3 SIMPLE Things You Can Do to Maintain Muscle, Metabolism, and a Healthy Weight as You Age
Great weight loss, weight management, and health strategy.
There are three key habits you should discipline yourself to do regularly and consistently throughout your life:
Strength Training (3-4x per week)
Eat Enough Protein (daily recommendations based on activity level)
Prioritize hitting your daily protein requirement rather than overeating less important macronutrients (especially simple carbohydrates that lack nutritional density).
Use Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) to Your Advantage by Living an Active Lifestyle
Strength Training
Why strength training, you ask?
As we age, we naturally lose muscle mass. Participating in a consistent strength training routine will significantly improve our quality of life, health, and restore function and independence as we age. Strength training helps you gain and maintain muscle mass—even as you age.
Frequency: 3-4 times per week (with adequate rest in between)
Muscle mass is more metabolically demanding than fat. It requires a lot of energy to maintain, thus burning more calories at rest. This helps improve your metabolic rate (metabolism). Additionally, having lean muscle mass on your body helps with blood sugar regulation. Muscle mass increases insulin sensitivity and glucose control.
“Muscle tissue is the primary site for glucose and triglyceride disposal, so muscle loss specifically increases the risk of glucose intolerance and associated health issues (38,46,124).”
Keeping your blood sugar in a healthy range throughout your life is one of the best preventative measures for good metabolic health, and muscle can help with this. Additionally, minimizing sugar intake and managing blood sugar levels through diet are crucial.
Nutrition + Strength Training = The ultimate preventative strategy to reduce the risk of poor metabolic health.
The numerous benefits of strength training are summarized in the “Strength Training is Medicine” article:
Reverse muscle loss
Improve resting metabolism
Reduce body fat (more muscle = higher metabolic rate)
Improve function and performance as we age
Reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and other metabolic conditions
Improve cardiovascular health
Increase bone mineral density (especially beneficial for aging women at risk of osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, osteopenia, and rheumatoid arthritis)
Enhance mental health
Reverse aging factors
Here’s an excellent summary of why maintaining muscle mass throughout our lifetime is so critical:
“Muscle protein breakdown and synthesis largely are responsible for energy expenditure in resting muscle, which is approximately 11 to 12 cal·d−1·kg−1 of untrained muscle tissue (148). Consequently, muscle loss is the greatest contributor to the age-related decline in resting metabolic rate (108), which averages 2% to 3% per decade in adults (83). Because resting metabolism accounts for about 65% to 70% of daily calorie use among sedentary men and women, reduction of muscle mass and resting metabolic rate may be accompanied by increased fat weight (148).”
Building muscle mass is also an excellent weight loss (and weight management) strategy. Focusing on improving your body composition (fat to muscle ratio) is more valuable than just relying on total body weight. Body shape is another important consideration; carrying excess weight in the midsection is associated with a higher risk of chronic health conditions (heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers).
Protein Intake
Another critical factor for building muscle, managing a healthy weight, and body composition is ensuring adequate protein intake.
We need to consume enough protein to fuel muscle building and repair, and other bodily tissues. Protein intake helps you feel more satiated while consuming fewer calories compared to overconsuming carbohydrates. Overeating carbohydrates can leave us still feeling hungry and cause unnecessary blood sugar spikes.
The USDA and Institute of Medicine base their recommendations on scientific literature. The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is the amount of nutrient needed to meet the needs of almost all individuals in an age-sex group. The total daily protein requirement depends on body size, activity level (or sport), and body composition goals.
In general, individuals need between 0.8 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day.
Inactive people require less
Active people require more (especially those with greater exercise duration and intensity)
“More protein is required to recover from strength training than from cardiovascular training.”
Equation: Body weight (kg) x 0.8-2.2 grams
Example:
Convert weight (135 lbs = 61 kg)
61 kg x 2.2 grams = 134 grams per day (45 grams of protein each meal)
Complete this calculation for yourself and start measuring your protein intake. This will help you gain awareness and a deeper understanding of your protein intake and whether you are meeting your daily requirement.
Check out this resource to see what 30 grams of protein looks like. Each meal’s protein portion should be about the size of the palm of your hand.
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)
“NEAT is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating, or exercising.” – National Academy of Sports Medicine
ALL MOVEMENT outside of sleep, eating, and exercise counts for something. Small daily actions matter, and participating in an active lifestyle is a simple way to ensure you are getting enough activity. NEAT encompasses the energy we expend throughout our daily lives, such as walking, getting up from a chair, typing, and fidgeting. For instance, parking your vehicle far from the entrance of a store, walking outside daily, and moving around during your workday are great examples of incorporating NEAT activities.
Examples of NEAT Activities:
Walking to work
Taking a walk during your lunch break
Biking, hiking, paddling
Taking the stairs
Standing vs. sitting
Cleaning around the house
“Daily NEAT is any physical activity that may increase metabolic rate, even for a brief period, that is not part of structured exercise.” – National Academy of Sports Medicine
The more you move, the better! Building new lifestyle habits is challenging and takes time, but many people are already doing these NEAT activities without realizing their benefits. Focusing on increasing your NEAT can be an excellent and manageable weight loss strategy.
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) in relation to lifestyle
Sedentary Lifestyle = Low level of NEAT
ACTIVE Lifestyle = HIGHER level of NEAT
“NEAT could be a critical component in how we maintain body weight and/or develop obesity or lose weight (Levine, 2002).” – National Academy of Sports Medicine
Remember the power of NEAT and your small, everyday actions when feeling discouraged in your weight loss (or management) journey.
To age well, ensure you are doing these three simple things—strength training, consuming enough protein, and maximizing Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) by living an active lifestyle.
Stay strong & healthy,
Victoria
Resources:
Resistance Training is Medicine - Effects of Strength Training on Health (by Westcott, Wayne L. PhD) Current Sports Medicine Reports 11(4):p 209-216, July/August 2012. | DOI: 10.1249/JSR.0b013e31825dabb8
Common Chronic Disease in Women Compared to Men (by Stats Canada)
Cause of Belly Fat (WebMD, written by Kathleen M. Zelman)
https://www.webmd.com/obesity/ss/slideshow-causes-of-belly-fat
Certified Nutrition Coach Textbook (by National Academy of Sports Medicine)