20 tips on how to get fit and look younger

It’s not necessary for men to pound the tarmac or starve themselves to shed weight when they hit their middle years. 

IT WAS ALL GOING SO WELL in your 20s and 30s. Come your 40s and 50s, however, everything seems to hit a downward trajectory.

Fitness levels dwindle and there’s a corresponding rise in the bulges around the body, most notably on the stomach and chest, with the appearance of the dreaded ‘moobs’ (man boobs).

If it isn’t enough that your looks take a hammering, then just for good measure your health gets hit too.

Yet it doesn’t have to be that way. Middle age can be a catalyst for embarking on a programme of self-preservation. Here are 20 rules to get you back on track:

1. Sprint flat out for 60 seconds, twice a week on an indoor bike: Abertay University in Dundee’s findings suggest, on average, older men lost 1kg of fat in two months doing this — and without changing their usual diet or activity habits.

2. Measure your waist: It should be no longer than half your height, according to research published last year by scientists at London’s City University.

If it’s within this healthy limit you should live to the average life expectancy.

But for every few inches over, you face losing months or even years of life.

3. Reduce your mileage: By all means run — just not as far as you did in your 30s.

Findings presented at the American College of Sports Medicine conference a couple of years ago suggested that regular running lowered the risk for mortality as long as no more than 20 miles in up to five sessions a week.

4. Kick-start your fitness with a four-minute run: Norwegian researchers published a study in the online journal PLoS One that showed a single four- minute run at a hard pace performed three times a week was enough to certain measures of boost health and fitness.

After 10 weeks, subjects had improved their endurance capacity by 10 per cent or more, lowered their blood pressure and had better blood sugar control.

5. Eat two apples a day: Along with a daily portion each of vegetables and pulses, the high amount of soluble fibre in apples can strike a blow to dangerous abdominal fat that is prone to settling around the organs in middle age, reported researchers in the journal Obesity.

For every 10-gram increase in soluble fibre eaten, internal fat was reduced by 3.7 per cent over five years.

6. Lift weights (and make them heavy): Studies have shown that middle aged men who lift weights for 30 minutes a day, five days per week may be able to reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes by up to 34 per cent.

The other benefit, of course, is that it keeps you toned and strong.

The trend for a lot of repetitions with ultra- light weights is not effective for building lean muscle tissue or getting a toned look, trainers say.

Aim for a weight that allows you to perform 10 repetitions and then gradually increase that as you get stronger.

7. Do push-ups: The push-up is widely considered the ultimate barometer of fitness, especially in middle age.

“It works the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs,” says John Brewer, professor of applied sport science at St Mary’s University, Twickenham.

Exercise scientists studying older people have shown regular push-ups can provide the strength and muscle memory to reach out and break a fall, preventing fracture. Try the 100 push-up challenge. (www.hundredpushups.com)

8. Don’t be scared to push yourself: In April, a large Australian study revealed that the risk of dying early among middle-aged people who included some vigorous exercise — running, aerobics or competitive tennis — was nine to 13 per cent lower than among those who only undertook more gentle activity like gentle swimming, social tennis, or household chores.

9. Improve your golf handicap: Ambling around the golf course might not be the fastest route to fitness, but do it often enough and it might extend your life.

Researchers from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institute showed that the death rate for golfers is 40 per cent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status — that equates to a five-year increase in life expectancy. Golfers with a low handicap live the longest.

10. Have a curry: One of the active compounds in turmeric, a commonly used curry spice, is called curcumin and has been linked to easing joint pain that comes with age.

One study published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2009 compared the curcumin with ibuprofen for pain relief in 107 people with knee osteoarthritis and found it worked as well as the anti-inflammatory drug.

11. Try ‘brick sessions’: These involve switching from one form of exercise to another within a workout, suggests Greg Whyte, professor of applied sport and exercise science at Liverpool John Moores University and trainer to David Walliams and Eddie Izzard.

“All you need are three- to five-minute bursts on first the treadmill, then either a rowing machine or cross-trainer,” Whyte says.

You will re-direct blood flow to different muscle groups effective boost fat-burning. “Within 30 minutes you get tremendous gains for little additional effort.”

12. Eat dark chocolate: A study of over 19,000 middle aged men and women, published in the European Heart Journal, found those who ate half a bar a week had lower blood pressure.

They also had a 39% lower risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Just 6 grams a day, equivalent to one small square of chocolate, could make a difference.

13. Aim for at least four workouts a week: And not just for fitness gains.

A study at the University of California, looked at the sexual behaviour of two groups of middle-aged men.

The first group did a 60-minute workout, three to four days per week; the second group were sedentary.

After nine months, those in the first group reported a 30 per cent increase in the frequency of sex with their partners.

14. Take Co-Q10: Dr Peter Langsjoen, a former cardiologist at the University of Texas Health Centre and a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, recommends this supplement for boosting the heart of middle-aged men.

“It functions as an antioxidant, protecting against molecular damage and preventing the oxidation of cholesterol, something that is thought to play a role in clogging arteries and accelerating heart disease,” he says.

Try HealthSpan Co-Enzyme Q10 one-a-day 200mg.

15. Lose a pound in weight: Excess weight is strongly correlated with joint pain, mostly because of the stress it places on these vulnerable parts of the body. Even shedding a pound can make a difference.

“A landmark study in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism showed that for each single pound of body weight lost by people with osteoarthritis pain in the knee, there is a 4lb reduction in knee loading,” says physiotherapist Sammy Margo.

“That equates to the same sort of knee-pounding you’d experience if you walked 4,800 miles.”

16. Cut out diet drinks: As you get older, opting for the diet version might not be the safest option for your waistline.

Indeed, a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society earlier this year showed that increasing diet soda intake is directly linked to greater belly fat in adults 65 and older.

17. Pedal away your wrinkles:

Professor Mark Tarnopolsky, an exercise scientist at McMaster University in Ontario, recruited male volunteers aged 65 and older with normal skin for their age and asked half to jog or cycle three times a week at 65 percent their aerobic limit (a puffing but not exhaustive pace) for three months and half to do nothing.

Among the exercisers, the skin layers both resembled what scientists typically expect find in healthy 20- to 40-year-olds.

18. Limit white bread: In a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers found that middle-aged people who ate the most white bread and other highly refined foods — biscuits, crisps, white pasta and rice — saw their waistlines expand three times more (about half-an inch a year), than those that ate the same number of daily calories from less processed whole foods.

19. Reduce stress: It raises levels of cortisol, known as the ‘belly-fat hormone’.

Too much cortisol affects fat distribution by causing fat to be stored centrally — around the organs. This so called visceral fat is linked to a raised risk of heart disease and other diseases.

20. Eat ketchup: Lycopene, he powerful antioxidant compound that give tomatoes their red colour, has been linked to the prevention of prostate cancer.

Researchers from Finland said there was a connection between high levels of lycopene in the blood of middle-aged men and a lower risk for stroke.

Cooked tomatoes, as in ketchup and pasta sauces, make the lycopene easier to absorb.