Wish to shed weight in your 40s?

Your 40s are a great time in your life. You are feeling more comfortable in your skin than ever before, and you are finally taking charge when it comes to your health—or at least you should be.

In midlife, you may notice a few changes in your body. You gain age-related weight, your hormones change thanks to perimenopause and menopausal changes, your metabolism rate reduces, and your muscles also get affected. While this is normal, these changes make weight loss for women over 40 much harder than before. With knowledge and a little commitment, you can melt those extra pounds off almost as quickly as they snuck on.

If your eating habits have not evolved, your body has no choice but to store the extra calories as fat. At this stage, while hormonal changes come into play, a healthy diet and regular exercise can help you drop those extra pounds in a fairly short time, irrespective of your age.

Four KEY POINTERS to shred excess fat over 40

1) Activity level

How much you move around and how often you do it will determine your current lifestyle and metabolism. While cardiovascular exercise is essential for women over 40, resistance training is equally beneficial to maximize your health and burn fat. That’s because muscle mass tends to decline with age. So to keep your metabolism high and the shape of your body defined, it is critical to include resistance training in your routine. Examples of resistance training workouts include using your body weight, lifting weights, or resistance bands.

2) Eating patterns

Even tiny changes in how and when you eat can add extra pounds or shut down the weight loss process. A good tip would be not to dismiss symptoms of changes in your body but to track them closely.

3) Find ‘real’ stress relief, even if it’s weird or goofy

Stress kills your health and is your biggest enemy when trying to lose weight. A proven stress reliever is an exercise and doing it every day, in some form. Meditation (start with five slow, steady breaths through your nose and repeat), journaling, and happy hobbies (gardening, making art) are some others. Anything that takes the stress away works. So, do not be shy to explore and find the right fit for yourself.

4) Focus on getting good sleep

Science has repeatedly shown us the links between lack of sleep and being overweight. Poor quality sleep spoils up levels of two different hormones — the one that rules your appetite (ghrelin) and the one that triggers the “I’m full” sensation (leptin). Insomnia may even influence you to make worse food choices. So, pay extra attention to your sleep patterns and requirements. Always remember that sleep is just as vital as exercise and diet.

Now that you have the basics down, all you have to do is put in the effort, and you are one step ahead in your fitness journey.