stronger

I am building muscle:  Very intentionally and pretty successfully, despite being in my 60's!

Lean body mass is skeleton, muscles, connective tissue, brains and nervous system, and organs. Lean body mass, especially muscle mass,  is an important driver of  health.  We loose lean mass as we age. The quantity of lean body mass is an important predictor of health and life span.  The most variable part of lean body mass is skeletal muscle--the muscles we can see and feel and flex and show off at the beach.  Building muscle helps us keep our bones strong, our minds sharp, our blood sugar low, our energy high, and our spirits bright.  Of course, I have known this for a long time, but it's come into sharper focus the last year or so.  I became motivated to build my own muscles as I walked through my recent health challenges.  Maybe it's because I felt mortal in a new way.  Maybe because I got the wake up call:  Are you going to actually eat right and exercise, or just keep talking about it?

Building muscle and building bone take very similar inputs and are connected to each other.  If I want to build bone, I will need to build muscle.  And vice versa.  I want to build both bone and muscle. so that's double motivation.

The best way to build muscle and bone is strength training.  Since recovery from strength training is as important as the training itself and since this typically takes days, once or twice a week in the gym is a good plan. I started with yoga a year and a half ago. Last summer, I added OsteoStrong (Link).   I felt my body reshaping. I added once a week weight machine workout based on the book The Power of 10 by Adam Zickerman  (Link). I spend 10 minutes twice per week with weight machines and I am stronger and more muscular than I have been in decades.  Disclaimer:  the yoga is a bigger investment of time, but also offers flexibility and stress management, so it's a worthy investment.

My body needs great nutrition to build muscle and bone.  I've added mineral supplements.  I started with Calcium, Magnesium, and Zinc.  I'm looking in to Boron and decided against Strontium for myself.  I've also resumed my omega 3 supplement, continued Vitamin D, and added Vitamin K2.  I have been surprised to discover again the importance of eating high quality and sufficient quantities of protein.  The more I read and investigate, the more I am led to believe that at least some of that protein needs to be from animal sources.  When I don't eat enough protein, I crave sweets and starches.  I've seen this in myself and in others during pregnancy, but I forgot it  Some thoughtful and credible sources are saying that optimal muscle building requires as much as 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per kg of body mass. I haven't been able to get to that amount, but I have found that moving in that direction and eating more of these higher protein foods has made me feel better.  I spend less time hungry, am calmer, feel very satisfied with a lower-carb diet, have better energy, and sleep better.  This reminds me that the solution to a challenge doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be better than before. 

It's so exciting to keep discovering new things about myself, about food, and about health in general. 

I am still committed to returning to regular modified fasting and need to figure out how that fits in a strength training/muscle and bone building fitness plan.