Struggling with weight loss in your 40’s?
It’s no secret it’s harder to lose weight as we get older, especially as a woman.
But there are some crucial habits you can adapt to your lifestyle that will burn pounds and potentially double your weight loss.
Forty is believed to be a real milestone.
On a personal level, many people say that once they reach their 40’s, they feel more comfortable in their own skin because they really “know” who they are.
On a professional level, lots of 40 somethings have reached a stage of stability in their careers too.
Financially, 40 somethings possibly own their own homes and many have a young family.
There are lots of reasons why for so many people, their 40’s is the best decade yet!
However, there are some niggly negatives too, and one of those is that metabolism naturally slows down, especially for women.
You might be one of the lucky ones.
You may still be the same size as you were in your 20’s, but most women find that weight does slowly creep on.
Even half a pound every month soon leads to half a stone over a year!
Read on to find out about those crucial weight loss tips for women over 40 and keep your figure svelte well into your 50’s (plus).
1. Take that Exercise!
You might not want to hear it but if you don’t exercise (or you only do the bare minimum) now is the time to start.
Not only for weight-loss, but exercise is also vital to keep your joints moving and safeguard your overall health and wellbeing.
It also improves muscle tone so if you’ve noticed some flabbiness creeping up as well as the weight, exercise will help to tone up your body.
Exercise speeds up a flagging metabolism so it’s really important to factor it in every day when you’re over 40.
There’s lots of exercise choice too.
You could take up power walking, it’s gentler on the knees than jogging, or you could join a local class and try something new like spinning or Zumba?
Swimming is an excellent all-over body workout.
If you just cannot face exercise, stop taking the lift or escalator and start walking more.
Walking is good for you and if you’ve never taken any exercise before, just adding a 20-minute walk a day will help to keep off that monthly half a pound weight gain!
2. Cut the Carbs
If you love your jacket potatoes, white rice, bread and pasta, they might be part of the reason why you’ve put on weight, particularly if your metabolism has slowed.
As soon as you cut out carbs, your kidneys get rid of excess water and you lose weight very quickly, sometimes up to half a stone in a couple of weeks.
Instead of burning carbs, your body begins to burn fat as its energy source.
As a word of caution, on a low-carb diet, the weight loss will slow down as your body adjusts but it is still an excellent way of losing weight.
Check out the Keto diet if you want to focus on a specific low-carb diet.
3. Eat Dinner Earlier
Your body needs time to digest food.
If you tend to eat a big meal late in the evening, you run the risk of it lying on your tummy, interrupting your sleep and piling on extra pounds because the food hasn’t digested properly.
Try and eat no later than 7 pm so you have a few hours to work off your food before you go to bed.
Don’t eat heavy meals at night either.
There’s a saying, breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and eat dinner like a pauper and there’s a lot of truth in it! Keep your dinner light, a lean piece of meat or oily fish, a healthy salad or vegetables as accompaniment and fresh fruit for dessert.
Save bigger meals for earlier in the day.
4. Lift Weights
Yes, it’s another exercise but lifting weight really helps you to get lean!
It’s proven by various studies particularly this one carried out in 2017 at Wake Forest University.
It shows that by weight training (and eating healthily) people lose more fat and less muscle than just performing a cardio exercise.
Start with small dumbbells and low repetitions; slowly build up the reps and weights until you can manage larger weights including using kettlebells and bigger weight machinery at the gym.
5. Have Eggs for Breakfast
Firstly, never skip breakfast.
Your body, like a car, needs fuel to run efficiently.
If it runs on empty it won’t perform properly and neither will it kick-start your metabolism.
You might think that skipping breakfast will help you to lose weight but actually instead, it slows down your metabolism further and makes you more likely to snack mid-morning.
The best breakfast is eggs and that’s because they are filling and low calorie.
There have been various studies to prove just how well eggs work for weight-loss too.
This study shows us how those who ate eggs for breakfast experienced a 34% greater reduction in their waist measurement than those who ate something else of the same amount of calories.
6. Load up on Apples
Not only are apples delicious, but they’re also part of your 5-a-day and they’re a great snack that quickly targets hunger pangs.
There’s more too, research tells us that eating 3 apples a day could increase your weight loss.
This study compared two groups of overweight women over a set period of time.
One group, the fruit group ate three apples a day as part of their snacking routine and the other group, known as the oat group, focussed their snacking on oats.
The results showed that the fruit group lost more weight than the other group.
7. Drink Water
Some excess weight is simply fluid build-up.
To get rid of excess fluid, you need to drink water.
It’s best to drink at least 2 liters a day to flush your system of toxins and impurities and help reduce bloating.
If you drink a glass of water before a meal, you should end up eating less as the water fills you up.
In fact, if you ever feel a hunger pang strike, rather than reaching for the first calorific snack you can get your hands on, just have a glass of water, it often staves off hunger for longer – especially if you know you’re close to your next main meal.
