Turning fifty is a big deal and it calls for lots of jubilations and celebrations. Sometimes 50 means that you are heading for retirement, you have lived half a century after all! For women, though, it is not always fun to turn fifty especially if you are dealing with menopause. This can be an unpleasant time and you may find yourself gaining more pounds. Weight loss for women over 50 can be a challenge, but there are some tips that could really help women within this age bracket.
So, why the weight gain during the menopausal period? This is usually because if the appetite changes and hormones that occur. During puberty, appetite shifts due to the hormonal changes and this can result in gaining weight.
This is the same case with menopausal women. The structure of the body also changes during this time and it is for this reason that losing weight that has already been gained becomes so difficult for women.
Menopause is therefore one of the leading causes of weight gain, especially in women who are in their fifties. There are other factors that can also lead to gaining more weight in women over 50. They include not eating enough food, depression, stress, lack of enough sleep, and even a low metabolic rate.
Vitamin b shots for weight loss can be used but only under the direction of a qualified health professional.
Benefits of weight loss for women over 50:
There are many rewards and challenges that are associated with remaining fit in your fifties. You need more time to recover when you engage in some activities and the muscles can become rebellious. You also get injuries faster than you did while in your youth. You need to take more care of yourself during this period to age gracefully.
Some of the advantages include:
- When you lose weight, you remain healthier
- You improve your cardiovascular health
- Better circulation
- It reduces stress
- When you stay fit, you reduce anxiety and therefore better mood
- It helps memory
- Helps prevent illnesses associated with aging
How to lose weight over 50 female?
At fifty, you could be dealing with a lowered metabolism rate. In addition, you could be more sedentary than you were when you were a bit younger.
At fifty, it is very easy to become careless, you may engage in unhealthy eating behaviors that could lead to piling up the pounds, resulting in some very unpleasant results.
When you combine all the above factors with a medical problem or an injury, which is common at that age, things become even worse because you may not be able to work out a whole lot. With some regular exercise and healthy eating, you can lose weight even if you are over fifty.
How to lose belly fat for women over 50?
When you hit fifty, you need to exercise more and be very keen about your health. Losing belly fat can be an uphill climb and it may be because of the many physical changes that you are actually going through.
Menopausal women gain a lot of weight in the middle even though this happens to men as well. Losing the belly weight loss for seniors can be a challenge, but with a diet regimen and solid exercise, you can actually be successful at beating it.
What foods are good for losing weight?
You find that different foods will use different pathways in the body. This means that they can affect hormones, hunger, and how many calories you are able to burn.
Some of the best foods for burning calories include tuna, leafy greens, whole eggs, salmon, legumes, chicken breast, lean meat, boiled potatoes and beans, soups, cottage cheese and so on.
Advantages
There are many advantages associated with using a diet when you are trying to lose weight. They include:
- It is the natural way to lose weight
- You get the needed nutrients for better functioning of the body
- Using food ensures that your cardiovascular health remains in check
- All the important areas of the body are worked on especially when the diet is balanced
- Some foods are great for adding muscle mass
- With a healthy diet, you live longer
- You become less prone to lifestyle related ailments
10 Best ways to lose weight for women over 50
The structure of women changes, especially when they get to menopause. More fat is stored in the body and it becomes very difficult to lose it because of a change in the metabolic rate.
It is therefore very important to understand the things you should do so as to maintain your normal weight and to shed all the excess calories and fats.
Some of the most reasonable ways to lose weight include:
1. Try to be more active
It has been said that living a sedentary lifestyle is the new smoking. The effects can be great and detrimental to health. After fifty, women tend to be less and less active because of different reasons.
This is the retirement age and this means you may have a lot of time. At this time, the kids are grown up and may have moved from home making you even less active. The changes that women have to endure during menopause do not make things easier.
All the above are valid reasons, but they should not be an excuse for not working out. Exercise is very important for all ages. It becomes even more important as we start to age.
As you get older, being active is a great way to train the mind and the body. You find that a 30 minutes’ walk can do you a lot of good. The more you work out, the better your health will get. You can get more information regarding the best cardio for weight loss.
2. Building muscle
As we get older, we tend to lose our muscles. This becomes more pronounced at menopause. In most cases, the muscles that we lose end up being replaced by fat.
In addition, in many cases, this fat ends up in our midsection. Women wrath the tummy fat and they try out different things to combat it. Tummy fat can be unsightly and unattractive especially for women and it may make them feel less sexy.
So as to reduce the stubborn body fat, you need to build muscles in all ways possible. Building muscles also allow you to consume more calories without necessarily adding more weight than necessary.
We need food to grow muscles. However, the muscles tend to help us burn more calories when compared to fat. You should engage in exercises that help tone the muscles.
When you have the best exercise for weight loss over 50 combined with an appropriate diet, body fat becomes a thing of the past. However, you need to appreciate that it is not always easy to lose fat after fifty so you will need to be smart about it.
3. Stop taking sugar drinks
Saying no to sugary drinks can be very hard, especially for people who are accustomed to them. You should try as much as possible not to consume soda, fruit juices, and energy drinks since they have a lot of sugar in them and they add calories that you do not really need.
Taking such drinks only makes your weight loss journey even more difficult. Sugary drinks can be referred to as empty calories and they tend to make you gain weight.
The calories do not have any kind of nutritional benefits and they do not actually satisfy you. The drinks make you end up storing even more fat, especially in the midsection.
Sugary drinks end up affecting your brain, heart, teeth, and bones. To be in better health, you could consider swapping all those sugary drinks with water.
