Older people need to diet just to maintain the appropriate weight. What that weight is will vary with the individual, but the weight a person had in high school is probably close to ideal. At that weight most people's blood pressures will come down to normal so rather than eat whatever you want and take blood pressure medicine to get your blood presssure down, it's probably healthier to get it down by natural means which would be to get your weight down! At least that's the way it worked for me. Doctors were ready and willing to give me blood pressure medicine when my blood pressure was 160 over 100. My weight was 185. Instead I decided to get my weight down before the heart attack instead of after it, and so I dieted my weight down to a window between 170 and 175. At that weight my blood pressure is 115 over 75 which is actually lower than normal. I don't know if this would work for everyone, but at least for some, including me, blood pressure is highly correlated with weight. Even a modest loss of weight - 10 to 15 pounds in my case - led to a drastic decrease in blood pressure.
Gaining or losing weight is directly related to your caloric intake minus calories burned in exercise and in maintaining normal bodily functions. It's totally mathematical. If one is gaining weight, that person is taking in more calories than are being burned. It's that simple. So to lose weight one needs to consume less calories and burn more. The sad truth of the matter is that this will cause discomfort in terms of hunger for most people although this discomfort can be somewhat ameliorated. It can't be eliminated altogether, however. So to lose weight, a person has to be willing to undergo discomfort. This is the truth that no one who is trying to sell you diet pills or exercise equipment or diet plans will ever tell you.
Think about it. Our bodies are essentially the same as they were 140,000 years ago when the human species, homo sapiens, was born. Food supplies were unreliable so the purpose of weight gain in terms of adding fat to the body, was so that, if the hunt wasn't successful for a few days, calories in the form of stored fat were burned from the body instead of from caloric intake and, when the hunt was successful, people overate in terms of their daily caloric needs, and fat was added to the body. So fat was a good thing because it was a storehouse of calories, and people ate irregularly, not 3 meals a day, day in and day out like today.
One thing a person who wants to maintain an ideal weight has to realize is that you have to give up the notion of eating 3 meals a day, day in and day out. You have to impose on yourself what was imposed on the cave man by nature and that is the idea of going hungry or at least reduced calorie consumption for several meals a week - whatever it takes to lose weight gradually and then to maintain something approximating your ideal weight whatever you decide that should be. The scales are the objective decider and everyone should weigh themselves on a daily basis. The proof is in the pudding and the moment of truth is when you step on the scales. The scales don't lie.
In my opinion, most food is comfort food. We eat because it's a comforting experience. As we get older it takes less calories to run our bodies so that more and more weight is added to our bodies, and we get the degenerative diseases associated with aging: heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes etc. If we are willing to keep our weight down, it is less likely that we will become a victim of stroke, heart attack and cancer. Good genes are also important, but the best way to keep our bodies in good condition, in addition to keeping our weight down, is exercise. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all systems run down with time. It is thought by a lot of people that this applies to the human body as well. As we age, our bodily system inevitably runs down until something critical happens, and we die. However, exercise has the opposite effect. It causes physical resources to be deployed that actually build up (rather than tear down) the body. Muscles that are used in exercise actually get stronger instead of weaker. Cardiovascular exercise actually builds up the cardiovascular system whereas doing nothing but sitting in front of the TV causes it to degenerate.
For millenia, the ideal life has been thought to be one in which no physical work was necessary and we had everything we wanted to eat or drink. This is the life of the very wealthy and was aspired to by everybody else. Actually, this is the worst possible situation we could be in. Over-consumption of calories and under-utilization of our physical bodies will hasten the degenerative diseases of aging. We need to be willing to be uncomfortable in terms of hunger and to the extent that exercise is uncomfortable ands requires self-discipline, we have to be willing to undergo discomfort in terms of that too.
