You Need These Healthy Habits When You Turn 40
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There are so many mixed messages out there about how to live a healthy life, especially as you get north of age 30.
Hi friends, I’m (proudly) 40!
There is always a new trend with a diet, fitness program, or weird spa procedure. Personally, I prefer simple, natural, and time-tested methods to maximize my health. As an added bonus, yes, it’s a nice thing to have your pants fit better!
Do you ever get tired of learning about why you “should” cut out entire food groups (by the way, bananas and sweet potatoes never made anyone gain weight!) or get injected with various things to lose weight, look younger, live forever, whatever other bogus promises these developers make?
Welcome to the club!
The beauty of getting older is that you have more of an appreciation for being healthy as opposed to how you look! This post is about that, about how to be your healthiest self! It just so happens that as an added bonus, your pants will likely fit better!
From personal experience (and scientific evidence!), there are some things that are really important to become a habit and developed into a lifestyle as you move through the years. (Remember, it takes 21 days to develop a habit and 90 days a lifestyle!)
Using science and my own personal experience, here are my favorite healthy habits to adopt by the time you’re 40 (my current age – bonus points to you for doing these things even earlier!):
1. Start Strength Training.
Strength training versus cardio seems to always be at the forefront of people’s minds when they think about developing a fitness program. Which is better, which is more important, which will help with weight loss more powerfully, etc.
While both are important, strength training is the most important part of a fitness routine!
Especially as you hit your 40’s, you begin to naturally lose muscle mass, so it is important to focus on maintaining and growing muscle mass! Muscle mass also fuels your body’s calorie-burning machine.
Too many use cardio as a countereffect to extra calories. But remember, if you don’t eat it, you don’t have to work it off. And if you’re overdoing cardio, you’re likely to increase your appetite, which is the complete opposite of what you’re trying to do.
Also, there are efficiencies here: if you build a good strength program, it can also get your heart rate up, making it a two-for-one punch! Just add some squat jumps in between upper body moves, and you’ll know what I mean.
My favorite strength routines involve barre routines and Body Gym.
Why do I love barre? I explain why in my post about why it is a great routine for women over 40, and it is all about the fact that I actually ENJOY doing something that reaps tons of gains in strength and toning.
If you’re interested in trying barre, I love the variety of class formats and intensity on Alo Moves’s hundreds of class option (streaming for only $13/month, it’s my favorite subscription)!
You will not be able to walk the next day, so email me with your complaints. I will be delighted!
Why do I love Body Gym? Well, it is a portable strength training tool that weighs less than 3 pounds, can be stored in the corner of your closet or under your bed (even thrown into a suitcase) and provides up to 80 pounds of weight for a FULL BODY ROUTINE. This means it grows with you as you grow in strength, and you don’t have to go out every 2 months to buy heavier dumbbells! Also, for us city dwellers, I like that it requires essentially no storage space.
I’m all for efficiency obviously, so I like having one piece of equipment to work my entire body that I can continue to use as I get stronger, and I don’t have to have a room designated to a home gym!
Because remember, strength is what actually shapes your body. Start a focused effort on this today, and you will thank me a year from now.
2. Eat More Produce.
This one goes without saying. Eating more fruits and vegetables prevents chronic diseases (heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, cancer, liver disease...it goes on and on), aids in weight management, reduces inflammation, decreases depression, helps you sleep better, improves your skin, supports hormonal balance, detoxifies and sustains your liver, and just makes you feel really good.
The importance of eating a wide variety of different colors of fruits and vegetables is high and widely studied (most notably in my favorite health book, What Color Is Your Diet?). This type of eating also helped me recover from a severe illness that almost took my life and build my healthiest body at 40 years old.
This post discusses how I meet my daily goal of 12 servings easily, even when really busy at work or traveling! It provides the ultimate insurance plan for being positive that you are getting all the superfoods you need every single day.
For the easiest way to hit your daily produce goal, why not start the day with a smoothie? With Evive, you get a premade smoothie (NO MORE LAWN IN A BOWL) in ice cube form that you just put in a cup with water and milk (for around $5 per meal - click here for the deal).
Here you find yourself at the perfect intersection of healthy, delicious and lazy. I love having this option for when I’m running late for work but still want a nutrient-dense breakfast!
If you pair #1 and #2 together, weight will naturally fall off, FYI, and your bloodwork will improve. Let me know when your doctor heaps praise on you!!
3. Treat Your Liver Well.
This one I learned the hard way, but I am here to tell you the story so that you can benefit from it!
