I received a few emails asking where me I get my materials on health and fitness. Yes, the worldwide web is a wealth of information, be it real, imagined or fake. Because I have medical issues, which thankfully are controlled, I am subscribed to WebMD and am happy to share with you their articles (which had helped me) written by doctors and fitness experts.
No matter how old we get, it is important to stay healthy. What matters the most is how active we are and our ability to do our day-to-day chores. Thin is not normal for older adults. We want to be healthy, not frail and sickly.
Although it could be harder to maintain our weight as we age, we, the older guys can keep them steady. However, we can’t just have cheat days anymore, like having large portions when we go out with our family, do happy hours with our friends and let exercise take a backseat. It is a fact that as our years increase, metabolism decrease. We now have to work extra hard to keep our muscle mass.
We could be taking the same amount of food like we used to when we were younger, but because there are age-related changes to our bodies, we tend to increase the numbers on the scale. It is not exactly the food that we had taken that made us gain weight. But yes, as per nutrition experts, food still matters, especially the fatty and sugary ones.
The biggest reason why older people gain weight, especially the 50-up as the target age group, is due to slower metabolism and loss of muscle mass. It also holds true for women. Many ladies blame menopause as the reason for weight gain. It’s not.
Health professionals say that for us in the age bracket, women should get about 1,800 calories per day and 2,000 to 2,500 for men if moderately active. ‘Moderately active’ means is walking three to five kilometers a day at a pace of four to six kilometers per hour. Very active, on the other hand, would be more than five kilometers a day at the same pace.
A calorie is a measure of how much energy we get from a food. Calories are used by bodily functions like the beating of our hearts, breathing, walking and talking. Leftover calories are stored as fat, but the others are stored in our livers and muscles that can quickly be released into our bloodstreams for a burst of energy.
Hormonal changes, lesser activity and an unhealthy diet lead to muscle loss, and the medical term for it is sarcopenia. What’s the doctor’s prescription? It is proper nutrition and exercise. In some ways, we could have lost some of our muscle mass, but it’s not too late. Strength training can help us regain them. Let’s just always check with our doctors first before we do any fitness activity since we could be having some medical issues. It always pays to be safe./PN
