How to avoid “middle-aged spread”....

Today's post: Tuesday, 1-6-2009

Yesterday I got an email from the NewsMax service I subscribe to that quoted a study that found that people who didn’t begin to systematically eat less as they got older tended to gain fat weight.

(The study will be published in the issue dated January 2, 2009 of the American Journal of Health Promotion.)

Columbia University researcher Lance Davidson at Columbia’s Obesity Research Center said this in that article:

“Because the body's energy requirements progressively decline with age, energy intake must mirror that decrease or weight gain occurs.”

That’s far from all that causes people to gain fat weight as they get older; but to the extent it’s true, here are two ways to fight it.:

1. Increase the energy your body uses.

Many people today get no planned exercise and very rarely walk anywhere. And, many people who do exercise regularly could do more.

In addition, progressive strength training and interval cardio boost your metabolism for hours after you do them. As an added bonus, interval cardio will cause you to gain some muscle and progressive strength training will cause you to gain more. Since muscle burns more calories, those gains will help also prevent you from using less energy.

So, if you do that kind of exercise routine, your energy use will stay the same as when you were younger or only drop a tiny bit. People who don’t will use less energy and have the weight & fat gain to show for it much more than you will.

So one solution is to do progressive strength training at least twice a week and interval cardio three times a week. And, if you can get in a bit more walking each week consistently that can also help.

2. Upgrade the quality of the food you eat.

Many people today eat snack foods, refined grain cereals and breads, commercial baked goods, fast food items including French fries, and drink soft drinks once a day EACH or oftener.

These ingestible items DO have calories except for diet soft drinks that act as an appetite booster and contain additives you’re likely to be better off without.

These ingestible items often contain added sugar, salt, or oils high in omega 6 and sometimes contain high fructose corn syrup and transfats.

These ingestible items add calories without making you less hungry or they make you hungrier or they make you less hungry at first but much more hungry later. And they tend to spike your blood sugar which can mess up your moods and cause type 2 diabetes.

They have very little protein or vitamins or minerals or micronutrients or health OK oils or fiber.

Real foods have those things. And better quality real foods have more of them. Some real foods taste good and others are more bland or an acquired taste.* But the real nutrition they have including protein and fiber and health-OK oils will keep you from feeling hungry and support your health.

So, if you simply stop eating these ingestible items that aren’t foods or which only contain sugars and refined grains which are poor quality foods and eat real foods of good quality, you’ll save the money you may be spending now on these ingestible items that aren’t foods and you’ll take in enough less calories to avoid middle aged spread by tuning off these junk food calories.

So some of you can not only prevent middle aged spread, you can save money at the same time!

*(This blog and the twice weekly email from www.totalhealthbreaktrhoughs.com both have many suggestions of health sustaining and supporting foods and recipes using these foods if you aren’t familiar with them. The more of these foods you like and eat regularly the easier it gets to do without the junkier semi-foods that tend to only make you fat.)

In conclusion, if you both add more calories burned with exercise and stop taking in calories that have no solid nutrition, you can prevent middle aged spread from sneaking up on you.