Welcome to the Peak Revival podcast.

My name is Vesna and today we're

going to talk about how to prevent

and reverse muscle loss over 40.

Now, women will often say to me after

the age of 35 their body changes,

doesn't look the same, things don't

work like they used to, but after

40 this accelerates and we find that

we have the flabby arms or the belly

or the flat butt or just more fat

in areas that you haven't had before

and you've seen a significant loss

in tone and you may find it harder.

So, you've been exercising and

following an exercise routine for

a long time and you've You're not

getting the gains anymore, right?

You're still noticing

that you're losing muscle.

this is known as sarcopenia.

And this begins well, quite early on.

So we reach our muscle peak

at the age of 25, right?

And everything's downhill from

there, but not so fast, right?

But at 35, we really notice

that our body is changing.

And then, like I said, at

40, it really accelerates.

And for women.

You know, there is a hormonal

component which accelerates this

aging process of the muscles.

And we, there's a lot that we can

do to reverse it or prevent it.

So they say we lose 8 percent

of muscle every decade

between the ages of 40 and 70.

And from the age of 70 onwards, we lose

15 percent of our muscle every decade.

there are things that we

can do to prevent this.

And so number one, what is causing this?

Well, first of all, why is it

important to retain our muscle?

I think this is a bigger conversation

some degree, because we look at

muscle or we look at sagging arms

and sagging, whatever, and more

cellulite and more fat in areas,

aesthetically, we don't like it.

But really there's a much bigger,

uh, part to having more muscle,

which is muscle is one of our biggest

indicators of health and longevity.

The more muscle that we retain, the

healthier we are, the longer that we're

going to live, the stronger that we are,

the stronger our bone health will be.

So it's not just an appearance thing.

It really is a marker of where we

are in our health and vitality.

So what is making us prone to sarcopenia

or this age related muscle loss?

particularly for women.

Okay.

So number one, it is aging, aging.

We are going to lose muscle.

Okay.

That is going to happen, but

we can put factors in place and

routines in place to offset that.

Right.

Number two is insulin resistance.

Okay.

Now, unfortunately, as our

Hormones change as we get older.

We are more prone, naturally, to insulin

resistance, which is a real shame.

But insulin resistance means that our

body has a higher level of insulin, so

our cells become resistant to insulin,

and therefore we're getting these glucose

and insulin spikes during the day, and

that tends to mean that we will place

more fat around the belly, so you'll

get that belly fat, that muffin top,

and generally more fat everywhere.

But insulin resistance is linked with

sarcopenia and that means that the

fat that we store around our body

is actually inflammatory fat and it

creates more inflammation in the system.

So again, it's not just

that it doesn't look good.

It's impacting our health.

inflammation is the heart of every

symptom condition in the body.

So if we can reduce inflammation,

we can really improve our health.

The third thing is hormonal changes.

As I said, as we're coming up to

perimenopause and menopause, we

are going to be more prone and

sarcopenia accelerates if we don't

adjust our diet and lifestyle.

Also, weight gain plays a huge

factor again, because of the insulin

resistance, a low protein diet.

I'm going to get more into

this because most women.

I speak to who feel like their

diet is pretty good, actually

do not eat enough protein.

And the other factor that plays

a part is, you know, not having

enough physical activity, resistance

training or a sedentary lifestyle.

So if you're really not moving

so much, you are going to be more

prone to accelerated sarcopenia.

So what do we got to do?

Number one, we've got

to look at the diet.

We've got to look at protein because

protein and amino acids in the protein.

So the building blocks of the

protein, um, Build muscle.

They're part of the muscle

protein synthesis, right?

So we need the animal

protein or plant proteins.

Animal protein does give us a better

utilization of protein and amino acids

to create the muscles, but obviously, if

you are vegetarian or vegan, that's okay.

You can get it through

plant proteins as well.

