Food Choices in 40s
Forever Young, The Anti-Aging Guide, Click Author
Everyone nods along when we hear that we should be eating better. Most people will even admit that they don’t eat the way they know they should—but then they don’t do anything about it.
Everyone has excuses. ‘I don’t have enough time. I don’t know what to eat. All of those diet plans are so confusing. I don’t know where to start. It’s impossible to lose weight when you don’t have time to cook.’
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I hate to say it, but some of those excuses have a kernel of truth in them. The best ones always do. Consider this section your get-real guide to eating right. We will cut through all of the fad diet crap and talk about a sane, healthy, effective way to lose weight and gain health.
Once we establish those guidelines the next section will show you how to eat right when you don’t really have time to cook. We’ll follow that up with a few recipes to get you started on the road to a slimmer you. Throughout the chapter I’ll list resources that I have personally found helpful during this whole process.
Eating right is really all about common sense. The fad diet pushers would like you to believe that they and only they can give you the body you so desire. They act as if losing weight is a secret that you have to learn from them. Then again, they want your money, don’t they? If you believe that some weight-loss guru has the holy grail of thinness, then you will probably pay whatever they ask to get into the thin and fit club.
You know what? They are lying to you. Losing weight isn’t a big secret. It isn’t complicated. And you already know what it is. Don’t believe me? Let’s review it and tell me if I’m telling you something you don’t already know.
Eat Fewer Calories than You Burn
Calories count. Always. Anyone who tells you any differently is lying. If you want to lose weight you have to take in fewer calories than you burn. It’s as simple as that. But you already knew that deep down. All of those diets that claim that you can eat unlimited quantities of your favorite foods and still lose weight look so good for a reason. They sound like a way to cheat to get what you want. You’re right. You are cheating. But unlike school, you can not fool your body for long. It will all catch up to you.
The one part of weight loss that can be complicated is figuring out how many calories you should cut to permanently lose weight. This section is going to explain it to you so you can figure it out for yourself.
One pound of weight is made up of 3,500 calories. If you want to lose that pound, you have to burn 3,500 more calories than you take in. If you want to lose that pound in seven days, you need to cut 500 calories out of each day. Some people (and you know who you are) are already thinking that if they can cut 500 calories out of their day and lose a pound, then cutting 1500 calories out of your day is three times better because you can lose 3 pounds.
This sounds very logical. If this were a math problem in class it would make perfect sense. ‘If Johnny has $3,500 and he gives away $1,500 a day, how many days will it take for him to go completely broke?’ But this doesn’t work in real life (at least where your weight is concerned) and I’ll tell you why.
Introducing the Starvation Mode
Let’s look at an example. If you were to try and drive across the country without refilling your gas tank what would happen? Your car would drive until you ran out of gas. Then you would be stranded.
Your body is a lot smarter than your car. When it detects that you are eating too few calories it enters starvation mode. It slows your metabolism way down. Your energy level plummets. It starts eating in to your muscle tissue. Any extra calories you do consume are going to be turned right into fat. When your body thinks its starving, it does everything in its power to keep you alive. This means, besides turning your body systems down it is going to turn your hunger level way up. You will crave the high-calorie, high-fat foods that your body knows will keep you safe through whatever famine you are obviously going through.
When you eat too few calories, in other words, you have no energy, you crave “bad” foods, and you turn everything you eat into fat. I don’t have to tell you that this is a recipe for weight gain, not weight loss, do I? Nobody can operate under these conditions. Eventually you will slip up and eat everything in sight. Even stuff you don’t really like. Then you will get discouraged at your lack of will-power and give up.
This is what not to do. But we aren’t here to talk about how to fail. We’re here to talk about how to win.
What to Do if You Want to Lose Weight
- Figure out how many calories you need to eat to survive. There is a mathematical formula that will help you figure out how much you need to eat to live. If you dip below this number you will enter starvation mode. Never, ever go below this number. Here is how to figure it out:
Calculate your BMR
BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate. It means the amount of calories you expend to run your body systems and lay in your bed breathing. Use the following equations to figure out your BMR:
Men: 66 + (13.7 x Weight in Kg) + (5 x height in cm) – (6.8 x age in years)
Women: 665 + (9.6 x wt in Kg) + (1.8 x ht in cm) – (4.7 x age in years)
Multiply your height in inches by 2.54 to get centimeters
Divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to get Kg
An example:
Woman
43 years
5’6 (167.64 cm)
168 pounds (76.36 Kg)
665 + (9.6 x 76.36) + (1.8 x 167.64) – (4.7 x 43)
665 + 733.56 + 301.752 – 202.1 = 1498 calories just to stay alive.
