The accepted definition of a “baby boomer” is anyone born between 1946 and 1964. Most marketing experts consider this generation to be the most influential and powerful generation of all time. We have been changing things every decade as we enter new arenas – be they political, social or financial. Now our generation is approaching retirement, and as usual, we are redefining everything. We expect our retirement to be much more active than that of our parents and grandparents. And we face the challenge of making sure that we stay healthy enough to do all that we want to accomplish. A chief concern for our continued or renewed health is proper weight control.

● Fact 1: Changing Lifestyle Patterns
As baby boomers move into their later 40’s, 50’s, and now 60’s, we are running into new challenges for controlling our weight. This usually means that both our activity and eating patterns are changing. As new or soon-to-be “empty nesters”, we are starting to find it more challenging to prepare meals because it is often just the two of us rather than the family. Because of this, we eat out more, or just throw something simple together rather than spending a lot of time putting a whole meal together. These new eating practices can cause us to be less healthy and create problems for our weight control.

● Fact 2: Changes in Body Chemistry
Studies indicate that after the age of 30 we lose about 10% of our muscle mass per decade. And, to make things worse, our metabolism (the speed at which our bodies breakdown the foods we eat) begins to slow down. These things make it much more challenging for us to maintain a healthy weight and good muscle tone. Remember that muscle weighs more than fat, so as we age and lose some of our muscle we can stay at the same weight and start gaining more fat around our middle, legs, and bottoms. All of a sudden our clothes are getting tighter and we don’t know why because the scale says we’re still the same weight as we have been for years.

● Fact 3: Changing Activity Levels
Without our kids around it’s easy to become less active. We sit around and watch more television. Maybe that old sport or dancing injury keeps us from doing certain things. These things piling up can seem to be insurmountable challenges to a healthy lifestyle and the ability to control and maintain our weight. If we don’t make a conscious choice to do things differently, we can quickly become the overweight, middle-aged man or woman that we said we would never become.

So, What Can We Do to Keep This From Happening to Us?
Arm yourself with a little knowledge and some determination, and you can overcome these problems before they grab hold, or reverse them if they have already snuck up on you.

It has been proven over and over again that as little as 30 minutes of exercise per day can help a person maintain or regain lost muscle mass. If you do 2 or 3 days of strength training per week and do aerobic exercises on the remaining days, you will make a great deal of progress toward developing and maintaining a healthy and fit body. Strength training (working out with weights) will help to develop and strengthen your muscles. Aerobic exercise (walking, running, biking, swimming, etc.) will help increase your body’s ability to process oxygen and strengthen your heart (the most important muscle in the body). There is also evidence that aerobic exercise builds collateral blood supply in the arteries around the heart, which can help to reduce the chances for, or severity of, a heart attack.

The other major thing we need to be watching and addressing is our food intake; more specifically, the balance of caloric intake versus expenditure. The simple scientific fact is that 3,500 calories equals one pound of weight gain or loss. If we take in 3,500 calories more than we use, we will gain a pound. If we use up 3,500 more calories than we take in, we will lose one pound. Therefore, if you want to lose 2 pounds per week, you need to eat 7,000 less calories for the week, burn 7,000 calories through extra exercise for that week, or do a combination of both. Of course, as with anything, there are additional things you need to keep in mind in order to maintain optimum health.

If you want good advice on proper dieting, you should look for a registered dietitian or someone else with formal training in this area. If you have trouble locating someone, your family physician should be able to point you in the right direction. With a little extra effort, you can move into retirement as healthy as possible - and stay that way for the long run.