Does My Metabolism Slow Down as I Get Older?

There is a common myth that as we get older, our metabolism naturally slows down. Most people believe that this is true, and that as a result of this, when we get older, it is harder to prevent our weight from slowly (or not so slowly) creeping up.

The truth is, that most often our metabolism does slow down as we get older. However, it does not slow down because we get older. As we get older, we naturally lose our lean muscle mass. After the age of 30, we begin to lose muscle mass. We can lose anywhere from 1/2 to one percent of our muscle mass per year. At the same time, we are usually increasing our body fat. Even if our weight remains the same, since we are losing muscle mass, it means that our body fat is increasing. It is a known fact, that the more muscle mass one has, the higher the metabolism will be. This is because maintaining our muscles requires energy, and therefore burns calories. So, it seems that it is true – as we age, our metabolism slows down. However, our metabolism is not slowing down because we are aging, it is slowing down because we are losing muscle mass, and we lose muscle mass because we are aging.

The good news is that there is something that we can do about this.

We don’t need to lose muscle mass as we age. We are losing muscle mass because we are not doing anything to prevent the loss of muscle mass. The way to combat the loss of muscle mass is to do resistance training on a regular basis. Resistance training builds muscle mass. There are many different ways that we can do resistance training – weight lifting using free weights or machines, body weight exercises, exercise bands or straps. By doing resistance training several times a week, we can increase our muscle mass, and therefore increase our metabolism. When we increase our metabolism we will burn more calories every day. This will help us maintain a healthy weight as we get older.