Staying Fit and Stopping Regain in Its Tracks: Revising your food and exercise plan for weight maintenance, Drawing on your experience and thinking ahead for long-term success and Maintaining weight at different stages of life.

Staying Fit and Stopping Regain in Its Tracks

In This Chapter

� Revising your food and exercise plan for weight maintenance

� Drawing on your experience and thinking ahead for long-term success

� Maintaining weight at different stages of life

Maintaining your current weight probably takes just as much patience and open-mindedness as getting to a healthier weight. Maybe even more. Statistically, most people who lose weight aren’t able to maintain their weight loss after several years. But you can beat those odds! Plenty of people are able to keep all or most of the weight off and maintain a healthier weight for the rest of their lives. You can be one of them!

This chapter is one of the more serious in this book. I focus on healthy weight maintenance at any age. Sure, losing and maintaining weight gets harder if you wait until you’re older to start trying or if you’ve tried over and over again throughout your life and you’ve gotten older in the process. But it doesn’t matter if you’re 20, 40, 60, or older; you lose weight and maintain the loss by following the same rules. You may have to tweak the rules here and there to fit your own circumstances, but they don’t change with age.

In addition, this chapter also contains some practical tools to help you maintain your weight loss, such as a formula to help you determine how many calories you can consume now to stay at your current weight and a few menu plans you can use as guides to healthy, calorie-controlled meal planning throughout your lifetime.

Adding Calories and Keeping Up with Your Workouts

The first thing you had to do to start losing weight was accept the notion of change. (What? You haven’t started losing weight? Check out Chapter 4 to start your plan.) You had to change something about the way you eat, the way you exercise, and even the way you think. You’re probably still changing your ways and adjusting to the many changes you’ve already made.

Maybe you’re noticing that change is a recurring theme when you live a low-calorie lifestyle. Nothing stays the same anywhere, and certainly not in Dietville. You simply move from one stage of weight control to the next. When you get to a healthy weight, or when you decide that cutting calories to lose weight isn’t working for you anymore, the next stage is weight maintenance. During this stage, your goal is to stay where you are and prevent weight gain.

Weight maintenance is actually easier than weight loss. First, you’re more seasoned in the art of weight control than before you started losing. You’ve lost weight and you’re already a success story! You can now relax some, eat a little more food if you want, put everything you’ve figured out into practice, and just keep a close eye on yourself. You know that you can lose weight by either reducing calories or exercising, but that a combination of the two is most effective. The same holds true for weight maintenance.

After you enter a weight-maintenance stage, you no longer need a deficit of calories because you’re not trying to lose any more weight. On the other hand, you can’t celebrate your weight-loss success with random, mindless eating. You still need a plan that includes a calorie-controlled diet and an ongoing exercise routine. In the following sections, I give you tips for adjusting your diet plan and exercise routine so that you can begin maintaining your weight with ease.

Using a formula for the future

To maintain your new weight, you need to figure on taking in at least 25 per- cent fewer calories than you were when you first started your low-calorie diet. For example, if you were consuming 2,800 calories a day before you started losing and you cut down to an average of, say, 1,400 calories to lose weight, you can raise your calorie limit to about 2,100 for weight maintenance. (The difference between 1,400 and 2,100 is 700, which is 25 percent of 2,800.) As it turns out, 700 isn’t only 25 percent of 2,800; it’s smack dab in the middle of where you started your diet and where you ended it! If you don’t know how many calories you were consuming when you started, gradually

increase your current calorie allowance by 100 or 200 a day. Evaluate your weight once each week to see if you’ve lost, gained, or maintained, and then adjust your calorie allowance if necessary.

Like all weight-related formulas and measures, this one is approximate. It can’t take into account all your own personal factors that affect how you lose weight and how you gain it, such as your family history and your own personal history of weight loss and weight gain. (See Chapter 2 for more about these topics.) It also can’t take into account any changes in your metabolism that may result from losing weight. This formula, like the body measurement and weight-loss formulas in Chapters 2 and 3, is the equivalent of an educated guess. You may have to work with it and adjust your calories up or down a little, in order to make it work perfectly for you.

Planning menus for weight maintenance

A 2,000-calorie menu is a good place for active people to start when develop- ing a weight-maintenance plan. If you’re a small-framed woman, or someone who isn’t very active, you may need to cut this amount down to somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 calories. If you’re a man, or a very active woman, you may be able to add a couple of hundred calories. Use the following menu plans for at least a week to see how they work for you.

