Reaching and maintaining a healthy body weight is important at any age. However, as you get older, you're at an increased risk for serious conditions such as heart disease, stroke and hypertension. While training principles remain constant despite age, there are some considerations you should heed prior to starting an exercise plan.
Consistency
The first step of exercise needed for a 70 year old to lose weight is to be consistent with your workouts. Exercising regularly is essential to seeing significant results. If you're out of shape or starting a workout routine for the first time, begin with 15 to 20 minutes of low-intensity exercise three days per week. Once you build endurance, you can increase your exercise time and frequency so that you're completing four to five days of 30 to 45 minutes each session. Consistency is the number one key.
Cardiovascular Exercise
Cardiovascular activities, such as walking and riding a bike, are the most efficient exercise workouts to lose weight as they cause you to burn the most calories per unit of time. If you're only going to participate in one type of exercise, you want it to be some type of cardiovascular activity. The more calories you burn through exercise, the more body fat you can lose. As the name implies, cardiovascular exercise is also key to cardiovascular health.
Weight Training
Weight training facilitates weight loss because the increase in lean muscle that you gain with regular lifting causes your resting metabolism to rise. As you get older, you will naturally see a slowing of your metabolic rate, meaning you'll burn less calories throughout the day, which promotes weight gain. Besides helping in weight loss, weight training will also increase your strength and bone density, improving your physical function overall.
Considerations
It's important to take extra safety precautions when exercising if you're elderly. As you get older, your balance and reactive speed diminishes. Therefore, choose activities that don't require extensive coordination or balance. Participating in cardiovascular kickboxing, for example, has the potential to be dangerous. Instead, choose exercise activities such as riding a stationary bike or an elliptical machine, which you can complete seated or holding onto handles. If you prefer to walk and yet don't feel comfortable walking outside, you can hold onto the handles of a treadmill.
Warning
Losing weight as an elderly person has been directly associated with higher mortality rates. However, this is typically because of the underlying conditions an elderly person has that cause the weight loss and not the weight loss itself.
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