A look into metabolism and age – is it really true?
I’ve been asked many times regarding age and metabolism.
It is a common belief that age slows down metabolism and in doing so, weight gain and seems to be a commonly accepted “side effect” of this phenomenal. This is often accompanied by some relative or friend who is in the more advance years who was “slim” and now they’re “fat”.
That said, I’ve looked into the logical explanation as to if its really due to being older and the body burning lesser calories and partitioning more fat or is it really due to live style?
Metabolic rate is calculated to estimate one’s caloric expenditure throughout the day, and how much total calories one would generally use.
This is the calculation formula used to calculate your BMR which is by Harris-Benedict -
| English BMR Formula |
|---|
| Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x age in years ) Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) – ( 6.8 x age in year ) |
| Metric BMR Formula |
| Women: BMR = 655 + ( 9.6 x weight in kilos ) + ( 1.8 x height in cm ) – ( 4.7 x age in years ) Men: BMR = 66 + ( 13.7 x weight in kilos ) + ( 5 x height in cm ) – ( 6.8 x age in years ) |
So given that we know that age does factor in, lets find out how much -
Let say you are 18 years old weighing 60kg and about 1.7 meter tall – so your calculation should look like this, 66+(13.7 x 60 kg) + ( 5 x 170 cm) – (6.8 x 18 years) = 1615.6
52 years later and you’ve gained 15kg throughout the years, you’re BMR would be, 66+(13.7 x 75 kg) + ( 5 x 170 cm) – (6.8 x 60 years) = 1535.5
So the difference is about a whopping 80 calories which is about 2-3 apples difference.
The calculation doesn’t add up, but what makes people fat when they get older? How do they miraculously become fatter if they ate about the same thing that they ate throughout their teens and adult hood?
Well hormones are a factor which one can look into, testosterone and estrogen usually go out of whack when one gets older which causes many weird things. Fat gain, moodiness and a host of other problems.
But hormones are an iffy thing, not everyone has a problem with it and not everyone gets fat when they are older so this is one thing that I’ve looked over as its not practical enough to be a logical theory to which how people get fatter with age.
Then I start looking at the lifestyle of myself when I was younger as oppose to when I started to work and then I drew a very interesting conclusion…
In my school days, my life was full of activity – Starting in the morning I would take a train and bus to school which took me about 1.5 hours per trip. I stayed back in school to play soccer with my friends, and we often went out walking around in shops and mall.
We didn’t have the money to afford extremely nice meals, sometimes just a small snack here and there with our little pocket money that we had to buy us some food to tide us over till dinner.
Contrasting that to when I started working, sitting at the desk for 8 hours and lounging around on my chair without much movement. The only physical activity at work would be walking to the pantry to grab a nice snack which I could endlessly afford because I got paid.
When work ended, I would go home and seldom go out and if I did go out, it’ll be to have dinner or have a drink with my friends.
By now you should have drawn the conclusion of what is causing people to get fatter as they age, if not this is why you’re fatter when you get older.
Physical activities becomes a rarity when one gets older and have more commitments, and unless you’re doing physical labor most of your time spent at work is seated and sedentry.
Instead of walking home which we did in the past, we’d take a bus or drive around in our cars.
And I’ve personally tracked my caloric output for being sedentary – 2400 if i’m completely sedentry, 2700 if i’m walking around abit, 3000 if I’m active and 4000 if i’m really active.
You see the contrast of 1600 calories extra with physical activity added to my day.
Also when you’re older, you can afford to dine with caloric dense food which typically you cannot afford when you’re not working, that its unless you’re from a rich family.
So its not about your age that really matters but the conscious effort when you’re working to be more physically active, which you were when you’re younger.
