I swore off sugar in October when we moved from Mexico back to the States. I was afraid the temptations offered by American candy would throw me back into the senior weight gain dieting game. And, for six weeks, I did really good.
For me, holiday eating kicked-off at Halloween, gathered momentum at Thanksgiving, and exploded at Christmas and New Year’s. And here I am battling senior weight gain as the feasting continues. I know better. I can do better.
My saving grace? Exercise. Fortunately, I am firmly entrenched in a daily exercise habit. To make sure I don’t make excuses, I hired Phil, a personal trainer also over 60. (It’s somehow harder to try to get away with complaints and excuses with someone in a similar age range, although, truth be told, he’s still 10 years younger than me.)
Bust the Myth of Exercise
You may have read that exercise isn’t an effective weight loss strategy. Technically, that’s true. But don’t be misled or use that an excuse for not exercising. Here’s the way obesity endocrinologist Dr. Robert Lustig explains it in his book Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease
Exercise is the single best thing you can do for yourself. It’s way more important than dieting, and easier to do. Exercise works at so many levels—except one: your weight.
In a meta-analysis of weight-loss studies, moderate exercise resulted in a weight loss of 2.2 pounds and vigorous exercise produced a loss of 3.5 pounds. Granted, as a strategy for reversing the obesity epidemic, those results may be underwhelming.
But for those of us who have a hard time dieting, I’ll take a 3.5 weight loss in exchange for vigorous working out. If I play more Pickleball, spend 30 minutes on the elliptical every day, and go walking (even if it’s at the mall in the afternoons), and do this for three weeks, I bet I can erase the holiday weight gain.
The Real Hazards of Senior Weight Gain
It’s not the turkey or the broccoli. It’s the desserts and the cookies, the candy, and pastries. Chemically, we’re not overeating protein or fat so much as carbohydrates (most of which are refined and loaded with sugar.)
If that’s not the reason for your own personal weight gain, you’re in the minority. Most senior weight gain is due to high-carbohydrate intake. High sugar. High fructose. High fructose corn syrup, etc. You name it. It’s the abundant sugar in our diet that kills us no matter what name it goes by. Alas, before it makes us sick, it makes us fat.
Too much sugar is what’s damaging to the health and longevity of seniors. Eating food that causes a rise in insulin increases the risk of insulin resistance, weight gain, and type 2 diabetes. This triggers a host of senior diseases such as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease, dementia, and cancer.
That’s why when someone offers Christmas cookies, and encourages me with “Oh, it’s the holidays! Just eat one!” I want to tell them, I can’t eat just one, I want one hundred, and there’s nothing “joyful” about a senior who gets fat, sick, and mean. (Yes, I get mean.)
Fight Senior Weight Gain with Exercise
I exercise not so much to burn off those cookies, as to build up muscle. The more muscle, the more mitochondria. The more mitochondria, the more energy is burned. Instead of those cookies triggering insulin and fat storage, exercise drives energy and muscle production.
That’s why exercise is good. It builds muscle and muscle burns energy, even at rest.
Fortunately, I have other tools in my bag. Sugar is addictive, and right now, I’m caught in it’s sticky web. But I’m a warrior in the War on Aging. I can choose to cross it off my list, say “Hell NO!” And live a little longer every day that I exercise, avoid eating processed food and carbohydrates, eat my veggie, healthy fats and protein.
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