Just as you had to take a basic calorie-controlled menu (see Chapter 6) and adjust it to make it work for you while you were losing weight, you can use the 2,000-calorie weight-maintenance plans that follow as basic guides, and increase or reduce the amount of food slightly until you find your own balance.

As you start increasing the number of calories you consume each day, be sure to remember the following:

� You can approach weight maintenance in two ways.

• The first way is to slightly increase the portion sizes of some of the same foods you enjoyed while you were on a low-calorie weight- loss plan.

• Another way is to continue on a nutritionally balanced, lower-calorie plan so you can enjoy more of the favorite foods you may have cut back on or even eliminated while you were losing weight.

The approach you take depends on how confident you are in your ability to stick to reasonable portion sizes of all foods.

� Now that you’re on a maintenance plan, you can relax. If you stick closely to the portion sizes you’ve discovered are acceptable, and you don’t add too many snacks and desserts back into day-to-day meal plans, you can go out to eat at a restaurant or dinner party and enjoy your meal without worrying so much about how your food was prepared or how many calories it contains.

� Paying attention to the amount of food you eat, practicing more mindful eating behavior (see Chapter 4 for more about mindful eating), and keep- ing your goals in mind are all more important at this point than counting every single calorie. By the time you get to a weight-maintenance stage, you know how to eat. You know how important maintaining a positive attitude is and how to incorporate as much physical activity into your life as possible. Following a low-cal lifestyle after you’ve lost weight is all about putting everything you’ve discovered into practice on a regular basis.

� If you find that your maintenance diet isn’t working and you’re starting to gain weight, use a lower-calorie menu plan from Chapter 6 to get back on track again and figure out how many calories you can consume, on average, to stay at your maintenance weight.

Now that you’re on a maintenance plan, you’re eating the same way as anyone else who maintains his or her weight. The only difference between you and a nondieter is that you may still need to follow a strict plan until you’re confident that you know exactly how much you can eat and stay at your current weight. You’re no longer on a low-calorie diet, but you are on a calorie-controlled diet. In fact, anyone and everyone who maintains a healthy weight is on a calorie-controlled diet, whether they know it or not. If they weren’t on calorie-controlled diets, they’d be gaining weight!

The following are four menu plans you can use as a guide to just how much food is allowed on a 2,000-calorie maintenance diet plan. Use the basic portion sizes of different foods as guides for substituting similar foods and creating your own menus.

Breakfast No. 1

8 ounces orange juice

1 cup bran flakes or 1⁄2 cup cooked oatmeal

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 banana

1 cup skim milk

Lunch No. 1

Sandwich on 2 slices rye bread made with 3 ounces water-packed tuna and 1 tablespoon light mayonnaise

2 ounces cheese (any variety)

1 pear

Many of the reduced-calorie food products you used while you were on a low-calorie diet plan, such as light bread, reduced-calorie syrups, and light salad dressings, can still be helpful when you’re trying to maintain weight at a slightly higher calorie level. For instance, the menus in this chapter use regular bread instead of the light bread you were eating while you were on a low-calorie diet. They also include regular cheese so you can use any vari- ety you like. You now need to decide if you want to make that switch from

reduced calorie foods to regular foods. On the other hand, I still base calculations for foods such as mayonnaise, yogurt, salad dressings, and milk, on reduced-calorie and low-fat varieties. As soon as you find your own balance of maintenance calories and exercise, you can decide which foods to hold over from your weight-loss plan.

Dinner No. 1

3-inch square of lasagna (any variety)

1 cup steamed broccoli

11⁄2 cups spinach and orange salad with 1 tablespoon light dressing

2 thin (1-inch) slices Italian bread

2 teaspoons butter

Snacks/Dessert No. 1

1⁄2 cup fresh or juice-packed pineapple cubes

1⁄2 cup lowfat frozen yogurt or light ice cream

Breakfast No. 2

1 whole-grain or bran English muffin with 2 teaspoons butter and 2 table- spoons fruit spread or jam

2 lean breakfast sausages

1 cup skim milk

When dietitians design weight-loss menus, they often put a lot of milk in the plan to make sure you get enough calcium each day, along with other nutrients in milk that help your body use calcium efficiently. If you don’t drink milk, substitute yogurt, cheese, other dairy products, or nondairy products that are fortified with calcium and other vitamins and minerals.