Now we add in your activity level. Take your BMR number and multiply it by one of the following numbers:
If you are:
Sedentary (little or no exercise) BMR x 1.2
Light activity (exercise 1-3 days per week) BMR x 1.375
Moderate activity (3-5 days per week) BMR x 1.55
High activity (Daily, high intensity) BMR x 1.725
Let’s continue with our previous example:
Woman
BMR = 1498 1498
Sedentary = 1.2 x 1.2
1797.6 Calories to maintain weight
Of course, you want to lose weight, not stay the same. To lose a pound or two a week, cut somewhere between 500-1000 calories out of your weekly diet. When choosing the amount of calories to cut, don’t let your calories for the day go any lower than 1200 for a woman or 1800 for a man. This is the safest minimum number of calories you should eat. If we look at the woman in our above example, she could safely cut 500 calories out of her life (ending up with 1297) but not 1000. Her lowest calorie count for the day should be a minimum of 1200 unless she wants to go into starvation mode.
For long-term, pain free weight loss, start with a 500 calorie reduction. You will be able to keep this up almost indefinitely. Once you get used to this amount, consider reducing your calories further, if you won’t go any lower than 1200 or 1800 calories.
Of course, you can’t do any of this if you don’t keep track of how many calories you take in. Keep a food journal. Write down what you eat and how much. Just doing this may help you to lower how much you eat, but we aren’t going to rely on that. Buy a set of measuring spoons and measuring cups and use those to serve up your food. Write everything down. Don’t go back to change it later. This isn’t school. The only person who loses when you lie about how much you eat is you.
After you write things down you have two options. You can either try to figure out your calories manually or you can let your computer do it for you. Personally I think I have enough on my plate already. I’d rather let someone else work all the calculations. There are online sites that will calculate your calories and keep track of what you eat day by day. MyFoodDiary.com is a good site for that. There are also many computer programs you can buy to do the same thing—just make sure it comes with a large food database that you can update online.
Some Good News
The more you exercise, the more you can eat. A word of warning: Some people think that exercise will allow them to eat anything and everything they want. Not true. But you can eat more than the guy who lies on his couch all night and still lose weight. Let’s say we take our 43 year old woman from the previous example. Let’s say she decides to exercise at high intensity six days out of seven. Let’s see how that changes what she should eat.
BMR: 1498 1498
High Activity: BMR x 1.725 x 1.725
2584 Calories to maintain weight
If this woman cuts out 500 calories a day, she has 2084 calories she can eat and still lose a pound a week. This is a lot of calories, especially when you use the good food guidelines in the next section.
Once you figure out how many calories you ought to eat to lose weight, 25% of the battle is over. You will conquer another 25% when you write everything down and keep track of your calories. Actually restricting your calories to your optimal range is another 25%. In other words, just following these simple guidelines is 75% of what you need to do to maintain permanent weight loss. The last 25% is what you choose to put in your mouth.
Clearing Up the Nutrient Confusion
You may have noticed that I have a little problem with all of those fad diet pushers. It’s because they have messed with a very straightforward subject so they can fool us into giving them our money. Before we bust some of their myths let’s cover what you should be eating.
Fruit: Eat a minimum of two pieces a day. Three or four is even better.
Vegetables: Eat a minimum of 3 ½-1 cup servings per day. The more the merrier.
Whole Grains: Eat a minimum of 6 servings a day. This includes brown rice, whole wheat flour, whole wheat couscous, etc.
Lean Protein: Eat a minimum of 2 servings a day. This food group includes beans, nuts, tofu, chicken breast, turkey.
Fat-free Dairy or Calcium-fortified Soy Products: Eat two to three servings a day. This group includes fat-free milk, soy milk, fat-free cheese, regular and soy yogurt, etc.
Healthy fats: 1-2 tsp. per day. This group includes olive oil, soy, and corn oil.
If you go to the store and use the above list as your shopping list and combine it with the calorie counting you will lose weight and feel great. End of story. If you want to make your weight loss even easier, you will use these proportions:
• 45-65% calories from Carbohydrates (the majority from whole grains)
• 10-35% calories from lean Protein
• 20-35% calories from Fat (the majority from healthy fats)
The rest of your calories should be spread evenly between fruits, vegetables, and dairy, emphasizing the fruits and vegetables a little more than the dairy. MyFoodDiary.com will track this information for you automatically and rate how well you are doing.