Making your own real fruit juice is also a consideration that you should make. The latter is a more healthy way to deal with unnecessary body fat.
4. Consume more vegetables
If you have ever heard someone say that you should eat the rainbow, it simply means that you should try eating a lot of vegetables. When you know how to do it right, you should be in a position to actually enjoy your plate of veggies.
We have already established that menopause is a great cause of gaining weight because of the changes that it makes on appetite and hormones.
By taking more veggies, you work on the appetite part. When your appetite increases, then you end up eating even more food. You should therefore try eating foods that help you to lose weight. Take in the things that will give you more nutrients while lowering calories.
Vegetables are a great choice for someone who wants to lose weight due to the high nutrient concentration and very low calories. Vegetables are delicious too.
You can try out many vegetable recipes. There are also many vegetables that can be eaten raw and they tend to offer even more benefits for the body.
5. Eating more fruits
This is yet another group of food that you should have in your fat loss diet for women when you want to lose weight. Fruits are quite high in sugar though, and you should not take them in high quantities, especially when you want to lose weight.
This is most especially for women who are over fifty years and especially when they have hormonal shifts that lead to more storage of fats. You should choose fruits that tend to have a lower sugar level such as clementine’s, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and watermelons.
Fruits happen to be rich in vitamins too and are therefore great at improving your immunity and many other areas and functions of the body. Vitamins are also great as antioxidants.
Knowing your fruits and eating healthy portions is the only way to actually live healthily and maintain a healthy weight. When combined with exercise, veggies, and the right proportions of all other food groups, you should be able to shed off excess fat and maintain the most ideal body fat.
6. Portion control
As women age, the metabolic rate goes down and it can decrease by 8 percent every decade. This means that as you age, you should watch what you eat. It is important to eat healthy foods, especially if you want to lose weight. It is also very important to control those portions.
By simply eating a lot of healthy foods, you cannot expect to lose weight, especially with the low metabolic rate. You need to control how much of the healthy foods you are actually eating in the first place. This allows you to have a portion that matches the metabolism rate.
This is not a very easy thing to follow, especially for the aging woman. Therefore, it may be very helpful for women over fifty to have some tips and even recipes regarding diet and portion control to help them stay healthy longer.
7. Breakfast
Breakfast is a very important meal and it should never be skipped. It can help you maintain a healthy diet or it can cause binge eating during dinner or lunch, which ends up messing up with the set diet.
By eating a healthy breakfast, you get the energy to remain active all through the day and it helps you avoid binge eating which makes weight gain even worse. Binge eating causes a lot of issues and you should avoid it as much as you can.
By skipping breakfast, you spend the day feeling starved. When it is time for dinner or lunch, you end up eating uncontrollably. After this, you may feel very gross and bloated probably because of overindulging. You end up consuming too many calories than you actually require.
To remedy this, you only need to take a healthy breakfast. Making breakfast may seem like a very hard thing to do. However, you should always bear in mind that it is the most important meal of the day.
8. Only eat when hungry
We are clear on how important breakfast really is, especially when you are trying to lose weight after 50. However, it can still be very harmful to skip meals, especially when you are feeling hungry.
This includes snacks. Feeling hungry is how your body tells you that it needs nutrients. If you deprive your body of the required level of nutrients, you do not help yourself in any way.
Not eating when you are hungry acts in the same way as not taking breakfast. This means that if you fail to eat when you feel like eating, then you will end up binge eating later.
It is important to know what you are snacking on or eating when you feel hungry, so as not to sabotage the weight loss journey. This is especially when you need to eat something when it is not yet mealtime. There are different tricks and tips that can be used by women over fifty to make the journey smoother.
9. Hydrate
Staying hydrated is very important for women, regardless of age. This is one of the most widely shared tips especially to people who are trying to lose weight.
Drinking water is important when it comes to weight loss because of different reasons. The first thing is that it helps you not to overeat and not to eat, especially if you are not feeling hungry.
Water helps in boosting the metabolism and you realize that you feel more energetic. When you are active, you burn fat. This is a great tool that women over 50 years should really think about.
It is especially recommended for anyone dealing with fat around the midsection. You should take as much water as possible and the results will be visible.
Water is required in all bodily functions. When you are hydrated, your body works at its best. You need water for eliminating waste in the form of urine. Sometimes issues such as bloating can be fixed by a fair amount of water!
10. Get enough sleep
Getting enough sleep is very important for women over fifty. As we age, we tend to be less active and that afternoon nap can become longer than usual because we have so much time on our hands.
For that reason, we fail to get a good night’s sleep. Elderly people have been known to toss and turn in bed or found up and about at very odd hours of the night.
Lack of sleep is a great complaint even in women who are over 50 years. Sleep is very important in relation to maintaining the most healthy weight balance.
This is because as we sleep, hormones are released. These are ghrelin and leptin. The two hormones are very important when it comes to the regulation of appetite.
When you fail to sleep enough, the process is disrupted and this causes a dysfunction of the metabolic rate. The body ends up confusing fatigue with hunger. This is never a good thing since you end up taking more calories than necessary.
Conclusion
Try to be as active as possible. Exercise, eat healthy meals, and do as much as possible to stay awake during the day. Ensure you have a comfortable bed to go to at the end of a long day to get enough rest. Maintaining a healthy weight can do your overall health a lot of good. Before going on an extreme diet of extreme workout, you should talk to your doctor first. You will need to have a medical examination to do it right. If there are any medical conditions, they need to be treated to make things easier for you. Weight loss tea has become very popular and so has ayurvedic medicine for weight loss. Talk to your doctor before using any of these.
