Life begins at 40. While you may be reaping the benefits of a highly-successful career at this age, it's also true that the manifestations of aging begin here. At 40, you begin to feel aching joints, experience slower metabolism and deal with hormonal imbalances. Now is the best time for you to start paying more attention to your overall health, so you can, as they say, age gracefully.

When you're middle-aged and overweight, your problems are even more compounded. Sleep deprivation due to the demands of work and family, poor thyroid function and fluid retention add to the seemingly long list of challenges that women over 40 have to face in their quest to lose weight.

One of the keys to losing weight at this age is to eat healthy. This means no more packaged or processed foods. Fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods should be on the menu as opposed to fatty and sugary fare. Eating small portions more frequently all throughout the day keeps your metabolism running and aids in faster burning of fat. This keeps you from being tempted to "snack" on bad foods or eat bigger meals. However, you must not equate eating healthy with going hungry because of dieting. At this age, or any age for that matter, starvation as a weight loss regimen isn't going to work. Not eating or skipping meals not only works against speeding up your metabolism, it's highly dangerous too.

Most women over 40 are also holding managerial or top-level positions at work. While this may be good career-wise, the stresses involved do not bode well for those who want to lose weight. Stress produces the hormone cortisol which contributes to weight gain. Thus, you should make it a point to manage your daily stresses. If an hour-long massage, spa or yoga works to relax you, then by all means, engage in these. Taking time out to indulge in a hot bath, watch a movie or curl up with a good book can do wonders to rejuvenate your body and mind. Exercise, whether these be cardio, flexibility or bodyweight exercises, is a great stress-buster and indispensable to weight loss at 40.

Getting enough sleep is also essential to any successful weight loss program for post-menopausal women. You have to make it a point to get 8 hours of sleep each night. Studies have shown that women over 40 who do not get this much number of hours of sleep are overweight compared to those who do.

Finally, motivation is everything. Without the right attitude, losing weight is going to be impossible. You may not be as young as you once were, but you're not a senior citizen yet. If you really want to shed off those pounds at 40, you've got to be positive about making small daily changes to your lifestyle. Eating healthy, sleeping well, reducing stress and living a more active lifestyle will do wonders to permanently keep the weight off. What's more, more energetic and lively years lay ahead of you if you keep fit now.