My diet plan is very simple. Once my weight exceeds my upper limit in terms of the 5 pound window I give myself (175 pounds in my case), I add more diet meals to my week. My diet meal consists of a scoop of soy protein powder in a cup of apple juice as well as 4 brewer's yeast tablets and 4 dessicated liver tablets. It has zero fat and calories and is high in nutritional value. I actually feel better and less hungry than if I had consumed a reduced calorie regular meal. The rest of the time I eat normally and don't count calories which is a waste of time because different people's bodies treat the same number of calories differently. The truth is when you step on the scales not in how many calories you consume. You can't measure how many calories you burn which varies from day to day so counting calories is a waste of time. The scales should be your feedback mechanism.
Ideally, if we were designed differently by nature, we would not get fat no matter how much we ate and how little we exercised. Actually, since life is unfair, there are some people who are this way. But for most of us, especially as we age, we tend to put on weight as a direct result of over-eating and under-exercising. What those limits are vary with the individual and with time. Some people can exercise quite a bit, eat very little and still gain weight. Others are at the opposite end of the spectrum. But the scales are the truth-teller in terms of how much a person can eat and how much a person needs to exercise to maintain their ideal weight. Don't think in terms of dieting to reach your ideal weight and then eating normally 3 meals a day from then on. That's how you gain it back! Instead think in terms that you may need to diet in some form for the rest of your life just to maintain your ideal weight.
Some days I know I should be having a diet meal for breakfast, but for some reason I yield to temptation and go to Starbucks for a Grande Mocha and a maple scone instead. Some days you're just feeling down and need some comfort food. The important thing is not to feel guilty, not to feel like a failure, but to keep trying. On other days you'll feel mentally stronger, and it will be easier to contemplate only eating normally for one or two meals instead of three meals on that particular day. After all, you're yielding to temptation at a fairly high level compared to the person who is fighting an addiction to drugs or alcohol. We're all addicted to food or else we would just give ourselves injections of nutrients every day that would keep our bodies at an optimum level. Since not many of us are willing to do that, look forward to that one comforting meal a day instead of three, the other two being diet meals.
It is important to realize that the flip side of this system is being careful that your weight does not fall below the lower limit you have set for yourself. If this starts to happen, you will actually have to increase your calorie consumption so you don't become anorexic. This is easy for me to do. I just go to Starbucks more often! Or stop at Wendy's for lunch.
As far as exercise goes, I swim 5 days a week and work out with weights 2 days a week. The swimming is good for low impact cardiovascular exercise and the weight training is good for keeping your muscle and bone mass up. Older people tend to have both their bone and muscle mass diminish. But they don't need to. I use light weights, weights for which I can do 10 to 20 repetitions. Heavier weights are not advisable for older people, in my opinion, because it is too easy to strain something as we get older. I have found that I actually get stronger using lighter weights although it is a temptation to see how much we actually can lift. Walking is also good as is bike riding. I don't recommend running since it is high impact on the knees and joints.
Most people age because of degenerative diseases brought about from too little exercise and too much calorie consumption. There is no need to invest in expensive exercise equipment or diet plans. Just join the YMCA or other gym. My diet drink meals are probably the cheapest meals I consume! I get a huge jar of soy protein powder at Trader Joe's for $10.00, and the yeast and liver tablets are relatively cheap. I buy mine online from Puritan's Pride where they are always running 3 for the price of one offers. If you are on a budget, you can actually save money on this diet. You don't need Jenny Craig unless you want someone to hold your hand. By the way, a lot of women seem to want personal trainers to hold their hands while they exercise. If you can afford it, fine. If not, it takes a little bit more self-discipline.
So it's really very simple. People want an easy way out. They don't want to have to have any self-discipline and they don't want to have to undergo any discomfort. This opens the door for all kinds of diet and exercise con artists who, for a price, are willing to sell them on the fact that they can reach their health goals without having to suffer. People can live a longer life just from following two simple admonitions: 1) keep your weight approximately what it was in high school and 2) daily cardiovascular and bi-weekly weight training exercise.
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