Is it harder to lose weight as you age? I Does your metabolism slow down as you age

YouTube, what's going on? In this video, we are going to be talking about, is it harder to lose weight as you age? This is a very, very controversial topic, and I wanna just dive right in, honestly. You probably have heard, either have heard or you have said this or you have thought this, that as you age, it becomes harder to lose weight. As you age, your metabolism drastically decreases. As you age, you store more fat and you lose more muscle and all these things happen, right? I want to cover everything. Well, hopefully everything. I'm going to cover everything you need to know about if you are getting up there in age. And it's so funny because most people who think they're old, you're not anywhere near old. But with that being said, I know there is this stigma around this, so I want to dive right into it. So first and foremost, there is— there was and is a new study that came out that I saw on, I believe, Dr. Spencer Nadolsky's Instagram page. So I'm going to link that. I'm going to link his Instagram page here below if you want to check it out. Um, But this study basically showed— I'll link the study here in the description of the video here below. So if you want to, feel free to go check out the entire study. Feel free to go check it out. But what that study essentially showed was they took people from age 8 days— yes, 8 days— to, I believe, 95 years old. I believe that was the range. They took people from 8 days to 95 years old and they tested their metabolism, right? Basically, and again, I'm just kind of condensing the information. Basically, what that study showed was, and I'll put a picture here of it above. What that study showed was, from age 20 to 60, your metabolism essentially holds steady. Let me say it again: from age 20 to 60, your metabolism holds steady, so it does not decline. After age about 60, it declines by roughly 0.7%. And if you know how much 0.7% is, it's not that much. So with this new information that we now have, we now know that our metabolisms don't just stop magically working after age 30 or after age 40 or after age 50. Even after age 60, there's only a 0.7% decline. Decline, 0.7% decline in metabolism after age 60. So those people, it might be yourself, I don't know, but the people who say, oh, you know, once I hit 40 it all went to shit and my metabolism went to— my metabolism is screwed and it just stops working, which number one, most people don't even know what their metabolism is. I always ask people like, what is your metabolism? Well, it's clearly how I lose fat. Your metabolism controls every function inside of your body. You watching this video right now is your metabolism. Like every single function inside your body. If your metabolism was broken or damaged, you wouldn't be alive because it controls you living. And so, and again, this is, I don't know if it's a hard pill to swallow, but there's a lot of back and forth and people think that once I hit age 60, once I hit age 50, once I hit age 40, oh, my metabolism just automatically decreases. Unfortunately, that is not what the data and the research tells us. It tells us it actually holds steady from age 20 to 60. So if you're out there thinking like, oh, after 30 or after 40 or after 50, it's game over. No, that's not true. And second point here, they also showed— and again, you can feel free to go read the text— They also showed in this research study that it was not different between genders. So male and female both saw the same. It wasn't like, oh, males kept going but females declined rapidly. No, they both held steady throughout the entire study here. So male versus female, again, it doesn't really matter. Your metabolism holds steady throughout. So what is this telling us here? This is basically telling us, again, number one, your metabolism's not broken. I promise it's fine. It doesn't drastically decrease after you hit 30 or 35 or 40. It tells us that even when it does start to decline, it's very, very, very minimal. It's 0.7%, very minimal. And then number 3, and the biggest kind of contributing factor here is it's not because of your age, it's because of your dietary choices. Changes and probably your exercise-based changes. It's not like after a certain age your metabolism shuts down and you just can't lose weight anymore. Unfortunately, and I say unfortunately because some people might be using that as a crutch, and I'll get to that here in a second, unfortunately that's not the case. Now I want to cover a few things. Some people might come at me and say, oh, Eric, what about women in menopause? So on and so forth. Um, Again, number one, um, the study did not show that. So, and actually, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna link here some of the comments from Spencer's Instagram as well, but there was another fellow talking about this as well. And they basically said the decrease, what would the decrease in lean muscle mass would be what causes you to decrease your metabolism, but the decrease in lean muscle mass that was showed through menopause and perimenopause, whatever, it was not anything significant enough to cause a drastic change in the decrease of metabolism because like I said, There was no difference in male versus female metabolism. They held steady 20 to 60, and that's again for male or female. And so you might say, oh Eric, but again, I'm in menopause, or this and that. I get it, and we're actually going to talk about that here later in a second. So please, please, please bear with me and don't just like write me off as some person who's like, ah, this fucking 25-year-old guy doesn't know what he's talking about, screw-handed it, all these kind of things. Which by the way, I've coached many people through menopause