Lunch No. 2

11⁄2 cups vegetarian bean chili topped with 1 ounce shredded cheese

1 small (2-inch) square cornbread

1⁄2 cup mango cubes

Dinner No. 2

1⁄2 egg roll (any variety)

2 cups beef stir-fry with vegetables

1 cup cooked brown rice

Snacks/Dessert No. 2

2 small almond cookies

1 orange

Breakfast No. 3

6 ounces orange juice 2 scrambled eggs

1⁄2 cup hash browns or home-fried potatoes

1 slice whole-grain toast with 1 teaspoon butter and 1 tablespoon fruit spread or jam

1⁄2 cup skim milk

Lunch No. 3

11⁄2 cups minestrone soup

Turkey sandwich on 2 slices whole-wheat bread made with 3 ounces turkey and 1 tablespoon light mayonnaise

1 apple

Dinner No. 3

5 ounces broiled fresh tuna or salmon

Rice pilaf made with 1⁄2 cup cooked brown rice, 1 tablespoon chopped pis- tachio nuts, and 1 tablespoon golden raisins

1 cup steamed green beans

Snacks/Dessert No. 3

1 ounce cheese with 2 shredded wheat crackers

1 small (2-inch wide) slice angel food cake with 1⁄2 cup raspberries

Breakfast No. 4

1⁄4 cantaloupe

3 small (4-inch) whole-grain pancakes with 2 tablespoons maple syrup and 2 teaspoons butter

1⁄2 cup blueberries

1⁄2 cup skim milk

Lunch No. 4

Egg salad sandwich on 2 slices whole-grain bread made with 1⁄2 cup egg salad and lettuce leaves

8 baby carrots

1 cup fresh lemonade

Dinner No. 4

4 ounces grilled chicken breast or lean boneless pork chop 1 small baked potato topped with 1⁄2 cup plain lowfat yogurt 1 cup steamed broccoli

1 tomato, sliced and drizzled with 1 tablespoon light salad dressing 1 small dinner roll with 1 teaspoon butter

Snacks/Dessert No. 4

1 cup mixed fruit salad topped with 1⁄4 cup lowfat vanilla or lemon yogurt 1 frozen fruit bar

Revisiting your exercise routine

After you reach your goal weight or decide to stop losing weight for any reason, your new goal is to maintain a balance of calories and physical activity that can keep you at your current weight. While you were losing weight, you were trying to shift that balance so that you burned more calories than you consumed by eating fewer calories and exercising more. When you reach the maintenance stage, you’ll probably want to add more calories to your diet, but you don’t necessarily have to increase the amount of exercise you do. However, maintaining the level of physical activity that you reached while you were losing weight is still important.

One of the biggest threats to your exercise routine is boredom. Check out Chapter 8 for suggestions on ways to keep your exercise life interesting.

Age is no excuse for cutting back on physical activity. If you’ve been active throughout your life or you became more active in your attempt to lose weight, try to maintain the same activity level as you get older to help fight the normal slowing down of your metabolism. If you can’t maintain the same level of activity, remember: Any activity is better than no activity at all.

Managing Your Weight for the Long Term

You stop losing weight when the amount of calories you consume routinely equals the number of calories your body uses for energy. At that point, you have to decide whether or not to update your low-calorie plan and continue to try to lose weight or to revise your plan completely and try to maintain your current weight. You don’t want to gain back any of the weight you lost.

By losing weight, you’ve made an investment in your long-term health. The younger you are, the more advantage this decision will have for you if you maintain all or most of your weight loss. Typically, if dieters gain back the weight they’ve lost, they regain even more weight, and their excess weight is higher in fat in proportion to muscle than before they went on a diet. That’s one reason why dieting doesn’t work for so many people and why weight cycling (yo-yo dieting) can be dangerous. If your weight goes up

and down and the “up” gets higher and higher with each attempt to lose, you’re putting yourself at higher risk of developing weight-related medical problems.

A sure sign of weight-loss success is knowing exactly what works for you and continuing to do it until you reach your goal weight. When you reach a healthier weight, you can’t just say, “Now I can stop dieting” and let your old eating habits sneak back in. The point was never to go on a short-term diet or make temporary changes. Instead, you’ve adopted a low-calorie lifestyle, which means you’re committed to eating well and getting physical activity so that you can stay at a healthier weight for the rest of your life.

In the following sections, I tell you how to establish your weight-maintenance plan and explain the special challenges for folks in families with a history of weight problems.

