Yo Prompt:
To back up ScottyMac, damn right you can benefit from exercise. I'm not just over 40, I'm over 50 and in three months I have gone from 30% body fat to 19% and gained about 9 lbs of muscle. I work out once a day, seven days a week (soon to be five as I have almost reached my goals and will go to maintenance). I do as much aerobic as I can stand which is only about 10 minutes and until recently about 45 minutes of circuit training (I'm moving to targeted muscle groups). If you can stomach longer sessions of aerobic exercise, do it. The lipids (fat) stored in your adipose tissues are consumed by the body during exercise only if there is sufficient oxygen present. (BTW, if there is NOT sufficient oxygen, the body uses muscle tissue to supplement energy demands due to exercise). There are a bunch of formulas out there to calculate when you hit the aerobic phase, perhaps the simplest one is to subtract your age from 220. The result is your maximum heart rate. Aerobic exercise starts at around 60% of MHR and extends up to about 85%. Beyond that, you start to go anaerobic and the "fat burning" benefits are diminished. For me, just getting to 60% is damn near enough to put me in an ambulance!!
I've been raving about a book I read that provided me with actual science, rather than voodoo magic on the whole nutrition/supplement/workout business. The book is called Nutrient Timing by John Ivy, PhD and Robert Portman, PhD. Check out my other replies for long winded reviews of this book. I learned a ton, have applied what I learned and am actually quite surprised that after 25 years of eating like crap and exercising my right bicept by lifting a 12 oz weight (conveniently filled with beer!) to my lips that I could see such a dramatic change in just three months. I'm always having to pull my darn pants up these days; not such a bad problem to have!
Get some science and then hit the gym. You can make a difference no matter how old you are. The gym i use is owned by the property owners association and the little town I live in has a substantial percentage of retired folks. I have met people at the gym that are in their 80's and they are still getting benefits from exercise!! I should be so spry when I'm 80!!
Ted