I found myself in the hospital 3 days before Christmas of 2020 with a virus attacking my liver, exacerbated by an autoimmune condition. Through a lot of bloodwork and a horrifying 4 day hospital stay I almost didn’t survive, I learned how critical the liver is. It is not just an organ that you remember when you have a hangover.
The liver is a huge factor in your metabolic process.
It filters junk out of your blood for removal, stores critical nutrients, and starts the fat burning process in your blood. When you baby your liver, avoiding the bad stuff like added sugar, salt, and alcohol, and eating good stuff like produce and lean proteins, you will maximize your liver’s efficiency, which supercharges your fat burning potential, balances your hormone levels, improves your skin, and overall upgrades your health.
I recently read that 80% of women over 40 have fatty liver disease, which makes sense. It sounds scary, and if left untreated and ignored it can be!
However, it is something that can be reversed through proper diet and exercise. Read more about reversing the effect of fatty liver here – you will be shocked how easy it is and what a HUGE change it will have on the way your body looks and feels. I can speak to this one personally!
Overall, we talk so much about heart health and blood sugar and cholesterol, but not enough attention is given to this overlooked work horse that is a HUGE key to health and weight management.
Please note that I’m not a physician, but hopefully this post will encourage you to have a conversation with your doctor about your liver health!
4. Learn How to Sleep Better.
Quality sleep is remarkably restorative. We all know this. What we don’t all know is how to get there.
Nutrition is something to master here. I highly recommend reading my post about nutrition on a flight, which is mainly centered around how to eat to promote sleep while flying (and if you can sleep on a plane, you can certainly sleep in your comfortable bed! This post discusses the vitamins and minerals that promote relaxation and sleep along with what specific foods to eat to get them…and what foods to avoid!
When all else fails, I swear by melatonin, lavender linen spray, a “worry/to do list” notebook on your nightstand, and a good book. Now turn down the thermostat, turn on a fan for the noise, and curl up like a little baby angel.
If your problem is waking up in the middle of the night, I FEEL YOUR PAIN. In the middle of the night melatonin or Tylenol PM will make you feel like a zombie in the morning, so read how I get back to sleep without morning grogginess!
(These indulgent tips and more can be found in my post How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep in a Hotel.)
5. Make General Movement a Part of Your Lifestyle.
Walk 4 – 5 miles per day in aggregate daily. Or more!
See the first point regarding cardio – if you don’t eat it, you don’t have to work it off. The goal for walking/moving is to generally stay active and keep your muscles and body moving, not hit a specific caloric deficit goal.
I lost 30 pounds doing absolutely no cardio and walking my dog for 5 miles every morning and maintaining a liver healthy diet filled with fruits and vegetables.
6. Be Real with Yourself.
This is all about taking added (stupid) pressure off yourself.
For example, when I was in my early 20’s, I really wanted to read my way through the Modern Library’s top 100 book list. However, after about 8 tries to read Ulysses, I never made it past page 10.
Lesson learned: I just didn’t want to do it, so I abandoned that goal. Some goals, ones that don’t truly make your heart happy, are just white noise. Put down Ulysses and pick up a funny page-turner girl!
(Side note: my absolute favorite books are here.)
7. Prioritize Skin Care.
As my dermatologist told me, the two best tools for anti-aging are sunscreen and retinol.
Since skin cancer runs in my dad’s side of the family, I have always been really careful about sunscreen. Remember that this is something you should wear year-round, every single day, on your money maker, regardless of rain or winter or being in a plane. (In fact, you should especially wear it on a plane because the UV rays are strong that high up!)
But this does not have to be a chore, of course!
I learned the benefits of Korean skin care when I was in Seoul (even the drug stores have sheet masks!). You don’t have to do the entire 10 step program every day (I do modified versions for morning and night), but it is fun when you do. Korean skin care makes even a crappy Tuesday night feel like you are indulging in a spa experience, and your face will legitimately be as smooth as a baby’s bottom.
Taking care of your skin now will reap huge benefits for the rest of your life. Don’t forget the skin on your lips either – I cannot live without this lip mask! (Which, truth be told, I also wear during the day because it’s the perfect light pink glossy tint.)
There you have it, gorgeous – 7 habits to adopt when the birthday cake hits 40 candles to set you up to be healthy for the rest of your life!
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
The Color Diet
Three Keys to Changing Your Attitude Toward Food
How to Make Fitness a Habit and a Lifestyle
How to Kick Your Sugar Habit for Good
