What happens when you reach your 40s? Unfortunately, your metabolism starts to slow down as early as mid to late thirties. By the time when you reach forty years old, don’t be surprised when it becomes harder to lose fats. This explains individuals in their forties who suddenly became overweight. Don’t be surprised if it becomes harder to burn calories naturally. In fact, if you don’t use a smart approach in weight and fat loss, you may end up becoming unhealthy.
So how exactly are you supposed to lose fats safely at this point? Here are five strategies that you can use to lose fats when you reach your 40s.
1. Sleep at least 8 hours daily
One of the most common mistakes of people trying to lose weight is to skip sleep. From working late to waking up early to prepare meals for the work ahead, a lot of people in their 40s lack quality sleep.
What they don’t know is that you lose a lot of calories when you sleep. For a 160 pound individual, you will lose approximately 69 calories per hour when you are sleeping. Aside from burning calories at night, sleep also helps repair the body. Consequently, this could enable the body to burn more calories during daytime.
Keep in mind though that not all night time and day time snooze are created equal. If you feel stressed going to sleep, expect cortisol to shoot up making your metabolism to slow down.
2. Prepare your meals days ahead
It is important that you prepare your meals days ahead of time. One of the most common problems encountered by people living fast paced lives is to simply eat anywhere. This can be a problem especially when you want to watch your diet.
What you can do is to prepare the meals ahead of time. This way, you can easily count the calories and be sure that what you eat is actually healthy. You can prepare your meals every three days. Make sure that it has the proper balance of carbohydrates, protein and fats to give your body the nutrition it needs.
3. Have a food diary
For someone in their forties, it is important to always monitor what you eat. From the soda that you drank to that chocolate that you decided to eat, these are things that accumulate. Also, aside from additional calories, these are also habits that you make. With a food diary, you will be able to determine the situations that make you eat unhealthy foods. What you can do is to determine ways on how to avoid these situations and even find healthier alternatives.
4. Use the right supplements at the right time
Another effective means to lose fats safely is to use the right type of supplement at the right time. Eating clean is a good way to lose fats, but when you are already in your forties, you want to maximize every opportunity that you have. One of which is having the right kind of supplement that can give you that edge.
For instance, you could invest on whey powders, creatine and even branched chain amino acids to build muscle mass and to spike your metabolic rate. You can also try other health supplements such as conjugated linoleic acid which can significantly boost weight loss. However, before you even attempt to invest on any supplements, make sure that it is FDA recommended.
5. Mix your workouts
There are instances when it is not only how hard you work, but how smart you do your workouts. One common mistake of people in their 40s is to keep on repeating the same workouts over and over again. Not only does it become boring, it can also decrease the amount of calories you burn.
To maximize your time at the gym, you want to mix your workouts every three weeks. This way, you lose fats more efficiently. It is also important to stick to large muscle groups to burn more calories in the process.
Conclusion
If you ever wondered how to lose fats safely when you are in your 40s, keep in mind that your metabolism isn’t that fast anymore. It is important to take calculated steps on what you eat and even how you rest. If you just want to optimize results, follow these simple steps, and you will see massive difference.
