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Dr Mehmet Yildiz
How I Gained Six-Packs After 50 Years Old
2021-01-12
It was a long journey. I am not obsessed with a six-pack belly and did not make it my specific fitness goal. It happened as a by-product of my lifestyle choices. It served as an indication of my fitness progress on the right track.
Being able to lose abdominal fat was a significant achievement for me. Redefining my fitness goals and a small tweak in my lifestyle choices helped me gain a defined body structure after a century.
Fitness is a passion for me.
Since my childhood, consistently moving my body helped me enjoy my life.
My fitness journey was not straight forward. I had many ups and downs.
I thought adequate exercise would give us the desired body. Therefore, I invested a lot of time to lose body fat and gain lean muscles.
Gaining muscles was not a problem but losing fat without losing muscle was a problem.
My efforts were wasted for decades because I was only addressing one part of the equation.
The other part of the equation was diet. I thought my plant-based, low fat, and low-calorie diet would keep me lean and help me lose unwanted fat. I managed losing fat from various parts of the body but had difficulty in losing belly fat. Abdominal fat is extremely stubborn.
Intricacies of fat metabolism play an important role in losing belly fat.
When I was young, in my 20s, 30s, and 40s, I was lean but always covered with belly fat.
After 40, I started changing my lifestyle. The main change was using fat as the primary source of energy.
Being fat-adapted changed my metabolism. Cravings and frequent hunger disappeared.
My blood glucose stabilised. Improvement in blood glucose optimised my insulin level.
Understanding insulin's role in burning fat was the critical success factor in tapping to stubborn belly fat.
Only when insulin was low, the body start using belly fat as energy.
The best way of keeping insulin down is fasting. Yes, not eating anything for a prolonged time.
When I got fat-adapted, a metabolism using fat as the primary energy source, fasting was easy.
Even after 24 hours of not eating anything, I still did not feel hunger.
The best contributor to reducing cortisol and having an optimal amount in my bloodstream was improving sleep quality. Deep sleep plays an important role and associated with recovering body from tears.
The best contributor to losing excessive skin was the body's natural capacity to kill the damaged cells. Emerging research on autophagy looks promising for maintaining a healthier body.
Only after removing loose skin, I started seeing the definitions in the abdominal area. Initially, it showed four defintive parts. However, I continued with my intermittent fasting and made healthier lifestyle choices.
When I was around 51 years old, I started seeing full six-packs in my abdominal area.
The DEXA scan showe 7% body fat when my six-pack first time appeared. DEXA stands for dual energy X-ray absorptiometry and is the gold standard in fitness industry for measuring fat.
It was sounded ironical to my friends and family members. I was unable to get six packs when younger. They thought that my metabolism should be much slower in my 50s. Being fat adapted and using fat as the primary energy source kept my metabolism much more active than when I was younger.
Even though six-pack belly was not my ultimate goal, it made me happy. It was useful feedback as an indication of my fitness outcomes.
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