The 40’s + Buddha Belly
You wake up one morning after age 40 and there are an extra 10 or 15 pounds that seem to have materialized overnight. While it may feel sudden, this weight gain is actually a gradual process.
What you may also notice is that much of that weight seems to settle right around your belly *the Buddha Belly” as I used to call mine. This mysterious fat not only seems to appear without warning it also seems like it's completely immune to both diet and exercise.
When you were young, you probably didn't spend too much time thinking about preparing your body for the future. In your teens and twenties, you're in peak condition and it's the perfect time to start exercising. Cut to 20 years later and, if you didn't start exercising, you probably wish you had since there's something we all start to experience in our 40's—weight gain.
What Happens as We Get Older
What happens to our bodies after 40 is triple effect weight gain: Our hormones change, our metabolism starts to slow down and if we're not lifting weights, we start to lose just a little more muscle every year.
That muscle can help protect us from gaining weight because it's more metabolically active. When we lose that muscle, our metabolisms drop even more.
If you're genetically predisposed to gain weight easily, that may be another strike against you. Even if you don't actually gain weight, you may still gain inches around the waist. This weight gain can be so frustrating, it's easy to become obsessed with losing it, starving yourself, going from one diet to the next or exercising too much.
But, is that really necessary? Isn't there something we can do about gaining weight after 40? There is and it starts with understanding just what's going on with your body. We can't control everything about our bodies, but the more we know what's going on, the easier it is to find some acceptance for what's happening.
Why We Gain Weight After 40
There is a multitude of reasons for weight gain after age 40. Some are genetic, some are the natural course of things, and some are due to lifestyle choices. The four most important contributors to weight gain include hormones, heredity, lower metabolism, and loss of muscle.
Hormones
One of the main culprits for weight gain is, of course, our hormones, which start to change right around the mid-30s and into the 40s. This change in hormones, less estrogen for women and less testosterone for men, cause the fat in our bodies fat to shift to the middle of the body while abandoning other areas of the body you could care less about. That's one reason you may get a little fluffier around the middle while other parts of you actually get smaller.
Heredity
Scientists have found the specific genes that determine how many fat cells we have and where they're stored. This is something we can't really change and, if you look at your parents and relatives, you'll see those areas where your family may tend to store excess fat.
Lower Metabolism
There are a couple of things that happen to your metabolism after the age of 40. First, your basal metabolic rate (BMR) decreases and, second, you expend less total energy (TEE) during exercise.
Some experts suggest metabolism can decrease by about 5% for every decade after 40, which means you need about 60-100 fewer calories every 10 years.
If you sit more, eat more, exercise less, and deal with more stress throughout that decade, you'll probably need even fewer calories than that. Add that to the fact that you burn fewer calories during exercise and you've got yourself an equation for weight gain.
Loss of Muscle
Like our metabolisms, we also start to lose muscle when we hit our 40s, experiencing a steady decline each decade. Part of this, scientists believe, is that the motor units that make up our muscles decline as we age and that those motor units don't always fire with the same regularity.
However, the important takeaway here is this: The biggest factor in losing muscle is the lack of physical activity, which makes exercise a crucial component when it comes to preventing muscle loss.
Of course, just how much each of these contributes to weight gain isn't something we can measure or, often, control. What we can do is take this knowledge and use it to our advantage, working with our bodies rather than fighting them.
How to Stop Gaining Weight
If you've managed to keep your weight the same over the years with exercise, it can be a rude awakening when you get into your 40s and 50s. It isn't so much that you gain weight, it's more than your weight shifts into different places. Suddenly, the jeans you've been wearing for years just don't fit right and you may wonder: What am I doing wrong?
If you exercise and eat right, you're not doing anything wrong, it's just those age-related changes happening. If you already exercise to maintain a healthy weight, you're in a much better position than someone who hits 40 with a weight problem.
Even with that, living a healthy lifestyle doesn't protect us entirely from age-related weight changes. In some respects, it's inevitable that our bodies will change as we age and embracing that is just one way to make the process a little less frustrating.
The question is: If you already exercise every day, is there anything you can do to burn more calories? It's possible, but this comes with a warning: We may need more exercise to manage weight as we get older, but our bodies typically tolerate less strenuous exercise as we get older as well.
By our 40s and 50s, many of us are dealing with chronic injuries, stress, fatigue, busy jobs and family life and, perhaps, less time and energy than ever to exercise.
Knowing that, if you really want to increase your exercise and/or intensity, there are some options for bumping up your calorie-burn.
Over 40 Weight-Loss Tips
As mentioned before, exercise is an important part of losing weight. But, if you're already working very hard, it's not a great idea to add even more intensity.
You still have to take care of your body and give it the rest that it needs to replenish and rejuvenate. Exercise alone isn't going to make the problem go away. With that in mind, there are some things you can do to bump your calorie-burn a little, including:
Try High-Intensity Interval Training: Tabata, interval training or metabolic conditioning workouts are designed to burn more calories and push you to your limits.
Try Circuit Training: Mixing up cardio and strength together keeps your heart rate elevated, helping you build endurance and strength while burning more calories.
Add More Time to Your Workouts: For example, if you usually work out for an hour, add 10 minutes to 1 to 2 workouts each week.
Add More Frequency: If you can, add a day of exercise or you could even consider 2-a-days once in a while to pump up your calorie burn for the week — doing double cardio or a cardio workout in the morning and strength later that day.
Be More Active: Sometimes, just adding a couple of walks each day can help you manage your calories without going overboard with exercise. Try using a pedometer or tracker to see how many steps you can get each day.
Change Your Diet: You know the drill when it comes to a healthy diet, right? Cut out the sugar and the processed carbs. Eat more vegetables and fiber and cut out the alcohol. Sometimes a little tweaking here and there, without starving yourself, can help you eek out a few more calories each week.
Hire a Trainer: If you've tried everything, maybe it's time to see hire a trainer and get more specific advice for your situation.
See Your Doctor: If you're killing yourself and still not seeing any changes, see your doctor and get checked out. Discuss the possible reasons for your weight gain or plateau and see if there are some solutions out there. Is one of your medications contributing? Maybe you could try something different.
Whatever changes you make, don't overdo. Listen to your body and back off if you start to feel any symptoms of over training.
It's always best to gradually add more intensity and/or exercise into your routine a few minutes at a time.