How to Defy Aging
We all age, but what if I told you that you can actually defy your age with muscle building workouts? Muscles and skin weaken as we age. If you don’t keep your strength up it will fail you. You lose what you don’t use. Muscles start to degenerate the less they are used. It’s the same with flexibility, if you don’t keep nimble you will lose elasticity in your muscles and seemingly become rigid.
I recently came across a quote by the famous physician Hippocrates. He said, “That which is used develops; that which is not wastes away.” And this cannot be truer when it comes to muscles. “Of all the causes which conspire to rend the life of a man short and miserable, none have greater influence than the want of proper exercise,” said another physician, Dr. William Buchan, in the 18th century. In other words, the more you work on exercising your muscles, the more youthful you will be.
Weight training can create changes in gene expressions related to muscle aging, and therefore, reverse the aging process all together. In one study, both younger and older people underwent a 6-month program of strength training twice a week. By the end of the time period, the older groups’ gene expression had a similar one to that of the younger group. Plus, impairment of mitochondria—the powerhouse of energy cells — also reversed during the training program. It actually helped to replenish muscle tissue in the older group.
Running, walking, biking, and swimming are great too; they play a role in fending off psychological and neurological changes of aging, as well as boosting the HDL (good) cholesterol while lowering the LDL (bad) cholesterol. They improve cardiovascular health because they lower the resting heart rate and increase the heart’s ability to send oxygen-filled blood to body tissue. They can also help avoid aging effects on the metabolism because they lower blood sugar levels and decrease body fat.
Endurance exercises are said to help improve reflex time and fight off memory loss; however, cardio does little to enhance muscle growth. In fact, extreme cardio, especially on low calorie diets, can cause muscle loss. You need resistance training to build muscle and to preserve bone calcium throughout your entire body. Intense weight training is proven to stimulate growth hormone, which leads to fat loss, muscle gain, and aids in reversing the effects of aging. Most anti-aging clinics offer growth hormone treatments to help with this, but you can stimulate growth hormone on your own, utilizing sensible and accurate training methods.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Lack of Muscle Can Lead to Disease – it’s not just aging, if your bones are frail, they are more likely to break if you fall or have an accident when you are older. It was usually thought that disease leads to muscle loss and degeneration, but it’s actually the reverse.
Sunlight Strengthens Your Bones – not enough sunlight lowers your vitamin D levels, which are naturally produced in the body in response to sunlight. It’s better to get the D from the sun instead of supplements.
Eat Your Protein – a healthy protein-centric diet is paramount to your anti-aging. Make sure every day you eat a gram of protein per one pound of your body weight.
Balance it out – Balance your protein out with healthy fats and carbs, mostly in the form of vegetables. Everyone seems to have a different tolerance for starchier carbohydrates. For me, they always make me fat and swollen. I get a better pump because I’m full of water in the muscle; however, I’m also very uncomfortable because my stomach distends, and my joints swell up. With the bloat also comes back pain. I recommend if you are tolerant to starchy carbs like rice and yams, to time them around your workouts.
Just move – Just try to remember that consistency is the key. You won’t always set the world on fire, but it is still better to do what you can than nothing. The pain-fear cycle often leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. You have a little discomfort or pain, and you fear movement will lead to worsening pain or immobility, so you do nothing. The “nothing” causes weakness and stiffness…which leads to the one thing you fear… pain and immobility. Something is always better than nothing.
