OK, you are getting older and you are starting to see the dial on your scale creep up. You know it is not your fault, after all, we all know that slowed metabolism as women get older is something that just happens. Or is it? Is this an inevitable and irreversible side effect of getting older?

Well, I’m not a doctor and I can’t really say for sure but according to what I have read we don’t necessarily have to expect to have slowed metabolism as women get older. As a matter of fact, from what I read, in some ways we are causing the problem ourselves!

You see one of the biggest culprits of a slowing metabolism is the loss of lean muscle mass. As we age we stop being as active as we were when we were younger.

As we become more sedentary the lean muscle mass in our bodies decreases thus slowing our metabolism.

This issue is made worse when we start to see the numbers on the bathroom scale getting higher and higher. Many of us will then mistakenly try to cut down on our food intake.

This only makes things worse because then our body thinks that it is starving so it shuts down as much as possible to conserve energy.

Once that happens we are really heading in a downward spiral. We will continue to gain weight because our metabolism is slowing down so we panic and eat less thus slowing our metabolism down even more.

The good news is that there are a few simple things you can do to combat this trend, it does not have to be an inevitable part of aging.

Here are two of the best things you can do to reverse this trend and keep that trim figure you’ve had up until now:

1. Eat better. That can mean different things to different people. For some of you that will mean to eat less food in general. Some of you may need to cut way back on the amount of bad for you fast food that you eat.

Others may just need to eat more “organic” types of food and steer clear of the overly processed foods. That may include those frozen “good for you” dinners.

As a rule of thumb, anything that is already prepared is not that nutritious. You are almost always better off making all your food from scratch with natural, fresh ingredients.

2. Weight train. If you are wasting hours every week on the cardio machines at your local gym and not doing any weight training, you are wasting your time.

You see endless cycles of cardio can actually burn off your lean muscle mass. Have you ever seen a long distance runner? They look almost emaciated, they sure don’t look healthy. That is because they have very little lean muscle mass.

To really increase your metabolism you should add as much lean muscle mass as possible. And for crying out loud ladies, don’t fret about “bulking up”. You can’t. You don’t have the right hormones to “accidentally” get big. Even if you really wanted to it would be a challenge for most women, you sure aren’t going to do it accidentally.

These are the best ways to combat slowed metabolism as women get older.

Tags: Bathroom Scale, Culprits, Different Things, Downward Spiral, Fast Food, food intake;, Lean Muscle Mass, Losing Weight, Matter Of Fact, Slowing Metabolism, Types Of Food —

Ah, the eternal debate: what are the Advantages of men weight loss versus women weightloss and lack of energy?

There are many elements to this question, do men lose weight more easily than women. And what role does lack of energy play, if any, in weight loss?

First of all, I want to make clear that I am not a doctor, scientist or personal trainer. What I am going to share with you in this article is what I have read and learned. I can not guarantee that it is accurate, but if nothing else, it will give you something to think about.

Ok, do men lose weight more quickly than women? From what I have been able to find out the answer would be “yes”. But it’s not what you may think, and that doesn’t mean it is necessarily “easy” for them either.

You see one of the biggest culprits of weight gain as we age, this goes for both men and women, is loss of lean muscle mass.

This happens for several reasons but the biggest reason is that as we get older we tend to move less. Less movement means that our muscles kind of wither away.

When that happens, and you may not even notice it at first, fat can build up in those “crevices” where the muscle once was. As your lean muscle mass deteriorates your metabolism slows down. This then can become a bad cycle.

Another thing to consider is that being out of shape can lead to a lack of energy. When you are feeling out of energy the last thing you want to do is workout. Again, a downward spiral.

To combat all of this just find the motivation, or hire someone to help you find it, to work out. Eat right, build up your lean muscle mass and you will find that you have more energy and your metabolism will burn hotter making it easier for you to stay at a healthy weight.

To be honest, none of this is rocket science. Today most of us know that a lot of what our parent’s generation thought about staying in shape was wrong.

We know that the idea of eating 3 big meals a day is wrong. All you accomplish by doing that is you flood your body with more calories at one time than it can process.

We now know that it’s better to eat small, healthy meals throughout your day to keep your metabolism burning hot.

We also know that even women need to do some weight training so that they can keep their lean muscle mass too. And we also know that since women don’t have enough of the hormones that build big muscles, it would be impossible for a woman to “bulk up” accidentally.

There may not be as many advantages of men weight loss versus women weightloss and lack of energy as we may have originally thought. To a large degree it seems as if we all have pretty much the same challenges. And it also seems we may all need pretty much the same solutions.

Tags: Calories, Crevices, Culprits, Downward Spiral, Eating Habits, Elements, Eternal Debate, Lack Of Energy, Lean Muscle Mass, Lose Weight, Losing Weight, Men And Women, Metabolism, Motivation, Muscles, Personal Trainer, Rocket Science, Scientist, Staying In Shape, Weight Gain, Weight Loss, Weightloss, Workout —