Beating Midlife Weight Gain

It’s a question I am asked time and time again - Why can’t I lose weight?

In clinic clients say things like: ‘I don’t understand how I could have put on weight, I’m not eating any more’ or ‘I can’t seem to shift weight as easily as I used too, my old diet tricks don’t work now!’ or ‘The numbers on my scales aren’t going down, maybe they are broken, can I stand on yours?’

These comments come almost exclusively from clients in their 40s. 50s and 60s. Put a 20 or 30 year old on any diet and the weight melts off in most cases. Why is this different once you hit midlife? What has changed? The answer could be YOUR METABOLISM:

As you get older your metabolism can slow down 🐌.

The main reasons this happens are:

• Your insulin levels change as your get older. This is especially true for women as they go through the menopause. It makes it harder for you to handle blood sugar

• You lose muscle mass. This results in slowing down your basal metabolic rate (BMR). This means you burn calories slower

• You move less than you did when you were younger but you’re still eating in the same way. This gives your body a surplus of energy that it stores as fat

Can you do anything about it? Can you speed up your metabolism once it slows down?

Yip, the good news is you can. And at any age. How do you do this? You do it by giving your metabolism a RESET.

I love helping clients reset their metabolisms. This is because metabolism is one of the main drivers of health. It affects how you feed each cell in your body and helps new cells grown. That’s why boosting your metabolism not only helps you lose weight, it also gives you energy, makes your mind more alert, helps you sleep better and boosts your whole body. I  see clients who have been stuck in a yo-yo diet cycle for years suddenly losing weight and keeping it off.

How do you RESET your METABOLISM?

The way to reset your metabolism is to rebalance your blood sugar levels. This is harder as you get older so you need to concentrate on a few key things to make this happen. My top tips for managing midlife glucose - a newer word for being used for blood sugar – are:

1.     Eat good amounts of protein at every meal – this will keep you fuller, longer and help stop you getting food cravings  

2.     Eat less of the carby foods than you used to  – like potatoes and grains. Half a handful a on your plate should be enough at dinner, not half the plate! Or avoid carby foods for a while if you want to lose weight

3.     Leave a 5-hour gap between meals – to let your stomach empty and rest. It takes 2-3 hours for your gut to break down food then it gives itself a good clean to get rid of debris for the next couple of hours

4.     Drink 2+ litres of water a day with more than half of this by lunchtime – this can help wade off hunger pangs and let you detox efficiently

If you would like to give your metabolism a proper reset, look out in my EVENTS PAGE for my 4 week MIDLIFE METABOLIC RESET programmes that I run throughout the year:

Nourish and namaste

Audrey 🌱🧘‍♀️

PS: I love working with clients on their metabolism. I believe in it so much that I trained as a Metabolic Health Coach after studying nutrition. I’ve had clients come with conditions like high cholesterol, psoriasis, high blood pressure as well as many wanting to lose weight.

Metabolism is one of the TOP SECRETS of good health.

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