3 Reasons Why Women Over 50 Should Lift Weight

Most of my clients are women over the age of 50. As a group, I can say that they are the hardest working and most dedicated clients that a personal trainer could ask for. Hard working, dedicated, and totally focused on getting better and stronger. Girls definitely rule when it comes to training.

The biggest request I get when starting with a new client is "I need to get rid of this fat around my (fill in the blank)". The impression is that if they do tons of crunches, they will lose the fat that has accumulated around their bellies. It doesn't quite work that way. Exercises targeting a specific part of the anatomy doesn't burn-up all the fat in that one area. Sorry.

In addition to accumulating a little extra padding in those "problem areas", there are other changes happening in your body after 50. Here are just a few of the most common adaptations to age:

• Menopause ends the childbearing years
• Gray hair replaces natural hair color
• Vision fades requiring reading glasses
• Gravity starts to take over as everything starts to sag a bit
• Skin loses it's normal elasticity and feels loose
• Thickness around the waist and hips start to form

I could go on, but let's stop there. There is no way to stop the natural aging process. At 59, I am amazed at how my body has changed over the past 20 years. With every 12-month turn of the calendar, I have to work harder to just keep-up. Since I know I cannot stop the aging process, my goal is to simply slow it down a bit, and that should be yours as well.

Perhaps one of the best ways to slow down the effects of aging after 50 is to lift weight. Now, I'm not talking about the little 2-pound dumbbells. I'm talking REAL weight. Here are 3 reasons why you need to lift weight after 50:

1. Bone Density

You think drinking milk and taking calcium supplements is going to keep your bones strong and hold off the dreaded "hump back" caused by osteoporosis? Think again.

The best way to build strong bones is by lifting heavy weight. Think about it for a second - When you pick up something heavy, your brain (being the super smart computer it is) determines that you need a little more thickness in that arm-bone or else it will snap like a twig. So, when you consistently hoist heavy weight, growth hormone is produced and new bone cells created to increase the density and strength of the skeletal structure(your arm).

This is called "anatomical adaptation", and it is the fastest and best way to get your bones strong.

2. Burn Fat

Would you like to turn you body into a little "fat burning machine"? No problem. Just start lifting heavy weight. When you lift weight, your body produces lean muscle mass, which takes calories to support. This increases your basal metabolic rate and helps you to burn more calories during the day.

The more muscle you build, the more calories you burn. If the body does not have a ready source of sugar available, it will start utilizing body fat for energy. This is where good nutrition comes in. But needless to say, if you are lifting weight and building lean muscle, you will reduce the fat around your waist, hips, thighs, and arms.

3. Feel Awesome

I know this one doesn't sound very scientific, but lifting weight will elevate your mood and make you feel like you can do anything.

Seriously.

When you lift heavy weight, your body produces endorphins, which interact with the receptors in your brain and reduce your perception of pain. Endorphins also trigger a "positive feeling" in your body similar to that of morphine. In essence, you get "high" when you workout with weights.

Lifting weight is less dangerous and certainly less expensive than taking drugs, both legal and illegal. It is very cool for me to be greeted at the door with a scowl (I'm not in the mood to train) only to have my client give me a huge energized smile when I leave. Yup, those endorphin thing really do work.

So, if you are a woman over 50, then give lifting weight a try. My advice is to work with certified personal trainer who can show you the right exercises and how to do them safely. A good trainer will also help you progress the movements and weight so that you keep getting stronger. If you need any help, just let me know.

About The Author
Mike Christie, personal trainer and nutritional counselor, invites you to visit https://goo.gl/7k7sbX for more weight loss, fitness, and nutrition articles like this one. You may also feel free to contact Mike by email at mike@mikechristiepersonaltrainer.com for fitness and nutrition advice and questions

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30 minute full body at home workout for women over 40!

STRONG MATURE WOMEN (Over 50 Years) - Fit Over 50

5 Ways to Burn Fat Fast

Whether you want to improve your overall wellbeing or want to get thin, shedding those extra pounds may not be easy for you. Apart from diets and exercises, many other factors may have an impact on your fat and weight loss. Fortunately, you can take a few steps to boost your fat burning process.

1. Go for the Strength Training

For strength training, you need to contract your muscles in order to boost your strength and build muscle mass. Typically, strength training requires you to gain muscle mass with the passage of time.

According to many research studies, strength training offers a lot of benefits as far as burning fat is concerned. With this type of exercise, you can gain fat-free mass. This can boost your body's ability to burn fat.

To get started, you can do body-weight exercises, lift weights or use gym equipment.

