Years before the low carb craze women interested in fitness used carbohydrates to keep their metabolism high and spike their fat burning hormones. Fast forward to today and you will find most women who are trying to lose weight fear carbs.
Add to that the additional issues of hormonal imbalances that start to show up in women over 40 and you have a recipe for panic. Here is how to avoid the fear tactics and use an intelligent approach to eating carbs without storing them as fat.
As a woman in her forties I can see certain advantages to beginning a weight loss program in this decade of life. For one thing, with age comes wisdom and with that comes the ability to sniff out the worthless crash diet schemes. You know the ones, they usually begin with the words "It's so easy!"
Well, I do think it can be easy, once you develop your new lifestyle, but the road to that goal is not always a walk in the park.
I lost more than forty pounds about 15 years ago and I easily maintain my weight loss now that I am in my forties. In fact, I weigh less now than I did when I graduated high school. I do not say this in any way to brag, I simply want to point out that losing weight and maintaining weight loss after the age of 40 is possible and enjoyable, when you know how to eat your favorite foods the right way.
A nutritional obstacle that many women face is how to eat carbohydrates without storing them as fat. As I mentioned carbohydrates have become a "no-no" for many dieters. However, this is a mistake because carbs are the foods your body relies on for fuel. When your body is not getting them, it puts a brakes on your fat-burning hormones to conserve stored fuel, what you call fat.
Here are 3 steps to eating carbs without fat storage that take into consideration the hormonal changes of women over 40:
1. The two hormones that get a lot of attention for women are estrogen and insulin. After 40 years of age a woman's ovaries slow their production of estrogen. This causes a number of things to shift and one of them is fat storage. Fat is now more likely to accumulate in the belly area.
Insulin is important to weight loss because it is insulin that pushes carbohydrates in the blood (i.e. blood sugar) into storage. What you want is for carbs to be burned up as immediate energy or to be stored in your muscles and liver as a readily available energy source. To do this you need to avoid carbohydrate "spill over." A good way to follow a jump start diet that is low carb for only a couple of days. This depletion of carbs resets your hormone levels so your body is ready to burn fat as its primary fuel source.
2. After a few days you want to work on timing your carbohydrate intake. The best times of the day to eat carbs are early, when your metabolism is naturally spiked. Another opportune time is right before or right after a workout, this allows the body to use the stored carbs in your muscles and your body can then use the carbs you eat to replenish these stores, as opposed to storing them as fat
3. Give yourself a free day one day a week. This is a day when you allow yourself your favorite carbohydrates. Not only is this a psychologically pleasing day, which makes it easier to stick with your diet for the long haul, it also is a day that can reset your number one fat-burning hormone, called leptin.
Leptin's job is to help you avoid starvation. When you eat plenty of carbs leptin levels are high and your body is an efficient fat burner. If you follow a strict diet or low carb diet, leptin levels quickly drop signaling your fat cells to hang on to fat stores.
This hormone got little attention until about 20 years ago when its function in the body was first understood. And, this may explain why you have had so much difficulty with weight loss plateaus in the past.
By learning to manipulate your carbohydrate intake you can enjoy your favorite carbs and avoid fat storage.
So, when you start your diet take a couple of days to reduce carbohydrate intake, then time your carbohydrate intake during the day so your body can use up the carbs. And, give yourself one free day a week to reset the most important fat burning hormone, leptin, so your body can keep burning fat throughout the week.
Women over 40 often look at estrogen and insulin as the hormones to control for weight loss. However, leptin is the hormone that controls most of the weight loss puzzle.
There is an easy way to keep your leptin levels high and increase your body's ability to recognize and use leptin.
And, if you can do this, you essentially keep your body in a fat-burning state 24/7... high leptin levels + high leptin sensitivity = high levels of fat burning.
Follow this drop-dead simple way to get your fat burning hormones working for you. Here are more Powerful Fat-Burning Tricks.
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