This is not sexy information. And it sounds an awful lot like hard work. That is why the fad diets are so popular. They tell you that you can change your body without changing any of your habits. Sad to say, most people would rather waste their money on a dream than actually put in the effort to look and feel great. But that isn’t you. You’re smarter than that.
I do understand that sometimes those stories sound good. So let’s talk about the two types of food most people get confused about.
Making Peace with Carbs
Complex carbohydrates are wonderful. You know them best as whole grain and whole wheat products, with a sprinkling of fruits and vegetables. These boost your energy level for exercise and provide a lot of heart healthy fiber. They make you feel full right away. It’s the refined carbohydrates that are making people fat.
Don’t believe me? When was the last time you found someone who was compulsively overeating plain brown rice? I didn’t think so. Let’s get real here. It’s the Danishes, the double chocolate muffins, the cakes, the cookies, and the fried stuff that makes us fat. That banana or carrot stick had very little to do with it.
Refined carbohydrates (or carbs) raise your blood sugar very quickly. Your body goes into panic mode and dumps a bunch of insulin on it to restore balance. Unfortunately, your sugar level then drops very quickly. You start craving sugary, fatty foods (which is what got you into trouble in the first place). Unless you break the cycle, this will go on forever. Cut out the refined stuff and it will be easier to eat less.
Putting Protein in its Place
You need protein. But not that much. If you eat more protein than you need, then your body is forced to get rid of the excess. It does this by pulling the calcium out of your bones and using that to flush out the protein. This is fine if you like the hunch-back, osteoporosis look later in life. No? Then keep your protein to no more than 35% of your calories. This translates into a few ounces a day.
People forget that for most of human history meat was rare and used the same way we use parsley—it was there for flavor and to dress the food up a bit. We don’t need much protein. This is good, seeing how hard it is to get. Have you ever tried out-running an antelope?
Putting it all Together
So how do you make all the health guidelines work for you? How do you add whole grains, fruits and vegetables to your life when you don’t cook much? Here is a list of meal ideas you can use:
Breakfast Guidelines: Look for 3g of fiber or more in your cereal and less than 8g of sugar. Cereals that qualify are:
Shredded wheat
All Bran
Kashi Go Lean
And use soymilk or fat-free milk
Other Breakfast Foods:
Egg whites
Canadian bacon or soy patties
Old fashioned oatmeal made with milk
Eat one piece of fruit either breakfast
Lunch Guideline: Eat two vegetables, 1 protein and 2 carbohydrates. The exact amount depends on your daily caloric needs. I am assuming you eat out for lunch because I know how life is. These options can also be made at home.
Chinese Food
Get brown rice, steamed vegetables, and either tofu or chicken.
American
-Baked potato with vegetarian chili (get the vegetarian chili because it has less fat)
-Salad. Keep the dressing on the side. Put beans and lean protein on the salad so it lasts.
-Sandwich. Use whole grain bread, low or non-fat cheese, lean meat or soy substitute, and plenty of vegetables. Hold the mayo.
Dinner Guidelines: Try to keep this meal light. Eat enough so you won’t get hungry half an hour later, but go light. Try to eat a bit more protein than carbohydrates at this meal. Eat 2 vegetables, 2 servings of protein, and 1 carbohydrate. Here are some examples of things you should keep in your fridge. That way, when you come home you can grab something from each category, warm it up and serve.
| Vegetables | Protein | Carbohydrates |
| Salad | Grilled chicken | Whole wheat couscous |
| Steamed broccoli | Beans | Brown rice |
| Bell Pepper Strips | Tofu | Whole wheat pasta |
You can cook even if you have no time. Go to your local grocery store and buy a couple rotisserie chickens. Get a bag or two of salad like Romaine and a bottle of low fat dressing. Buy either whole wheat couscous or red potatoes. If you have a microwave you can have dinner for 4 in 10 minutes. Add some ketchup and you’re there.
The Bottom Line
Good nutrition isn’t hard. It all comes down to keeping the right foods in your house, in your car, and at work. You can have a healthy eating plan even if you eat out a lot. Most of your breakfast, lunch, and dinner choices can be found in a restaurant near you. Give it a try for three weeks. Your body will thank you for it.
The Anti-Aging Guide offers you real rejuvenation techniques
through foods and a way of eating that
prevents and reverses aging [Details Click Here]
Looking For Specific Age Information?
Health Issues Over 40 50 60 70 – Elderly
Exercises in Your 40s 50s 60s 70s – Elderly
Foods / Diet After 40 50 60 70 – Elder
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