2. Eat a High-Protein Diet

If you add foods rich in protein to your diet, you can curb your appetite and shed those extra pounds. As a matter of fact, many studies have showed that eating more protein helps you prevent love handles.

Another study found that a higher amount of protein could help you maintain your muscle mass and reduce weight.

Once your protein consumption goes up, you may not feel as much hunger as you did before. As a result, you will begin to lose weight. You can opt for foods, such as dairy products, legumes, eggs, seafood, and meat, to name a few.

3. Get More Sleep

It's better to get more sleep for weight loss. So, it's a good idea to get to bed a bit earlier and wake up a bit later.

Many studies support the fact that weight loss can be achieved with more sleep. Another study showed that quality sleep for at least 7 hours per night could also help you shed weight.

On the other hand, lack of sleep may lead to triggered hunger hormones, obesity and increased appetite.

So, what you need to do is reduce your consumption of caffeine and stick to your sleep schedule.

4. Consume Vinegar

As far as improving health is concerned, vinegar can do a great job. Apart from its positive effects on your blood sugar levels and heart health, it can also help you trigger your weight loss processes.

In a study, researchers found that taking 1 or 2 tablespoons of vinegar on a daily basis could help you get rid of body fat over a period of 12 weeks. Moreover, this practice can reduce your appetite and boost the feelings of fullness.

The method of consumption is quite easy. You can dilute some apple cider vinegar with fresh water and consume it a couple of times each day with your routine meals.

5. Eat Healthy Fats

Although it seems weird, upping your consumption of fat can also help you keep that fat away. Fat consumption may slow down your metabolic process that can reduce your hunger and appetite.

So, these are 5 ways of burning fat fast and get into shape.

Slimmers Weekly can be a great choice if you are looking for diet pill reviews to make the best choice.

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Does Lifting Weights Make Women Look Less Feminine?

So this is something I hear extremely often when speaking to new female clients in the gym. Many women's fitness regime consists of long session of cardio, with maybe a few very lightweight exercises with high reps. When I ask "why are you training the way you are"? The majority of the time the client will tell me that they are trying to lose some body fat and tone their physique.

Some go into more detail about how they want to tone their arms, have smaller well defined legs, or have a flatter stomach with some muscle tone underneath. Now, unfortunately, there is no such thing as spot reduction, it is physically impossible for a human being to lose body fat in one specific area of the body, but that is a whole new topic for another day.

I always ask whether they include any weight training in their program, and the majority of women say no, or yes, but with light weights and high reps. But why is this the case? More often than not many women avoid the weights area as they are afraid that lifting heavy will cause significant muscle gain, and after all they just want to tone. It's hard to discover where the idea of "toning" came from as in reality there is no such thing, you are either building muscle or not.

The toned look that many women strive for is established through weight training to build the muscle underneath and then losing the body fat over the top through a well structured nutrition program. Hours of cardio and high rep, low weight training is only going to leave you frustrated with little results. The majority of my female clients say they have avoided the weight in the past out of fear that they will become "bulky" or have muscles like men. While I'm sure we have all seen images of female bodybuilders, and I have massive respect for the hard work and dedication they put into their passion, it is impossible for women to look that way from a short period of weight training. If it was that easy then why doesn't every guy who lifts look like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Phil Heath?

While it is possible for a guy to build muscle quickly and easily, this isn't the case for women. But why is that? It all comes down to hormones. Testosterone is the main hormone that is responsible for building muscle, and while women do have some testosterone, it is no way near the level of males. Therefore it stands to reason that they can build some muscle, but not as much or as quick as guys.

So what does happen when women lift weights? They build muscle slowly which will help to improve their physique. More muscle tissue in the legs make the thighs and bum more shapely, and more development of the arms can help the fight against bingo wings. Building muscle tissue in the shoulders and back will create the illusion of a smaller waist and help create the hourglass fugue.

But what about body fat? While lifting weight will burn calories, the only way to lose body fat is to set up a calorie deficit, through a well-structured nutrition program, as mentioned in a previous blog "the one diet that actually works". If you decide you want to look more toned and therefore diet really hard to lose fat, with little muscle underneath, ultimately you end up with a skeleton. However, with some well-defined muscle, you will create that toned and "wonder woman" physique you are after.

So to conclude, women should lift weights as it will lead to the physique many women are after by building "toned" muscle and helping lose fat to get you in the best shape.

For help setting up your training and nutrition program to achieve your dream body then contact me at Valkyrie Fitness today to get started.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more content coming soon.

George

For help setting up your weight training and nutrition program in order to build "toned" muscle and help lose fat, to get you in the best shape and to achieve your dream body then contact me at Valkyrie Fitness today to get started.

