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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello, everyone. Seemed like you liked the other podcast 13 things, about fat loss. So this one is eight things that may be the reason putting weight on when you get the 40 is easier that nobody really talks about or tells you.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna look at some of
Speaker 1:the research see what it's saying and come back and see what's real and what's not real about these claims. So let's have a look. Soft age of 40, we know things change. We move less. We tend to find that weight is gained easier from various reasons.
Speaker 1:We don't know the exact truth perhaps. We know that we kind of don't age in a straight line, we have kind of two big aging events around the age of 40, 40, the age of 60, which happens quickly so we don't just age gradually, that's seen in the research by Stanford Med, Medicine study in 2024. So things can change quickly, but do we gain fat magically after 40? This is the first claim. This the first point.
Speaker 1:Does this happen? In short, not through magic, just drop in on exercise activity or your movement apart from exercise. So, you know when we look at a classic 1999 study by Luhwein, he compared lean and obese sedentary individuals, put microsensors on them, basically found that obese individuals just sat for two and a half hours more per day than their lean counterparts. And if the obese subjects had adopted the same posture as the lean people, they would have burned 350 calories more day. So simple as just better posture, stand them upright, bit more fidgeting, 350 calories a day extra burn.
Speaker 1:That's quite a lot. That's nearly your deficit, know. Another study found that we don't actually drop metabolic age that much between the ages of 20 and 60. It's like a quite a shallow decline but it does vary you know. And basically physical activity stabilizes between the age of 30 to 59, which means kind of our habits stay with us, that's why we need make sure the earlier the better we create this kind of like program or structure there is movement.
Speaker 1:But we do become more sentry as we age. Sentry, right, so that's clear. But overall the picture is, we basically move a bit less, in a metabolic sense nothing too drastic happens between the ages of 20 to 60 if you're a male, you just move less and eat more. For women, obviously, there's menopause, and that's relating to muscle mass specifically. But really what's happening is two to 300 calories a day because we move a bit less.
Speaker 1:On top of that, we're trying to lose weight all the time. So that's another 200 calories metabolic adaption. So there's about three to 500 calories a day less as we get older explained through movement and trying to lose fat and the body resisting in a slight way. Does that make sense? So we can explain it there without complicated things going wrong with us.
Speaker 1:It's pretty much down to that in those research studies. Weight loss is harder. Point number two. Kind of. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So basically, we lose three to 8% of all muscle mass per decade after the age of 30. This is well supported. And when it comes to, women, so the US office of women's health said sarcopenia begins on the age of 30, again not great. And after 16% weight loss, metabolic adaption averages like forty fifty calories a day. So when we're looking at all of this stuff and we're looking at kind of like losing weight.
Speaker 1:Metabolic adaption is not permanent. Right? So it's something that happens when we do try and lose weight. The biggest loser study for example showed that metabolic adaption was about 275 calories a day on average. So it is harder to lose weight in a sense because we probably do have metabolic adaption kicked in because most of you have been trying to lose weight for a long period of time.
Speaker 1:You have got less muscle mass. So by the age of by the time you age 60, 70 years old, you've lost 30% of your muscle mass from your peak in your twenties which is a lot, your engine is a lot smaller, so in that sense it is harder because you're burning less calories, you're probably not training that much, and it's easier to overeat, so yes of course. But we can fix that. Resistance training steps does a long does a lot of things there to fix that. Number three, is it because we lose more energy as we get older?
Speaker 1:Does that play a role? It's partly right when you look at some of the research on this and I found some interesting stuff. It basically looked at the when young and old adults had the equivalent physical activity levels, older adults showed basically the same in terms of like, muscle contraction and stuff. Their capacity was just as good, right? So essentially when it comes to this stuff, it's more like you use it or you lose it.
Speaker 1:In one of the studies, it showed the physical activity when matched between a 22 year old and a 74 year old, ATP production was not different. But the cost of contracting the muscle was 37% higher in the older person, meaning muscle was less efficient. Right? So we can be just as fit and strong and healthy when we get to our older decades as long as we do the basics. Really that's what they're saying.
Speaker 1:Really really important. If you stick with your training plan two times a week, heavier as weight as you can go steps, you're gonna that is like taking an antidote, do you know mean? It's like the secret drug and they will solve a lot of problems. But yeah, let's have a look at the fourth point here now. HRT and TRT, do they help?
Speaker 1:Of course. Of course. So when we look in our men, lots of research randomized controlled trials showing testosterone leads to muscle mass gain one to two kilos, reduced fat mass of one to two kilos, lumbar spine volume increased seven and a half percent, hip by 3.3%, improvements in leg strength, improvements in stair climbing power. You know, when you combine it with resistance training even better. So of course, as men drop testosterone over time and making sure it stays elevated like it is in your twenties and thirties does go a long way.
Speaker 1:But again, you know, if you stick to your training program and your steps and you're eating well, you're gonna do a lot to manage that. Like my professor, jiu jitsu professor from Sao Paulo, when I went to see when I was in Brazil, he's 57 years old. He got a testosterone test, a thousand, which is higher than a 18 year old, and it's his lifestyle, you know, plays a big part in it. When it comes to women, estrogen, one study, RCT twenty twenty four, 150 postmenopausal women, three groups. One was exercise, one was calcium, one was h HRT.
Speaker 1:HRT group, bone mineral density increased 3.2% in the spine, 2.9% in the hip in twelve months. Exercise alone 1.51.2%, calcium alone 10.8%. So HRT was the most effective single intervention for bone density. Right? Not saying do this, go on this, whatever.
