As you age, your body’s needs change — including your dietary and nutritional requirements — so it’s important to be mindful of what you’re consuming and how it’s affecting your overall health and well-being.
To help you understand your body’s changing nutritional needs, DailyOM chatted with registered dietitians Brittany Modell and Dawn Jackson Blatner. Ahead, learn more about the best diet for people over 40 (it's a lot simpler than you may think!), the best foods to add to your routine, how hormones come into play during this age, and tips on how to maintain a healthy weight.
The Best Diet for People Over 40
There is no shortage of diets — Mediterranean, vegan, vegetarian, to name a few. Blatner emphasizes there is no one particular diet that is ideal for people over 40, or for anyone at any age, for that matter. Modell says the key is consuming a balanced diet that is nutritious, incorporates a wide variety of foods, and provides pleasure and satisfaction.
Blatner recommends following three main principles when you’re meal-planning: limiting overly processed food (such as refined sugar, refined flour, and processed meats), eating protein at each meal (ideally from a variety of both plant and animal sources), and incorporating a wide variety of plants every day (think fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds).
Modell also advises being mindful of maintaining bone health, which declines as you get older. To do so, “it’s essential to eat enough calories, consume calcium-rich foods and vitamin D, as well as engage in weight-bearing physical activity,” she says.
Interested in learning more? Check out What to Eat Over 40
The Best Foods for People Over 40
The older we get, the more our body needs certain nutrients. For starters, calcium is an essential one for people 40 and up. “Calcium is critical for bone health, and our calcium needs go up with age, from 1,000 mg per day to 1,200 mg per day starting at the age of 50,” Blatner says. “But even earlier than that, it’s important to make sure to get enough.” Calcium-rich foods that Modell recommends include tofu, milk, yogurt, cheese, broccoli, almonds, and figs.
Focus on ways you can show up for your body, [including] eating enough food with a wide variety of nutrients and eating foods you enjoy and find satisfying.
Upping your vitamin D intake is also essential. “As we age, the skin produces less vitamin D, and the body has a more difficult time absorbing calcium,” Blatner says. “So the need for vitamin D increases and becomes even more important with aging,” since vitamin D helps with calcium absorption.
That said, Modell notes there are only a few sources of vitamin D-rich foods (including egg yolk, liver, and fortified milk, for example). For this reason, she recommends having your doctor check your vitamin D levels and consider supplementation if you are deficient.
Protein is another nutrient to increase in your diet. “Aging experts suggest adults’ protein needs increase with age, starting around the age of 40,” Blatner says. “This is because the body’s ability to process protein becomes less efficient with age, so [our] needs increase to preserve muscle mass, maintain strength, and keep the immune system strong.” Sources of protein include animal products such as chicken, meat, and fish, and plant-based foods like tofu, edamame, lentils, beans, quinoa, and nuts such as almonds.
Hormones and Nutrition for People Over 40
Perimenopause usually occurs during the mid- to late 40s. “During this time, women will experience fluctuating hormone levels and menstrual irregularity,” Modell says. “There is often a decline in estrogen levels, which can create a whole host of symptoms such as changes in body odor, mood swings, dry skin, heart palpitations, brain fog, and so forth. These symptoms are normal and to be expected.” Thankfully, there are some nutrition and lifestyle changes you can make to support hormone health and function during perimenopause and menopause.
Blatner recommends keeping levels of cortisol (aka the stress hormone) healthy by adding daily joy, play, and stress management techniques such as meditation into your lifestyle.
Melatonin, known as the sleep-wake cycle hormone, also needs support. To do so, Blatner advises maintaining good sleep routines, and seeking darkness at night and bright light during the day.
To support healthy insulin levels (the blood sugar hormone), Blatner suggests eating meals in balanced ratios (which translate to protein, lots of vegetables, smaller servings of smart carbs, and some fat) that are low in added sugars.
Lastly, Blatner notes that a significant contributor to body changes in people over 40 is losing muscle mass. “So as we age, it’s critical to work hard to keep and build muscle to help mitigate aging and menopause changes,” she says.
How to Maintain a Healthy Weight After 40
First off, it’s essential to understand what “a healthy weight” actually means. “A healthy weight is a weight that someone can maintain by eating a wide range of foods without restriction or micromanagement,” Modell says. “It’s the weight where your body naturally wants to be.”
With that in mind, Modell adds that it’s unreasonable to expect your body to look and weigh the same as it did when you were in your twenties or thirties. She explains this is due to a number of reasons including pregnancy and fluctuating hormones during perimenopause. As we age, our metabolism also slows down. “As women transition to menopause, their metabolism drops and they start to lose muscle mass,” she says, (though recent studies show that our metabolism doesn’t slow as radically as we might have believed). To remedy a slowing metabolism, Modell recommends managing stress, getting quality sleep, and ensuring you eat enough and eat consistently. “This means not skipping meals or going too long without food,” she says. “It also means ensuring your body is getting enough nourishment.”
Modell adds that “gut motility also declines with age,” explaining that lifestyle factors such as poor sleep and stress can also impact hunger awareness and appetite, disrupt digestion, and impact our gut microbiome.
Maintaining a healthy weight over 40 also doesn’t require jumping on the latest fad diet. In fact, experts strongly advise against it. Here’s why: “Not only do diets not work, but they also lead to weight cycling, which can lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and insulin resistance,” Modell says.
Focus on nourishing rather than depriving your body. “Instead of the old-fashioned diet mentality of cutting foods, focus on what you can add to improve nutrition, such as more fruits and veggies and quality-protein foods,” Blatner says. This goes along with the principles of intuitive eating.
Modell also recommends not focusing on the scale. “It’s a number that we give way too much power to,” she says. Instead, she suggests focusing on how you want to feel by nurturing the areas of your life that bring you joy.
If you do want to use a scale, Blatner advises viewing it only as one measure of success. In addition, she recommends tracking other non-scale health measures such as bloodwork, energy levels, sleep quality, confidence, overall mood, cravings, mental focus, bloating, regularity, stress levels, and endurance and strength improvements. And if, at any point, you notice that the number on the scale negatively affects your mood or motivation level, she suggests you discontinue using it and rely solely on the other non-scale measures of health to track your progress.
Physical exercise is also important for maintaining a healthy weight and overall health as well as boosting metabolism. In particular, Blatner recommends adding weight training to your routine. “We have to work extra hard to keep and build muscle to help mitigate aging,” she says. “Aim to add a minimum of two weight-training sessions a week to your routine to maintain muscle.”
Above all else, make the primary goal to take good care of yourself overall. “Focus on body respect and ways you can show up for your body — resting enough and focusing on getting high-quality sleep, eating enough food with a wide variety of nutrients, eating foods you enjoy and find satisfying, moving your body in a joyful way, nurturing friendships and relationships, wearing clothing that fits your here-and-now body,” Modell says. “Think of this as a new stage in life when you can finally focus on pleasure, satisfaction, and compassion.”