Head to http://www.valkyriefitness.co.uk
email me at george.owen@yourpersonaltraininguk.co.UK
phone me on 07935 100 417

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Motivation Is Essential to a Happy Retirement

After forty years of working to earn a living, retirement seems to be a relief and many people approaching this time in their lives state that they will do precisely nothing. But these people who ensure that they are true to their word are the ones that are likely to suffer later in life. As time passes by, the less you do the less you want to do and it becomes more difficult to raise yourself from your armchair.

Not only will this mindset ensure that your retirement will be drastically cut short but quality of life will become non-existent. Regardless of how long you have been virtually housebound it takes a certain amount of positive thinking to get up and make improvements to your lifestyle. Motivation may be in short supply but that is the only thing that will make a difference.

Everything in society today is geared to encourage you to do much less and in doing so this is increasing the bank account profits of fast food outlets, supermarket delivery companies and the many online businesses from which anything can be purchased. As a result of this, a common response would be "why should I get out of my chair when I do not have to"? The answer to that is "for your own health and well-being"!

Assessing the benefits of regular movement and exercise can be the best form of motivation because when the aches and pains begin to take hold and they definitely will, remaining inactive will only make them worse. Just standing correctly over a period of time can reverse the damage that long periods of laziness can bring about.

One part of the body that suffers from inactivity is the back and back pain can become unbearable if not addressed in the proper manner. While remaining seated, posture becomes distorted and puts strain not only on the back but on a number of organs in the body and as a person puts on weight, organs become displaced and the heart has to work much harder to ensure its vital role continues.

Although all of the body's organs are important the heart is by far the one that has to be cared for the most and many people overlook this. Some are given a warning in the form of a heart attack when their heart is put under too much strain: for some this is a warning but to others a fatality.

There is only one answer and that is to get moving - take a regular walk or take up a gentle type of exercise such as yoga but the onus here is to start to become more active. The result will be an improvement in overall fitness and a vast improvement in quality of life.

Exercise is crucial especially once you have retired. Keeping fit in both mind and body is the key to a healthy lifestyle. To find out more about this sometimes complex subject, visit http://www.eatandstayfitover60.com

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How To Lose Belly Fat After 40

What Is Successful Ageing?

With all the exercise and fitness advice out there for the after fifty-year old individuals, there is so much conflicting information out there on what precisely we should do to have a healthy older age.

We have all heard that you should exercise and eat healthy. And most of us try to do that as much as we can. We toil and rush to the gym so that we could get that workout in so that we could check off or schedules. But is it really worth it in the long run?

I believe that it is worth exercising and eating right to be healthy in our older years. However, I think some of us turn it into an obsession where we just keep going to the gym, spending hours, and try to look like we did when we were twenty and thirty years old.

This kind of obsessive mindset is very unhealthy and should be curbed for us to have a healthy older age. We must find a way to balance being healthy in a world of extremes where, on the one hand, we are encouraged to eat all the wrong foods for us through advertisements, and on the other hand, we are drilled to go to the gym for 2 hours every day so that we can be healthy.

There is a way to balance a healthy lifestyle so that you can live your best and healthiest life in your older age. I believe that to find this balance, we need to become more mindful of what we are doing on a daily basis.

Here are a few things to try:

1. Exercise no more than 20 to 30 minutes, 5 days a week. Walking is just as good as going to the gym. So, why pay so much money for memberships to gyms. Instead, walk outside during the nice weather, and when you can walk outside, find other ways of exercising at home.

2. Live a more balanced and mindful life, where you can slow down and smell the roses. This is so important because for many of us, even when we retire, we end up doing so much every day. In essence, we have replaced our careers with another career.

3. Take time to enjoy every day of your life. Do at least one nice thing for yourself every day. Sew, crochet, play golf, read, or take a course. All of these things will help you enjoy the quality of your life.

4. Create a bucket list and do the things and start doing the things on your bucket list one at a time. If travel is on your bucket list, start budgeting and planning for these trips. Then when the time comes, go to these destinations and enjoy yourself.

By taking these steps you will be aging successfully. You will also be taking the time to enjoy life, because it goes so fast. Remember that we don't have forever. So, we should make every day count.

Irene S. Roth writes for teens, tweens, and kids about self-empowerment. She is the author of over fifty books and over two thousand online articles. She also has over 1,500 published book reviews both online and in print. In addition, she has several books published about living well with chronic illness. Please double click on this link to read about one of them: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/689182

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Exercises That Should Be Done Weekly By Women Over 40 Years Of Age