So really what you're looking at

in terms of kind of the baseline,

depending on your activity level,

you're looking at at least one gram

of protein per kilo of body weight.

So if you weigh 70 kilos,

you're going to have to have

70 grams of protein in the day.

That doesn't mean that, 150 grams

of chicken is going to give you

150 grams of protein, right?

It's going to give you about

20 to 25 grams of protein.

And if you need to have 70 a day, just

as a, Baseline, that's if you're not

doing any activity, which, you know,

if you're showing symptoms of muscle

loss, you must be increasing the

exercise and resistance training, okay?

And in that case, your protein

requirements go up to about 1.

3, okay?

1.

2, 1.

3.

If you're doing really heavy training,

um, athletes will go up to 1.

6 grams of protein per

kilo of body weight.

So what types of protein do we have?

We have animal and plant proteins.

Okay, animal proteins give us a

really good source of amino acids.

So the main amino acid that we're

finding in the protein is the leucine.

Leucine helps to rebuild the

muscle and so you can get that

in animal protein really easily.

So sometimes for people who are on a

vegetarian or vegan diet, we may have to

supplement with the leucine or branched

chain aminos in order to get that amount

of Um, Lucene into their diet, right?

But we're looking at,

there's two types of protein.

There's animal and there's plant protein.

And you need to make sure, based

on your activity level, that you're

actually having enough protein.

Because without the protein, kind

of throughout the day, going through

this curve of like, gaining muscle,

losing muscle, gaining muscle, losing,

or kind of our protein requirements

are going up and down, right?

So, if we're doing physical activity,

our protein requirements go up,

and then our body uses all that

protein, and then we're going like

this throughout the day, right?

So we want to make sure that we're having

intervals of protein throughout the day.

We're not just having, you know, what

I tend to see is that we will have

very little protein for breakfast, very

little for lunch, if at all, and then

the protein portion at dinner, which is

still only about 30 grams of protein.

So it's really, really deficient.

And so what we want to do, we spread

it to, you know, 20 to 40 grams in, you

know, breakfast and lunch and dinner and

then snacks throughout the day, right?

So you can have up to.

Well, studies have shown now it's over 40

grams in one sitting in order to utilize

all of that protein to build the muscle.

So that means say if you ate 250 grams

of chicken, you got 40 grams of protein

in that, your body would able to use

that protein, those amino acids in

that chicken to rebuild your muscle.

The other thing that we want to do,

so number one, protein is important.

The type of protein, the amount

of protein that we're having

based on our activity level.

The other thing that we want

to look at is carbohydrates.

We want to make sure that you're not

having the carbohydrates that's going to

create or exacerbate insulin resistance.

So we want to start to bring

insulin sensitivity back.

So the way that I talk about insulin

is that insulin is a normal hormone.

It moves our glucose

from our bloodstream.

into our cells for energy, right?

But if we've had high stress or high

processed diet, processed carbohydrates

or sugars, we are going to have a lot

of insulin all the time in the system.

So our cells become resistant

to a normal amount of insulin.

So where it once took a lot of insulin,

A completely arbitrary number I'm saying,

two mils of insulin to move the glucose

from the bloodstream into your cells.

When you're insulin resistant,

it might take 10 mils.

And the more insulin that's in the

system, the more our body stops burning

fat and starts storing it around

our waist, around our organs, right?

Increases cholesterol,

inflammation in the body.

So carbohydrates cut out

processed foods, right?

Cut out processed carbohydrates and

sugars, the obvious sugars, right?

That's the first thing that you can do.

to reduce the insulin resistance, improve

that kind of sugar profile to make sure

that you're not losing muscle through

the diet because of that response.

Because the other thing to note is

that when you have insulin resistance

and sarcopenia, like you really

see the shift in the muscle, right?

You're really noticing that

actually everything's really soft

the structure is really lost.

It's really lost its tone.

And that is because you're basically

losing muscle, replacing it with body

fat and your whole body starts to change

or your body shape starts to change.

