Fitness over 40 is a fleeting thought for many people these days. Our demanding careers, diets of processed foods and hectic lifestyles tend to create a gradual decline in our health. The good news is that there are ways to reclaim your youthful energy.
The first step to fitness over 40 is to keep a food journal. This serves a multitude of purposes. The first is to make you more aware of what you are eating on a daily basis. It is amazing the people who say they don’t eat very much because they don’t eat large meals, yet when they add up the calories of what they eat all day long, it is much more significant than they thought. Also, we don’t generally think of beverages as “eating”, yet with today’s calorie packed sodas, smoothies and even specialty coffees, beverages can have a significant impact on your daily caloric intake.
Another benefit to keeping a food journal is the ability to analyze where your calories are coming from so you can make substitutions, add certain nutrients or just “tweak” you current diet. Fitness over 40 is a lot easier when you make small, incremental changes rather than starting a new plan from scratch.
As a fringe benefit, sometimes just the habit of writing down everything you eat will prevent you from consuming unhealthy foods just because you don’t want to write it down! That’s a good thing!
Step two on the road to fitness over 40 is a total body cleanse and detoxification program. This is SO important. The environment we live in today exposes our bodies to a great deal of toxins. Toxins come so many places – from the food we eat in the form of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and food additives, from the products we use to clean our homes, to exhaust and chemical fumes, and more. More than 100,000 new chemicals have been introduced into our environment in the last 50 years. Did you know that there are even chemical fumes from the carpet in your home?
Now, it is true that our bodies are designed to naturally eliminate toxins. With the toxic overload that we ingest today, though, many people’s systems have such a toxic burden that it leads to illness and disease. Think about it. Degenerative diseases like diabetes, heart disease – they don’t happen over night. It’s not like you are healthy one day, and you wake up the next with diabetes or heart disease. These types of degenerative diseases develop gradually, over time, one unhealthy lifestyle choice after another, one more day of toxic exposure after another; until your body is so overburdened it breaks down.
One thing to remember about detoxifying is that fat is an organ. The fat in your body will store excess toxins in an effort to protect your more vital organs from damage. In this case, fat is your friend! It is protecting you. You will NEVER lose that fat, no matter how much you diet and exercise, until you lose the toxins that fat is storing. This is especially true of the fat around your midsection. If you have been overweight for a long period of time, chances are there are a lot of toxins stored in your fat tissues. The right total body cleanse and detoxification program can eliminate those toxins and enable you to lose that weight for good.
Step three is to eat organic food. This is vitally important. Get over the cost. Get past the mental barrier of thinking it’s a marketing ploy. The truth is if you are not eating organic food you are consuming a wide variety of toxins, as we just mentioned, not to mention the genetically modified foods you are eating. If you don’t eat organic, you are just compounding the toxins in your body. Compounding is great for interest on your CD – it’s NOT a good thing for weight loss.
Step three also includes balancing the nutrients in your diet. Fitness over 40 requires a healthy mix of protein, animal or non-animal sources, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates. Don’t be tempted by extreme diets that eliminate whole sources of nutrients like low carb or no fat diets. You may lose a few pounds, however when you revert to your normal eating habits you will gain that weight back, and more.
Your body requires fat to lubricate joints and cushion organs. Carbohydrates are essential for energy, and sugar helps your brain to function properly. The key to health and weight loss is the RIGHT kinds of fats, carbs and protein, in the RIGHT quantity, at the RIGHT time.
It’s much more effective to develop long term, sustainable healthy eating plans that provide your body with the nutrients it needs to function properly. This will not only promote weight loss, you will have fewer cravings and improve your health.
Step four is to drink more water. How much water do you need for fitness over 40? Take your weight and divide it by 2. That is how many ounces of water to drink every day.
Keep track in your food journal of how much water you drink every day, in ounces. Now, look at your food journal and see how many other beverages you drank besides water. Next time you reach for a beverage other than water, have an 8 oz glass of water FIRST. Then, if you still want to drink the other beverage, go ahead. As your body becomes better hydrated your cravings for other beverages will decrease. Many times we are thirsty, yet reach for sugar instead. You will also learn to distinguish between hunger and thirst. Make it a goal every day to drink your total ounces of water. Put all your water for the day in a container so you can see at a glance how much you have drank. Drink 8 ounces as soon as you get up. Have a glass or two 30 minutes before each meal. Some people have more success sipping on their water throughout the day, rather than drinking 12 – 16 ounces at a time. What ever works for you, as long as you get it all in every day.
Step five is to increase your level of physical activity. If you have been sedentary for a while, working at a desk, watching TV or sitting in front of a computer at night, then start out slowly. You might want to start out by just taking a walk. Get yourself a pedometer. Wear it for a few days or a week to determine your current level of physical activity. Let’s say you currently walk about 2,000 steps a day. Now, every day, make it a goal to add 1,000 steps. You can do 1,000 steps in about 10 minutes. And you don’t have to do it all at one time. This fitness over 40 plan is flexible! Park farther away from the door. Take a flight of stairs or two instead of the elevator. Use the rest room at the other end of the building. Spend more time walking around the mall or store. There are hundreds of ways to get more steps. Over the course of a week or two, increase your steps until you are at 10,000 steps a day. This is the level of physical activity required for keeping your metabolism at a rate to promote weight loss. For 10,000 steps a day you will more than likely have to go for a walk every day. That is a good thing – be sure to schedule it into your daily calendar.
Follow these tips every day for fitness over 40 and beyond.