Sacopenia, aka Muscle Loss Can Begin In Your 30s

Sacopenia is the progressive loss of muscle mass, function, quality, and strength related to the aging process.  When the word aging comes mind most people think of 65 plus, however you can start to lose muscle mass in your 30s.  As a matter of fact, between the ages of 30 to 60, the average adult will gain 1 lb of weight and lose 1/2 lb of muscle yearly.  That's a gain of 30 lbs of fat and a loss of 15 lbs of muscle over a 30 year period.

How does this happen?  Beginning in their mid-30s most people start to lead a more sedentary lifestyle.  They have careers, get married, have children, and lead less physically active lives, and as a consequence they begin to lose muscle mass.  Your body is designed for physical activity, and the old saying "use it or lose it" is true when it comes to your body, especially your muscle mass.  Click here to see the entire post.

What Does Your Body Weight Really Tell You About Your Health

Your dietary habits significantly affect your body weight, body composition, and physical health. Recent studies show that over 60 percent of Americans are overweight or obese predisposing them to various diseases and degenerative problems.  But what does overweight really mean?  By public health standards being overweight is weight that is higher than what is considered as a healthy weight for a given height as determined by your Body Mass Index or BMI.  Categories for BMI fall into the following:

Underweight =  less than 18.5  
Normal weight = 18.5–24.9
Overweight = 25–29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

It is generally assumed that people in the overweight and obese BMI categories are at a higher risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and a host of other degenerative problems. But, does BMI give the best indication of the health risk associated with your body weight?  I think body composition is a much better indicator for associating body weight with health risks because it takes into account both muscle weight and fat weight. Please click here to see the entire post

The Low-Fat Diet Fraud

For decades, the mantra for healthy eating has been “eat a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet.” Touted as a way to lose weight and prevent heart disease and other chronic conditions, millions of people have followed this advice. Seeing a tremendous marketing opportunity, food companies re-engineered thousands of foods to be low-fat or fat-free. The low-fat approach to eating may have made a difference for the occasional individual, but as a nation, it has nether helped us control our weight nor become healthier. In the 1960s, fats and oils supplied Americans with about 45 percent of their calories. About 13 percent of the population was obese and less than one percent had type 2 diabetes. Today, Americans take in less fat, getting about 33 percent of calories from fats and oils; yet 34 percent of the population is obese, and eight percent has diabetes (mostly type 2). (Source: Harvard School of Public Health).

Research has shown that the total amount of fat in your diet isn’t linked with weight or disease. What actually matters is the type of fat in your diet. Trans fats and saturated fats increase your risk of cardiovascular disease, while monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats do just the opposite. But then you ask, “what about cholesterol in food?” The answer is, for most people the mix of fats in their diets influences cholesterol in their bloodstreams far more than cholesterol in food. Click here to read the entire post.