Okay, so diet was one,

protein, carbohydrates.

The second thing that we need to

look at is resistance training.

So we need to be increasing

the resistance on our body.

So whatever you do that's either

using your body weight, you can

do Pilates with some weights on

there as well, or weight training.

Okay.

So weight training after a certain

age, I think weight training is

the best because I, for myself did

a type of Pilates for many, many

years, which was amazing for me.

And then I got to a point

where it just wasn't anymore.

Okay.

I really needed to lift.

weights and need to do

heavier resistance, which has

been a game changer for me.

So look at resistance training

two to three times a week.

Three times a week is ideal.

You'll really notice a change in your

body at the three times a week, but

two times a week will help to rebuild

some muscle and offset some The loss

of muscle and the So whether you do

something online, you build yourself

a little home gym, my recommendation

would be to get a personal trainer,

even if it's like a small group training

or a one on one training, to really

guide you to prevent injuries and do

the right exercises for you to rebuild

the muscle in areas that you want.

The third thing that I want to mention

is that when we have sarcopenia,

it correlates with osteoporosis.

So, it's not just a case of losing

muscle, we're also losing bone.

And a lot of that comes down to, yes, it

comes down to diet as well and protein

and nutrition and calcium from your diet.

And also vitamin D.

So, we have a lot of people with vitamin

D deficiency and so vitamin D, obviously

people are supplementing with vitamin D.

But vitamin D deficiency really

means a sun exposure deficiency.

It doesn't mean that you have to go

pop a tablet or a capsule, right?

It really means that your

body is deficient in sunlight.

And we have so many other things that the

sun gives us more than just vitamin D.

And so it's really important that we get

outside and get some sun on our skin.

And in wintertime it's going

to be harder, so it's going to

be face, hands, maybe forearms.

And you know, 15 minutes each

day in the wintertime, a few

minutes in the summertime, right?

And not in the peak day, but bone

health and sarcopenia correlate

and we want to make sure that we're

getting enough calcium and vitamin

D to support bone health as well.

And this could be, yes, as you're getting

older to make sure you don't have any

fractures or injuries, but also for

athletes so that they don't get injuries

during their training and their sports.

And the fourth thing to look

at is your sleep, right?

Sleep affects your circadian

rhythm or sleep deprivation affects

your circadian rhythm, right?

So your body clock, which then impacts

how your body is building muscle, right?

And so they found that even in the acute

stages, even losing two nights of sleep,

Will actually have an impact on your

muscle and how your body builds muscle.

So actually, um, you'll be in a negative.

So Making sure where you can getting

to sleep on time, getting to bed

by 9 30, 10 PM is my kind of rule.

But if you're a shift worker or you've

had chronic insomnia, then really

having looking at addressing the

underlining reasons of why you're not

getting proper sleep, because it is,

like I said, breaking down muscle.

It increases our cortisol,

reduces testosterone.

All these things tend

to break down muscle.

So again, we're in a deficit and we're

If you can address your poor sleep,

whether it be poor quality or unable to

fall asleep quickly enough, or waking

up in the middle of the night, they

should be addressed in order for you

to have proper muscle and bone health.

Okay, I hope this was helpful.

So just to summarize, sarcopenia,

muscle, age related muscle

loss accelerates into our 40s.

We can prevent and reverse it through

making sure that you have enough protein

in your diet, good source of protein.

Cutting down the processed

carbohydrates and the sugar.

Adding in resistance training three

times a week ideally, but two times

a week if that's all you can do.

And getting out in the sunlight for

your vitamin D, for your calcium,

for your bone, because sarcopenia

correlates with osteoporosis.

And getting enough sleep.

So those are the factors that are

important to make sure That things

don't jiggle as much as you get older,

but also to maintain muscle health

for health and longevity in the future

and for strength and for tone and to

keep you strong and feeling amazing.