Speaker 1:I'm not a doctor, I'm not doing I'm just giving this this information that there is reasons for change, of course. You know, it's not made up. These things happen, makes it harder. If we're losing muscle mass, we're likely gonna lose some energy, likely gonna drop our energy expenditure, likely gonna eat more, likely it's gonna make it all harder to be fit, strong, healthy. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:It all plays a role. We need to understand the different angles so we can understand what we're dealing with, you know, like a commander, like a Napoleon on the battlefield, you know, understanding the things. Do our lack of things do we need supplementation to kick in to cover our lack of things? Is that the game changer? A lot of people talk about supplements, a lot of people spend a lot of money on supplements.
Speaker 2:But let's have a look at
Speaker 1:a few, creatine, whey protein, vitamin d, magnesium. Creatine has got the strongest evidence of any supplement by far, know. Creatine grouped in studies, when you look at a 1.4 kilo gain in lean mass in the studies, stronger chest press and length leg press strength. Overall, just hit a ton of research and some cognitive stuff now as well. So as long as you've got to train as well obviously.
Speaker 1:So the resistance training needs to be done. Resistance training needs to be consistent before you even bother, I would just say, but it's worth doing, you know, for sure worth trying. Five grams a day to test it out. Protein, you know, it's important that we get the target protein in the app because this is one of the main things that's going to help us retain muscle. Without it it's going be difficult, Right?
Speaker 1:It's gonna be very, very difficult. So I think just in general, whey protein has got a lot of research behind it as well. High quality protein. Don't be scared to take twenty five, fifty grams of your protein a day from whey protein or clear whey protein. Absolutely fine.
Speaker 1:Get do what it takes to get high protein intake. Alright? Just do what it takes. Vitamin D, right? Most of us are probably borderline needing some more vitamin D if we live in The UK or or think cloudier countries.
Speaker 1:But again, vitamin D in terms of relation to testosterone hormones, the research is not too certain on that, but for sure no problem in taking it and make sure you top up, you feel a bit better, during those months, you know. And then magnesium, central role in protein synthesis as well, energy production, muscle contraction, people swear by it for sleeping, and sleeping plays a big role in terms of maintaining muscle mass and energy as well. So if we can improve our sleep, you know, happy days, give it a go. People swear by it. And it all factors into this lifestyle, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:It all comes back around to what's your lifestyle. Is your lifestyle worse as you're older than expect worse outcomes? It's really that simple. Walking extra thousand steps a day helps a lot. 10,000 steps a day you burn about four or 500 calories, so if you do 10,000 steps a day you'll burn an extra 500 calories a day.
Speaker 1:If you just do a thousand steps a day you're gonna burn 50, that's a 450 calorie difference between someone sitting down all day at a desk versus someone going out for two or three walks a day. And it's not strenuous, it's good, it's amazing for your mindset, helps a lot, it can help with your appetite regulation as well, win win all around, between six to 8,000 steps a day seems to be the golden zone for the health benefits in terms of cardiovascular disease risk and all that stuff. Going up to ten ten thousand a day seems a good plan to just burn more calories or just be more active so you can improve your, maintenance basically. And another thing that happens after 40 is that we tend to probably need more protein as we age, not less, and I think it's important that we take those seriously because we know we're losing muscle three to 8% per decade. We wanna stop that.
Speaker 1:If we can stop that or even gain, we can improve our kind of engine, improve our energy output, and make it easier for us to maintain our desired body type, you know. So definitely as we age there are some impairments to kind of like muscle response to growth and all that, so we just need a bit more protein to ensure we are getting the results of eating a high protein diet. And the final thing is like talking about control and we look back at stoicism and research on stoicism and the psychological element of all of this. There is a lot out there that things change, everything gets worse as you get older. So it plays into our mind.
Speaker 1:What can we control? Well I'm getting older, I can't control it, it's just my age. And I think what this research shows is it's not true. If you can keep up with a routine or have the habits of a healthy 20 year old, healthy 30 year old, there's no reason why in 60 you can't be in the same boat, know. But in terms of the locus of control, a 2024 study looked at this and stoicism essentially basically looked at patients who score higher on kind of like, logus of control folks on the controllables had, consistent positive health outcomes.
Speaker 1:And that leads to, you know, more positive health outcomes. So controlling the controllables, high correlation with flourishing as well in a 2022 study on 2,000 people, letting go things they cannot control, you know. One of the most important elements all of this is what have I just said that I can control and what can't I control? Well, you can't necessarily control your hormones dropping over your age. You know, probably not.
Speaker 1:Not as much as you think unless you get HRT, TRT. You can control your steps, which is one of the main factors. You can control your resistance training, which is one of the main factors. You can control whether you take creatine or not, health booster, one of the factors, you know. And you can control your kind of improvements to your non exercise activity, reminding ourselves to walk more, stand up more yourself, we can certainly do that.
Speaker 1:If we did all of that, the things we can control, the end result is a far better position for us, far far better, and it's something to be reminded of today, and I'm going to leave you on that, it's like if you did the things in the studies shown that you're capable of doing under your control, you'll be in a far better position as the decades go on healthier, happier, more confident there with your family and your friends. Right? But it starts today. You gotta be that healthy person today. The steps, the resistance training program, the higher protein, you have to take it seriously, guys.
Speaker 1:The benefits are insane. Control when you what you can control leads to better outcomes as well, which are these things. Let go of the rest, you know. And I'm gonna leave you with that today.