Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD

Losing weight after 40 can be done, but it's not easy. You should try to moderate your carbs, do intermittent fasting and exercise, as well as get 7+ hours of sleep. All of these things will help you to lose weight and keep it off.
 
Transcript: "Wow. How to lose weight after the age of 40? It can be done. It's not easy, and it's a lot harder than it was when we were 25-years old. I actually wrote a whole article about this for the Huffington Post where I talked about trying to fight against a muffin top and keep my energy. So here's some evidence from research that has been shown to be beneficial. This is also coming from someone who is 46-years old and having the same challenges that I'm working through with my patients as well. Number 1, what worked when you are 25, typically, will not work when you get into your '40s, '50s, and beyond. That's number 1. Number 2, what has been shown to be beneficial is moderating carbohydrates a little bit more. So a moderate carb approach, which for the most part, is about 45% of your total amount of energy coming from carbohydrates tends to be better for over 40, if we want to lose weight and keep it off. And that's because it helps in avoidance of those blood sugar and insulin rollercoaster rides. Those are things that actually encourage fat-gaining, encourage our body to hold on to fat. And that's the second point, really wanting to avoid any kind of yo-yo dieting. So losing weight and then putting more back on, doing it again, doing it again. So what we go through here is something that's really looking at adaptive thermogenesis, which is where the body is assuming that you're going to go into another famine because you've done it before. And so it starts holding on to your fat. It's got to prepare for that famine, and it makes it so much more difficult to lose weight. So moderating those carbohydrates, that could be something as easy as simply taking a carb out for a snack option or in a dinner option, not having carbs after, let's say 4:00. Intermittent fasting has also been shown to be beneficial, and then exercise. Even though the evidence is not strong that exercise is the golden key for weight loss, that's food, it is one of the golden keys for weight loss maintenance. So if you do lose weight, you want to keep it off, move, move, move, move, move. Moderate those carbs. Sleep. Get at least 7 hours of sleep. If you don't, you're also more likely to not be able to lose weight and keep it off. Hey, it's hard once we get over 40. I'm experiencing it myself. Take a look at my article, and I can give you some more tips than that. Thanks so much for that question. It's a good one."
 how to lose weight after 40 

To improve our gut microbiome, we should increase fiber intake and cut out processed foods, sugar and refined grains. Non-dietary factors like stress management are also important. Lastly, don't be too clean as this can reduce the diversity of our gut microbiome.
 
Transcript: "So what's the best way to improve our gut microbiome? Well, there's so many things we can do. We could talk for hours about the gut. But if I were to boil it down into some more high level advice, I would say, let's think about what we can do and let's think about things that we can take away. So let's start with can do-- high level, fiber, fiber, fiber. I know we all hear about probiotics, prebiotics supplements things like that. But simply getting more fiber in the diets if we look at studies, actually helps with overall gut microbiome. And then secondly, let's take away things that hurt our microbiome like processed foods, like hyper palatable foods, and like sugar and refined grains. So really anything that's going to make your blood sugar and insulin go nuts is going to hurt your microbiome as well. We can, of course, add in those other components-- probiotics, prebiotics, which are a type of fiber. And we can look at supplemental use as well. But if we just look high level and say, OK, I want to start getting more fiber in my diet, that ultimately will help your gut microbiome. And then let's not forget about the non-dietary factors, so stress management. So making sure that if you're someone who has experienced trauma that you're getting therapy for that, but really managing your overall stress can help with the gut as well. So many things. And then finally, don't be too clean. So again, we have plenty of studies showing that cleanliness and over cleanliness does not always bode well for the gut. So any time we have over cleanliness, it's taking away our good microbes and our bad microbes. So just some suggestions there. Hopefully, you can take one of them and roll with it. But great question."

Carbohydrates come in different forms, such as starchy vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Eating more of these can help to prevent chronic conditions, improve mental health, and lead to a longer and happier life. To get the most benefit, focus on carbohydrates that have fiber attached, and avoid sugar-sweetened beverages and other sugary items without fiber.
 
Transcript: "The question is, if all carbohydrates aren't sugars, what are the other groups useful for? So, yeah, a carbohydrate is your candy bar, your sugar sweetened beverage. That's all true. But carbohydrates also come in the form of starchy vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. And studies show that if we have more of these in an approach, such as a Mediterranean approach, we actually can help to prevent multiple different chronic conditions. We may live longer, we may be happier. There are studies looking at mental health. So let's not focus on carbohydrates all being in the same bucket, because they're not. Anything that has fiber attached to it, will have a little bit more benefit. Now, having said that, you can be moderate carbohydrate or even low carbohydrates, still get that fiber and still get that preventative aspect in. The key here is not to have things like sugar-sweetened beverages, sugar things that don't have fiber attached. So that's really the key message here."

To lower cholesterol, focus on eating more soluble fiber, fatty wild fish, avocados, nuts, and seeds. Additionally, limit consumption of sugar and processed refined carbohydrates. Exercise can also help boost HDL (good cholesterol). Eating more plants is the key to successful cholesterol-lowering.
 