and they've all lost weight. My assistant coach Linda is a Freaking beast, and she is 50 plus years old, and she is still losing fat, gaining muscle. A great, great example of this is the amazing superwoman Susan Niebergall, which if you don't follow Susan Niebergall, I'll put her Instagram here. She actually has a YouTube as well. Susan is the peak example of as you age, you can get into the best shape of your life. She started seriously working out around age 54, and I say seriously because she did the yo-yo dieting and HIIT cardio classes and all those things. But at 54, she started working out for real. And then from there, she now says at 61, she is in the best shape of her life. She's gone through menopause, she's older, all these kind of things, and yet she's in the best shape of her life. So why am I saying all this to you? Number one, again, it's because I want you to know it's not your metabolism being broken. And number two, I really think is it important for you to know because a lot of people use this as a reason why they wouldn't start at all. Like, a lot of people think like, well, I'm 30, it's done for me. Well, I'm 40, it's done for me. Well, I'm 50, it's done for me. I might as well not even try. And this stops people from putting in the work. And there's a term called self-efficacy, and it's basically your, your belief that you can actually accomplish something and do something. If you think that you can't lose weight past 40, Well then, why would you put in the necessary effort to— you won't. You won't put in the effort necessary to try. And again, we're going to talk about if it's harder because that's, that's a different story, right? We're going to cover that here in a second. It's a different story. We're going to talk about if it's harder. But if you think you can't even do it, why would you even try to put in the effort necessary? Because it is going to require some more effort. It is going to require a lot of effort from you to see results. But if you think in your head, well, after 40 I'm done anyway, so why even try? You're not going to put the effort in. You're not, you're not going to push yourself. You're not going to stick to workouts. You're not going to stick to your diet and you're not going to see progress because you think it's like, well, I'm already done for. It's not the case. So please get that out of your head because I need you to understand you can and you will do this. So as long as you put in the necessary effort. All right? So that is the first part of the video covering that study. Again, if you want to check that study out, I'll put it here in the description of this video. Now moving right along here. Now that we know your metabolism isn't broken at age 40, it isn't over for you after we know all these things. And again, we've kind of decided that it's not your age or metabolism, it's the fact of your diet and exercise. Why would it be harder? Why would it be harder when it comes to exercise and diet and all these kinds of things? Again, as an overall theme, I need you to understand it's in your control. And sometimes it's kind of hard to accept that. It's hard to be very honest with yourself. It's hard to accept that, oh wait, the data says my metabolism is actually fine. But once you truly accept that you are in control and you can do this, your self-efficacy increases because you will then say, all right, well, this is in my control. I can do this. I'm going to do the things necessary in order to see the progress I want to see. And you'll actually put in the effort and do the work that it takes to see progress, right? So this is in your control. It's a direct correlation to your habits, not your age or metabolism. It's your habits. Now let's cover exercise and nutrition. As we get older, shocking, right? There's more stress in our lives. We have jobs and we have kids and we have this and we have that. We have all these extra things going on, right? There's less time to exercise. There's less motivation to exercise. There's less willpower to exercise. We don't move around as much. We work a desk job. As opposed to when we were 17 being a waiter at our local restaurant or when we were 19 on the college soccer team. We were moving around a ton then, not so much now. It's not because of the age factor. It's just because times have changed and you're moving less. You know what I mean? It's not the exactly, oh, you turned 40, game over. No. Like when you're 30, 40, 50, you're probably just moving around less. You're probably not running around as much being a waiter, Playing soccer, doing anything with your friends, like your movement decreases. So one of the biggest things, the 2 biggest things I'll say with exercise are 2 things. Number one, strength training, because it is true, as you age, your body is going to want to decrease lean muscle mass. And what this study also showed was during this study, people were keeping up with their lean muscle mass, at the very least maintaining their lean muscle mass throughout this period of time. Lean muscle mass is a contributing factor to your metabolism. Again, what happens is let's say you go from strength training in college and working out a few times a week to, you know, not really doing much strength training, maybe just doing cardio. Like you're not, you're not doing what your body needs in order to maintain and/or build because you still can build muscle at age 40, 50, 60. Susan was a great example of that. You're not doing the things that you need to maintain or build muscle. So then your metabolism, would decrease a bit more from that. So number one, you need to make sure that you continue to follow a strength training program. