Weight management Wednesday - why consider exercise?

When we are in our 20s and 30s we can get away with eating sugar and fat in our diet in moderation and forget all about exercising. Many people enjoy exercising at every age but there are also quite a few of us who have never really made it a habit. If we gain a few kilos we stay away from chocolate for a few weeks and swap biscuits for fruit and then we loose the weight, our clothes fit and we return to our normal habits.

Until we hit 40. Or there abouts. Life may begin at 40 but so does weight gain and staying away from chocolate and swapping biscuits for fruit doesn't seem to make much of a difference. The weight gain is usually slow but it is there. There are all sorts of chemical reasons for this and these will be explored and discussed in coming months but the basic format is that we need to change our habits. A 'diet' may work in the short-term but for long-term weight management we need to think smarter than a quick fix diet.

Weight loss diets can actually cause people to gain weight. AGH! Once we hit 40, or there abouts, we need to not only change our eating habits but increase, or in my case start, the exercise we choose. Before you join the nearest gym and deck yourself out in the latest Lycra fashion (an oxymoron if ever there was one) there are many other ways to exercise. What do you enjoy doing that is active? I once read about a woman who lost her excess weight and maintained her weight by window shopping every lunch time. She would put on some comfortable shoes and spend an hour walking to and from the shops and enjoying choosing what she would buy in the sales or when she reached her target weight or any other reason that kept her window shopping. So work out what you would enjoy enough to keep doing which may be several different types of activities or mastering one.

Me? I am off to buy some gym shoes for my dancing classes next month.

Enjoy eating smarter not less

love
Sarah