Reviewing what’s worked for you

I often hear dieters say, “that diet worked” or “this diet doesn’t work.” In fact, many weight-loss diets work if people stick to them. Sometimes diets aren’t designed for long-term use, however, or they become so monotonous you can’t possibly stick to them for more than a month or two.

Dieters who join commercial weight-loss programs are often repeat performers. They’ve been there before, and they’re back again because they feel the program works for them if they just keep working the program. When you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you have to create your own program. You have to find the plan, the people, and the activities that work for you and move on from any- thing (or anyone) that gets in the way of your success.

What works for one dieter may not necessarily work for another. Dieters try all sorts of tricks to lose weight, and they struggle even harder to keep it off. If you’re a “career dieter” and you’ve been on and off different types of diets most of your life, then you’re armed with the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work for you. Think back and make a list of all the tips, advice, and new behaviors that felt comfortable to you and contributed to any temporary success you achieved on any type of diet plan. Use that list to remind yourself what you need to do to stay at a healthier weight.

If you’re undertaking your first weight-loss diet, then you’re lucky. You’re not looking back over a lifetime of failed diets and repeated patterns of weight loss followed by weight gain. You’re not saddled with the same feelings of hopelessness and defeat that often get in the way of success for more seasoned dieters. You can simply look back over this diet plan, pick out every- thing that has worked for you, and discard what hasn’t. Take the best that this low-calorie weight-loss plan has to offer and move forward with it.

Pushing ahead with new ideas

You may have noticed that the world is overflowing with weight-loss information. You turn on the television and see countless infomercials and sales pitches. You’re bombarded with pop-up ads on the Internet. You listen to the radio and hear about every new miracle supplement to help you lose 50 pounds without picking your butt off the couch. You open your e-mail account and you’re probably flooded with spam spouting the next best fad. Unfortunately, much of it is misinformation. But if you can differentiate between advice that comes from a reliable source and advice that comes from someone who is simply trying to sell you a weight-loss plan or fitness product, you can stay well informed.

The following tips can point you toward reliable information:

� Subscribe to a recognized health, fitness, or healthy cooking magazine. Use the articles, recipes, and tips you find in these publications to reinforce your commitment to a low-calorie lifestyle.

� Find helpful Web sites. Search for sites that can help expand your knowledge of nutrition and weight control. Bookmark the best and visit them often.

� Investigate new ways of eating. Check out ethnic restaurants, eat vege- tarian meals at least once a week, or take a healthy cooking class.

� Check out new exercise classes and programs at your gym. Do any- thing you can to keep your exercise life as interesting as your diet life so that you stay motivated to keep up with both.

Coming to terms with your genes

Your genes help determine not only your body shape and type, but also to a certain degree, your propensity to gain, lose, and maintain weight (see Chapter 2 for details). Until such time as scientists find realistic solutions, you really can’t fight weight factors that are determined genetically. The power of genetic predisposition became clear in one interesting weight study, wherein adoptees had the same weight patterns as their biological parents, whether they were thin, heavy, or somewhere in between. At the same time, the researchers found no consistent or significant similarities between the weight patterns of adoptive parents and their adopted children.

If you come from a family with a history of being overweight or obesity, losing weight can be more difficult. There’s no way around that. But even though losing weight may be more of a struggle for you than someone with a leaner heritage, getting to a healthier weight and staying there is possible. You just may have to work harder at maintaining your weight loss, or perhaps, work a bit harder at developing realistic expectations about your weight.

If you’ve been dieting most of your life and have never reached your goal weight, your goal weight may no longer be realistic. That’s okay; all you have to do is set new goals! You can find help with that in Chapter 4. Just remember, getting real doesn’t mean giving up. It just means taking a more rational approach to weight control.

Checking your maintenance plan periodically

When you made a decision to lose weight by living a low-calorie lifestyle, you decided to make permanent changes in your life. Weight maintenance requires an on-going commitment to that lifestyle. From here on in, weight control is all about reinforcing the principals about getting fit that you dis- covered while you were losing weight.

You’ll maintain a healthier weight as long as you continue to live a low-calorie lifestyle that includes well-balanced meals, plenty of physical activity, and a “can-do” attitude. If you feel yourself starting to slip in any of these areas, check out Chapter 4 for tools to help you get back on track.