Transcript: "All right, Michaels asking, what are the best foods for lowering cholesterol? I just wrote an article about this Michael. So I'm going to put the link up so you can kind of read a little bit more about that. But in terms of what foods, you want to focus on number one, you want to make sure that you are focusing on your guts. Okay? So that's kind of going to be number one and also that you're limiting your intake of sugar and processed refined carbohydrates. So why is that important? Because there's a huge role in our lipid panel in terms of Of how our lipid panel reacts to fluctuations in blood sugar and what happens in the vessels when we're eating tons and tons of sugar. Lots and lots of refined grains anything that's going to make our insulin and our blood sugar. Just go absolutely crazy on top of that though, there are foods that we want to add in the diet. So soluble and insoluble fiber, or both important soluble. Fiber has been found to be maybe slightly more important for lowering cholesterol because it helps to bring cholesterol out of the body. You can find that in oats, for example, Then looking at things like fatty wild fish, I think sometimes people are fearful a fat when they hear that, they have high cholesterol but really I think sugar plays much more of a role. When we look at the science to our lipid panel then having fat does but there's probably a lot of disagreement and there's probably a lot of different studies that would show that for my patient based. So when I see individuals lowering their sugar, they see improvements in their lipid panel and that could have to do with the fact that they lose some weight. When you lose belly fat, that could help. As well. So there's all these things that we can look at in terms of specific Foods, avocados, nuts, and seeds. I already mentioned fatty fish whole grains basically looking at more of a plant based approach, those are all going to be ways that we can help to lower the cholesterol. And so the cholesterol really could be, you know, that could be a question about your entire lipid panel. So looking at your LDL, your HDL when I have a conversation with my patients about cholesterol. I also talked about how to boost their HDL as well. Which is our good cholesterol. So getting exercise things like that. I think the key here is to eat more plants, that's really what's going to boil down to eat less sugar, eat less refined grains, and then recheck. If your doctor wants to take that lifestyle approach versus the pharmacological approach,"
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To figure out how much caffeine you should have each day, you can take a nutrigenomics test, which will show if you are a slow or fast metabolizer. Slow metabolizers should have around 200 milligrams of caffeine or less per day, while those that are fast metabolizers can have coffee after dinner and still go to bed with no problem. Additionally, it is believed that the benefits of coffee come from both the bean and the caffeine, so if you want to limit your caffeine intake, make sure to know where your genes are first.
 
Transcript: "Thanks for this great question on caffeine. So caffeine typically is delivered either in chocolate tea. Or of course coffee now, how can you know what kind of metabolizer you are of caffeine that's going to dictate, how many cups of coffee, or how many milligrams you should have each day? You can figure this out by a nutrigenomics test. There is a gene called cyp. 182 is actually one of the first genes that was isolated and nutrigenomics puts people in one of two camps, you're either slow. Their meaning that you have that cup of coffee and it takes forever for it to get out of the body. Then if you follow up with a second cup that first cup is still trying to get out. So those people tend to might have to have about 200 milligrams or less per day because of that slow metabolism. Then it could also show based on your genotyping, if you're a fast metabolizer fast metabolizers, are the people that can have coffee after dinner and then go to bed. No problem. So that's really how you should dictate what it looks like. Let's say you don't To get a nutrigenomics test. Most of us know how we metabolize caffeine. Do you feel jittery? Do you feel nervous? Do you feel anxious? If those are symptoms, you have you should probably lay off the coffee because you could have the genotyping to make you a slow metabolizer. Let me give one last point about coffee because it does happen to be one of the greatest deliverers of caffeine. There are so many studies looking at the benefits of coffee. And most of the show that it is probably a combination of The Bean and the Caffeine that provides these benefits. We know that people that drink coffee live longer have less, dementia, Alzheimer's, less, heart disease, less rates of certain cancers. So there is so much antioxidant power within coffee. That's if we want to limit it because of the caffeine, we should probably know where our genes are before him and maybe you don't like caffeine either. Thanks for the question. Such a great one really complex but got to figure out what works for you."
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Any Question is a great place to go to get questions answered by reputable experts. It's a great way to take evidence-based approaches and translate them into everyday life for consumers. A good dietitian doesn't give out opinions, but rather evidence-based approaches. I love interacting with people on this app and answering their questions, as it helps me think of questions my patients are likely thinking about. Ultimately, our focus should be on health, not the scale.
 
Transcript: "All right, this question is from Ryan as an expert. Why are you interested in using any question? So I'm so happy you asked this Ryan because I want people to understand that there are places they can go to, to get their questions answered in a reputable way. Now, when we look at the industry of Health apps or health websites, some of them are great. There's some that I recommend to my patients all the time because they are evidence-based, but many of them are not. Using their answers as interpretation of data. I always say that I think the sign of a good dietitian someone who's going to communicate and talk about nutrition is someone who can take evidence-based approaches. So look at the signs. Understand studies know what studies are really reputable, which ones have too many limitations and then translate that into every day approaches for consumers. A good dietitian doesn't actually give a pig. In but gives those evidence-based approaches. So that's why I love this. I think that any question has done a good job in really looking at, who are our experts, what is their background and are they using evidence-based, approaches to answer those questions versus, hey, here's my opinion on something. Now, sometimes we get questions on opinion and we're happy to answer that as well, but if we have something that there's a lot of science on it, for me I'm always going to break down the science and so that's why I I like having this venue so many people have questions about nutrition, so many people are struggling with their relationship with food so to give them a place where they can go and connect one-on-one with experts from all different fields. If you take a look at any question, you know what, there's so many great experts. Here is a great opportunity to get people to achieve their goals of longevity. So that's why I like it. I also love interacting with people like you Ryan and all the people that are on this app, I love York. Questions. And it actually gets me engaged and thinking about what are some of the questions? I'm not thinking about that. My patients might be thinking about so thank you bring on the questions, keep bringing them out, I promise you, I will be answering them and at the end of the day, let's focus on health, not the scale. Let's focus on longevity feeling good and fueling good."