Hi Reader
Welcome back to 1UP,
my weekly newsletter where I share all things health and mindsets to help you get stronger, feel younger and live longer.
Use it or lose it
My mom officially retired this year, at the age of 65.
Since she quit working, she has been a lot less active and I have been worried about her:
"It's laborious for me to take the garbage out. It's hard to lift it up to get in the bin."
"There are so many stairs for me to get home. I'm scared to fall again."
"I can't carry the groceries all the way from the store to my house."
65 is not old.
And for most people, retirement is a new chapter.
Dreams of travels around the world, spend time with grand-children, finally take to writing, and enjoy a more natural pace.
In the case of my mom, hearing her describe how hard it is to do daily tasks is like adding 10 years to her age.
It is very alarming for me.
Her general level of fitness was already low, due to lifetime of neglect.
She is a lifelong smoker, chronic drinker and as far as I can remember, I'd be seeing her on the couch, reading or watching TV. She is a wonderful gardener, but I am not sure she experiences a lot of purpose in her life.
Her last job provided a good amount of physical activity.
And now that she isn't working anymore, she is seeing a noticeable decline in her strength.
If she doesn't take action, her ability to remain independent is on the line.
Because the secret to aging well is to never stop moving.
With muscle, there is something you just can't get away with.
Just like there is no escaping gravity, you can't escape this rule:
Use it or Lose it.
We don't lose muscle because we get old.
We lose muscle because we move less.
This is so so important for you to know Reader, and something I wish I could blast from my balcony to the whole world to know.
I wish everyone would learn that in their 40s to build up a reserve.
You see, for the longest time, we've believed that there is a "physiological" age-related muscle loss, which means the biologists thought that the loss of muscle as we age was a feature of aging.
Most of us still believe that decline is an inevitable part of the aging process.
But IT IS NOT.
Here is Dr. Luc van Loon, an internationally renowned expert in skeletal muscle metabolism, explaining how, looking a lot more closely at the data,
the proper observation is that in fact, we lose muscle following periods of inactivity
It is true that physical strength and muscle mass decline at an accelerated rate at my mom's age.
And for those who decide that they want to rest during retirement and spend most of their time on the couch, like my Mom, it goes down scary fast.
But the good news is that you can reverse this and re-build muscle at any age.
Studies have shown that even frail 90-year old people, people who have lost the ability to perform daily tasks independently, can improve with some training.
Finally this past week my mom woke up to this.
Not because I have been telling her that she needs to get stronger and she can do that with a few exercises...
For some reason my parents don't seem to hear it when it comes from me...
But there is someone else who is more influential in her life, and she finally told me that she wanted to do something about it.
Here are the 3 tips I shared with her:
- Eat more protein
Muscle building can be stimulated with movement and resistance, plus the presence of building blocks (amino acids from protein)
Over 60, our muscles become less responsive to the presence of the building blocks - something called anabolic resistance - and we may need to have more to maintain than before 60.
- Start training using body weight
I've sent my mom some videos demonstration these movements, because they're the most important to our daily living:
- step ups: for stairs, go up a curb, get in and out of a car
- squats: sitting to standing or standing to sitting
- overhead press: to reach out for objects in the top cupboard
- lunges: to bend down, gardening
- push up: vertical pushing away from a wall, because she said she would not be able to perform a push up on the floor. A fit 65-year old is able to perform 10 push ups.
- farmers walk: for carrying groceries
- Commit for 6 weeks
This was something I really emphasized to her. In my experience, if you commit to this process for 6 weeks, you will be able to notice a difference.
It will be easier to carry the garbage and the groceries.
To see the benefits of training, the key is consistency.
I will be behind my mom the whole time to help her find her motivation and help her make this part of her life.
I will be here for her to help her create a new identity so she can see herself as someone who gets stronger, someone who does not depend on others, someone who is taking care of herself.
I will be here for her to remind her that she has beautiful grand daughters to hug and children who deeply care to see her well.
If you're under 65, you can start to build up now.
The fittest you are, the longest you'll live.
With love,
Jihane.