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Home » Lose Weight » There’s One Major Drawback to Losing Weight When You’re Older Here’s How to Avoid It – LIVESTRONG.COM

No matter your age, it's never too late to practice a healthy lifestyle and work toward a weight-loss goal. For people who are overweight, shedding pounds at any age boasts some big health benefits.

Loss of bone density can be an issue when older people lose weight, but resistance exercise can help counter this effect.

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Not only can weight loss improve blood pressure, cholesterol levels and blood sugar (not to mention boost your energy and self-confidence), it can also help lower your chances of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That said, as you get older, losing weight may also come with one major downside: bone loss (and subsequently, an increased risk of fractures), according to a December 2019 study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

Fortunately, there's a way to drop pounds and protect your bones at the same time: The study also found that resistance exercise, alone or combined with aerobic exercise, is an effective way for older adults to maintain bone density while following a weight-loss regimen.

From providing structural support to protecting your organs and anchoring your muscles, bones play several major roles in your body, per the Mayo Clinic. But after the age of 30, you start to lose more bone mass than you gain. And as bone density decreases, the risk of falling and major injuries increase, says, Geoff Tripp, CSCS, certified personal trainer and head of fitness at Trainiac.

What's more, maintaining bone health is critical for health aging. As you age, an injury can have major consequences for your quality of life: "In older populations, a severe fall could mean the loss of functionality," says Tripp.

Resistance training can help you create and preserve healthy bone density, especially as you age.

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"Bone adapts to stress that is placed on it," says Tripp. Through compression forces, resistance exercises place stress on your bones and your tendons (which tug and pull on your bones). The result? "The combination of compression and the tug-pull effect stimulates bone-producing cells (osteoblasts and osteocytes) to lay down new, stronger bone," Tripp says. In other words, strength training improves your bone density and mass by creating and preserving healthier bones.

So, how often should you do resistance-based exercises? "Generally, people of all ages should perform resistance exercise two to four times per week to maintain and improve bone density and muscle mass," says Tripp.

His recommendation is in line with the Department of Health and Human Services' Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which encourage adults to do muscle-strengthening activities of moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on two or more days a week. The guidelines also say that adults should get in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise each week.

Curious exactly how many calories you burn during your workouts? Download the MyPlate app for a more accurate and customized estimate.

Ready to boost your bones and shed some pounds? Try incorporating these two resistance-based routines, designed by Tripp, into your weekly workout regimen.

For each workout, start with three to five minutes of dynamic stretching to warm up your muscles. Then, perform each move for 10 to 12 reps and repeat the circuit two times total, resting 30 seconds in between each move and 1 minute in between rounds. Make sure to cool down with a series of static stretches.

Don't have suspension straps on hand? You can use a barbell or Smith machine bar to perform this move, too.

A kettle bell can be a great addition to your strength-training routine.

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Kettlebell Goblet Squat to Bench

Plank holds are a great move to strengthen your core.

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Stability Ball Hamstring Curl

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There's One Major Drawback to Losing Weight When You're Older Here's How to Avoid It - LIVESTRONG.COM

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Home » Lose Weight » There’s One Major Drawback to Losing Weight When You’re Older Here’s How to Avoid It – LIVESTRONG.COM