Fit After Forty: How To Get In Shape After Forty

FIT AFTER FORTY: HOW TO GET IN SHAPE AFTER FORTY

Fit After Forty

Were you once in great shape but now find yourself out of shape? If so, you’re not alone.

As we age our metabolism slows down and our lives speed up. Working a job, taking care of kids, cooking, cleaning, the list goes on. These are all valid reasons for the current state you are in.

However, just because your life is busy, does not mean you should sit idly by. If you are out of shape and over forty, getting fit after forty should be a real priority.

Why is it important?

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the key to longevity. Not only living a longer life but also enjoying a higher quality of life.

Imagine for a moment: You can’t wait to retire from your career. You have a long list of things you want to see and do. You want to hike a volcano in Hawaii, surf in Costa Rica, ride bikes through the English countryside, or even just walk the streets of Paris.

But now you’re old, out of shape, need a knee replacement from years of being overweight and things are more difficult than when you were young. When you’re young and healthy all of those things are very possible. But, as you age and your health begins to decline, now they may not be.

So instead, you wake up, sit in your recliner and watch tv all day because you don’t have the energy or health to do anything else.

Does that sounds like a way to live out the rest of your life when you spent your young and healthy years working towards it?

It's not too late

Year after year, you may only gain a few pounds. In a short time frame it’s not the end of the world. But after a decade or more you are now 50 lb overweight.

You have the choice, continue down the path of living an unhealthy lifestyle or make a change.

Getting fit after forty may seem very hard or even impossible. Like we said, life gets busier the older you get, how are you supposed to find time?

It’s simple, you don’t find time, you make it.

Your health should be one of the highest priorities in your life. Much like being on an airplane and putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others, you must do the same with your health.

What you need to do

The great thing about getting fit after forty is that it’s no different than getting fit in your twenties. Sure, it may be a little more difficult but the strategy works the same.

In it’s simplest form it can be reduced down to the formula below:

Burn calories > Calories you consume

While the process of doing so will require some effort and challenge you mentally and physically, it will get easier. After you reach your desired weight, you no longer need to be in a caloric deficit.

Compared to the span of your life, a relatively short period of struggle will make the rest of your life much easier. Think about how easy it is to maintain your weight, it doesn’t take much effort right?

Once you get to your goal weight you can end your diet and just maintain forever!

How to do it

As we said, you need to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. You can either do so from exercise, dieting, or a combination of both.

We recommend doing a combination of both. Strictly dieting alone without exercise is not only more difficult mentally but also not as healthy physically.

By offsetting some of your caloric intake deficit with exercise will allow you to eat more overall food than simply dieting alone. This is a win-win for you because you can eat more and build muscle in the process.

With the bucket list of activities listed above, you are going to need some strength to achieve them. By sticking to an exercise program you will be able to maintain muscle and increase your overall metabolism.

Having a higher amount of muscle requires more energy to maintain than one of high fat. This means you will be able to continue to eat more and feel more full making it easier to sustain in the long term.

3 days strength, 5 days cardio

Contrary to what you may think, it doesn’t take much exercise to maintain muscle and overall health. With a program of 3 days/week resistance training and 5 days/week doing some form of cardio you will easily be able to do so.

Again, with a busy lifestyle this can seem hard to achieve but life isn’t going to give you time you have to make it.

For cardio, to get the 5 days a week, include the family. This is a great way to teach your children about the importance of prioritizing health and a great way to spend time bonding together. Instead of going straight to Netflix after dinner, gather the family and go on a 30 minute walk

30 minutes a day 5 days/week will drastically improve cardiovascular health and doing so can easily be achieved. While this is the minimum recommended amount, the more you do it the more you may grow to like that family time. It may then become a daily habit after dinner to go for a family walk and now you are burning even more calories.

Now, you may be thinking, that seems doable but how am I supposed to add 3 resistance training days on top of that?

Weekend warrior

Weekends.

While it may not be easy, it is the better of the two options. Whether you wake up a little earlier than the family and go to the gym or workout at home or do so later in the day, you should be able to find 45 minutes to an hour on the weekends to do so.

This means that only one day of the week now you have to sacrifice to achieve your goals. Pick one day of the week and wake up an hour earlier and workout before work. Ideally you can go to bed one hour earlier the night before to offset the earlier wake time but even so, worst case you lose one hour of sleep.

One hour of lost sleep/week is not the end of the world. The upside: you have now set yourself on a trajectory to lead a healthier and happier lifestyle only sacrificing one hour per week.

Need Help?

Developing a workout program can be difficult. There is so much information out there it is hard to know where to even begin.

If you need help creating a workout program or how to properly perform workouts, we would love to help! Check out the information below to schedule a consult to help you get started.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article!

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