For many of us, as soon as we hit our 30s, it can seem that your metabolism may come to an abrupt halt...and you can’t seem to eat what you want anymore without feeling the consequences the next day!
But what causes this phenomena? And what can be done to stop it?!
The reason our metabolisms slow down after we hit a certain age is actually to do with the natural decline in muscle that we will all face as we mature.
After we reach 30, on average, you will typically lose around 3-5% of your body's muscle each year.
Because muscle is very metabolically active, meaning that helps your body burn calories, the more muscle you have, the more calories you are able to naturally burn through each day.
Body fat is far less metabolically active, meaning that the more body fat you have, the fewer calories that can be burnt and so your base metabolic rate also decreases.
This is the typical reason many people say things like “I used to be able to get away with it..." It is because your body will have developed a lower resting metabolic rate from when you were 20.
How can we fight back against a lower metabolic rate? Enter resistance training!
In order to raise your metabolic rate again, you will need to be building or maintaining muscle in your body. Time and time again, resistance training will always be the most sure-fire method of doing this.
Depending on your exercise history, will depend on how much muscle you are able to grow. If you have never trained before, you are far more likely to be able to develop muscle quickly, but if you have been training for years, your goal will be to maintain and not let that muscle drop.
Resistance training is essentially the act of progressively putting your body under more and more resistance and increasing that resistance to help encourage muscle growth- essentially we are focusing on how to get stronger.
For most of us, when we look back at our lives, 30-40 are usually the key years in focusing on your career or family, less so than your health. All of these are big life shifts and mean that for many of us, exercise does not become a priority. However, by fitting just 2 resistance based workouts into your week, that is all you will need to help you build and maintain that muscle and keep your metabolism under control!
Many people think it’s all about doing 5 sessions a week or nothing at all but this does not need to be the case! By instead focusing on making 2 sessions a week a part of your routine throughout your 30s, you will likely find that 40-50 is far easier!
