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Outsmarting Age Related Weight gain
Secrets to staying slim into middle age and beyond
WebMD Feature from
"Eating Well"
By Brierley Wright
If
you’ve celebrated your fortieth birthday, you
probably suspect that your metabolism isn’t quite
what it used to be. The bad news is you’re right:
calorie burn does decrease with age. But there’s
also good news: you’re probably burning more than
you think.
New research in the American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition reveals just how many calories,
on average, men and women in their forties, fifties
and sixties burn each day. Drum roll… please!
According to the study, men aged 40 to 69 expend
about 2,900 calories. Women of the same age burn
2,300 calories daily. (These averages vary based on
a person’s height, weight and activity.)
These numbers may sound surprisingly high if you
compare them to a Nutrition Facts label, which
implies the average person needs about 2,000
calories daily. They may seem downright decadent to
one who has followed dieting plans where daily
calorie caps are set at 1,200 or 1,500 calories. But
they’re good approximations for how much energy
people of this age group are expending.
Janet Tooze,
Ph.D., lead researcher and assistant professor at
Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and her
colleagues used doubly labeled water, a tool that
measures carbon dioxide production (an actual marker
of calories burned), to determine the energy
expenditure of the 450 middle-age men and women in
the study.
The
reason people of all ages may assume they’re burning
less than they really are may be that they think
they’re eating fewer calories than they are actually
consuming. When it comes to estimating calories,
says Tooze, “generally people underreport (their
calorie intake) by about one-third.”
As
for that age-related decrease in metabolism, it’s
probably most marked in one’s sixties and beyond.
“We found—and so have other studies—that there is a
decrease in muscle in your sixties, particularly in
women,” says Tooze. Since muscle is a
calorie-burning powerhouse, muscle loss equals fewer
calories burned. In this study, daily caloric burn
of women and men in their early fifties was 4 and 8
percent higher, respectively, than that of people in
their late sixties. (Men in their sixties still
burned about 2,700 calories; women, 2,200.)
Bottom line: While the aging metabolism situation
isn’t as bleak as you might assume, you do need to
be more vigilant to maintain your weight as you age.
“You will lose muscle as you grow older, but with
strengthening exercises you can preserve a lot of
it,” says EatingWell advisor Miriam Nelson, Ph.D.,
director of Tufts University’s John Hancock Center
for Physical Activity and Nutrition. Assess how
accurate you are in estimating the calories you
consume by gauging changes in your weight. “If
you’re weight-stable, go with what you’re doing,”
says Nelson.
If
you’re gaining, start making changes. The EatingWell
Diet, a 28-day menu plan and self-tracking program,
helps you lose weight by balancing calories in with
calories out. For tips from the book and worksheets
to track your eating and activity, go to
eatingwell.com/diet.
Note: Keeping track of calories is key to managing
your weight. Even healthy foods can add up quickly.
A modest-looking lunch might contain 900 calories.
Cranberry juice: 230 calories
Banana: 120 calories
Tuna sandwich: 550 calories
©
WebMD. All rights reserved.
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“You will lose muscle as you grow older, but
with strengthening exercises you can preserve a
lot of it” |
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