Benefits of Increased Muscle Mass.
Nobody Said Parenting Was Going To Be Easy
Let’s talk about the “Dad Bod.”
God Almighty…these past few months have been rough on (not only on my ego, but) my muscle mass. Not that I’ve ever been in the same League as Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Brad Pitt in “Fight Club”, but I have managed to keep a fairly muscular frame.
All of that has drastically changed since turning 49, having two insane kids and a “Stay At Home” order from Governor DeWine.
Is this an excuse….HELL NO. I don’t believe in that. I am in control of my life….so I have to own my added 10-15 lbs of adipose tissue.
So with that being said, it’s time to get my shit together. I mean REALLY get my shit together. And, a BIG part of that is getting my muscle mass back. This is CRITICAL.
Here’s why:
First of all, we are fighting the proverbial clock. Starting at 30 years of age we start to lose muscle mass. The average male will lose 5 to 7 pounds of muscle between ages 35 and 50 due to disuse. Here’s the kicker - For every pound of muscle lost, you lose the capacity to burn approximately 35 to 50 calories per day. That means, if you’ve lost 7 pounds of muscle per year, you’re looking at 350 calories a day that you need to NOT ingest just to maintain your given weight.
Increased Muscle Mass = Stronger Metabolism and Increased Insulin Sensitivity.
Muscle plays a pivotal role in boosting our metabolism and immune systems, as well as increasing bone strength and aiding in weight loss. Muscle building has even been shown to improve mental health.
Muscle plays a critical role in our overall healthy metabolism, because it allows you to use carbohydrate calories for activity and your basal metabolic rate more efficiently. In more scientific terms, it increases insulin sensitivity and protects against insulin resistance
(Insulin sensitivity refers to how sensitive the body's cells are in response to insulin. High insulin sensitivity allows the cells of the body to use blood glucose more effectively, reducing blood sugar.)
(Insulin resistance is when cells in your muscles, fat, and liver don't respond well to insulin and can't use glucose from your blood for energy. To make up for it, your pancreas makes more insulin. Over time, your blood sugar levels go up.).
One of our muscles’ primary functions is storing glucose from the bloodstream as glycogen. These glycogen stores are then called upon as fuel each time we want to move, even getting out of bed. Therefore the more muscle mass we have, the better they are at grabbing glucose from the bloodstream. Maintaining these stores has been proven to increase insulin sensitivity, and protects against insulin resistance.
In helping your body use carbohydrates this way, muscle mass is ultimately protective against metabolic syndrome and diabetes.
Low muscle mass is associated with higher surgical and post-operative complications, longer length of hospital stay, lower physical function, poorer quality of life, and shorter survival.
A study published in the Public Library of Science ‘One’ Journal found that low muscle mass may be an early predictor of diabetes – independent of body fat.
Increasing Muscle Mass = Lower Abdominal Fat.
In a 2014 study published in the research journal Obesity, Harvard researchers followed 10,500 men over the course of 12 years and found that strength training is more effective at preventing increases in abdominal fat than Cardio!
Better cardiovascular health. For example, 2013 research in the Journal of Applied Physiology demonstrates that young men who regularly strength train have better-functioning HDL, or good cholesterol, compared with those who never pump iron (I like to call it “Pushing Steel”).
In a 2015 research published in The Lancet medical journal shows that grip strength (a marker for total-body muscle health) more accurately predicts death from heart disease than blood pressure does.
Hand grip strength is increasingly seen as an appropriate indicator of physical well-being and social, psychic and somatic health. There is no doubt that hand grip strength is first of all a strong indicator of muscle strength and muscle mass.
Low muscle mass is associated with higher surgical and post-operative complications, longer length of hospital stay, lower physical function, poorer quality of life, and shorter survival.
Increased Muscle Mass = Reduced Cancer Risk.
Visceral Fat not only increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes, but it can also promote cancer development. Research from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2013 show that individuals with more visceral fat were about 44% more likely to develop cancer and heart disease. Visceral fat cells produce high levels of a cancer-triggering proteins called fibroblast growth factor-2, or FGF2. And according to 2017 research published in Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology, muscle mass is a strong predictor of cancer treatment outcomes. Muscle wasting is a common complication of cancer treatment and is associated with a higher risk of chemotherapy toxicity, faster tumor progression and lower survival rates.
(Visceral fat is a type of body fat that’s stored within the abdominal cavity. It’s located near several vital organs, including the liver, stomach, and intestines. It can also build up in the arteries. Visceral fat is sometimes referred to as “active fat” because it can actively increase the risk of serious health problems.)
Increased Muscle Mass = Boosted Brain Health.
A team at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden showed how working muscle produces an enzyme that breaks down kynurenine, a compound found in higher levels in people with depression and other mental illnesses. The enzyme converts kynurenine into kynurenic acid, which cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. By blocking access, active muscle products protect the brain from the stress-related agents associated with depression.
Strength training can improve brain power across a lifetime, but the effects are perhaps the strongest in older adults suffering from cognitive decline. In one 2016 study in the Journal of American Geriatrics, when men and women ages 55 through 86 with mild impairment performed twice-weekly weight training for six months, they significantly improved their scores on cognitive tests. However, when participants spent their workouts stretching, their cognitive test scores declined.
Increased Muscle Mass = A “Safety Net”.
Increasing your muscle mass gives you an excess of protein that your body can draw on at times of increased need. Protein is one of the most important structural components in your entire body, and muscles play a essential role in regulating protein availability. They absorb protein from the diet, store it, and distribute it to the heart, liver, and other organs as needed. In the absence of dietary protein, your body will break down your muscles to keep feeding your organs.
So let’s wrap this up in a nice little bow.
GET BACK TO THE GYM. BUILD A HOME GYM. BUY SOME DUMBBELLS. DO SOMETHING TO GAIN BACK THAT INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT MUSCLE MASS.
BE PATIENT. IT WILL COME. IT WILL HAPPEN.
YOUR HEALTH AND OVERALL HAPPINESS DEPEND ON IT.