The Most Effective Exercises For Fat Loss Over 50 (Not What You Think)

Have you ever heard someone say, “I can’t eat like I used to without getting fat,” or “I hardly eat anything anymore, and I still gain weight.”

Losing weight over 50 has some unique challenges, especially if we haven’t regularly exercised our whole lives. But now we’re older, and we want our health and bodies back.

Losing body fat and not just weight is vital, as losing lean mass or muscle reduces our resting metabolic rate, which is how many calories we burn while we’re asleep and not doing anything at all. Choosing the right exercises will bring our rate back up, where it belongs.

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If our goal is to lose fat, we must be in a calorie deficit. Exercise helps with this by increasing our calorie demand, with the other side of the coin being nutrition; we need to monitor the quality and quantity of the foods we intake.

Exercise for fat loss breaks into 2 categories; resistance training and aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise breaks down further into steady state and HIIT cardio.

Resistance training is effective for fat loss in 2 ways. First, it counteracts age-related muscle loss that reduces our daily calorie burn, increasing our resting metabolic rate.

A study found after 24 weeks of strength training, both young and older men’s resting metabolic rates increased by 9%. This establishes a solid foundation for a fat loss program.

Not all resistance exercises are equal to maximizing our muscle growth and, in turn, our ability to torch fat. We need to focus on compound movements; these build the most muscle in the long term and burn more calories while you perform them, even providing an after-burn effect, much like HIIT cardio.

Compound movements like squats, deadlifts, bent-over rows, bench press, lat pulldowns, and shoulder press all work multiple muscle groups and can easily be progressed to keep you building muscle.

Dumbbell and resistance band variations are great for those over 50 as they are easier on the joints.

So many people focus on cardio for fat loss, but it should be viewed as an accessory to resistance training. To make fat loss permanent, adding calorie-burning muscle to our frame should come first.

This is confirmed by a study done in 2013 that compared various blends of resistance training and cardio finding; “High-intensity resistance training-induced a faster visceral fat loss, and thus the potential of resistance training should not be undervalued.”

When we’re pushing our limits with every training session, we can get burned out, so I recommend starting easy and focusing on building the intensity of your resistance training first and keeping the cardio more moderate and enjoyable.

Walking, swimming, and cycling are all aerobic exercises that are low-impact, enjoyable and relaxing. They also can be scaled as our fitness level improves.

This is what they call rucking; it has a military background where soldiers train with full backpacks to carry weapons, food and supplies long distances.

Swimming and cycling can be advanced by increasing the pace or duration and are great candidates for HIIT training, which is high-intensity interval training. This gives you a higher calorie burn in a shorter amount of time.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167527313009212

https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2001/04000/Effect_of_strength_training_on_resting_metabolic.5.aspx