Exercise While Young

I try to go to the gym three times a week. However?

Hey folks

I really do. I will admit something, I kinda have an advantage over some others. A- I have the frame. Genetics. Nothing you can do about that. B- I have already spend a few years building what I got. So when I go to the gym, I can do in 30 minutes, or and hour, what takes some hours a day in the gym, for the same results. If they can even get the same results. Again, there is a lot to say about genetics.

Some of us are born to be 6'8' Some 5' nothing. Some are genetically predisposed to gaining weight. Others, can eat whatever they want, do whatever they want, and never gain a pound. If you are 5 foot tall, and weigh in at 100 pounds, you can try all you want, take whatever supplements, pills, shakes, whatever, you will never be Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I was mid twenties when I quit smoking. The first time. {Smile} I was 180. In like not even 6 months, I blew up to 230. All fat. All stomach, face, and no neck, fat face. My old boss asked what I was drinking and eating as snacks. Well, Coffee, regular soda, A LOT of regular soda. Snacks? Loved, still do, Sour cream and onion dip, chips.

It was he, my mentor in the Hotel Industry that introduced me to the gym. As well as healthier eating. After he stopped laughing at my Bacon Sandwiches. One pound of Bacon and white bread. After some time, I found I was not really losing weight, but I was losing fat. I was also starting to feel better. I was last weighed in at 249. Mostly muscle now. Just a big guy. I could still lose about ten ponds or so of fat. Trying to get into a regular routine. Whatever that means. But now I'm 43, I'm finding it a lot easier to put the weight on, than I find it taking it off.

Turns out, this IS simple science. Simple biology. Another thing I have going for me, I'm not a woman. Women have it even tougher after 40. Lets look at this in today's Health and Science Segment. According to CNN Health - Why you really should get 'Fit By 40'

(CNN) -- Thirty was not a good year for Michelle Jackson. A few weeks before her birthday, she lost her job. Then her husband left her -- with a 1½-year-old at home.

So it's understandable that as her 40th birthday approached, the Milwaukee resident was nervous.

Sure, she had a new job that she loved and her husband had returned. But the medical data analyst was more than 150 pounds overweight, despite working every day with experts who stressed the importance of staying healthy.

Around her 38th birthday, Jackson came across an article about weight loss. It discussed aging and how middle-aged women have to work out three times a week just to maintain their weight.

After 40, Jackson remembers reading in horror, metabolism slows and the pounds don't come off as easily.

Unfortunately, says CNN's diet and fitness expert Dr. Melina Jampolis, that's not a myth.

Jampolis says she sees evidence of it all the time in her practice -- women over 40 who are attending spin class every day and restricting calories, frustrated because they can't drop five pounds.

There's nothing magic about the age of 40, Jampolis says. But in the premenopausal years, a woman's sex hormones start to change. The body produces less healthy estrogen, and more estrone -- a type of estrogen that comes from your body's fat tissue.

More estrone leads to insulin resistance and a loss of muscle mass. And with their hormones going crazy, women start to crave carbohydrates and sweets.

ONLY after more estrone? I thought craving carbohydrates and sweets were in women's genes. {Smile}

"It's like PMS on steroids," Jampolis says. "The best thing to do is a preventative attack in your 30s. It's going to be much, much harder to lose the weight in your 40s."

OH. I forgot the PMS thing. Just kidding...

Jackson decided to take control of her upcoming milestone.

"At the time I was 38. (I thought), 'I'm going to turn 40 regardless. Why don't I accomplish something in two years instead of being in the same place?'"

She launched her mission: "Fit By 40." But starting a new lifestyle was easier said than done.

"I'm regarded as a pretty great home cook and take a lot of pride in that," Jackson wrote in her iReport submission. "I've also never been any good (with) sports -- physical sport typically conjured feelings of embarrassment. It was daunting to consider eating differently and exercising regularly because I was contemplating something larger: losing the compliments on my cooking and facing embarrassment at the gym."

OK. Truthfully folks, I have been a member of a few gyms, well I am a member of a few gyms all up and down the east coast. I use to be with Gold's, until they priced me out. I just didn't see the need to spend that much money when I can actually get more at others. My favorite? And no. I'm not being paid. Is Planet Fitness. You have a choice between $10 dollars a month for basic. $20 a month for Black Card Membership. It is a gym for all. It truly is a judgement free zone. They do not tolerate someone being uncomfortable. If there is one near you, check them out. Just saying.

Always data-obsessed, Jackson started using SparkPeople.com to plot her weight along a goal line. She cut her calories to 1,600 a day and started logging 30 to 45 minutes at the gym three times a week.

Jampolis says weight training needs to be a priority for women before and after 40. More muscle leads to a higher calorie-burn -- essential when your metabolism decides to limp along.

Also important is eating a healthy diet, Jampolis says. Vegetables, fruits and grains should be spaced out between several servings of lean protein.

"Women are super busy in their 30s; they're usually raising kids or kicking butts in their career," she says. "They really need to put (the focus) back on themselves to make a smooth transition to their 40s."

On the new plan, Jackson's weight dropped at a steady rate. Since March 2011, she's lost more than 100 pounds. Along the way, she realized she had always known how to get healthy. The problem wasn't a lack of information. The problem was motivation.

"If you had asked me when I was at my heaviest how being heavy had impacted me, I would have said, 'not at all,'" Jackson says. "I was comfortable in my own skin."

She didn't consider herself unhealthy at 330 pounds. Yet after losing weight, she stopped snoring, went off her asthma medication, felt less pain in her knee while walking and threw out the acid reflux medication she used to take before bed.

"Michelle is a driven, determined and strong-willed force," her friend and co-worker Krissy Fischer says. "When she committed to weight loss, there was no doubt she would succeed. Michelle was never shy, but she has become even more confident, outgoing and self-assured as she has lost weight."

Jackson won't reach her goal weight of 164 pounds -- a healthy body mass index for her 5-foot-8 frame -- by her birthday in February. She could add more intense workouts or drop her calorie intake, but she wants to maintain a lifestyle she can keep up for the rest of her life.

As her big birthday approaches, she isn't nervous anymore. "I'm excited for it," she says. "I've taken 40 into my hands."

Great story. It really is. As we get older, male and female, our bodies just don't continue to work the way they did when we were younger. Trust me, being lifted up 8 to 10 feet and the air and driven through a table hurts a lot more when your 40 than it does late 20s. Trust me on that one. We can't run as fast. We can swim as fast. Why do you think Gymnasts retire in their late 20s? Boxers in their 30s. ETC. 

Along with getting your finances in order for later life, makes sense, get your body in shape as well. Something to think about.
Peter

Sources:
CNN Health - Why you really should get 'Fit By 40'