Working Out More but Gaining Weight After 50? The Part My Walking Group Got Wrong

Dana R., contributor — Comfort & Ease Co

If you're working out more but gaining weight after 50, you're not lazy and you're not crazy. Four of us found that out the frustrating way this summer.

There are four of us. We started walking together in May, five miles every morning before it got hot, and by the Fourth of July we were doing it six days a week. We were proud of it.

By August, three of us had gained weight. Not muscle, either. The same soft inch around the middle that hadn't moved in two years.

Linda said it out loud first, at the end of a walk: "I'm working out more than I have in my life and I'm gaining weight. What is the point?"

"Harder" was the problem, not the answer

A piece updated in July laid out something none of us had heard. After menopause, the stress hormone cortisol rises more easily and stays up longer. Long workouts, the 45-to-90-minute kind, can push it even higher in a midlife body. And belly fat has more cortisol receptors than fat anywhere else, so that is exactly where it lands.

So the extra miles weren't burning the belly. They may have been telling it to hold on.

Three things that were quietly working against us

Long walks on an empty stomach. Coffee, five miles, then a late breakfast. By 4 p.m. all of us were standing at the pantry.

The afternoon sugar pull. It wasn't hunger exactly. It was a craving that showed up on schedule. When blood sugar dips, the body asks for the fastest fuel it can get.

Fat that never gets "unlocked." This was the one that made it click for me. Burning fat isn't just about moving more. Stored fat has to be carried into your cells before it can be used as energy, and that carrier tends to run lower as we age. Move all you want: if the fat isn't being shuttled to the furnace, your body burns sugar instead and keeps the belly right where it is.

What we do now

We still walk, but shorter, and two days a week we do the slow strength routine Linda's physical therapist gave her. We eat breakfast before we go. And Linda, who is the most skeptical of the four of us, started one small daily step that targets exactly those last two problems: the afternoon sugar pull and the fat that never gets moved.

It is a few drops, not a pill and not a program, which is the only reason she tried it. She says the first thing she noticed was the 4 p.m. craving just not showing up. The waistband came later.

I'm not going to oversell it. Results vary, and Linda would roll her eyes at me if I did. But three of the four of us are using it now, and nobody has asked "what is the point" in a while.

Before you add another mile

Ask yourself the question we should have asked in May: is my body short on effort, or short on what it needs to use the fat it already has? For most of us over 50, it was never effort.

Which brings me to Linda's little bottle, because three of you have already emailed to ask what it is, and I would rather tell you the whole thing properly than in a sentence.

Why Linda tried it (she is the last person who would)

Linda had already done the obvious things. In June she cut bread and pasta almost entirely; she lost two pounds, got grumpy, and found them again by August. She tried a shot of apple cider vinegar before our walks, which gave her heartburn by mile two. And she bought a "metabolism booster" off the pharmacy shelf that was mostly caffeine. Her heart raced on the hill by the school, and she stopped after a week.

The name came from her cousin in Tucson, who had been stuck on the same plateau, walking every day and watching the middle stay put. Linda's first reaction was "drops? Come on." She is a retired bookkeeper. She reads the fine print on everything.

So she read the ingredient list, and that is what changed her mind. It went after the exact two things we had figured out on our own: the afternoon sugar pull, and the fat that never gets carried to the furnace. It promised steady energy, not a jolt. And the company's page shows a 60-day guarantee, so the worst case was two months of trying it and asking for her money back.

The bottle was Thermo Ignite.

What is in it, and why it fits the problem

These are the ingredients the company lists, with what each one is there for:

• Chromium picolinate. A mineral that helps the body handle blood sugar and is known for taking the edge off sugar cravings. This is the 4 p.m. pantry trip.
• L-carnitine. The carrier I wrote about above. It helps move fatty acids into your cells so they can be burned for energy instead of staying put around the middle.
• Gymnema sylvestre. A plant extract traditionally used to quiet sugar cravings and support appetite control.
• Green tea extract. Antioxidants and catechins that support the body's own calorie burning, without the coffee-pot jitters.
• African mango seed extract. Traditionally used to support fat metabolism, and the company describes it as meant for a mature metabolism, which is a polite way of saying ours.

How she uses it

The directions say about two full droppers (1 mL) twice a day, at whatever time fits your routine. Linda does one before the morning walk and one around 3 p.m., ahead of the pull. She still eats breakfast before we go, still does her strength routine twice a week, and she mentioned it to her doctor at her checkup.

What changed, week by week

• Week 1. The scale didn't budge, and she said so loudly at the end of every walk. The only thing she noticed was that she skipped the pantry one afternoon without trying to.
• Weeks 2 and 3. The 4 p.m. craving just stopped showing up most days. That was the first thing, before anything on the scale.
• Month 1. Energy that lasted through the walk and through the afternoon, and a waistband that was a little less snug on Sunday than it had been on Monday.
• Months 2 and 3. The waistband came later, and then it kept going. By September she was the one telling the rest of us to try it, and three of the four of us are using it now.

Why does it take a couple of months? Because you are not burning off a pound of water, you are changing what your body does with the fat it already stores, and that is slow. The company itself says some people notice changes in appetite and energy within the first few weeks, but it recommends using it consistently for at least 30 to 90 days. That is why Linda's second order was the three-month supply. Results vary, and Linda would roll her eyes at me if I said otherwise.

Who it is for, and who should skip it

It may fit you if you are over 45, you move plenty and still hold weight around the middle, and the afternoon sugar pull is the part of the day you dread.

Skip it, or talk to your doctor first, if you are pregnant or nursing, you take medication for blood sugar (chromium and gymnema work on the same thing), you have an untreated thyroid problem, or you are hoping to lose twenty pounds by next weekend. It won't do that, and nothing honest will.

The guarantee

The company's page shows a 60-day guarantee from the date of purchase: if you are not satisfied, you write to them within those 60 days and they refund you. That is the deal Linda made with herself. Two months, and an honest look at the waistband at the end.

P.S. Last week, at the end of the walk, Linda stopped at the same corner where she asked "what is the point?" back in August. This time she asked where we were getting breakfast. If you are the one asking her old question this morning, start where she did.