Alas, age isn’t the only thing that increases with each birthday. Call it “middle age spread” or “menopot”, but you may have noticed the number on the scale creeping up over the years. The weight gain — especially where we gain it — can negatively impact our health.
You’ve likely heard the aging process is partly to blame. Rather, that our metabolism — the process by which we break down fuel into the energy our body uses — slows down as we get older. If that’s the case, is there anything we can do about it?
Does our metabolism slow down — or is it something else?
There are many reasons people gain weight, and the interconnected factors can be complex. However, when it comes to our metabolism experts say it does slow by about 2-5 per cent every decade after we turn 30. It’s easy to imagine someone gradually turning down the dial on a machine. When the machine isn’t doing its job as effectively, there are going to be more leftovers — in this case, calories that get stored as fat. Nothing we can do about that, right?
Wrong, say experts. It’s true our cells’ mitochondria (the part that supplies the energy) can slow a little as we age, but the real culprit is something else. Our metabolism is linked to the amount of muscle we have. It’s a complex process, but the more lean muscle mass we have, the more calories we’ll burn.
Unfortunately, muscle mass is something that decreases as we age. In fact, experts at Johns Hopkins estimate we lose about half of our muscle mass between ages 20 and 90. That’s a pretty big time span, but a lot of the loss occurs between the ages of 50 and 70. Less muscle mass means we need fewer calories.
The problem is most people don’t decrease their calorie consumption accordingly — and you can guess where the extra ends up. To avoid weight gain, we have to balance the calories we consume with the calories we burn during the day, so a loss of muscle mass can tip the scales against us. We might not notice a big difference in our actual weight, but experts note the gain in fat is often offset by the loss of muscle mass.
And more bad news: the more muscle mass we lose, the more fatigued we feel. When we’re tired, we’re less likely to exercise — and physical activity is important for maintaining muscle.
Worse yet, health surveys show that older adults tend to be much less active than younger adults. When people hit their fifties, they may need 200-300 fewer calories per day yet they are still eating a similar diet. In addition as we age we’re more likely to be affected by a health condition like arthritis that makes getting regular physical activity even more challenging.
Ways to fight the weight gain
Like it or not, our bodies are going to change as we age, and some influences aren’t easy to overcome — like our genes and hormone changes. The good news is we can make lifestyle choices to help.
