Metabolism and Age: Is it more difficult to lose weight with age?
Many people find that it gets harder to maintain their weight as they get older. It’s a very common story that we hear over and over from our clients. You might have felt this way too.
When you were a teenager, you could eat anything you wanted. You could stuff yourself with junk food, and still you never gained weight. It seemed like your body just used up the extra calories on its own. You didn’t even have to think about staying at a healthy weight – it just happened.
Then, once you hit middle age, things shifted. Your waistline slowly started to expand. You tried to focus on eating healthier, but no matter how hard you tried, those stubborn extra kilos remained. You could eat almost anything when you were younger, but now it seems that you just can’t lose the excess weight.
Does this story sound familiar?
This situation is often extremely frustrating. You want to lose weight so you can be healthier and feel better, but it seems like your body is fighting your efforts. Why does this tend to happen to people as they age? Is there anything that you can do to counteract the changes?
Key Takeaways
Metabolism refers to how your body extracts energy from food and uses (or stores) it. People with a “faster” metabolism burn energy more quickly, while those with a “slower” metabolism are more likely to experience weight gain.
There are a variety of changes in the body’s use of energy as you age, which tend to affect metabolism and can lead to weight gain.
These include hormonal shifts, loss of muscle mass, reduced physical activity, and increased stress levels, as well as direct changes in your cells’ use of energy.
Aerobic exercise and strength training can help to combat the age-related changes in metabolism. Dietary approaches, like eating more protein, can also be helpful. Some people also benefit from weight loss medications.
Having professional support can be very helpful for many people in addressing the changes in their metabolism and losing weight.
What is metabolism?
Put simply, metabolism is how your body extracts energy from food and uses (or stores) it. This includes a huge number of chemical processes. Metabolism overall is highly complex and can vary significantly between individuals.
In someone with a “faster metabolism,” the body will tend to use energy more quickly than in a person with a “slower metabolism.” If they eat the same amount of food, the person with a slower metabolism is likely to find that their body is storing more of their caloric intake in the form of fat, while the person with a faster metabolism simply burns those calories.
A huge variety of factors go into determining how fast or slow your metabolism is, including:
Age
Hormone levels
Stress
Exercise
Nutrition
Genetics
Even if you have a faster metabolism, you can still gain weight if you eat more calories than your body uses. However, since you burn calories more quickly, you will tend to find it easier to stay at a healthy weight.
Why does metabolism slow as you age?
There are a number of different reasons why our metabolism seems to get slower as we age.
Hormone shifts. It’s normal to experience significant changes in hormone levels with aging. As women go through the transition to menopause, their levels of estrogen drop dramatically. This tends to promote weight gain, especially around the waist. For men, the slow decline in testosterone with aging may also promote weight gain.
Loss of muscle mass. People tend to lose muscle mass as they get older. This is partly due to the age-related decline in testosterone, which is important in maintaining muscle tissue in both men and women. It takes a lot of calories to maintain muscle tissue, even at rest. If you have less muscle, then you’re burning less calories, even when you’re not exercising.
Reduced physical activity. As people get older, they often find themselves being less physically active than when they were younger. They may experience injuries or mobility limitations that make physical activity harder. They may also become very busy with their careers as well as caring for both their children and their aging parents. This can make it hard to find the time to exercise. It’s not just workouts that matter; even tiny movements like fidgeting can burn a significant number of calories over the course of a day, and people may be less likely to fidget as they get older.
Increased stress levels. Due to the demands of career and family, people may experience more stress in middle age than when they were younger. Stress increases levels of hormones like cortisol, which promotes weight gain. In addition, stress makes it harder to pay close attention to what you’re eating, and causes many people to turn to unhealthy foods for comfort.
Changes in the body’s cells. It’s also been found that aging directly causes changes in your body’s cells, which cause them to use less energy overall. It’s believed that this occurs because your body puts less energy into tissue maintenance and repair, which accounts for the increasing incidence of certain chronic diseases as people age as well as the reduction in metabolism. The details of this effect, including how large the effect is and exactly when it starts, are still a matter of some scientific debate, but it does appear that aging directly leads to a slowing of metabolism.
All of these factors can lead to your metabolism slowing down as you get older. If you keep eating the same amount of food, you might find yourself gaining weight.
Can you increase your metabolism?
You obviously can’t completely stop the aging process, and there are some factors that aren’t under your control. Still, you don’t just have to give up and accept being overweight and unhealthy. There are ways to help counter the age-related slowing of metabolism.
Aerobic exercise. This is the type of exercise that raises your heart rate and leaves you slightly out of breath. Examples include walking, dancing, and riding a bicycle. It’s important to include this type of activity in your life, because it benefits your overall health as well as helping you control your weight. The current guidelines suggest a total of 150 to 300 minutes (2.5 to 5 hours) of activity per week. Breaking this up into several shorter sessions each day can help you achieve this level of activity.
Strength training. Because muscle tissue burns a lot of calories, it’s important to ensure that you build and maintain muscle in order to stay at a healthy weight. Adding strength training to your exercise plan helps to achieve this. You can lift weights or use resistance bands, or do an activity like rock climbing that naturally involves strength training. Current guidelines suggest doing this three times per week.
Eat more protein. Dietary protein can be useful for weight loss in a number of ways. It actually takes slightly more energy for your body to digest protein than other types of foods. Protein also helps to build muscle, which then boosts your metabolism. In addition, eating protein-rich foods helps to keep you feeling full for longer.
Reduce sugar. Many people reach for sugary foods and beverages for comfort when they’re feeling stressed. Although this may give you a temporary burst of pleasure, most people feel even worse when they crash from the sugar later on. Try to find other ways of calming yourself when you’re stressed, such as going for a walk, listening to music, meditating, or calling a friend. Because stress hormones can impact metabolism, it’s important to find healthy ways of dealing with stress if you’re trying to lose weight.
Although it’s very common for people to gain weight as they age, there are also medical conditions that lead to weight gain, such as hypothyroidism (low thyroid hormone levels). It’s important to ensure that you’re getting regular medical check-ups, including all recommended screenings. If you’re finding that you’ve started gaining weight, it’s a good idea to talk with your doctor about it, in case you have a medical condition that may require treatment.
Seeking guidance and support
It can be very frustrating to find yourself with stubborn excess weight that seems to resist all efforts to remove it. You know that you want to lose that extra weight to be healthier and feel better, but you just can’t seem to find a way to do it.
There are ways for you to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, no matter what age you are. Having the right support can be very helpful. Professionals like dietitians and health coaches can help you to design the right exercise and nutrition plan for you, and can help you stick to this plan and work through any challenges. In some cases, prescription weight loss medications might also be beneficial.
Our NOVI Optimum Plus plan is designed to support healthy weight loss. We use evidence-based approaches, and our clients get support from a number of different health professionals. Our custom app also helps clients to stay on track with their goals.