If You Want To Live Longer Build Skeletal Muscle
Maintaining skeletal muscle mass and strength is crucial for optimizing our health and longevity.
As we age, the changes in our muscles impacts our health.
Muscle mass starts declining in our 30s, and it becomes difficult to maintain strength and power as we age.
It was once believed that simply moving more was fine to improve health.
Recent research shows that resistance training is equally important. We need strength and power to move quickly, maintain balance, and manage metabolic health and glucose control.
What is Skeletal Muscle?
The best-known feature of skeletal muscle is its ability to contract and cause movement. Skeletal muscles act to produce movement and stop movement, such as resisting gravity to maintain posture.
There are three types of muscle tissue in the body:
Skeletal: Muscles that work with your bones, tendons, and ligaments. Tendons attach skeletal muscles to bones all over your body. They support the weight of your body and help you move. You control these voluntary muscles.
Cardiac: These muscles line the heart walls. They help your heart pump blood that travels through your cardiovascular system. You don't control cardiac muscles.
Smooth: These muscles are found inside organs like the bladder, stomach, and intestines. They work automatically to help with essential tasks such as moving waste through your intestines and expanding your lungs as you breathe.
Muscle Synthesis And Breakdown
Muscle is built through 2 things: a stimulus and a building block, or exercise and protein.
Muscle mass and protein synthesis are in a constant state of change.
Our body continually breaks down muscle protein (MPB) and rebuilds / synthesizes muscle protein (MPS).
When MPB exceeds MPS, we lose muscle mass.
When MPS exceeds MPB, we build muscle.
This occurs on a micro-level (daily shifts) and a macro-level (long-term shifts).
Achieving that muscle protein synthesis exceeds muscle protein breakdown is essential to combat the changes that happen with aging and health.
Building muscle mass is complex, but we can simplify it to 3 areas that we are going to focus on:
Diet and protein intake
Resistance training
Supplements to enhance muscle mass and muscle protein synthesis
You need to ensure you are getting enough protein in your diet. Protein gives you the building blocks necessary to synthesize muscle protein.
It's simple. No protein, no muscles.
How Much Protein Should You Eat?
Sufficient protein intake is crucial. You need to eat enough protein for the body to have the necessary building blocks.
Imagine building a house and providing the construction workers a bag of concrete and 5 pieces of lumber. They are not going to get far.
Eating enough protein makes sure your body has the building materials.
A practical guide is that you need 0.8-1 grams of protein per pound of body weight daily.
Why Does Muscle Mass Matter For Longevity?
Muscle and fat are highly metabolic tissues, and how they interact with our metabolic machinery is crucial.
You should minimize your visceral or belly fat, which can harm your health.
Visceral fat is responsible for chronic diseases such as:
Heart disease
Type 2 diabetes
Fatty liver disease
Muscles play a vital role in managing and disposing of glucose in your body.
Glucose and fatty acids get stuck in the bloodstream when you have less muscle.
That’s when shit hits the fan and the reason why muscle mass correlates with a decrease in all-cause mortality.
Simply put, the more muscle mass you have, the lesser the risk of dying from a chronic disease. Just one hour of resistance training each week decreases all-cause mortality risk.
One hour. The week has 168 hours. You can do that!
Why Vegan Diets Suck
Many tend to think all proteins are the same. But on closer inspection, various forms of protein have different profiles.
Proteins are made from chains of molecules called amino acids.
Amino acids are like the letters of the alphabet, and proteins are like words.
Your body can string them together into complex sentences that say things like
"Build muscle."
"Make new cells."
"Destroy this virus."
Hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, but you need just 20 to make all the different types of protein in your body.
When you consume protein, you're really consuming amino acids that your body can rearrange into whatever proteins you need.
Let’s Compare Vegan and Animal-Based Proteins
Plant-based foods are less protein-dense.
This means you need to eat a lot of greens to get the same animal protein.
Animal protein is more bioavailable.
It's more easily digested and absorbed by your body than plant protein.
Animal protein is considered complete.
It contains all 20 necessary amino acids. While no single plant source contains all 20 amino acids, all 20 can be found in plants. You just have to consume many different plants to get all the aminos.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the time or the stomach to eat 10lbs of different greens, nuts and tofu every day.
To summarize, plant-based foods:
are less bio-available
are less protein-dense
have incomplete amino acid profiles
That's why it is tough to meet your protein needs without overeating carbs or fat.
Instead, I recommend an animal-based diet like the one below.
Essential Foods
Animal Foods
Grass-fed beef
Pasture-raised pork
Pasture-raised chicken
Pasture-raised lamb
Organ meat (or organ meat supplements)
Bone broth
Wild-caught fish
Organic pasture-raised eggs (corn/soy-free)
Raw organic honey
Raw or A2 dairy
Fruit
Sweet fruit: including apples, oranges, berries, pineapple, pear, melons, banana, mango
Non-sweet fruit: avocado, olive, pumpkin, squash, zucchini, cucumber
Fats
Tallow & suet
Grass-fed ghee
Grass-Fed Butter
Non-Essential Foods
These foods should be eaten in moderation.
Starches & Roots
White rice
Sweet potatoes, yams, carrots
Plant Foods
Fermented vegetables, including sauerkraut & pickles
Artichoke hearts
Herbs & Spices
Rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano, dill, mint parsley
Ceylon cinnamon
Fats
Olive oil
Coconut oil
Avocado oil
How To Stimulate Muscle Growth
If you remember from above, building muscle requires 2 things: a stimulus and a building block.
There is no way around this; preventing age-related muscle loss will require effort. You need to push and pull heavy things. Bodyweight exercises work too.
You need to challenge your muscles if you expect to keep or grow them. Do not assume that supplements work alone without proper nutrition and training.
If you are new to resistance training, you will need guidance.
There is tons of good content out there on YouTube. Here is a small list of recommendations to steer you in the right direction.
Training Recommendations:
Exercise at least 3x a week
Start slow and increase intensity
Split into upper and lower body training days
Stick to natural movements like bench presses, squats, or deadlifting
Supplements To Support Muscle Growth
There are no magic bullets. Eating an excellent whole diet that meets your caloric and Protein needs is the best way to gain and maintain muscle.
But there are some supplements that help:
Creatine
Multivitamin
Whey Protein
That's it!
It's a short list because supplements shouldn't be your primary focus. Exercise and diet are more crucial.
Building muscle mass and strength isn't just about physical appearance or hitting some arbitrary fitness goal.
It's about taking control of your health and investing in a longer, more energetic life. Remember: every effort you put into building and maintaining your muscles is an investment in yourself, and there's no greater reward than a lifetime of good health and vitality.