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for you to follow a strength training program as you continually age. The amount of people who fall and break their hip because they never strength trained in their entire life and their bones are very frail and fragile and they don't have strong bones because they don't have any lean muscle mass because they've never strength trained. That's the number one reason why somebody would check into a hospital or check into an assisted living facility is because like they fell and broke their hip. Like it's not just about keeping your metabolism up. Yes. But also like keeping the quality of life as you age. It's so massively important. Yes. It's cool to have muscles and it's cool to look great and lose weight and all these things. But really what it's about is keeping the quality of life as you age. So I cannot, cannot emphasize enough how important it is to follow a strength training program. If you want or need some help on how to create your own workout program, how many reps to do, how many sets to do, I strongly encourage you to check out some of the other videos on this channel. I have tons of videos on how to, how many sets to do, how many reps to do, what should your workout routine look like. All of that stuff is covered on this channel. It's way more than I can go into right now in this video because I've spent literally hours upon hours doing it in other videos. So please feel free to go check those out. But number one and first and foremost is strength training so you can retain and/or even build lean muscle mass, which is going to keep your metabolism steady as you age. That's number one. Number 2, again, just moving more. Like, it's something called NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. What this basically means in the context of this conversation we're having is just get more steps. Just try to get more steps throughout your day because again, if you're like me, for example, this desk right here, you work a desk job. If you work a desk job, you're probably not getting that many steps. So, make it a priority to, you know, while you're taking your lunch break, if you have an hour lunch break, eat lunch for 20 minutes and then walk for 20 minutes and then just chill for 20 minutes. Or before work, go get a walk in. After work, get a walk in. Get a walk with your kids. Get a walk with your dogs. Park farther away from work. Park farther away from the grocery store. Park farther away from soccer practice. Move more. The more movement you get, and again in this context is steps. The more steps you get, I cannot tell you how underrated getting more steps is when it comes to increasing metabolism, increasing weight loss, and improving your overall physical and mental health. Like I was a dumb trainer. I wasn't a trainer at that point actually, so it was good. I was a dumb kid, like 17, 18. I was like, ah, walking not a real exercise, not that important. Da da. Only lift weights, whatever. What I was. Yeah, I was dumb, but I've learned walking is so important. So please, like, try to aim to get 5,000 to 10,000 steps per day. That should be your goal. No matter if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, no matter your goal, you should be training to— I'm sorry, you should be walking 5,000 to 10,000 steps per day. I was gonna say training to build muscle, which you should be. You should be strength training, but those 2 things combined, strength training and your NEAT, which is again, basically just getting 5,000 to 10,000 steps per day. That right there, if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, that is what you should be focused on. And again, like, add in your cardio here and there if you wanna enjoy it, like, perfect, totally fine. But those are your 2 main things you should really focus on to be able to make sure as you age, you continue to be healthy body fat, you continue to be healthy overall, healthy blood markers, cholesterol, blood pressure, all those things, retain lean muscle mass, all the good stuff, right? So that is exercise. And again, like, it very well could be harder As you age because you have more responsibilities, you have less time, you have less willpower. Like, you know, as you age you might have a baby and you might sleep less, and so that would make it harder. Like, those— yes, it would make it harder, but number one, it's not impossible, and number two, you're not like doomed to not seeing progress. It's in your control. These things just make it harder to stick to an exercise routine or stick to, you know, a strength training routine or getting more steps in. If you're working a desk job now, it's Harder to get more steps in. It doesn't mean it's impossible. So, that's number 1. Number 2, when talking about nutrition, again, let's take a woman who is going through menopause, right? Talking about does it make it harder? Yeah. Yes, it would make it harder because, for example, I've coached plenty of clients to know this. During menopause, you might have night sweats, right? Which sounds so fun and I'm just so upset I'm not a girl. But, like, during menopause, you might have night sweats, right? If you have night sweats, you sleep less. If you sleep less, you're more tired during the day, which means you're less likely to get your workouts in. You're less likely to get up and take walks, less willpower overall, which also means if you get less sleep, you're more hungry. There's more cravings, all these things going on. So let's think about this. If you're more tired, more cravings, more hungry, less willpower, you're probably going to have a tough time sticking to your exercise routine. You're probably gonna have a tough time sticking to your nutrition plan. It doesn't mean it's impossible. Yes, it's harder. It would be harder for sure. But again, it is not impossible. And it's not just like, oh, after I hit this age, I'm