Biomarker 1
Typically, lean-body mass or muscle cell mass declines with age.
From young adulthood to middle age, the average person losses 6.6 pounds or 3 kg of lean-body mass per decade. This rate of loss accelerates after age 45. What we do not use, we lose. Muscles used properly and stimulated regularly strengthen and do not atrophy. This is true for people of all ages, (this will be discussed in more detail in next weeks information on exercise).
What is important to understand:
If the muscle mass of the average person is declining by 6.6 pounds per decade and you weigh the same as you did in college but you have done no structured form of exercise during those decades AND you are now in your fifties. Then chances are you have lost approximately 18 pounds of muscles and have increased your body fat by 18 pounds. Now if we look at the average person who has also gained weight since college or high school and has not followed any type of structured exercise then they will have added over 18 pounds, in fact 18 plus your weight gain since college, of fat.
I have to address weight loss programs that do not include continuous monitoring of body composition. I hate them and feel they can be very misleading and unhealthy. Unless you are monitoring the type of tissue you are losing in your weight loss endeavors then how do you know you are experiencing healthy weight loss, which is actually FAT loss. Anybody can lose weight but if you create a breakdown of muscle to stabilize your plummeting blood sugar creating gluconeogenesis, then yes, you have then lost weight but from muscle loss which is very unhealthy. This is not only unhealthy but it will also decrease your basal metabolic rate and make it harder for you to lose any body fat at all. If you lose water weight, then yes you lost weight but it will be back and if you create dehydration it is also unhealthy. Even your BMI, Body Mass Index, will not provide you with adequate body composition information.
If you are in the Pittsburgh area, please call our office at 724-295-2100 to schedule your body composition assessment. If you are not in the Pittsburgh area, then check with local Natural Health Care Practitioners or call your local gym.
Even the use of calipers, provided you use them for every follow-up body assessment, will give you a base line indicator from which you can determine fat loss. If you are using a bio-impedance machine look for one that runs from your hand to your foot this will be a better indicator than one that does only leg to leg or arm to arm. It is important to move through all levels of the body so that wherever you hold you body fat it is registered.
So you see Healthy Weight loss is fat loss and Fat Loss will be easily influenced by the following two factors:
- Our level of purposeful physical activity
- Our Biochemical balance through nutrition.
To maintain and maximize fat burning, muscle function, and overall health, we must have a supportive nutritional plan. One which favors healthy hormone balance especially in relation to balancing blood sugar and avoiding insulin resistance.