In this video, I'll uncover the best strategies for weight loss over 50.
Make sure that you're not only thinking about the different activities that you do when
you go to the gym, but also the activities that you can just do recreationally. The risk
of heart disease, the risk of diabetes, the risk of cancer - this drastically increases
after you hit 50 years old. Sleep starts to get bad in your 30s, then it gets worse in
your 40s, and then 50s things really hit the fan and so we want to make sure that we're
constantly working to improve our sleep.
Weight loss is one of the many things that people struggle with as they start to age.
It's estimated between 70 and 80% of people who are 50 years and older are struggling
to lose weight or wish they could cut some of the fat off their body. How do I know this?
Because this is the main age group and demographic that I work with clinically every single day.
And so, what I want to do in this video is I want to share the same tips that I give
to them with you and that's why in this video we're going to discuss tips for weight loss
over 50. We'll talk about, first of all, why does weight loss slow down as we age? Then
we'll talk about the main strategies that you must implement in order to get great results
with weight loss as you age. And if you're not 50 yet, let me tell you, time flies. So,
make sure you stick around for this video so you have these strategies in your back
pocket and you know what to do when it comes to weight loss as you age.
But before we get started, I'm Dr. Zyrowski and welcome to the channel. If you're new
to the channel, it's a pleasure to have you here. Be sure to subscribe, hit that bell
notification, and join our notification community. That way I can help you excel your health
and your life.
What I want to do first is talk about why. Why is it harder to lose weight as we age?
There's a lot of changes that are occurring in the body. So, let's go ahead and talk about
these changes. First of all, our metabolism just isn't nearly as efficient. When we're
in our twenties and our thirties you know, our metabolism is still more efficient. Even
as a teenager, remember how efficient your metabolism was then? You could eat anything.
And then, like I said, it's slowed down a little bit in your 20s, slowed down a little
bit in your 30s, and then of course once you hit your 50s it seems like it comes to a screeching
halt for many people. So, one of the things that we want to do is we want to work on making
our metabolism more efficient and I'm going to give you strategies to do that just a moment.
There's a lot of hormonal changes that starts to occur. If you're a female, you're going
to have decrease in estrogen. If you're a male, you're going to have a decrease in testosterone,
and either gender is going to have a decrease in growth hormone, which is a major issue
when it comes to weight loss. So, we'll of course talk about how to boost those hormones
up as well. Now the other thing that happens is you're going to start losing muscle mass.
When you start losing muscle mass, you are burning less calories on a daily basis. And
this is just a struggle. So, of course we'll talk about how to improve muscle mass.
And then next thing here is more stress. There's a lot more mental stress associated with hitting,
you know, these particular age groups in. The reason for it is because there's a lot
of changes going on. Maybe you're thinking about retirement, you're thinking about finances,
you're thinking about just that midlife stuff. And so, a lot of stress going on.
For many people, less sleep is another major issue. It's estimated that you know, people
start having sleep problems in their 30s and every 10 years it gets worse, especially when
you're hitting about 50 years old. This is when people really start realizing that they're
struggling with their sleep and they need to make changes because they're desperate
at this point. And let me tell you, this really affects how you're going to be able to lose
weight, which we'll talk about shortly.
And then, of course, less activity as well. A lot of people, you know at this point in
their life are just getting way less activity than they used to. And so, it's important
to make sure that we're getting proper movement daily and I'll teach you how to do that as
well.
So, let's go ahead and first talk about the little things that you can do. I'm a big fan
of adding in the little things that add up. Now there's all these different strategies
out there and let me tell you there's not one single one of them that's going to move
the needle 100%, but when you start stacking up all of these different strategies in your
favor for weight loss, you start to get some really good results.
Let's go ahead and talk about apple cider vinegar and these are just the little things.
Most people have apple cider vinegar in their home. It's something that you can use in order
to help keep your blood sugar balanced, to help keep your blood sugar low. It's something
that you can utilize before meals and there's tons of different science out there that is
going to really prove to us that you know this is going to help with weight loss. So
what you can do is you can make a mix up an apple cider vinegar drink. You can go in and
do a shot of Apple cider vinegar in the morning, however you like to use Apple cider vinegar.
But the fact is, is that it helps with the weight loss. It helps with balancing our pH,
it has the acetic acid and it's good for our gut health and it supports weight loss as
I mentioned. So adding in some apple cider vinegar before a meal or when you're like
waking up first thing in the morning, it's a really good thing for your overall health
and supports weight loss.
