What if the biggest health mistake parents over 30 make isn't gaining fat... but losing muscle?

(Libby Carlsonn) #1

Most people celebrate weight loss, but very few ask, “Did I lose muscle too?”

Do you think we should pay more attention to building strength as we age? Why or why not?

I’m curious to hear different perspectives.

(Doug) #2

I think most people should pay more attention to maintaining muscle and strength, or building strength - than they do.

I’ve got an 89 year old - my wife’s mom - who I see regularly, and a 93 year old - my wife’s aunt - who lives with us. People are living longer, and perhaps “80 is the new 60,” etc., but even with fairly good overall health, it’s a long pull from 75-80 to 90.

89 year old mom can no longer live totally independently. 93 year old aunt is doing better - she’s got her own kitchen and does her own thing; many days I don’t even see her. She totally loves her privacy, reads like crazy, watches TV, sleeps and is awake at a wide variety of hours.

Problems with balance and strength are apparent with both of them. If we want to keep doing things, then we better do them or else lose the ability, right down to just walking.

Muscle mass and healthy stress on bones means a lot - keeps us more metabolically healthy, lower risk of fractures, better bone mass/lower risk of osteoporosis, even better cognitive function (exercise and strength does appear to make some difference).

(Edith) #3

Yeah, I have been wondering how much of age related degeneration is related to just not getting enough nutrients, especially protein, as we age (especially in women) and not participating in activities that encourage muscle growth.

I was observing elderly men and women at the grocery store one Sunday. In general, the women tended to be more frail then the men. Why? Well, again, in general, men have more muscle mass than women, so as women age and lose muscle, they get to the point of frailty more quickly than men.

Women are also more likely to eat less protein, especially less red meat than men. I feel a good reason for this is cultural. It is not lady-like to eat a lot of meat. Women are more likely to be vegetarian and vegan, more likely to eat a lot of salad, etc. Women are also more likely to chose aerobic exercise over strength training. Aerobic exercise actually pairs down muscle to make the body more efficient at the aerobic exercise. So, women have a quadruple whammy: They don’t eat enough, they don’t eat enough protein, they tend to have lower muscle mass, and they don’t strength train.

I think osteoporosis can also be explained with the quadruple whammy. Most of bone is made of protein. You don’t eat enough protein, you are not going to maintain or build bone no matter how much vitamin D and calcium you ingest. Just like building muscle, you are not going to build muscle unless you give your body a stimulus to build muscle, you are not going to build bone if you don’t give your body a reason to build bone.

So, IMO more information needs to be provided to the elderly about how important it is to get adequate protein which should be quite a bit more than the RDA, especially for the elderly, and how important strength training throughout one’s lifetime is. I don’t think the message to “remain active” is enough.

#4

(I reacted before reading your full comment, you mentioned this too.)
And the ones eating almost nothing to be skinny are more often female while their normal energy need is lower to begin with… Don’t expect healthy bones and muscle mass eating 800-1000 kcal a day (even 1200 unless one is tiny and has a really small energy need naturally) - and it’s true even when one is young.

Good thing no one told me that :smiley: I eat very little meat all by myself (I ate little meat on carnivore too, well compared to carnivores. barely went over a pound a day in my most meaty times but I always go back to little meat)… But always high protein. I only could go down to adequate protein on plant-based days without vital gluten, my vegetarian days inevitably were high animal protein. But yep, I am aware I am not typical.

Yep, totally agree.

About the main question: yes, it’s very important to be active and have strength training. We can be fine without it when young but as we age, it gets really important (of course it’s best to start early. I haven’t done it). And it’s not just physical, I have heard it’s important for the brain too or something.

(BuckRimfire) #5

Excellent point. I wonder how many people actually understand any of that? I’m sure I’m more aware of diet and exercise info than most of the population and I didn’t know how much of bone strength and toughness was due to protein in the bone until a few years ago.

