Samantha Taylor
Samantha Taylor Fitness
The word “metabolism” is usually associated to how well we lose weight. However, it is much deeper than that. Your metabolism is a series of chemical reactions in your body that are necessary to maintain life, so we all have a metabolism or we would be dead! Even though it is reactions in our body that keep us alive, how well we process food and convert that food into either usable energy or stored body fat is what most are interested in.
We have trained over 6,000 women in my personal training studios with 4 locations and many of them have been in their 50’s to 70’s. Usually, a frustrated woman says to me in our first meeting, “I feel like my metabolism has slowed down so much and I don’t lose weight like I used to.” In some ways this is true. However, in most ways it’s not just age that is the culprit, it’s what we have or have not done to our bodies over the years that causes this problem. Being older and out of shape is totally different then being older and in shape!
The two most important factors in speeding up your metabolism are: 1) our bodies become more insulin-resistant as we age, more so dependent on how we eat, and 2) after age 35, we lose about a half pound of muscle every year we don’t do something to stop it (you can stop this loss by working out with weights).
So the first one I mentioned was we become more insulin-resistant, and when this happens, our body tends to store more fat. Proof of this is most women as they age see that they store fat more in their belly. The less our body can process sugar properly and is constantly having to release insulin to bring down the blood sugar because it is constantly spiked with sugar, excess carbs, and gluten, the more our bodies can become insulin-resistant.
In many cases this IS reversible, I have seen it happen over and over. We had a client who was 74 and was pre-diabetic and her doctor wanted to put her on medication. He let her give our program a shot first and within eight weeks, she was no longer pre-diabetic! They were both SO excited! Actually that happened to me four years ago. Even my blood work came back close to being pre-diabetic, and I was so frustrated for I wasn’t even overweight. I knew it was from all the sugar, excess carbs, and gluten I was eating and sure enough, now it’s perfectly healthy from making some small nutrition modifications.
The second one I mentioned is muscle loss with age and I say with age because when we are younger, we maintain it more naturally. When we age, we have to work at maintaining it or we WILL lose it. The term “use it or lose it” really applies in this situation because muscle loss is one of the fastest things that will age our bodies. When we lose it, we age faster because muscle gives our body shape and helps keep our figure, gives us strength, and helps with balance. You should see some of the women on our website that are in their 70’s—they look and feel amazing!
You do NOT want to lose muscle, and ladies I am not talking about being bulky here, just having tone, lean muscles so you can stay young and fit. Having toned muscles is not only good for the shape of your body but good for balance and speeding up your metabolism. Learn more about my programs at www.SamanthaTaylorFitness.com. We have a free seminar Oct 28th called “How to Get Unstuck.” You can register on our website.