After 40, It's Not About Eating Less. It's About Eating Better

Photo by Chris Ralston on Unsplash

Have you noticed that your body doesn't quite behave the way it did in your twenties? Perhaps you can no longer get away with skipping meals and grabbing a sugary snack later. Maybe you feel the effects of a few glasses of wine the next day. You may have noticed changes in your muscle tone, where you carry weight, your digestion, your skin & hair, your energy or your recovery after exercise..

If you ask online for advice about diet in mid-life, you’ll be inundated with replies like “just eat less and move more”, and “you need to be in a calorie defecit”. The overwhelming message that women receive is that the answer is simply to eat less.

Focusing only on the calorie content of food is unhelpful at all ages but in midlife, it actively works against you. Our bodies don't suddenly stop needing food when we turn 40. In fact, our nutritional needs are higher if we want to thrive.

Your body needs to be nourished, not punished

The vast majority of women I work with are undernourished when they come to me. They have spent years trying to eat less, control their weight and "be good" around food. Many feel that their bodies have let them down, when in reality their bodies have been doing exactly what they are designed to do: adapting to the conditions they have been given.

Your body has one overriding priority: keeping you alive.

When you consistently provide less energy than your body needs, it doesn't simply continue burning energy at the same rate while quietly using up its reserves. Your body adapts. Energy expenditure can fall, spontaneous movement may decrease, hunger signals can increase and your body becomes more efficient at using the energy available to it. At the same time, prolonged restriction can make it harder to maintain muscle, particularly when protein intake and strength training are inadequate.

This is one reason why repeatedly eating very little can become such a frustrating cycle. You may lose weight initially, but maintaining that weight loss can become increasingly difficult as your body and appetite adapt to the restriction.

I don't believe the answer to ageing is simply to eat less. If anything, midlife is the time to become more deliberate about nourishing your body well.

Your goal shouldn't be to see how little you can eat.

It should be to give your body enough of what it needs to maintain muscle, support your bones, fuel movement, regulate appetite and provide the nutrients required for health. Sometimes that means eating more, not less.

The question isn't:

"How many calories should I eat?"

It’s:

"What do I need to eat to nourish myself so that my body can perform optimally?"

Your nutritional priorities change as you age

The foundations of healthy eating don't suddenly change when you turn 40. Vegetables were good for you at 30 and they're still good for you at 50.

But ageing changes the context in which your diet operates.

Muscle mass and strength tend to decline with age, while menopause brings additional changes in body composition, bone health and cardiometabolic risk. These changes are not inevitable to the same degree in everyone, and physical activity, genetics, lifestyle and overall diet all matter. Recent research on nutrition during menopause particularly highlights the importance of dietary quality alongside physical activity for supporting muscle, bone and cardiometabolic health.

Make protein a priority

One of the most important changes to think about in midlife is muscle.

We tend to think about muscle as something we build for appearance or athletic performance. But muscle is much more than that. It supports strength, mobility, balance and independence as we age.

Your muscles need sufficient protein. As we get older, muscle becomes less responsive to the muscle-building stimulus provided by a meal containing protein. This is sometimes referred to as "anabolic resistance". It doesn't mean that building muscle becomes impossible. It means that providing an adequate stimulus through resistance exercise and protein becomes increasingly important.

So instead of thinking:

"I need to eat less because I'm getting older,"

try:

"I need to make sure I'm getting enough of the nutrients that help me maintain the body I want to keep."

For women in midlife, that means making protein a deliberate part of each meal. You don't need to turn every meal into a bodybuilder's meal. You simply don't want protein to be an afterthought.

Try:

• Greek yoghurt with berries, seeds and nuts

• eggs with wholegrain toast and vegetables

• chicken or another lean meat with plenty of vegetables

• lentils or beans with grains and vegetables

• cottage cheese or skyr with fruit

• tofu or tempeh instead of meat sometimes

And remember that food and exercise work together. Resistance training tells your body that muscle is needed. Protein supplies some of the building blocks. So eating lots of protein won’t help much if you’re not doing some form of strength training.

Focus on Fibre

With all the hype around protein at the moment, fibre is being forgotten. But fibre is an essential cornerstone of health. Your gut microbes need feeding and they love fibre.

Fibre supports bowel health, but its benefits extend much further. High-fibre dietary patterns are associated with better cardiovascular and metabolic health, and fibre-rich plant foods also provide the enormous variety of compounds that interact with our gut microbiome.

The UK recommendation for adults is around 30 g of fibre per day but this is really a bare minimum and most people are falling short of this amount.

Try to add more fibre to every meal:

• vegetables at lunch and dinner

• fruit every day

• beans or lentils regularly

• oats or other wholegrains

• nuts and seeds

• potatoes with their skins

• wholegrain bread, rice or pasta

Eat more plants

Your gut doesn't need you to eat the same three vegetables every day. It benefits from variety. A diet built around a wide variety of vegetables, fruit, wholegrains, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds provides fibre, vitamins, minerals and a huge range of plant compounds.

A useful target is to work towards eating 30 or more different plant foods each week. There is growing evidence that greater plant diversity can support a more diverse and metabolically active gut microbiome, although 30 is a practical target rather than a magic number.

Think about adding before you start subtracting:

• Some berries to your breakfast

• A handful of nuts to your yoghurt

• Beans to a tomato sauce

• Extra vegetables to pasta

• Lentils to a curry

• A few different vegetables to a tray bake

• Herbs, spices, seeds and pulses to the meals you already enjoy

This approach is much more sustainable than continually restricting your diet.

Don’t be afraid of carbohydrates and fats

Carbohydrates and fats have been demonised for far too long, but the type and quality matter. Wholegrains, potatoes, beans, lentils, fruit and vegetables can all contribute valuable nutrients and fibre. Fats are an essential part of a healthy diet, and nuts, seeds, olive oil, avocado and oily fish provide valuable unsaturated fats.

Rather than asking whether a food is "good" or "bad", start asking a different question:

"What is this food giving my body?"

Is it providing protein? Fibre? Essential fats? Vitamins and minerals? Plant compounds? Energy?

The aim isn't to build a smaller and smaller diet. It is to build a more nourishing one.

Five things you can start doing this week

1. Put fibre on your plate first

Before cutting anything out, ask:

"Where is my fibre?"

2. Add one extra plant food every day

A handful of berries, an extra vegetable, a spoonful of seeds or a portion of beans all count.

3. Include protein at each meal

Eggs, Greek yoghurt, skyr, cottage cheese, chicken, fish, edamame, beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh – there are lots of different ways to meet your protein needs.

4. Do some resistance training

Food cannot maintain muscle on its own. Your muscles need a reason to stay.

5. Stop thinking of midlife as the beginning of restriction

Think of it as the beginning of better investment. You're investing in the body you want to have in your sixties, seventies and beyond.

Your future self is eating with you

Perhaps the most useful way to think about nutrition in midlife is this:

Every meal is doing more than satisfying today's hunger. It is contributing, little by little, to the condition of the body you'll live in for decades to come.

That doesn't mean every meal has to be perfect. It doesn't mean you can't enjoy cake, wine, cheese, meals out or a croissant on a Sunday morning. And it certainly doesn't mean spending your life counting calories.

It means building a dietary pattern that gives your body plenty of the things it needs.

Because you're not just eating for the body you have today.

You're eating for the body you want to have in ten, twenty and thirty years' time.