Women Diet Program

The metabolic rate that allowed you to burn through late-night post drinking diner trips in your twenties is now dropping slowly but surely. Research shows that starting at age 30, you will lose 10 percent of the total muscle on your body over the next 20 years. And even if the number on your scale isn’t rising, the size of your little black dress probably is. YOUR PLAN Hit the weights. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that even people who did not gain weight for 38 years lost 3 pounds of muscle and added 3 pounds of fat each decade. Regular resistance training can help you avoid this fate. Your Joints Even though arthritis doesn’t usually set in until later in life, the damage that causes it, cartilage degeneration, is happening now. YOUR PLAN Eat three 6-ounce servings of cold-water fish weekly. Specifically, have salmon, mackerel, trout, or white tuna; each packs more than 1,000 milligrams of fish oil. A UK study found that regularly consuming this amount of fish oil appeared to halt cartilage-eating enzymes in 86 percent of people who are facing joint-replacement surgery. Fish oil slows down cartilage degeneration and reduces factors . Pencil it in Schedule your workout like you schedule any other meetings. If you make appointments for meetings and business lunches, schedule your gym time as well. Your Blood Pressure Starting at age 30, your systolic blood pressure rises 4 points per decade. Researchers from the Netherlands recently discovered that besides the obvious factors—obesity, lack of physical activity, and high salt consumption—diets containing too little potassium were the primary cause of hypertension. In their analysis, the scientists used 3,500 milligrams daily as the cutoff for defining a “low” potassium intake. That’s bad news, because the average American woman in her thirties gets only about 2,500 milligrams a day. YOUR PLAN Include ½ cup of beans, a banana, and a handful of raisins in your daily diet. Each will increase your potassium intake by about 400 milligrams a day. And don’t forget to test your blood pressure once a year. A reading below 120/80 millimeters of mercury is desirable, and anything over 140/90 mmHg is cause for concern. If you fall in that middle zone (between 120/80 and 139/89 mmHg), take note: You have pre hyper tension, which means you’re likely to develop high blood pressure if you don’t start taking preventive action now.