done. No, you are in control here. Yes, it makes things harder. We— I am not denying that, but it does not mean it's impossible. And I really need you to understand this. So that would be a great example of like a woman going through menopause, for example. Yeah, like You're more tired, you have more cravings, you're more hungry, like you get less sleep. Yeah, that'd be harder, but it doesn't mean it's impossible. Let's take a different example. Let's say, you know, you're a 42-year-old male who, you know, works a 9-to-5 and has 2 kids, and like you're always on the go, and you work a desk job, and all these things going on. You probably have less time to cook food. You probably have less time to, you know, you're probably eating out more. If you're traveling there, traveling here, traveling there, you're probably eating out more, which means if you're eating out more, you're probably having higher calorie meals. And so like, again, it would make it harder. Nobody's arguing it's not harder to lose weight as you age, but it's not impossible. And it's not just because you're aging, it's because your life factors around this time period, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, life factors are changing, which is making it more difficult to stick to your nutrition plan. Like you're probably going for the easier options, the more convenient options, which are typically higher in calories. And so what can we do here? What are we going to focus on? Number one, focusing on protein. I've done a ton of videos on my YouTube channel about protein, so feel free to check those out. But protein plays actually hand in hand with the lean muscle mass we were talking about. Protein is the only macronutrient to help build and retain lean muscle mass. And so if you are following a strength training program, which please God you should be, and then on top of that, if you're eating adequate protein, You will retain and/or build lean muscle mass, which is going to keep your metabolism high. You'll maintain your muscle. Your metabolism will be 2 thumbs up, good to go. On top of the fact that you'll maintain your lean muscle mass, which is going to improve the quality of your overall life as you age. You can keep your independence as you age, all those great things as well. So number one focus, especially for people as you get into 40, 50, 60, 70, protein. You have to make it a priority. Again, I've done videos on this channel on How to eat more protein, why protein is so important, what it does for you. Feel free to check those out. A general guideline would be take your goal body weight in pounds and multiply that by 0.8 to 1. So for example, let's say you weigh, you want to weigh 150, 150. That's your goal body weight. What I would do is take 150, multiply it between 0.8 and 1. So that would be 120 to 150. Wow. That was like, why? I had to think about that for a second. 120 to 150. Eat within that range of protein. I understand sometimes it can be difficult to reach your protein goal. Again, nobody's saying it's not hard. Nobody's saying it's easy. It might be a bit harder, but if you stay within that range and listen, like if you know, let's just say again, you want to weigh 150 and you eat 110 grams per day, that's still really good. So please give yourself some leeway. But like within that range, if you eat adequate protein, also protein has a high thermic effect of food. What does that mean? Your body has to burn calories to digest food. Protein has the highest thermic effect of food, which means protein burns the most calories when you digest it. So you're automatically, you're keeping your lean muscle mass, which is keeping your metabolism high. Also, you're having more calories burned from eating protein. So both those things combined keep your metabolism where it should be. And so again, it may be harder, it doesn't mean it's impossible. So number 1, focus on protein. Um, number 2, Focus on your overall calorie intake. Shocker. But again, like, if you are, you know, if you're going for the more convenient foods, if you're eating fast food a bit more, if you're eating out a bit more, like, it just makes it hard. Yeah, it might make it harder. You have less time, you don't have more time to meal prep, whatever the case may be. Which, by the way, I've done 2 videos on this channel, one about meal prepping, one about grocery shopping. I highly, highly recommend you go check out those videos. I literally think with all of my heart That is, those are 2 of the most helpful videos I've made around nutrition. So I really, really, really encourage you to go check those out after this video. But you need to manage your overall calorie intake. Like, that's the bottom line. Because again, we've seen your metabolism is okay. It's your diet that is contributing to weight gain. So what do you do? You know, you, if you, for example, counting calories, if you want to count calories, awesome. That is a great way to manage your overall calorie intake. Should you do it forever? No. I don't know, probably not. Like, you don't have to do it forever by any means, no. But especially if you're somebody who's like, ah, just can't lose weight, like too old, whatever the case may be, I really encourage you to like count calories for real. And I say for real because I get so many people who are like, oh, I'm counting calories. I'm like, sweet, like how many grams of this are you eating? They're like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, you're weighing your food on a food scale, right? In grams. They're like, well, no, I'm just kind of like guessing. That's not counting calories. So again, if you wanna learn how to count calories, I have a very popular video on this channel, so please feel free to check it Check out. that video out if you wanna learn how to