As you age, your basal metabolic rate slows down, and those large amounts of food you easily could put away while staying trim when you were twenty seem to go to the hips and abdomen now that you are approaching thirty something. The basal metabolic rate is the body’s engine, explains Kathleen Zelman, Dietetic Internship Director, Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation, New Orleans. “The rate gradually slows down with time and the engine becomes less efficient as part of the natural aging process. During this time, portions of muscle tissue turn to fat, which is less metabolically active than muscle, No one is immune from those metabolic changes that come with aging.”
Don’t despair. Though you can’t halt time, you can stop the bulge around the belly and elsewhere while maintaining your musculature by altering your lifestyle. “As you get older you have to do more,” stresses Zelman. “You’ve got to control your caloric intake more carefully and be absolutely committed to regular exercise. You don’t have to run races, but you must do some form of exercise at least three times a week for a minimum of 20 minutes duration. Once you are emotionally committed to exercise, you like it and it no longer becomes just a weight management tool, but a way to feel good and relieve stress. It’s better than having a cocktail after work.”