As people get older, this one of their most common worries . Today I am going to talk about the concepts that as you age, your muscle mass declines and your metabolism slows down. As a result, it is more difficult for your body to burn calories. This means that it becomes easier to hold onto calories and gain weight, thus making losing abdominal fat a tougher task .

After the age of about 30, physiology tells us that your maximal aerobic capacity beings to decrease by about 1% per year. Muscle mass works the same way . You lose about 1% per year of muscle mass throughout the rest of your life.

You cannot truly prevent this, but you can delay the decline in muscle mass . The way to do that is – strength training! The earlier you start strength training the better. If you are 5 years old, obviously, you don’t need to do it, but as soon as you hid mid-late pubescence, that is when you want to start, especially if you are a woman. In my experience, women have a fear of lifting weights because they think they are going to get bulky. It is really important that women lift weights and challenge their muscles because it helps to prevent osteoporosis, and the earlier women start to engage in some sort of resistance training, the better off their bone health is going to be later in life.

Burning fat is the second component we need to look at now only right now but for years to come as well . It is important to strength train your muscles so that you can increase your metabolic rate. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: your basal metabolic rate is heavily dependant on your lean muscle mass. The more lean mass you have the higher your metabolic rate will be which means that you are going to burn more calories throughout the day, at rest, while you are sleeping, etc. The two are related. As you start to lose muscle mass, your metabolic rate slows down .

Here is the difficult thing: if you continue to eat the same way you ate when you were younger, you will have more calories coming in than you are expending. If is important that you adjust your caloric ingestion to either maintain or lose weight if need be. A lot of athletes maintain their caloric consumption when they stop their grueling training schedules and run into a tough time when they gain weight .

You need to resistance train to build muscle mass so that you can keep your muscle mass high for as long as possible and keep your metabolism up too. You also want to reduce your caloric consumption as you age because the less muscle you have, the less need you will have for calories and energy. You’ve got to look at both sides of the equation. So, that is why it is tougher to burn fat as you get older .

This information is not to be used as an excuse! I know plenty of people who are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s who are in great shape and are lean. And I know you can do it as well. Physiology is physiology but you can overcome it if you put in the work and dedication. That is why I am here to show you and motivate you.