According to the study by supplement company Forza, turning 30 is the biggest inspiration for both men and women to lose weight.
The finding of the study suggests that people in middle age certainly gain weight and it is harder for them to lose it, but slow metabolism is not the real reason behind it. It was revealed that from the 20s to the 50s the energy expenditure is the most stable.
One of the primary reasons losing weight is harder to do as you grow older is due to a slowing metabolism. It is estimated that your metabolism slows down 5% every decade after you turn 40. This can occur because of the loss of muscle (or sarcopenia) which plays a crucial part in maintaining your metabolism.
Weight-Loss Recommendations
Also, the younger you are, the easier it is to lose weight because you have not lost lean muscle due to the aging process. However, you still should lose weight at a slow, steady pace of 1 to 2 lbs. per week.
There's some truth to this, of course. Our 20-something selves have a naturally higher metabolism, more muscle and are generally more active than our 40-plus versions. We lose muscle with every decade of life, starting at the end of our 20s.
Study shows that younger people and women are more likely to put on extra pounds. A study that examined the long-term weight gain of more than 13,800 U.S. adults found that on average, people gained about 17 pounds between their twenties and thirties.
The first place men typically lose weight is the belly, while women tend to lose weight all over, but hold onto weight in their thighs and hips, Dr. Block explains.
Unintentional weight gain occurs when you put on weight without increasing your consumption of food or liquid and without decreasing your activity. This occurs when you're not trying to gain weight. It's often due to fluid retention, abnormal growths, constipation, or pregnancy.
As you age, your muscle mass decreases and your fat mass increases. Fat is less metabolically active than muscle—you don't need as many calories to maintain fat as you do to maintain muscle. Hormonal changes can also lead to weight gain.
“Obesity incidence starts increasing in one's twenties and peaks at 40 to 59, and then decreases slightly after age 60,” says Craig Primack, MD, an obesity medicine physician at the Scottsdale Weight Loss Center in Arizona.
As you get older, you start to lose lean body mass like muscle and bone density. As early as age 30, our lean body mass starts to drop by a little over half a pound each year. You might not notice a change when you step on the scale, because the lean weight you lost is often replaced by fat.
Those extra pounds were packed on in early adulthood: The average American gained about 17.6 pounds from their mid-20s to mid-30s, the study found. Meanwhile, the average person gained about 14.3 pounds between their 30s and 40s, 9.5 pounds between their 40s and 50s, and 4.6 pounds between their 50s and 60s.
Weight loss can benefit people of all ages — even teens. Losing excess body fat can improve health and boost self-esteem and confidence. However, it's important for teens to lose weight the healthy way by making diet and lifestyle changes that nourish growing bodies and can be followed long term.
A 12-year-old needs calories to support growth, development, and energy, so avoid encouraging deprivation. Children 12 years or younger shouldn't lose more than 1 pound per month.
This is called extrinsic aging. As a result, premature aging can set in long before it was expected. In other words, your biological clock is more advanced than your chronological clock. Controllable factors such as stress, smoking and sun exposure can all play a role in expediting extrinsic aging.
Part of it is simply the biology of our bodies. Our muscles literally shrink as we age, and that means more calories turn into fat — and it's a lot harder to exercise it off.
Over time, studies have shown that metabolic rate (how fast we burn calories) starts to slow down by 2 to 3 percent each decade, beginning in our 20s. It becomes more noticeable between ages 40 and 60.
The diet doesn't have enough calories
Eating too little — say, 1,000 calories a day — can prevent you from losing weight, too. "When you don't eat enough, your body is starving and it's not going to lose any extra weight" because it needs those energy stores to keep you alive, Fakhoury said.
As a general rule, people need a minimum of 1,200 calories daily to stay healthy. People who have a strenuous fitness routine or perform many daily activities need more calories. If you have reduced your calorie intake below 1,200 calories a day, you could be hurting your body in addition to your weight-loss plans.
Drinking Water Can Make You Burn More Calories
Drinking water increases the amount of calories you burn, which is known as resting energy expenditure ( 4 ). In adults, resting energy expenditure has been shown to increase by 24–30% within 10 minutes of drinking water.
While everyone loses weight differently, dropping as little as 3 to 5 pounds can show up on your face first, Eboli says.
In terms of how your body looks, “it usually takes 4 weeks for your friends to notice weight loss, and 6–8 weeks for you to notice,” says Ramsey Bergeron, a certified personal trainer. “Your friends who don't see you every day are much more likely to see a change than someone you're around all the time,” he adds.
Underweight: anything under 18.5. Healthy: anything between 18.5 and 24.9. Overweight: anything between 25.0 and 29.9. Obese: anything above 30.0.