Recognizing Your Body’s Changing Calorie and Nutritional Needs

As you move from a stage of weight loss to the next stage of weight maintenance, at times you may feel as though you’ve taken on a new identity. Depending on how long it took for you to arrive at this (hopefully) permanent plateau, you may in fact have moved from one stage of life to another. As you revise your diet and exercise plan to accommodate the “new you,” you need to pay attention not only to your changing calorie needs but also to your changing nutritional needs. As an adult, you need the same nutrients you needed while you were growing up (for a review of those nutrients, go to Chapter 3), but as your body changes with age, you need some of them in different amounts. The following sections provide info on your body’s needs at different ages and various stages of life.

Staying lean and healthy at any age

As you age, the rate at which you burn calories decreases. With every decade, you need 2 percent fewer calories, which isn’t a huge decrease. If you maintained your weight at a calorie level of 2,000 when you were 22, you may need to cut that to 1,960 by the time you’re 32, and to 1,920 by the time you’re 42. In a perfect world, you maintain a healthy weight, stay active, and build up your muscles as you age so that you continue burning calories efficiently, and you don’t have to make any huge dietary changes. Life, however, usually gets in the way of everyone’s perfect world.

Weight control may be all about counting calories, but healthful weight control is all about getting the nutrients you need after you decide to live a low-calorie lifestyle. Getting enough nutrients is easy when you overeat because you’re consuming so much food that you’re bound to meet your daily requirement for most vitamins and minerals. In fact, instead of feeling guilty next time you sneak in a deluxe cheeseburger, remember that along with all that fat and all those calories, you’re getting a good supply of protein, calcium, iron, and B vitamins. Unless you’re overeating all the time, such a high-calorie indulgence may even be good for you on occasion.

Whenever your calorie count falls below 1,500, however, getting all the nutrients you need in the amounts you need is difficult. (For a review of necessary nutrients and good food sources, flip to Chapter 3.) It requires careful planning. When I developed the calorie-controlled menu plans in Chapter 6, I did the planning for you and tried to keep those menus as nutritionally balanced as possible within the calorie allowance given.

At different ages and stages of life, it helps to plan calorie-controlled menus, which include specific foods containing specific nutrients that are particularly beneficial during those periods in your life. The recommended calorie intakes for each age group are averages for healthy, moderately active people who aren’t trying to lose weight. Depending on your age, height, current weight, and activity level, these figures can vary by several hundred calories.

� 11- to 18-year-olds need plenty of calcium from dairy products or calcium-fortified foods to build healthy bones for later in life because as you age, you stop building bone. The better your bone density at an early age, the less risk you have of developing osteoporosis, a disease where you suffer from bone loss, later in life. Girls also need more iron at this stage to offset the loss from menstruation. The average recommended calorie intake for girls in this group is 2,200 calories a day and 2,500 to 3,000 calories for boys.

� 18- to 25-year-olds may need a vitamin C boost from fresh fruits and veggies to move more safely through this experimental stage of life that often includes eating fast foods, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and getting too little sleep. The average recommended calorie intake for women in this group is 2,200 calories and 2,900 calories for men.

� 25- to 35-year-olds can start thinking about preventing disease as well as preventing weight gain. If you’re a woman who plans to become preg- nant, be sure to get enough of the B vitamin folic acid (also called folate) to prevent the risk of birth defects. Dark green leafy vegetables, legumes, and oranges are naturally high in folic acid. Breads, cereals, pastas, and other grain foods are all fortified with this vitamin. Men and women alike need to be familiar with antioxidants — the vitamins, miner- als, and phytochemicals described in Chapter 3 that help prevent chronic diseases. The average recommended calorie intake for women in this group is 2,200 calories and 2,900 calories for men.

� 35- to 45-year-olds can start making lower-fat, higher-fiber foods that are rich in lean protein and B vitamins a priority. Soy products, beans, lentils, and other legumes are a great source of low-fat protein and B vitamins. Protein and the B vitamins niacin and riboflavin are essential for keeping your skin, nails, and hair in top condition. The B vitamin folic acid has been shown to protect brain functions, such as memory, in aging adults. The recommended calorie intake for women in this group is 2,200 calories and 2,900 calories for men.

� 45- to 55-year-olds can turn to seafood, soy products, nuts, and wheat germ to provide Omega-3 essential fatty acids that help protect your heart along with foods that are high in fiber and low in saturated fats. During this time, start increasing your calcium intake again to protect against bone loss, and consider introducing more soy foods into your diet. For women, soy foods can help stabilize hormones, and for men, protect against prostate cancer. After age 50, the recommended calorie intake for women in this group drops from 2,200 to 1,900 calories a day; the drop for men is from 2,900 to 2,300 calories.