Heck, I wonder how many MDs really understand this…

(Ohio ) #6

There’s a direct correlation between grip strength & longevity. So that’s where I’m at. I still walk & bike, but my focus is forearm muscles, hands, shoulders, etc. (So no bench press either :smiling_imp:)

I’m not a parent though, nore am I that young.

(BuckRimfire) #7

I haven’t looked into this, but I’m very suspicious that you are over-interpreting the specificity of that correlation. I’ll bet a dollar that grip strength is simply an easily-tested proxy for a whole bunch of factors affecting fitness, and that specifically training grip strength is not going to promote longevity.

One thing that really tends to kill the olds is falling, so maintaining fast-twitch muscles in the legs is likely to be important. You need to be able to move your leg quickly to catch yourself when you stumble. Does that correlate with grip strength? I haven’t looked at the data, but I’ll bet it does.

I’m 61. My favorite activity is sea kayaking, which I don’t get to indulge in very often due to work schedule and my wife’s cancer treatment. I try to maintain whole-body fitness with occasional stationary bike interval workouts (and WOW is it getting harder to elevate my heart rate vs even five years ago* OMG) and weight training. I find squats a bit scary, so I hit my legs mainly with trap-bar deadlifts, which have the advantage (or not) of also taxing my grip.

I should probably do more single leg work (split or Bulgarian dumbbell deadlifts) because I find those hard to stabilize, so I doubtless need to work the stabilizing muscles, and they would put way less abuse on my hands (for some reason only my right hand is ever stiff after training).

BTW, I turn the extra high handles on the trap bar down and use the smaller diameter 35# plates to load it, because I don’t need a hell of a lot of weight, so I am actually getting a greater range of motion than a standard deadlift. Effectively a modest “deficit deadlift.” I’m always pleasantly surprised that my slightly injured right knee cartilage doesn’t find all this nonsense troubling…

One thing I like about the trap bar is that I am very nearly the only person at my gym who ever uses it, so there is no competition for the equipment. I guess everyone younger than me thinks it’s lame and everyone older thinks it’s excessive.

*Ironically, I work in a university physiology department and one of the professors studies the control of heart rate. I doubt her work has anything to inform me, but I should go lodge some joking complaints about this subject with her anyway. Maybe at the departmental summer party coming up…

(Central Florida Bob ) #8

This. I bet the same study could demonstrate that good handwriting is an easily-tested proxy for it, too.

The vast majority of medical studies like that are just correlation vs. causation. To do that as a Randomized, Controlled Trial would give you better data, but you just can’t do studies like that. Too impractical, too expensive, too risky.

(Bob M) #9

There are too many variables. There’s the “healthy user effect”, which means that healthy users are more likely to have better grip strength.

Even I will sometimes use a popper that pops the top of a top of a jar. I still have relatively high grip strength.

And this can also be trained. If you remember those metal hand springs, we were sitting around when I was in the military and put a penny in between the two plastic ends of the hand spring. We tested each person. The person with the best results had a lot of experience riding dirt bikes (motorcycles). He had outstanding strength there.

The rage lately is to stand up from or sit down to the floor without using your hands and only using your legs. I could not figure out how to do that. Then I saw a video of how someone did it from the floor up. I tried that, and reinjured an ankle injury I previously had, and couldn’t jog for … at least a month.

Meanwhile, I do body weight training multiple times per week, with a lot of one-legged training. I’m still strong, but I don’t have the best technique for getting up from the floor without my hands.

(Philip H Kern) #10

I agree entirely. I played various sports until I hit 49–couldn’t make it to 50 because the basketball comps were simply too late at night for me to keep going. When my activity declined, I put some fat on my generally lean frame. The doctor eventually told me to lose weight, so I did. I regret now my approach, which was to reduce and track calories. I slowed my metabolism and lost muscle: at 63, the muscle is proving hard to rebuild. If I could do it over, I would prioritise weight sessions twice per week of only 30 minutes, with the goal of building strength. I can’t imagine people losing muscle while building strength (unless chronically underfed).