We’ve all heard of the natural steroid the body makes during your growing years, known as Human Growth Hormone (HGH). It’s been talked about in circles relating to Performance enhancement, anti-aging, and bodybuilding. When produced naturally in the early stages of life, it promotes muscle growth, density, and strength. However, after the age of 30 it starts to take a gradual turn and has the body wasting away muscle. This is known as Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass and function. It is age-related and is not necessarily a measure of an active vs a sedentary lifestyle. It is a naturally occurring stage of life that has people losing about 0.5% of your muscle each year. By that rationale, from your 30’s to your 70’s, you could expect to lose about 20% of your muscle.
If that isn’t already a large enough amount, factor in the negative effects created by flawed diet programs out there, that are nothing but damaging attempts at getting a scale to show a smaller number, no matter what cost it inflicts to the body.
The common misinformation out there is that by merely engaging in a calorie restrictive “diet”, combined with a strict and aggressive gym regimen, is all what’s needed. This premise, based on simple math, promotes calories in should be less than calories out and if that can be further enhanced by intense workouts, you’ll see a result. Unfortunately, it’s NOT the result you want. Why? Well, you are effectively sending your body mixed signals. A body that functions on systems that are governed by hormones is much more complex than simply applying math. It behaves and reacts quite differently to these signals and truly doesn’t take kindly to be told to expend more effort with less nourishment coming in. The message that’s being sent is, “I’m only going to give you this much fuel to do all that work!”.
Naturally, the body’s systems kick in and reply with, “If I have to perform at this extreme level and have inadequate fuel to do so, I need to sip and conserve, not consume”! What ends up paying the ultimate price is your MUSCLE tissue, adrenal glands, and thyroid glands, along with the cascade effect that follows. Multiple small meals throughout the day as a fuel source result in an overworked, underfed, unhealthy existence. If we can’t easily tap into and use up fat for energy, the body turns to muscle.
At this point, blatantly ignoring the chemistry has produced more insulin events and cortisol production than is necessary. Both being fat storing hormones would result in a direct contradiction to the goal of fat loss.
So now, 20% muscle loss over the years is looking pretty good compared to the unnecessary muscle loss perpetuated by inexcusable misinformation dealt out by flawed diets in the pursuit of weight loss.
By thinking chemistry over calories would be paramount in shedding old concepts as well as shedding your unwanted fat stores. The idea that all weight loss is equal would be inaccurate. Fat loss is what we want, not fat with muscle thrown into the mix.
The ultimate version of fuelling the body would be to toggle from glucose, derived from properly selected foods, ingested at the right time, to fuelling from your fat stores after that food has been used up.
In conclusion, it should be noted that, although Sarcopenia is an age-related depletion of one’s muscle, it does not need to be made worse by dieting with flawed programs. Also, by doing the correct program, one can target fat exclusively and protect precious muscle, and even rebuild.
The iHEALTHe Reset Your Health Program is simply the answer to steering your ship in the right direction. Rejuvenate and radiate through wellness. Burn fat with the understanding that chemistry is key so that we are never forcing or tricking the body into anything it doesn’t already know.
