Baby boomer weight loss

Melinda Bonk states in an article for Baby BoomersThe Baby Boomers consist of 76 million consumers approaching the aging years. Ask any person if they are happy with their weight. Everyone wants to lose weight. Weight loss is the baby boomers biggest concern. In a recent study, the top three concerns for baby boomers are weight loss, cardiovascular health and digestive health." Melinda goes on to state in her article,

"There is no real secret to lose weight. . The first goal is to set a realistic weight loss goal. Then eat 4-5 small balanced meals, no sugar and limit the high food carbohydrates like bread to only in the morning. Most people see a real difference when they exercise each day. Exercise each day at least one half hour to one hour of walking, dancing, running or jogging will have quick results.

Today, Baby Boomers are searching for interesting new ways to prolong their health and vitality. Staying fit and healthy keeps boomers young and youthful. "

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Melinda_P_Bonk

Whatever reasons Baby Boomers find for losing weight, it is imperative they do so before any real health issues arise.

It seems that the weight loss problem is a universal problem and not just with teen agers, and 20 year olds that are trying to get ready for the big event. No, baby boomers seem to care about weight loss just as much as other generations, in fact, not only women but men as well.

Women want to stay healthy and stay or be slim. Females, unlike males have to deal with slower metabolic rates. They have to deal with maternal issues, like weight gain after the baby or menopausal weight gain. They are more conscientious of how they look, or if they can fit into last year's bathing suit. They are also more concerned about having a flat stomach or how their thighs look in jeans.


Men are primarily concerned more with strength. Obese men are wanting actual fat loss, while males of mid size are looking to gain lean muscle. Working towards a sculpted body is important and working out and going to the gym is not as much of a struggle as it would be for most women.

Children on the most part do not care about losing weight, but they are more aware of being "fat" or "the fat kid". Many parents are concerned with their children's weight gain especially if it is to an unhealthy degree. Kids are much less active than they were 10-30 years ago, with all of the gaming systems and increase in computer work. Many concerns here would include a diet and a overall exercise system or program that a child can easily adapt to if they are not involved in sports. Click Here to Visit Top 5 Weight Loss Reviews

Even employers are wanting their employees to be healthy as it cuts down on company absentee. Time away from the work place is costly and incentives to keep the workplace active and healthy eating are strides many companies are making.

These concerns seem to be universal even though there are more prevalent in certain socio-economies.

So, is weight loss or muscle building the most important? Well, either one is good. Weight loss without muscle building will be slower, but exercises such as walking, jogging, low impact workouts will always add to the overall health of a person.

Muscle building can not usually be focused on one area. For example, a woman that is wanting to lose her belly fat would need to also work out the entire body to achieve overall success. A man that is wanting to have six pack abs would also have to find a work out program that involves the whole body and not just one area. Diet and healthy eating are both just as important in the regiment of weight loss and health.

If you recently received or will receive an invitation to join AARP (or maybe not so recently), then you can consider yourself a baby boomer. The accepted definition for a baby boomer in the U.S. is anyone born between 1946 and 1964. Most marketing experts consider this generation to be the most influential and powerful generation to ever come along. We have been changing things every decade as we enter new arenas - be they political, social or financial. Now our generation is starting to approach retirement, and as usual we are redefining everything again. We expect our retirement to be much more active then that of our parents and grandparents. One of the challenges we face is making sure that we stay healthy enough to do all the active things we want to accomplish. A chief concern for our continued or renewed health is proper weight control.

Fact 1: Changing Lifestyle Patterns

As baby boomers move into their later 40's, 50's, and now 60's, we are running into new challenges for controlling our weight. Our kids are now teenagers out more on their own, college students away at school, or maybe they are married and starting their own families. In any of these cases, this usually means that both our activity and eating patterns are changing. As new, or soon to be "empty nesters", we are starting to find it more challenging to prepare meals because it is often just the two of us rather than the family. Because of this, we eat out more, or just throw something simple together rather than spending a lot of time putting a whole meal together. These new eating practices can cause us to eat less healthy and create problems for our weight control.

The Biggest Challenge May be the way YOU Think!

Fact 2: Changes in Body Chemistry
Studies indicate that after the age of 30 we lose about 10% of our muscle mass per decade. And, to make things worse, our metabolism (the speed at which our bodies breakdown the foods we eat) begins to slow down. These two things coupled together makes it much more challenging for us to maintain a healthy weight and good muscle tone. Remember that muscle weighs more than fat, so as we age and lose some of our muscle we can stay at the same weight and start gaining more fat around our middle, legs, and bottoms. All of a sudden our clothes are getting tighter and we don't know why because the scale says we're still the same weight as we have been for years.

Fact 3: Changing Activity Levels
Often, without our kids around for us to chase after, we start becoming less active. We sit around and watch more television. Maybe that old sport or dancing injury keeps us from doing certain things. Our job requires us to travel more and eat more airport and restaurant food, while sitting in hotel rooms doing paper work. Often the demands of our jobs keep us from doing the activities that can help us stay healthy and fit.

All of these things piling up can seem to be insurmountable challenges to a healthy life style and the ability to control and maintain our weight. If we don't make a conscious choice to do things differently, we can quickly become the overweight, middle aged man or woman that we said we would never let our self be.

So, what can we do to keep this from happening to us? Arm yourself with a little knowledge and some determination, and you can overcome these problems before they grab hold, or reverse them if they have already snuck up on you.

