aside from focusing on boosting and improving your metabolism, the following ideas below are some of the dietary and exercise tips and tricks to optimise weight loss results.
- Be aware of how much calories you need
Women’s needs when it comes to calories are said to be dependent on the body, lean body mass, metabolism, and activity level. If you rarely do exercise activities and routines, the ideal calorie intake daily would be an amount of 1,600. If you are moderately active, then you need 1,800 calories per day, while 2,000 until 2,200 calorie intake is needed for active adults. These are the preferred calorie intake to maintain a healthy weight. If you are moderately active or in between, it is best to eat about 1,200 calories day by day to drop and reduce 1 to 2 pounds per week.
- Divide your plate
If you are somehow unfamiliar about calorie count and macronutrient grams, then the best alternative is to divide your plate. In this way, you can meet your daily nutritional needs. The are three ways on how you can divide your plate in each meal:
- The half of the plate must be filled with non-starchy vegetables. Examples of which are tomatoes, bell peppers, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, green beans, mushrooms, and the like.
- ¼ of the plate must be filled with protein-rich foods such as fish, tofu, egg, and chicken.
- Another ¼ of the plate must consist of carbohydrates that are rich in fiber. Examples of these are corn, fruits, beans, whole grains, and etc.
- Move
The key to losing excess body fat is by burning more calories that is why moving and being active is critical in weight reduction. The most efficient way to burn unnecessary fats at the age of 50 is by working out or exercising at least 15 to 30 minutes a day.
If your work requires a lot of time sitting, it might obstruct your weight loss process. To avoid such thing to happen, you may consider getting up and taking a few minutes of walking around the office or building every hour.
- Prefer home-cooked meals
Cooking meals at home actually allows you to control and see what ingredients you should place in your meal. If you buy your food from a restaurant, you wouldn’t know if it has a lot of preservatives that is not good for health. Aside from that, it is enjoying because it allows you to play with the ingredients that pique your interest in a healthy manner.
- Talk to a dietitian
Losing weight and maintaining the body’s nourishment at the same time can be difficult. So it is recommended to consult experts and registered dietitians to determine the best way to lose excess body fat without having to follow a restrictive diet plan. Results show that consulting a dietitian when it comes to losing weight can have significantly better results than doing it alone.
- Hydrate the healthy way
Sweetened drinks are more likely packed with calories and added sugars. Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is strongly linked to obesity, weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease. To help you with weight loss while avoiding the risk of experiencing those mentioned above, drink water and herbal tea. Drinking water does not only cleanses the body but it also makes the nutrients and minerals accessible.
- Combine strength workouts with cardiovascular exercises
If your stamina is still able to do extraneous activities, then combining strength workouts and cardiovascular exercises is a great way to burn those fats. You may achieve maximum health benefits by combining strength exercises with cardio workouts at least 30 minutes a day. Examples of which are jumping ropes, burpees, jumping jacks, jogging, walking, swimming, yoga, and biking.
- Increase daily activities
It is boring if all you do is to plan your diet and workout routines. There are still ways on how to burn your calories throughout the day. It is by dancing, gardening, house cleaning, playing badminton, painting, golfing, horseback riding, and more.
- Check your body composition weekly
Muscle mass is an important measure of overall health, especially in older adults. Also, there are many ways to measure your waist, biceps, calves, chest, thighs, and checking your weight so you can be aware if you are losing fat or not.
- In exercising, hire a personal trainer
Working with someone who is knowledgeable of what you must do can benefit you by teaching the correct exercises to promote weight loss while avoiding some injury or risks. Aside from that, they can help you to have a positive attitude and discipline towards exercising. In this way, losing weight would be much easier.
Diet Plan Recommended For Losing Weight After 50
- Intermittent Fasting. It is a cycle of fasting and eating in a specified cycle. The duration of fasting is longer than the timeframe that you have to eat. For instance, you will be in fasting for 16 hours, and 8 hours is intended for eating time. This is not described as a diet but more on an eating pattern.
- Low-calorie diet. For a low-calorie diet, you’ll just have to compute for the total number of calories that you need to consume in a day. If you are still starting out, a 2000-calorie count is recommended to sustain your daily calorie need.
- Raw food diet. This diet plan includes raw fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, etc. Your diet is consists of about 75-85% of raw items. The idea of a raw food diet is to be able to maximize all the nutrients and minerals that you can gain from healthy foods because when you will cook it, these beneficial aspects are reduced and altered.
- Low-carb and ketogenic diet. Lowering down the carbohydrate intake is a recommended strategy for those who are getting older. The ketogenic diet is a combination of both low-carb and high-fat diets.
- Vegetarian and vegan diets. This type of diet eliminates meat, seafood, poultry, and fish. There was research conducted that a vegetarian and vegan diet boost weight loss for older people.
FAQ’s
- Are there foods that need to be avoided in losing weight?
If you are trying to lose weight, one of the biggest factors that you need to observe is your diet. It is true that you can eat any edible thing you see anywhere because it is not also good to deprive yourself of such restrictions but you have to be careful in your food choices. Heavily processed foods, fried ones, and alcoholic beverages are just some of the things you shouldn’t have often.
You should watch how frequently you consume these ones and preferably only a small amount must be taken. Processed foods cause fluctuations in your blood sugar and may increase the probability of your food cravings. In a week, it is advisable to schedule when to have your “cheat” where you can eat all the foods that you crave for but you need to make sure to eat healthy for the most days of the week.
- Can sleep affect your metabolism?
Believe it or not, sleep directly affect both weight gain and weight loss. There were research conducted that proves that those who have an inadequate amount of sleep tend to be much prone to overweight and obesity. Lack of sleep causes dysregulation on the hormones that could often lead to food cravings.
So to avoid such, it is best to go to bed early and take at least 7 up to 9 hours of sleep. This is not just for the sake of cutting off body fats and weights but also for the improvement of mental and physical health as well.
- Is metabolism natural or can be inherited?
Inheritance or heredity plays a role in almost everything in life. Some of those fast metabolism are genetic and were inherited from parents. Lucky for you if you lose weight quickly even with eating a kilo of rice in a meal. It is sometimes discouraging if you try to lose weight and it’s barely working or coming off. However, you can only work with what you have. Sticking to a healthy lifestyle will eventually make your weight loss possible.
Final Thoughts
Weight loss after 50 may seem to be difficult especially with old age but you can still achieve such with the help of the aforementioned strategies. Try out the tips mentioned above and you will realize that losing weight after 50 is possible and is only just a piece of cake.