Maga Woman Magazine - issue #2

Losing weight is a common issue for
many women and as they get older
the ability to lose weight seems to be
even harder. I often get asked which
is the best diet to lose weight so let
me answer that question first and
then we can move on.
The answer is that there is NO single best diet!
I am sure that if you have reached the age of
45 years or beyond then you have likely experimented
with more than one diet in your lifetime
and you would have a good idea of what does and
doesn’t work for your body. There is no single
diet that works for everyone but there are some
healthy concepts that will have your body functioning
at an optimal level.
Let’s start by understanding why it seems to be
harder to lose weight as you get older. For many
women they will have one or more of the following
going on:
Excess fat has been stored around the tummy,
this often occurs due to high stress. The
body responds to ongoing stress by holding
on to fat and storing it around the organs of
the tummy
The body has not learnt how to efficiently
burn fat for energy, this happens after a
lifetime of low fat eating. For many years fat
was seen to be the demon and was simply
not consumed, this meant that the body
forgot how to use fat properly
The body is very efficient at burning carbs
for energy and if there are excess carbs consumed
for what it required to sustain life,
the excess is stored as fat
The body’s metabolism slows down due to
an under-functioning thyroid. Sub-clinical
hypothyroidism affects many women, it is
often related to high stress and high carb
diet.
The body often stores oestrogen in fat cells
and as oestrogen production drops in the
reproductive organs, the body will hold on
to the oestrogen in the fat cells. This makes
it harder to utilise fat for energy production.
There are 2 primary
sources of energy
(or fuel) for the body
– carbohydrates
and fats.
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Maga Women Magazine