Women over 40 – How to Boost Your Metabolism

It’s true…women’s bodies change.

 

They change throughout the month, the year and the years and our bodies don’t respond exactly as we sometimes wish.

 

It does seem that once a woman hits 40 years…it really doesn’t respond as we think it should, as we wish it would or how it used to!

 

We can’t just skip a few meals or come back from vacation and eat normal and expect the weight to come off.

Now, it takes effort! 

 

 

But…that’s okay, because we know what you can do to help boost your metabolism, help you feel better and fit back into your clothes.

 

1. Lift weights. Not baby weights. Weights that challenge you, weights (even body weight exercises) that make you think “In the moment”. In other words, if you are doing an exercise and you are thinking about all the things you have to do when you are done…they aren’t heavy enough.

If you are using the same weight you were using last year and doing the exact same exercise, you’re probably going too light to illicit change.

 

You need to challenge yourself to build muscle. Muscle uses more calories for energy than fat and it takes up less space/is more dense than fat, so when people say “lean muscle” …that’s what they mean.

 

2. Don’t skip meals. Skipping meals can be stressful. You’re body might not realize that food will be coming later and it’s primed itself to store fat in case of emergency shortages of food.

There are a few reasons you might not be hungry in the morning.

Drinking coffee or caffeinated beverages can act as a hunger suppressant..so you just keep going, but there is no real fuel in your body (you are running on adrenaline and that’s damaging your body).

Maybe you are eating too many calories the night before. You are simply over-eating.

You might not feel hungry because from the moment you wake up, you are involved, moving and hustling and you haven’t even had time to think about food until just before dinner when it hits you at once…you are either starving so you eat everything in sight or you start picking and noshing and also eat everything in sight.

So, don’t skip meals.

 

3. Get your gut healthy. This is a pretty big topic so I’m going to give you the basics.

Don’t eat foods that bloat you, give you gas, make you run to the bathroom or the exact opposite, make you feel extremely tired, anxious, make your skin do weird things, gives you foggy brain…I could go on.

If you do have any of these symptoms or others, stop eating those foods!

See a specialist to help you get your gut biome back in order.

 

4. Drink water.

You need to be fully hydrated to burn fat appropriately.

 

5. Eat protein.

At every meal…I am a huge believer in eating protein at every meal.

We need it to recover from workouts, build muscle, help feel full. Having more muscle boosts your metabolism, increases insulin sensitivity and keeps testosterone production higher…and you need to eat protein to build that muscle.

 

6.. Stop eating junk and watch your portion size.

It might seem too simple because it’s easy to blame our shifting hormones for increasing waist size, but if you are eating too much junk, too much processed foods or too many calories throughout the day (even if they are healthy calories)…you’re going to have a hard time losing excess body fat.

 

7. SLEEP – yes, in all CAPS.

Sleep is when our bodies and brain recover and REPAIR.

Sleep repairs damage from stress, poor eating, the environment and exercise.

99% of all your problems will be solved by getting enough sleep, so please respect your bodies need for it and prioritize it.

 

 

All is not lost after 40!

Our hormones do change, our lives are busier and we have more responsibilities than when we were 20, but these are not excuses.

It just means we need to be more mindful of our choices and we can’t wing it when it comes to food, exercise and lifestyle choices.