I don’t weigh what I did in high school and I’ll bet you don’t either. Along with the occasional senior moment and the inability to read the Moviefone listing without a magnifying glass, gaining weight seems to be an inevitable consequence of getting older — and those who are able to avoid it have to work really hard to do so.

But is it really inevitable? And if it is, should our “target weight” be a moving target?

Not really.

You don’t have to get fatter as you get older, though unfortunately that’s precisely what many of us do. But it’s not because of our physiology. Rather, it’s a consequence of how we live. The secret to keeping weight down is pretty simple: hold on to your muscle.

When you lose muscle, you are losing your greatest ally in the fight against fat. Muscle contains little power furnaces called mitochondria where fat is burned for fuel. The less muscle you have, the fewer the fat burning furnaces you have as well. So when you lose muscle, your metabolism literally slows down.¹ The result? You burn fewer calories.

And if you burn fewer calories, you need to eat fewer calories. Sadly, that’s just the opposite of what most of us do. Never was the “use it or lose it” saying more applicable than in the case of muscle. If you don’t use it, it disappears. Then if you continue to eat the way you did when you were younger — and more active with more muscle — you’re on the fast track to gaining more body fat.

But there’s good news here — for the most part, loss of muscle is not inevitable. Sure, some of the muscle we lose is a natural accompaniment of growing older, but most of what we lose is due to being more sedentary as we age. And that part is 100 percent preventable.

The scale alone is a poor way to determine how much muscle you have, which actually throws the whole idea of “target weight” into question. The number on the scale, your body weight, only tells you how much mass you have. It doesn’t tell you what it’s made of.

Some of the better body fat scales will give you an idea of your body fat percentage, but they’re not 100 percent accurate. Weight by itself isn’t a good indicator of how healthy you are. You’re far better off using a combination of body composition measurement (available at many doctors’ offices and health clubs), body mass index (BMI), and body weight.

While none of these alone is a perfect measurement, if all three say you’re overweight — you probably are!

The bottom line is this: hold on to your muscle as long as possible. How? By doing some strength training on a regular basis. It will not only help keep your weight down, it will keep you mobile, ambulatory, and healthy well into your double digit decades.

Reference

1. Wolfe RR American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 84, No. 3, 475-482, September 2006.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Bowden is a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition and health. He's a board certified nutrition specialist with a Master's degree in psychology. Dr. Bowden is also a life coach, motivational speaker, former personal trainer and author of the award-winning book, Living the Low Carb Life. For more information, click here.]

For more great articles like this delivered to your inbox, subscribe to our free natural health newsletter!