Eating for Strength After 40: How to Nourish Muscle While Managing Body Fat

In my last blog, I explored why fat can gather around our middle as we get older — and why improving body composition involves more than making the scales go down.

I also asked you to take an honest look at your food and activity over seven days.

Now let’s put that information to work.

Because knowing what you eat is one thing. Understanding whether it supports your muscles, your activity and your changing body is another.

If you want to manage body fat while becoming stronger, what should you actually put on your plate?

Before you remove another food or add another workout, let’s look at what your body needs.

Your body needs energy, even when you’re resting

Your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, is the energy your body uses at rest to maintain essential functions: breathing, circulating blood, maintaining body temperature and keeping your organs working.

It isn’t your total daily energy requirement.

You also use energy to digest food, walk around, do household jobs, exercise and get through everyday life.

That distinction matters. A calorie figure labelled “BMR” on an app is not automatically an appropriate eating target.

Your energy needs depend on several factors, including your body size, body composition, activity and health. An online calculator can offer an estimate, but it cannot tell the whole story.

And although maintaining muscle supports your metabolism, building muscle doesn’t suddenly make hundreds of extra calories disappear while you sit on the sofa.

The more useful goal is to build a body that is well nourished, physically capable and regularly active.

Can you lose body fat and build muscle?

For some people, yes — particularly when beginning resistance training or returning after time away. But it isn’t guaranteed, and the conditions matter.

Losing body fat requires a sustained energy deficit: using more energy than you consume over time.

Building muscle requires a suitable training stimulus, sufficient protein, energy and recovery.

These goals need to be balanced carefully. Research shows that an energy deficit can limit gains in lean mass from resistance training, even when strength improves. Severe restriction is therefore a poor foundation for a muscle-building plan.

If fat loss is appropriate for you, maintaining muscle while gradually reducing fat is already a worthwhile outcome.

That’s why I want to know more than how much weight you’ve lost.

Are you getting stronger? Can you do more? Does your food support the exercise we’re asking your body to perform?

Give protein a proper place in your meals

Protein provides amino acids that your body uses to maintain and repair tissues, including muscle.

But eating extra protein alone won’t create strong muscles. Your exercise needs to give those muscles a reason to adapt.

How much protein do you need?

The Menopause Society suggests around 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight each day for women managing weight in midlife. For someone weighing 70kg, that would be approximately 84g daily. This is a useful reference point, rather than a personalised prescription; training, health and individual circumstances can change what is appropriate. If you have kidney disease or have been advised to limit protein, follow your clinical advice.

You don’t need to turn every meal into a maths exercise. Start by looking for a meaningful protein source at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For example:

• Breakfast: Greek yoghurt with oats and berries, or eggs with wholegrain toast.
• Lunch: a chicken, tofu or bean-based meal, with vegetables and a carbohydrate source.
• Dinner: fish, lean meat, tofu or pulses, alongside vegetables and potatoes, rice or another grain.

Portion sizes and products make a difference. A spoonful of yoghurt or a scattering of chickpeas won’t provide the same amount as a substantial serving.

If your diary shows that most of your protein arrives at dinner, breakfast or lunch may be a practical place to make your first adjustment.

Carbohydrates belong in the picture too

Bread, rice, potatoes, oats and pasta aren’t foods you automatically need to remove because your waist has changed.

Carbohydrate provides fuel for activity. Higher-fibre choices can also contribute to a nutritious eating pattern.

The NHS Eatwell Guide includes starchy carbohydrate foods, protein foods, fruit and vegetables, dairy or alternatives, and small amounts of unsaturated oils. It describes balance across your overall diet, rather than requiring every meal to look identical.

For an active woman, a meal containing protein and carbohydrate can support both recovery and the energy needed for the next session.

Think of salmon with potatoes and vegetables, or tofu with rice and stir-fried vegetables.

The question is whether the combination and portions suit your needs.

Healthy food still has portions

Nuts, olive oil, cheese and avocado can all fit into a nutritious diet. They also contribute energy.

That doesn’t make them bad foods. It makes them worth noticing.

A generous pour of oil, several handfuls of nuts or repeated extras while cooking can add up without feeling like a meal.

Equally, a lunch that is too small may leave you hungry and searching for food later.

Your diary helps us see both possibilities.

We can then ask:

“What adjustment would improve the balance of this day?”

That might mean adding protein at lunch, measuring the oil you usually pour freely, or planning a satisfying meal before an evening class.

The answer should come from your pattern, rather than a list of foods everyone is told to stop eating.

What does a nourishing day look like?

Here is an example to show how meals can work together. It isn’t a diet plan or a set of portions everyone should follow.

Meal	Example	What it contributes
Breakfast	Greek yoghurt, oats and berries	Protein, carbohydrate, fibre and calcium
Lunch	Wholegrain wrap with chicken or tofu, plus vegetables	Protein, fuel and variety
Evening meal	Salmon or a bean-based dish, potatoes and vegetables	Protein, carbohydrate and a range of nutrients
Snack, if needed	Yoghurt, fruit or wholegrain toast with hummus	Additional nourishment according to hunger and daily needs

The quantity matters as well as the ingredients.

Your meals need to suit your appetite, activity, preferences, budget and health. We can work with familiar foods rather than replacing your life with somebody else’s meal plan.

Your exercise needs to progress alongside your food

Protein supplies building materials. Resistance exercise provides the stimulus.

If you repeat the same easy exercises indefinitely, eating more protein won’t make up for a lack of challenge.

Progress might involve greater resistance, more repetitions, better control or a more demanding exercise variation.

NHS guidance recommends strengthening all major muscle groups on at least two days each week. Your starting point and progression should reflect your current ability.

This is where an individual assessment helps.

If discomfort, limited movement or uncertainty is affecting your exercise, I want to understand that before deciding how to challenge you.

We then bring the pieces together: suitable exercise, practical nutrition and enough recovery to keep progressing.

Look at your diary with five questions in mind

You’ve recorded your week. Now ask:

1. Where is the protein in each main meal?
2. Which meals leave me comfortably satisfied, and which leave me hungry soon afterwards?
3. Am I eating in a way that supports my exercise and energy throughout the day?
4. Which portions, drinks or extras have I been overlooking?
5. What is one useful change I could practise consistently?

You don’t need to change everything at once.

You do need to understand why you’re changing it — and whether it helps.

Let’s turn information into a plan for you

Perhaps you’re already eating reasonably well and exercising regularly, but you’re unsure whether it all works together.

Perhaps your waist has changed, your strength has declined or you’ve become caught between advice to eat less and advice to eat more protein.

These are useful questions to bring to an Honest Body Assessment.

We’ll explore your movement, strength, eating habits, lifestyle and goals, then identify a realistic starting point. Through my Honest Body Weight Management Programme, we can review what happens, progress your exercise and adjust your habits over time.

You can start the conversation with a simple question: “Does my current food and exercise support the body I want to build?”

Book your Honest Body Assessment in Kilbarchan.

Your body isn’t the problem — it’s the starting point.