No matter how old you may be, you need to be confident that you can lose weight. Studies have revealed that there’s nothing intrinsically different about being older that makes it harder for the body to lose weight. While you may battle arthritis or back pain, your body, basically, can still respond if you’re willing to work towards a healthier weight level. What follows are tips to help you stay fit over the age of 60.
Get rid of the weighing scale
When you’re over 60, you need to make sure that your weight-loss efforts don’t inadvertently result in loss of bone mass or muscle mass. You need to concentrate on losing just your fat. This means that the weighing scale isn’t the best tool to measure your progress with.
Instead, you need to find a set of calipers or another measurement device to measure your body fat with. In general, the size of your waist should be half your height or less. If you’re 70 inches tall, then, you should aim for a waist size that is 35 inches or less.
Get plenty of water
Staying hydrated is important to anyone trying to lose weight, but it’s a rule that especially applies to those over the age of 60. At this age, the parts of the brain that control thirst become less sensitive. They are unlikely to alert you with feelings of thirst when you’re low on hydration. Many older people try to avoid drinking water to minimize trips to the bathroom, as well. If you aren’t hydrated well, you can end up eating more, because thirst is often mistaken for hunger. If you’re interested in losing fat, it’s a good idea to sip on water through the day.
Perform strength training
Your body loses muscle mass as you grow older. By the time you reach age 50, your body has only about 80 percent of the muscle that it did at age 20. Unfortunately, less muscle usually means a slower metabolism. Your body ends up burning less energy, and putting on fat. It’s possible to help the situation. All you need to do is to start training with weights.
Make sure that you try to raise the level of resistance that you give your body, over time. Once it becomes easy to perform 10 reps with 5 pounds, it’s time to go up to 10 pounds.
Make sure there’s plenty of protein in your diet
Fighting muscle loss is an imperative past the age of 60. There is some evidence to suggest that increasing the amount of protein in your diet, over this age can help you build muscle. It can counter the harmful muscle loss that comes at this time.
About 30 grams of protein to a meal is usually enough for most people over 60. When you get enough protein, you help maintain your muscle bulk and also fill yourself in a healthy way so that you don’t crave fattening snacks.
Give it time
Reaching a healthy weight level may take a little longer when you’re over 60; it’s just as possible to attain that weight level over 60 as it is before that age, however. You may need to work out with lighter weights because you may not be as strong, but you’ll get there eventually. It’s important to be patient.
Stay flexible
When you are limber and flexible, you stand a lower risk of injuring yourself when you work out. To make sure that stiffness and aches and pains don’t get in the way of your fitness goals, you should consider signing up to a yoga class.
In conclusion
It’s easy to tell yourself that gaining weight is only a natural part of life past the age of 60. It can be hard to stay fit with such an attitude, however. Losing fat at an advanced age isn’t that hard if you’re willing to tell yourself that you can do it. It can help to find peers in your age group who also want to stay fit and give encouragement and support to one another.
You can form a walking group with people in your neighborhood, or get your neighbors to band together to take a water aerobics class with you. More often than not, it’s a negative psychological attitude, rather than your age or physical state, that keeps you from attaining the shape that you desire.
