How Much Exercise Is Needed for a 40-Year-Old to Lose Weight?

Ah, the age of 40. It can be a great age….except for that little problem of your metabolism being slower than it was when you were in your 20’s or, sadly, even in your 30’s. This can make losing weight much harder than it was before. The answer is to discover the number of calories you burn during a certain activity and change the time to suit your needed weight loss.

Your Present Weight

The amount of exercise you need to do to lose weight will depend on how many pounds you want to shed. If you have to lose only five pounds, then taking a half-hour walk three days a week would most likely be enough for you to lose the weight. If you have fifty pounds to drop, you’ll need to do much more than taking just a half-hour walk. If you weigh 190 pounds, and you cycle for one hour every day, that could burn 689 calories and that will lead to about a six-pound loss of weight every month. However, if you weigh 145 pounds, you’ll only burn 525 calories performing the same exercise and would more than likely only lose about four-and-a-half pounds per month.

Your Fitness Level

Your fitness level can also influence how much you’ll need to work out to notice a difference on your scale. If you’re extremely fit, jogging for a half hour at a six mile-per-hour pace would burn about the same amount of calories that a less physically fit person would burn just walking at three miles per hour for an hour. The more arduous workout you’re capable of doing, the faster you’re going to lose the weight. Don’t get upset if you’re out of shape. After you reach middle age, this is a common situation. But there’s good news! You can get into shape no matter what your age.

Time Period

If you want to drop twenty pounds but don’t mind if it takes a year, you don’t have to work out quite as much as someone who needs to shed the same number of pounds but would rather do it in three months. Here’s an equation that will work for any age: Multiply 3,500 by the number of pounds you’d like to lose. The answer is the number of calories you’ll need to burn to accomplish your weight goal. Now, divide this number by the quantity of days you’re giving yourself to lose weight. For instance, if you want to drop twenty pounds, you’ll have to burn 70,000 calories; for a three month span that means you’ll need to generate a calorie loss of 777 calories every day. Obtain an exercise calorie calculator to figure out how many calories you’re burning when you perform your favorite activity and then alter the time as needed.

Diet and Fitness

Even though exercise by itself will help you to lose weight, you would lose the weight much quicker if it were combined with a healthy, low-calorie diet. By the time you’re 40 years old, no doubt that you’ve ingrained some unhealthy eating habits; but if you strive to change your eating habits, you could have less weight problems. Hunger pangs could possibly increase when you exercise so you’ll need to carefully keep an eye on your food intake to guarantee that you don’t unknowingly eat more calories every day. Get rid of hunger pangs by eating a diet that doesn’t have any refined carbohydrates but instead contains plenty of protein. Furthermore, be sure to fill up on vegetables that are rich in fiber to balance your blood sugar level. This will give you more energy while you’re exercising plus you’ll lose that weight that you want to lose.

So get off the couch, get active and lose that weight! You can do it! There’s a new, thinner you struggling to get out and with a bit of exercise, healthy eating and determination, the new you will be shining through in no time!