MCTs is another thing. This is a little thing. This is a little thing, but hey, they add
up and so one of the things I always like to do is I add MCTs to my coffee every single
day. You add these MCTs in, they're good for your brain health, but they also are research
proven to support burning more fat and weight loss. And so, one of the things you can do
is put these MCTs in your tea or coffee, whatever it is you're having in the morning, your smoothie,
and it's going to help burn fat. And of course, give your brain some good energy. I'll put
a link in the description below to the MCTs that I use. I like using a powder that is
actually patented and research proven to help you burn some fat off.
Intermittent fasting is another strategy that you can use. Very simple. I have people utilize
this in my clinic all the time. I have a patient who recently came in and was just really struggling
to lose weight and one of the things that I did is I started pushing him to utilize
intermittent fasting. And let me tell you, when you're 50 years old, these habits are
really hard to implement - these new habits - and breaking the old habits are pretty hard
to break. So, one of the things that I found that this particular individual was struggling
with is actually skipping his morning breakfast. He's had some sort of bagel or pastry for
breakfast every morning for the past 50 years. And so, breaking that habit was very difficult,
but intermittent fasting is a very simple strategy. Basically skip breakfast and then
start your first meal at lunchtime. It's a very simple strategy to implement in order
to start burning more fat. And let me tell you, when you implement intermittent fasting,
it's going to help boost up your growth hormone, boost up your testosterone, boost up your
estrogen levels, and really help you get better hormones that are going to help you burn fat.
And then of course, when you're intermittent fasting, you start burning fat for energy
if you're getting into the state of ketosis during, during this time as well. So, it's
so powerful for weight loss and it's just such a simple strategy. I personally use this
every day in my life and to be honest, if I was 15 years old, I couldn't imagine not
utilizing this because it's just too easy to use to put off to the side and avoid and
avoid implementing. So, add some intermittent fasting in. And by the way, I'm going to talk
about a lot of different things here in this video. I will put links in the description
below. So, if you see this intermittent fasting, you're not real familiar with it, there'll
be a link to a video below.
Fasted exercise is another thing that you can utilize in order to help boost up a lot
of these good hormones. So not only do you intermittent fast, so you skip breakfast,
but then while you're in that fasted state you exercise and essentially what that's going
to help do is just skyrocket your growth hormone, it’s going to skyrocket your testosterone.
It's going to really help get those hormones boosted up. I mean there's some estimates
of boosting growth hormone upwards of 2000% in males and 1500% in females when they're
doing fasted exercise. So anyway, fasted exercise is really powerful for, growth, recovery,
repair, and also going and getting a lot of great benefit of weight loss as well.
Now let's talk about exercise over 50 because this is something that like a lot of people
start to get a little bit confused on and they're thinking, I'm 50 years old. And depending
on what kind of 50-year-old you are, it really depends on how you approach exercise. If you’ve
exercised your whole life, you approach it a little bit differently than somebody who
maybe has never exercised their whole life but is understanding at this point the average
age that people get, it's things like Type II diabetes is 45 years old and you better
start doing something. Otherwise there's going to be some big consequences. And so, one of
the things that you need to do first of all is you need to do some weight lifting. I'm
not talking about going to the gym, becoming a bodybuilder. If that's something you want
to do, maybe that's a great thing for you at this point, but go and do some weightlifting.
Make sure that you're lifting weights. It's important for not only building muscle, which
is going to help you burn more calories throughout the day, but it also is very important to
protect your bones so that you can protect your bones from osteoporosis. Basically, when
you start lifting weights, it's going to help increase bone density, but it also is going
to help increase muscle mass, which is very important as you age because remember, you
start losing muscle mass as you age, so you want to actually work on increasing it. So
very important there. So do some weight lifting.
Now, high intensity interval training is also really good. Now if you're not familiar with
this, like I said, link below. High intensity interval training is basically where you're
going to go and just do a form of exercise for a short duration at a high intensity.
A simple example of this might be doing sprints for 20 minutes, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds
off. Now of course the intensity is based on you. A well-trained athlete is going to
be doing a much higher intensity than somebody who has never worked out a day in their life.
And so, for a well-trained athlete, it may be spreads for 30 seconds on 30 seconds off.
But for someone who has never worked out a day in their life, it may be just a fast paced,
brisk walk. So, make sure that you're doing some high intensity interval training is - specifically
this because it really helps with weight loss, but it also is really good for people who
have insulin resistance. Like I said, average age that people are getting this, 45-year-old
and it's a huge epidemic today. There's people even in their twenties and thirties who are
getting this issue. So, I want to make sure that if you're 50, you are really fighting
to reverse this issue if you have it. But of course, avoid it and prevent it as well.
