Why Your Metabolism Slows Down as You Age and What You Can do About it
As we age, our metabolism slows, but factors such as hormonal shifts, muscle loss, and reduced activity are within our control and can affect our outcomes. A healthy metabolism is achievable at any age with the right knowledge.
This article will explain what is happening and how to boost your metabolism with some simple changes.
Metabolism
Your metabolism is how your body converts food into energy. Everything we do requires calories.
The daily burn of these calories is called the basal metabolic rate (BMR), the energy your body needs to keep you alive at rest.
Factors that affect your BMR include age, body size, genetics, hormones, and, most importantly, your muscle mass.
The primary reason metabolism slows with age
One of the biggest influencers of our metabolism is muscle. As we age, we start to lose muscle mass as early as our 30s.
By age 50, this process speeds up, especially if you don’t do any strength training. Muscle tissue burns more energy than fat tissue, so having less muscle means your body needs fewer calories throughout the day, which leads to weight gain.
The good news is that you don’t have to accept that your metabolism slows with age; weight training can help, and studies now prove you can build muscle at any age.
The role of hormones
For women, menopause brings a sharp decline in estrogen. This change encourages fat storage around the abdomen, reduces muscle mass, and makes it harder to maintain your normal weight.
Men experience a more gradual decline in testosterone, but it still occurs and leads to muscle loss and changes in body composition.
Thyroid hormones regulate how quickly our bodies burn energy, and insulin moves sugar from our bloodstream into our cells. As people age, they often become less sensitive to insulin, leading to excess calories being stored as fat.
Hormonal changes don’t mean you’re stuck with weight gain. They just mean your body reacts differently than it did in your 20s, and adjustments can be made to influence your BMR.
Lifestyle changes that make a difference
Learning how to boost metabolism during midlife can be influenced by lifestyle changes that can really move the needle.
- Movement: Incorporate exercise and movement into your daily routine. Even a small decline in physical activity can add up over months and years, leading to weight gain.
- Sleep: Increase your sleep quality. Sleep affects the hormones that regulate our hunger and feelings of fullness. Poor sleep contributes to cravings for high-calorie foods and unhealthy choices.
- Stress: Reduce stress as much as possible. Elevated cortisol levels from excessive stress increase our appetite and encourage the body to store fat, especially around our midsections.
- Lifting weights or any resistance exercises is the single biggest needle mover. By building and maintaining muscle mass, we can have the greatest positive impact on our metabolism as we age.
- Make protein a priority in your daily diet. High-quality protein at every meal helps build and preserve muscle and keeps you full.
- Focus on whole foods, not empty calories. Build your meals around lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and healthy fats.
How Regevity can help
Regevity supports a healthy lifestyle as your best defense against aging, but when stubborn fat is hard to manage, we have options to help.
Body Contouring: Genetics play a role in how we store fat. When we hit midlife and nothing seems to work to reduce stubborn fat around our abdomens, hips, and thighs, body contouring can make a big difference.
Our state-of-the-art system can redefine your waistline, lift and shape your buttocks, remove stubborn fat, and tighten skin to make you feel good about the way you look in the mirror.
Venus Bliss is our body-contouring system. It is clinically validated and non-invasive, removing fat and tightening skin to achieve a more contoured look.
The important thing to remember is that our metabolism isn’t broken, and aging doesn’t mean we can’t change our outcomes. There are many ways to influence our metabolism, and Regevity is here to help.
Schedule a free consultation today to discuss our wide range of services.
