Have you ever felt like you are not losing weight as you should as you get older or felt like your metabolism is bad? It's not really a complicated process but I will be up front with you as I explain why you are experiencing these issues.
"Metabolism drops as you age" is an excuse
"Metabolism drops as you age" is not very accurate statement. It is a fact that it is likely to drop but the main reason is no age but the loss of the muscle mass. It varies from person to person, however, the muscle loss starts to happen around age 30's and because of that the metabolism gets slower than when you had more muscle mass.
However, this is just an excuse.
Metaboism does not drop significantly if you are physically active or do a weight training to build muscles on regular basis. In fact there are many elder clients who are above 90s and keeping higher metabolism because of their regular weight training.
I have been training clients from 6 to 102 years old for over 20 years and "when you age you lose muscle mass and metabolism slows down." is not an accurate statement. Real statement is "when you do nothing and age, you will lose muscle and slows down your metabolism".
In reality, I had group of 85 years old taken weightlifting class for 12 weeks for 3 time per week. We've seen amazing results of all of them gaining muscle mass and strength after 12 weeks. Some have successfully decrease the amount of medication they were on.
Which leads to another statement "Age is just a number" proven to be true. There is no good or bad in metabolism
I hear people saying their metabolism is bad or genetically my metabolism does not get any better. If this kind of statement is actually coming from your doctors, then they probably don't understand metabolism very well. First of all, there is no good or bad in metabolism. It is way they are. Major factor that contributes to faster or slower metabolism is level of your physical activity and amount of muscle mass. If you feel that your metabolism is sluggish, before blaming your genetics, check your daily activity level and amount of weight training you are doing on weekly basis. You will see a significant difference in their activity level and nutritional habits.
People with higher metabolism does have more active lifestyle and also has pretty decent nutritional habits like eating more of whole food rather than over processed microwave dinner.
Types of metabolism
Their are 4 different types of metabolism.
First is resting metabolism. Resting metabolism takes up about 60% of calorie usage. It is metabolism when you are laying on the bed doing absolutely nothing. Even then, your heart beats, breathe, immune system active, keeping your body temperature at optimum and so on. Resting metabolism does also get affected by the person's weight and muscle mass.
Second is active metabolism. This is where your workout, sports, hiking and anything that you do outside of your regular living comes in. So if you are not exercising nor praticipating in any physical activity, you are missing this portion out.
Third is NEAT（Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). This your daily movements including walking, maintaining posture, walking up the stairs and so on. If you are parking close to the building or using elevators or escalators your NEAT is very minimal.
Fourth is TEF （Thermic Effect of Feeding). This is a energy used while you are eating and digesting food. When you consume whole food, TEF is higher than consuming over processed food.で
Among these four categories of metabolism, muscle loss does have impact on all of them. When you are being lazy and not adding weight training, you are automatically impacting your metabolism negatively.
Benefit of adding muscle mass through weight training.
It is very interesting that I still here from people about weight training make people bulk up. Just so you know, bulking up is not that easy. If you are new to weight training, you may gain some muscles but now way close to bulking. If it was that easy, body building will not be that exclusive and it is disrespect to them. So take your bulking fantasy out of your mind.
Yet, as mentioned before, you will gain some muscle mass when you lifet weight. Compared with fat, muscle is smaller and denser. When you compare same mass of fat and muscle, do you know which is bigger?
Picture to the left is showing 5lb of muscle in the front and 5lb of fat in the back. This is the reason why after few weeks of lifting weights and you may not see a number on the scale drop but you may notice that your waistline is getting smaller. In other words, you have lost the fat and gained same mass of muslces.
So is that good? Well fat is just an energy storage and muscle requires energy to maintain, to repair, and to activate. Which means, when you move you muscle more and put more resistance to it, it requires more energy.
As mentioned before, you are utilizing all 4 metabolism when you are lifting weight, either while you are lifting or during your recovery. TEF may seems to have no relationship, however, in order for the muscle to grow and recover, you will need to eat more of whole food instead of highly processed junk food.
Another benefit is since you will be eating more whole food, you will have more nutrients coming into the body which will rejuvenate your cells, increase in your immune system, skin and hair may get healthier and digestive health will also get healthier.
Why metabolism decrease?
So you probably, by now, understand how metabolism improves. Now let's think about why it decrease. I will not sugar coat on this so get ready.
Process of decreasing metabolism is rather simple. It is because you are not being active. Yes, there is a possibility that you may have genetic disposition, however, but you can still be active. There shouldn't be any excuse there. Reason for people not lifting weight is because they are "Busy". What are they busy with? Usually work right? But if your work is mainly sitting in front of computer all day, then you are physically not active. Not only this will promote lowering muscle mass and decrease in metabolism but also can lead to lower back pain, neck pain and weakness in their core and lower extremities.
And because they are "busy" they want to keep the meal simple, which usually is highly processed food that has not nutritional value. It may say it is healthy on the box but surely you know that is not true right?
So no wonder, they end up with obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, which all in the category of metabolic syndrome just because they are not working out.
As mentioned before, you workout should only be 30-45 min for 3 times per week. 24 hours in a day and you only need to spend 30 min. If you cannot find a way to weight train for 30 min per day, then you should complain about your health issues. 30 min per day is an investment to yourself. Did you know that cost of treatment for metabolic syndrome is $5732 per year without having diabetes? On top of that, you got your back pain and headache, which may lead to time off from your work. And guess what doctor will say? Fix your diet and do more exercise.....
You cannot build muscle with walking or jogging！
Let's get this straight. If you are walking or jogging in a hope to build muscle, forget it. It is not going to work. You may feel you have gained after first 3 weeks but that will not help you improve. If you want to implement walking and jogging to your exercise do it outside of your weight lifting days. If you don't want to go to gym you can do so many exercises at home. Click here and you can check out some videos on type of exercises you can do at home.
Yoga and Pilates will not help you gain muscles!
Yoga and Pilates are great exercises but not designed for muscle building. It is beneficial when you incorporate those exercises along with your weight training. Do not exclude your weight training.
You are responsible for Metabolism and Muscle maintenance
It is your responsibility to maintain metabolism and muscle mass. It is your body so you should be. Of course, if you do not know how, you should ask for help by hiring trainers. But I also realize that even after reading this article, many will not get up and say "I will do it". If 10% of reader would feel that the article was worth it and start changing their lifestyle, then my purpose of writing this article will be fullfilled. As mentioned before, it is a decision that you need to make.
Kota Shimada
Comments