High intensity interval training is really great.
Now here's the other thing that you can do because a lot of people think that the only
form of exercise is going to come and going to the gym and grinding it out. However, exercise
comes in the form of recreation as well. So, going for walks with your family, yoga is
a really great form of exercise too. Many people become very rigid and tight and stiff,
uncomfortable pain all the time from a musculoskeletal perspective when they start to hit their fifties
and sixties so we want to make sure that you're doing things like yoga to help keep your muscles
stretched out, keep your joints limber. Very, very, very beneficial at this point. Biking,
also, swimming is a really great activity as well. So, make sure that you're not only
thinking about the different activities that you do when you go to the gym, but also the
activities that you can just do recreationally. I have so many people I take care of who are
in their fifties or older and they go on a regular basis biking on trails and they really
enjoy it.
Next thing is that dietary changes that you need to make over 50. This is when things
become very sensitive. This is eating junk food doesn't just throw you off a little bit.
It throws you off a lot. So, we have to really get a little bit refined here, fine tune our
diet. First of all, low carb eating is going to be very important. I recommend a hundred
grams of carbohydrates or less per day. Start measuring those carbs. And these carbs that
you are eating, I want you to make sure that you're focusing on good, healthy carbs. Not
eating things like pasta and white bread and all these really low-quality carbohydrates.
I want you to focus on eating high quality, real food-based carbohydrates - sweet potato
beans, those kinds of things.
Now, we want to make sure that we're first of all doing the low carb. Like I said, we
want to also focus on whole foods. Get rid of the processed foods, the packaged foods,
all this stuff. I mean, let me tell you the risk of heart disease, the risk of diabetes,
the risk of cancer - this drastically increases after you hit 50 years old. You want to make
sure that you're doing the right things to avoid these issues. Many people are just ridden
with inflammation at 50 years old. We want to make sure that we're doing these to reduce
inflammation. Eating a healthy diet is critical for that. And then of course making sure that
we're eating high fat. All these different high fat foods. Eggs is an example of a high
fat. Avocados are an example of a high fat food. Olive oil. I want to make sure that
we're including lots of good fats in because research has proven time and time again that
people who eat more good quality high fats, they feel more satiated, they eat fewer calories
throughout the day. Therefore, as a result it helps them lose weight. And then of course,
moderate protein is very important to get our protein, but we don't want to have an
overabundance of protein. So just a good moderate protein in your diet.
Let's go ahead and talk about sleep over 50. This is a major issue as well. It's estimated
as many of these things are that sleep starts to get bad and your thirties and then it gets
worse in your forties and then fifties things really hit the fan. And so, we want to make
sure that we're constantly working to improve our sleep and there's good reasoning for it.
First of all, what happens if you get a lack of sleep on a daily basis, you start to have
a decrease in leptin. Leptin is this hormone basically that tells your body you're full.
So, if you're having a decrease in this hormone, leptin, as a result, you start to want to
eat more and it causes a lot more cravings. Then, you have an increase in ghrelin. Ghrelin
is the hormone that actually tells your body that you're hungry. So, imagine you're getting
not getting enough sleep, you're trying to lose weight, and then of course you can't
tell when you're full, but yet you're hungry all the time and it's all a result of just
not getting enough sleep. Unbelievable. So, this is why it's so important and also when
you get a lack of sleep is linked to impulsive eating. So, we have to make sure that we're
constantly working to get better quality sleep. So, what I recommend is that you track your
sleep. It's very important. I've been tracking my sleep for almost five to 10 years now,
and it's something that is really interesting to do because you can basically set up your
own little sleep lab. Do I get better quality sleep if I go to bed earlier? Do I get better
quality sleep of the rooms colder? Do I get better quality of sleep if I have white noise
on? Do I get better quality sleep if I don't watch TV at night? If you're able to actually
track your sleep, you can create your own little sleep protocols and really focus on
improving not only your quality of sleep, but also the number of hours that you're sleeping
at night as well.
So, put in the comment section below and give this video a thumbs up. And here's the next
thing that I want you to do. I want you to watch this video over here that's going to
help you choose proper breakfast. Most people are eating breakfast foods. Make sure that
you're eating the right ones. This video teaches you how. Watch this.
If you high carb breakfast, high sugar breakfast, you basically consumed way more calories throughout
the entire day…