Getting Your Right Weight You gain a lot as you reach your middle years: understanding, control, self confidence, wisdom, stature, freedom and, unfortunately, weight. Whether it's a joke of Mother Nature's or an accident of evolution, a woman's scale and her age creep up together as she reaches her thirties, forties, and beyond. All sorts of factors fight against you in your battle with extra pounds during this time of your life. "It's not hard to gain weight. There are all kinds of metabolic changes that promote weight gain as you get older," says Susan Roberts, Ph.D., professor of nutrition and psychiatry and chief of the energy metabolism laboratory at Tufts University in Boston. First off, your body's metabolism slows down. In other words, you burn fewer calories during an activity now than you would have 20 years ago. "Even athletes have decreased energy expenditure with aging," Dr. Roberts says. You also tend to be less physically active at this stage of your life than when you were younger, which slows the calorie burn even more. And to top it all off, muscle mass naturally decreases with age. Since muscle uses up more energy fuel than any other kind of tissue, including fat, having less muscle diminishes your calorie burn still further. It sounds as if we're doomed, but there's reason to take heart. We aren't supposed to look like we did when we were 25, and a little extra weight may not hurt us, especially if we are physically active. On average, women gain 10 to 15 pounds by age 60, says Michael Hamilton, M.D., program and medical director of the Diet Fitness Center at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The key during these years is to find a healthy weight. Here's how to find what's the right weight for you and what you need to do to keep it there. Anti Aging Anti Aging Generation| Anti Aging Health Strategy| Anti Aging for Women| Take a Bite Out of Aging| Check the Index| Aim Low| Fat Factor| The Zobra Diet| Bulf Of Long Life| What about Meat?| Get the Protein, Forgo the Fat| The Taxic Avengers| Great Ways to Ambush Radicals| Going Vegetarian Sparked Her Youth| Is That a Toxin in My "Soup"?| Put Your Diet into Rehab| Little Bean, Big Benefits| Sneaking Soy into Your Diet| The Anti Aging Supplements| Alpha Lipoic Acid| Vitamins Minerals| Bioflavonoids| Coenzyme-Q10| Flaxseed Oil| Ginkgo| Are Harmone Supplements Safe?| Melotonin| Phoaphatidylserine| Pycnogenol| Vitamin C| Vitamin E| Aerobics| Disease-Proof Your Body| Liven Up Your Lifestyles| 12 Tips For a Better Workout| Weather Your Workout| Water| Erasing the Lines of Time| Skin Enemy Number One: The Sun| Sunscreen to the Rescue| A Sunscreen Primer| Sun Tips for Sun Junkies| Clean Up Your Act| Perfect Cleanser| Navigating Moisturizer Maze| The Care and Feeding of Youthful Skin| Special Problems of Aging Skin Cosmetic Nutrients Cosmetic Nutrients| Get Glowing with Glycolic Acid| User's guide of Glycolic Acids| Retin-A and Renova| Using Retin-A and Renova| Vitamin C: Future Youth?| Don't Get Lost at "C"| Getting the Most from C Makeups Makeup That Enhances| Foundation| Concealer| Blush| Powder| Eye Makeup| Lipstick| Winning the Battle of the Mane| Color to the Youthful| Dressed to Impress| Acting Your Age| 10 Attributes of a Youthful Mind Right Weight Getting Your Right Weight| Weighing In| Say Goodbye to Dieting| Putting Exercise into Everyday Events| Defying Disease| Disease Proof Your Lifestyle| Arthritis| Cancer| Diabetes| Heart Disease and Stroke| Osteoporosis|Keeping Your Senses Sharp|Can You Speak Little Louder?|Preventing Hearing Loss|Target Hearing Loss Early|The Eyes Have It|Buying Sunglasses|Eyes Need Exercise|The Life of Visionary Memory Memory Like an Elephant| Keeping the Brain Up and Running|Improving Your Everyday Memory| Get Organized| Living a Memory Enhancing Lifestyle Sleep Sweet Sleep and Relaxation| Turning Out the Lights, Naturally| Easing Toward Dreamland|When All Else Fails