Olwen Anderson's Blog

How often do you hear the comment "I used to be able to take weight off easily when I put it on, but now it sticks." It’s a frequent complaint of people aged over 40, and its true, there are several reasons why you might be finding it harder to lose weight now than when you were 20 years younger. Several metabolism-driving aspects of your body change as you age, but you can compensate for them and still lose weight. 

In women, estrogen is a potent stimulator of metabolism; in men its testosterone. As you age, your sex hormone levels drop, which means that your metabolism will naturally run a little slower. You just need to increase your muscle tissue to compensate.

Muscle tissue uses up energy 24 hours a day just to stay alive; and even more energy when you move; fat tissue is pure storage, requiring next-to-no energy to maintain it. As you age your body tends to shunt extra energy to fat deposits rather than developing new muscle tissue.  By deliberately boosting your ratio of muscle to fat you can burn calories faster. Resistance exercise like weight lifting is an excellent way to stimulate new muscle growth. Combine this with fat burning exercise as well for best results. You'll start feeling and looking shapelier real quick!

Your thyroid gland sets your metabolic rate from one day to the next. If its underactive, or you're short on iodine (which creates thyroid hormones), your metabolism will run so slow its almost impossible to lose weight. If you're a woman over 40, and gaining weight despite no changes to your exercise or diet, arrange for your thyroid function and iodine status to be checked through your doctor or naturopath.

Remember when you were a teenager? You had to walk everywhere, or ride your bike  to get around. Once you got behind the wheel of your first car, did you increase your exercise regime to compensate? If not, you might find that you're actually not exercising as much as you think you are.  Its time to pull out that calorie and exercise counter and do a calculation over a day.

There are many health conditions that can cause you to gain weight even though you're doing all the 'right' things. A functional pathology test to show how your body is handling energy and what's happening in your thyroid can make all the difference.