Midlife Weight Gain Crisis
A large number of women gain a lot of weight once they reach their midlife. This condition is caused due to various factors such as genes, age, menopause and unhealthy lifestyle. Many women start expecting an increment in their weight once they reach the age of 40 years. However, you do not have to sit back and weight for the crisis to take a grip on you.
According to a recent study, women usually gain about 25 pounds approximately between the age of eighteen and fifty five. However, just 6 pounds from this weight is gained after menopause. This shows that the major cause behind unwanted weight gain is not menopause. Actually, the main cause behind weight gain in midlife is lifestyle and genes. For example, if your mother gained a lot of weight during her midlife, it is quite probable that the same will happen for you. However, it is possible to prevent this as well. Let us take a look at certain ways of dealing with midlife weight gain crisis:
1. Most of us blame hormones for increase in stress as well as for lack of energy but the truth is that hormones do not contribute to more than 2-5 pounds of our weight gain. The rest is mainly due to wrong lifestyle choices. The first step is to accept the fact that your body will change with age; rest everything else will fall into place if you do what it takes to keep the body healthy. The three most important things that you need to do include healthy food choices, exercising and eating less.
2. Make sure that you do not gain any weight. If you keep everything constant and don’t change anything, you body will want to gain some weight. Therefore, it is important to make certain changes in terms of the amount as well as the kind of food that you consume. Not only is it importance to take appropriate amount of food but the quality of food is equally important. Quality of food means consumption of whole foods, vegetables, fruits, lean protein as well as whole grains.
3. Your ideal weight should not go up just because you have reached midlife. For men, body fat level between 17 and 23 percent is ideal whereas in women, it should range between 20 and 25 percent. To maintain this weight, it is important to build up a good muscle base along with strength training. Besides this, the circumference of one’s weight should not go above 35 inches in women and 40 inches in men.
4. Bring a change in your daily exercise regime. Often people continue with same exercise regime for many years which gives slower results as the body gets acclimate to the movement and intensity.