� After you pass age 55, just keep on doing what you’re doing (as long as what you’re doing is healthful)! Continue to exercise to help offset the slowing down of your metabolism and keep your calories at healthy upper and lower limits. Several of the success stories in Chapter 17 are from people in their 50s and 60s, which just goes to show that it’s never too late to start taking care of yourself. The recommended calorie intake for women in this group is 1,900 calories a day and 2,300 calories for men.

Working through normal stages of life

If you’re a woman, you have one time in your life when a certain amount of weight gain isn’t only inevitable, but it’s also encouraged! That’s, of course, during pregnancy. Whether you’re a woman or a man, midlife is another time when hormonal shifts and a metabolism with a mind of its own can cause weight gain. In the following sections, I offer advice on how to keep both of these types of weight gain under control.

Having a baby

Even if you’re overweight, pregnancy isn’t the time to be on any type of weight-loss diet. Pregnant women need more calories and more nutrients than normal. Reducing calories and losing weight while you’re pregnant can be dangerous for the growth and development of the fetus.

If you’re overweight before you get pregnant, chances are you’ll gain more weight than average during the pregnancy and retain more than a normal- weight woman after delivery. The best solution is to lose weight before you get pregnant. If that’s impossible, your doctor may put you on a calorie- controlled diet to help prevent excess weight gain during your pregnancy.

Except under certain conditions, such as when a doctor finds evidence of heart disease, cervical or vaginal complications, or a history of miscarriages, low- to moderate-level exercise is usually encouraged during pregnancy. The type and amount of exercise you do while you’re pregnant is a decision that has to be made with your doctor. (Check out Pregnancy For Dummies, 2nd Edition, by Joanne Stone, MD, Keith Eddleman, MD, and Mary Duenwald [Wiley] for more information about pregnancy-related issues.)

If you’re breastfeeding, you can start eating normally again, but the especially good news is that your metabolism will naturally speed up during this process. If you’re breastfeeding exclusively (not supplementing your baby’s diet with formula), you may burn up to 600 calories a day. That’s the equivalent of two aerobic workouts! So although reducing calories and increasing activity is considered safe for breastfeeding mothers, and normally doesn’t affect lactation, you don’t have to challenge yourself, because you’ll be losing weight naturally. And there’s more happy news: At least one study showed that your naturally speedy metabolism during this time helps the weight come off around your hips and butt! (Check out Breastfeeding For Dummies by Sharon Perkins, RN, and Carol Vannais, RN [Wiley] for more information about breastfeeding issues.)

Moving into midlife

Staying fit and maintaining a reasonably healthy body weight at an early age can help lower your risk of developing chronic, age-related medical conditions as you get older. (Check out Chapter 16 for an overview of the health problems associated with being overweight and obesity). Still, your body does age and change, and the normal changes associated with aging affect your weight the same way they affect almost every organ in your body.

Menopause and perimenopause (the approximately 10-year period of time that precedes actual menopause) are two periods in a woman’s life when her hormones are fluctuating wildly and wreaking all types of havoc with her body. Hormonal bouncing can certainly be responsible for shifts in your weight. Even if you’ve maintained a healthy weight your whole life, you may find yourself starting to gain in your mid-forties to mid-fifties, signaling a time to take action. If you don’t already have an exercise routine, develop one. Moving a little more at this point in your life is much easier than starting to eat a whole lot less. And probably healthier for you, too!

The concept of male menopause is controversial, and downright funny to some people, but the fact is that middle-aged men go through their own series of changes. Men who don’t get enough exercise lose muscle and get flabby, and those who don’t watch what they eat start to gain weight as their metabolism starts to slow down. Depression and mood swings aren’t the sole property of menopausal women; men suffer through psychological crises as well and are just as likely to use food as an emotional bandage.

If you’re a man or a woman, young or old, who feels excess weight starting to pile on or if you’ve been dieting for some time and you feel you can’t lose any more weight, switch your focus from trying to lose to preventing gain. That still means cutting back on the amount of calories you were eating while you were gaining weight, but you don’t have to follow the type of low-calorie diet needed to lose weight. Now you’re at a place where your best calorie count falls somewhere between the two extremes. A weight-maintenance diet is your best solution.