How To Gain Muscle Over 60

Here in St. Petersburg Fl. life is very active especially for our 0ver 50 crowd. As an expert in over 50 and senior fitness I often get asked whether it’s possible to gain muscle over 60. 

As a St. Pete personal trainer and weight loss coach in St. Petersburg & Tierra Verde for almost 30 years years, I don’t think I’ve gone a day without someone asking me about weight loss workouts or  asking for the “secret” to losing weight over 50.

IF you’re like most men and women over 50, the words “I can’t lose weight because of my slow metabolism” or “I’ve done everything and I just can’t lose weight” have probably come out of your mouth at least once. 

Being a woman over 50  myself (I just turned 56),  I can promise you that fixing a slow metabolism is much easier than you might think and it doesn’t involve hours of tedious cardio, “eating eating clean”, sacrificing your social life or killing yourself with crazy workouts6 days a week.

If you’ve been around a while, you know our mantras are “Eat Smarter Not Less”, “Train Smarter Not More” and you might have even seen the seemingly impossible transformation results from our  Small Group Personal Training in St. Petersburg, Fl. and online.

How To Fix Your Slow Metabolism- The Basics: 

WHAT “METABOLISM” ACTUALLY IS: 

To put it as simply as possible, metabolism is the number of calories your body burns each day to function, move and live.

The technical definition of metabolism is:  the organic and chemical processes inside of organisms that are necessary to maintain life, or how quickly you burn calories or fat.

WHAT EFFECTS BASE METABOLISM : 

Three things effect your “basal metabolism” .

1. Body size: Metabolic rate increases as weight, height, and surface area increase.

2. Body composition: Fat tissue has a lower metabolic activity than muscle tissue.

3. Gender: Due to higher muscle and bone density, the basal metabolic rate(BMR) averages 5 to 10 percent lower in women than in men.

In the last 10 years, research has shown us three very important Things About Eating And Exercising For Fat Loss And Increasing Metabolism.

HOW TO FIX YOUR SLOW METABOLISM : 

Fix Your Slow Metabolism STEP 1: Stop obsessing  about how many calories the machine or ap says you’ve burned during your workout. 

If you want to speed up your over 50 metabolism, It’s all about MAXIMUM calorie burn and calories burned AFTER you are done working out (exercise post oxygen consumption).  Those electronics are often very inaccurate any way.

STEP 2:  Get off the Elliptical, treadmills and steppers for good and stop with the hour long walks and endless running and biking. 

If you want to get rid of that stubborn fat from your belly, thighs and arms, lose those last 10 -15 lbs. and speed up your over 50 metabolism, you MUST STOP with the steady state cardio immediately.

 Pick up some weights (or your body weight). This means no more long, boring walks, elipticals or steppers, period. Conventional aerobic exercises are not very effective ways to lose weight and will train your body to STORE fat on top of inhibiting your fat burning hormones.

STEP 3:  Switch out those long, boring hours of steady state cardio for fat blasting high intensity interval training.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) will  help you burn more fat by  burning more calories per session AND increasing your metabolic rate, even after your workout has finished. (EPOC).

check out our FREE library of go to metabolism boosting bodyweight workouts 

According to A study conducted by Wilson et al. From the University of Tampa, FL, “When you add in low intensity steady state cardio you get a temporary boost in weight loss. Subjects lost a couple of pounds the first week and after that they lost nothing. This happened because their metabolism completely adjusted to that and that became their new set point to what they had to do just to maintain. Steady state cardio with a low calorie diet is terrible for fat loss and could cause muscle loss. During a low calorie diet, steady state cardio is more catabolic (muscle wasting) towards muscle as opposed to High Intensity Interval training being much more muscle sparing.”

Wilson, et al. Concurrent Training: A Meta Analysis Examining Interference of Aerobic and Resistance Exercise. University of Tampa, FL. J Strength Conditioning.

Another great study from ncbi explains why we ONLY do interval type training with our clients here at Fitness St. Pete. In the case of our weight loss workouts, body weight and resistance exercises take the place of the slower paced cardio which gives us more bang for our time. 

Simply put, doing hours and hours of “cardio” each week is a great way to go nowhere in your fat loss program while wasting a lot of time and most likely incurring injury. ……Unless you have nothing better to do with yourself than spend 5 plus hours a week working out with minimal results, (which, long term lead to joint damage on top of fat storage) there are far more effective ways to reach your goals.

STEP  4:  Lift Heavy Things and Use More Muscles: 

Lifting your body weight or heavier weights using total body movements leads to burning more calories after the workout when compared to old school lifting programs or cranking out rep after rep with a light weight. (and you don’t need fancy equipment or a gym membership to do it) The more muscles you use during an exercise, the more calories you burn during your workout and after. A study of women showed that when they used heavier weights and lower reps for compound movements, they burned more calories in the hours after training. This is called EPOC. (Exercise post oxygen consumption).

Grab our most popular  Fitness St Pete Outdoor Park Group Training Workout   FREE

Kneeling Chest Presses Are One Of Our Favorite Anti Aging, fat burning, metabolism boosting exercises!

Step 5:  Eat To Burn More Fat  – 

The thermic effect of food tells us that all calories are NOT created equal. While it is important to have a basic idea what you are putting into your body, what’s MORE important are the TYPE of calories you are putting into your body. More Protein and whole foods, plenty of monounsaturated fats and limiting processed foods is a great place to start to turn your body into a fat burning machine !

More From Fat Loss U:  The Ultimate High Protein Snacks For Weight Loss

Other Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16002798 , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23176325 , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22710610 , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22720138 , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19623201

If You Found These Tips Helpful, Get More Like Them Plus Our Ultimate Fat Blasting Cook Book, 2 Weeks of Print & Go (dietician approved) food plans, 14 Day Educational Email, Series, 2 weeks of unlimited small group workouts and a whole lot more with our 14 Day Rapid Results Program ! Just CLICK HERE for all the details and fill out the ap if it sounds good to you.

I look forward to helping you be the best YOU can be!

Committed To Your Success & Awesomeness

Dianne Villano, THE Expert For YOUR Over 50 Body

P.S. Have you met our Member Of The Month and Total Body Transformation 2017 Winner, Leanne the almost 50 full time working mom who was ready to accept lack of energy, slowing run times and aches and pains as a “part of getting older”? Check out her inspiring transformation story