count calories correctly. But I really encourage you for 30 days, like just give yourself 1 month, 30 days, give yourself 1 month, count your calories. You are going to see, oh wow, eating more food than I thought I was, eating more calories than I thought I was, 'cause that is the driver of weight loss. If you are not in a calorie deficit, you will not lose weight. And so you will see, oh wow, this is why I wasn't losing weight. And you'll get yourself into a calorie deficit. And you will lose weight and you'll see, oh, okay, it's not my age. It was the fact that I was eating too many calories. And so finding ways to control your overall calorie intake. If you don't want to count calories, I have a video on this channel once again on how to lose weight, lose weight without counting calories. And so it's basically my 3 meals and 2 snacks method. So you have 3 meals a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Each one of those meals has to fit on one plate. So you have one plate for breakfast, one plate for dinner, one plate for lunch. On that plate, it has to have 1/4 to 1/2 protein, 1/4 to 1/2 vegetables, and then 1/4 of carbohydrates. If you do that right there, that is awesome. And then the 2 snacks a day, try to make the snacks either a protein, a fruit, or a vegetable, one of those 3 things. And if you follow that right there, that's managing your overall calorie intake. Again, feel free to check that video out if you wanna learn more about that. Um, I actually follow that method for For people who do or don't count calories because it's just a great way to manage your overall calorie intake. But you can do that, that you can control portion size. Like whatever you're eating right now, it's going to sound so simple, but like just eat a bit less. If you're, if you're going to Chick-fil-A and you're getting 2 sandwiches and some fries and a regular Coke, get 1 sandwich, fries, and a Diet Coke. You would decrease your calorie intake by probably roughly 400 to 600 calories. Yeah, probably 400 to 600 calories right there. If you went from having 2 sandwiches, 1 fry, 1 regular Coke to 1 sandwich, 1 fry, and a Diet Coke, you would literally cut your calories by 400 to 600, which again is going to help you lose weight. And so whatever you're doing right now, just eat a bit less. If you're at dinner and you're having 2 plates, have 1 plate. That will decrease your overall calorie intake. And so it sounds so simple, but finding ways to control your overall calorie intake is number And number 3, last but not least, really try to lean towards following the 80/20 rule. And again, I've done a video on the 80/20 rule on this channel. I've done a lot of videos on this channel. Like, if you have not checked out some of my other videos, check those things out, man. I've done a ton of videos. Um, the 80/20 rule is essentially saying 80% of your food should come from nutrient-dense whole foods. I call them one-ingredient foods. Apple, one ingredient. Chicken, One ingredient. Eggs, one ingredient. One ingredient foods. Sweet potato, one ingredient. Spinach, one ingredient. Like, one ingredient foods. 20% can come from foods you enjoy, treats, candy, cookie, whatever, but it's not the other way around. Most people have their diet 20% whole foods, 80% processed, very minimally nutrient-dense, like very quick, convenient, easy. You need to start to shift that pendulum right there because— Pendulum or pendulum? I don't know which one it is. Feel free to let me know in the comments. If you watched this far, let me know in the comments. Is it pendulum? I think it's pendulum with a G. I don't know, man. Feel free to let me know in the comments. But you need to start to switch that to 80% nutrient-dense whole foods, 20% treats you enjoy. Again, you don't have to cut things out. You don't have to not eat things, but you need to make the majority of your food, especially as you start to age, you need to make the majority of your food coming from nutrient-dense, Whole real foods, less processed, less less more again more minimally processed foods. And again, it's not to say you can't have foods. And again, I talked about this in one of my videos. I think it's on grocery shopping. So definitely check that video out. But it's not so you can't have these things. But if that's the majority of your diet, you're probably going to have a higher calorie diet. And if you have a higher calorie diet, well, what do we just say? If you're not in a calorie deficit, you're not going to lose weight. And we just found out that your Your diet is the main contributing factor to you gaining weight, not your age. And so making sure you follow that 80/20 rule, massively important when it comes to keeping a healthy body weight, keeping healthy body fat, keeping a healthy body as you age. And so that is the 3 biggest things for nutrition and that's basically it, man. Again, I just wanna really get across to you that your metabolism is fine. It's not like when you hit 40 or 50 or 60 you're done for. And actually I have a client in my— in the clubhouse right now. Her name is Vicki. Shout out Vicki. She's amazing. Vicki is 70+ years old, menopause, hypothyroidism, all these things. And she's lost a tremendous amount of weight and she's strong as holy hell. She is so strong, man. Again, that's a great example. It's not, you're not doomed. You can do this. I promise you. I wouldn't sit here and yell into this camera and this microphone right now just because I want to. Like, I know for a fact you can do it. You have to know you can do it. You have to know you're not Yeah. You have to know it is in your control. And then from there, go get the work done, man. So hope this video helped. If you have any comments, questions, concerns, drop below. Um, thanks for watching. We'll chat soon.