Why You Get Fatter as You Get Older

Let’s face it, as you age your body not only ages – it also changes. How much you actually weigh become less and less of an issue for your overall appearance.

Here is an example. Does a 95-year-old woman physically look the same as when she was 16 if she weighs the same amount? Of course not, and I’m not just talking about wrinkles. If you compared her arms and her legs, there would be a huge difference in tone and shape. The older person would also be larger and softer – they would not be able to fit into the same clothes even though they weighed the same amount.

Here is the reason: After age 30, you lose 6 lbs of muscle every decade. If you weigh the same at age 30 and 40, you will be fatter at age 40. You would have 6 lbs less of muscle and 6 lbs more of fat. A pound of fat is many times larger in volume than a pound of muscle. A pound of muscle also naturally burns 30-50 calories per day, whereas a pound of fat only burns 3 calories.

The fact that people naturally lose muscle as they age is also the reason that people put on weight as they age. Here is an example that will show you how the average man can gain 60-100 lbs in his lifetime without ever over-eating. I will round some numbers to make it easier to follow.

Here is an average man.

30 years old, 5′10″, 180 lbs and moderate activity. He will burn about 2,500 calories per day to maintain his weight.

At age 40, if he has now lost 5 lbs of muscle, he will need to eat 2,300 calories per day to maintain his weight. (5lbs of muscle X 40 calories per day average = 200) He can easily gain 10 lbs per year, if he continues to eat the same amount of calories that he could eat at age 30.

At age 50, he has now lost another 5 lbs of muscle. He will now have to eat 2,100 calories per day to maintain his weight. He can continue to easily gain another 10 lbs per year, if he continues to eat like he did when he was 30.

So what is the point? If at age 30, you eat the perfect healthy diet and maintain a healthy weight, in the future, you will gain weight on that same healthy diet.

So, what can I do? You can either eat less an less as you age, or you can maintain and hopefully gain a little muscle as you age. Resistance training is now known to be very important at all ages. You don’t need to become a hardcore bodybuilder, you just need to do enough to maintain what you have. Isn’t this a good reason be active?