<p>Palmface. Relax about your weight or move to another gorum, do you know how many already stressed out teens their are on this forum? Do you really want to implicitly suggest that they should take up anorexia? Or worry about their waste of thirty years in the future? </p>
<p>Sent from my SGH-T959V using CC</p>
<p>Our metabolism DOES change when we’re approaching & complete menopause. I noticed that, as did my allergist & most females I know. If you want to maintain a trim figure all your life, you have to cut back on the caloric intake and/or increase the calories you burn. I’m not a great fan of exercising, so try to reduce what I take in AND do more walking in my daily activities. So far, it’s worked pretty well. Reducing carb intake has been part of it, as has reducing sweets (thou never consumed many to begin with).</p>
<p>My goal is to continue to be comfortable in & look good in clothing I’ve had for many years (decades). If it starts to get snug, it’s time to take a closer look at consumption & exercise, adjusting the balance as needed. So far, this approach has worked well for me over the decades.</p>
<p>In reference to one of the prior posts:</p>
<p>As there are many people in this country facing serious health problems related to obesity, I would think that young people would be happy to see parents working on figuring out how to take care of their health. Parents who take care of themselves are setting a good example for their kids.</p>
<p>I agree that our families are our role models. My folks have tried to remain healthy, active and fairly trim all their lives. They are in their 80s & still are quite fit and healthy. We want to emulate them and I think folks trying to remain fit and trim all their lives is highly commendable and the purpose of this thread. A healthy body image and staying fit should not have anything to do with bulimia or anorexia. My H & I & our young adult kids are all fit, healthy and not depriving ourselves.</p>
<p>My mom is about the same weight as she was when she got married over 50 years ago and still looks great. Dad has put on a few more pounds but can still keep up and golf regularly with folks that are 30 or more years younger than him.</p>
<p>My daughter (28) has told me several times recently how glad she is that H and I are so fit. She comes in contact with a lot of families (she is a Priest and hospital chaplain) in her work who she really wishes she could help more with nutrition and fitness. She is happy that we have modeled fitness (she grew up thinking we were too obsessive, which we were) and enjoyment of food. Her father (my H) is 67 and she said she hardly ever sees someone his age who is as fit and healthy. I know WildChild also appreciates our focus on fitness, but I don’t expect him to tell me so! His way of telling me is to be interested in my race times and training and to tease me about how slow I’m getting! :)</p>
<p>interesteddad, not water weight but the binding of carbs to water. I didn’t see they tested that issue at all. It’s a potential criticism, not a knock down of the work, which I think is both good and valuable. To be clear, I’m obviously not saying the increase in metabolic rate is fake. I’m wondering if it’s artificial in the same way the diet is artificial - maintainable for a short time - and thus why that might be. </p>
<p>Anyway. My suggestion for anyone remains: get a pedometer. A good digital one is $20-25. Counting the steps you take each day is easy to do. I set a minimum of x thousand steps. Behavioral work says that setting a minimum becomes a promise you then work harder to keep. It’s different from a goal, which is aspirational. You can more easily hold yourself to a standard than to a hope. One reason I count steps is to reduce willpower issues; I don’t have to exert my limited store of daily willpower to force myself to do or not to do something but instead only need to keep track of how I’m doing.</p>
<p>On belly fat, my nearly 90 year old mother walks and does stairs fail, she is about 100#, but still has that little below the belly button pooch. I am trying to be realistic (rather than feeling cursed!) about it.</p>
<p>I watched women at an airport recently, there was almost no one who looked ‘older’ who was not heavier in the middle than they should have been, versus the girls in HS who all comment “my butt is so big”- a definite shift.</p>
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<p>That could be. I don’t come away from reading the study with the slightest clue about why the energy expenditure was different. They also tested resting energy expenditure during the in-patient hospital stays at the end of each month’s diet. Those were signficantly different, too.</p>
<p>I think this study is exciting, not because of the specific results, but because it will drive research (and public health policy) in directions that should have been the focus for the last several decades. This stuff is subject to complex hormonal control and, if we can figure out ways to tilt the “house odds” a little more in our favor (hormonally speaking), it will make it lot easer to “eat less” and “move more”.</p>
<p>I think my number one piece of exercise advice to anyone wanting to go after belly fat (male or female) is add a regular schedule of resistance strength training. Lean muscle mass helps a bunch with fat loss.</p>
<p>interestdad, I agree. I’m also interested in the work going on about fat on the body. We tend to think about fat as fat but it’s of course far more complicated. Studying this stuff is in its infancy compared to cholesterol and we have a long way to go with that.</p>