It has been proved over and over again that as little as 30 minutes of exercise per day can help a person maintain or regain lost muscle. If you do 2 or 3 days of strength training per week and do aerobic exercises on the remaining days, you will make a great deal of progress toward developing and maintaining a healthy, fit body. Strength training (working with weights) will help develop and strengthen your muscles. Aerobic exercise (walking, running, biking, swimming, etc.) will help increase your body's ability to process oxygen and strengthen your heart (the most important muscle in the body). There is also evidence that aerobic exercise builds collateral blood supply in the arteries around the heart, which can help to reduce the chances for or severity of a heart attack.

The other major thing we need to be watching and addressing, is our food intake. More specifically, the balance of caloric intake versus expenditure. The simple scientific fact is that 3,500 calories equals 1 pound of weight gain or loss. If we take in 3,500 calories more than we use, we will gain a pound. If we use up 3,500 more calories than we take in, we will lose 1 pound. Therefore, if you want to lose 2 pounds per week, you need to eat 7,000 less calories for the week, do 7,000 calories of extra exercise for that week, or do a combination of both. Of course, as with anything, there are a few additional things you need to keep in mind for this to work while maintaining optimum health.

I was recently talking with a doctor about losing weight. He said that he simply tells his patience to not eat more than 1,000 calories per day. With that statement, I lost a great deal of respect for this doctor. Among the many things wrong with this statement, there are two that I specifically want to mention. One - Do you think eating 1,000 calories a day of cakes and candies will help you lose weight in a healthy way? Obviously not. You would lose weight, but you would quickly get sick from lack of proper nutrition. This brings up a controversial point. Many health professionals (including me) believe that it is a good idea to take a good quality multi vitamin supplement every day. At the least, it is a reasonably inexpensive nutritional insurance policy. Other professionals say that if you eat a properly balanced diet you will get all the vitamins and minerals you need from the foods you eat. That's a great concept, but for most of us our food choices won't meet the test, so a multi vitamin can help make up for the deficit.

Two - Except for the smallest of women, a 1,000 calorie a day diet would put most people's bodies into starvation mode. Our bodies are conditioned to shut down our metabolism when we go into starvation mode, which means that your body will start conserving calories anyway it can. And when you ingest some additional calories, your body will store them away for future use (usually as fat).

When you are developing a sound, healthy diet that will help you control your weight, one of the things that should be taken into consideration is your BMR (basal metabolic rate). This is the number of calories that you specifically need to operate efficiently on a daily basis. There are specific formulas used to help determine this number. Once you have your BMR it is relatively easy to determine how many calories will help you gain or lose weight in a healthy, controlled way.

According to my nutrition professor in graduate school, very few doctors receive formal training in proper nutrition. Because of this, I would suggest that if you want good advice on proper dieting, you should find a registered dietitian or someone else who has had formal training in this area.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Manfredi

Menopausal Weight Loss
By Judy Stevens

Menopausal Weight Gain is a big problem I am experiencing these days and along with the typical menopausal symptoms the weight gain and body changes are the hardest for me. Many women complain about weight gain in the premenopausal (or peri-menopausal) years as well as during and after menopause. Many women, me included, have heard this is typical but if you are anything like me, the symptoms of menopause especially with weight gain is NOT something I am going to live with! While once I used to be lean, athletic and active, now, like 90% of women between the ages of 35 and 50 gains anywhere from 5 to 20 pounds! (ok, I was at the 30lb mark!)

Besides the weight gain during menopause, our bodies change drastically. I ask myself daily, "whose body is that in the mirror?" I am convinced that is not me and so as I put on my jeans and try to find a shirt that is not hiked up above my belly, I adjust to finding clothing that covers my pear shaped menopausal fatty shape. Even though I spend a lot of my days, avoiding carbohydrates, I work out at least 3 times a week, and yet still, the fat has deposited itself in places that remind me of my elderly mother!

Mostfat during menopause has been shifted to accumulate around my belly, abdomen and upper body. It may be different for some people, but for me, it seems to be everywhere.

In spite of the ghastly shape my 53 year old body has developed, I worry about developing heart disease and diabetes among other things.
My hormones seem to have taken the form of an alien, a separate entity that has changed my appetite, metabolism and fat distribution. Where is the athletic cheerleader and vivacious girl of my youth I once recognized? She is nowhere to be found. As sad as this makes me, this is the very thing that has motivated me to do research to find the right combination of healthy weight loss and menopause. This is why I had to fight against this to all extremes. I was not going to let my estrogen levels, testosterones and androgen levels beat me at this game! I was not willing to accept this change! I called for an all out attack on the battle of the bulge!

Was this possible? I was not sure but I had to try. Besides having a hysterectomy last year, I just recently got off of my Hormone Replacement Therapy, and insomnia and night sweets crept in.

I will say however, I have watched my diet avoiding alcohol to the extreme, and going to bed later has helped with insomnia. Now I had to find a health cure for my fat, slow metabolism and weight gain.

Upon much research, I found a few resources that claim to help, even the 53 year old menopausal pear shaped women like me! If you would like to know more, please continue to read more here or go to my website to study yourself.

Even though I haven't lost the 30 pounds I need to lose (YET), I am on my way and like any battle there are sacrifices. I now have to work at exercise when once it was a common experience. I have to re-think the ice cream Sunday. But most importantly, I had to think outside the box, realize that this is a realistic reachable goal and I was willing to do what it takes to lose the fat and get fit. In the long run, I will look better and feel better and be healthier!

For more information follow my link here:
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