Why Does My Metabolism Seem to be Slowing Down?
As we get older our muscle mass reduces with inactivity. Given that muscle is a highly active tissue that burns a lot of energy, a reduction often leads to weight gain. This makes resistance training imperative to curb the decline and possibly restore muscle mass/tone.
The age old adage still applies - If you don't use it, you’ll lose it!
How Much Muscle Am I Loosing?
That all depends how old you are. A 70 kg Male will have approximately 25 Kilograms, or 38% of muscle at the age of 25. For every 10 years of inactivity your muscles will decline by 1.9 kg or 8%1! So that means if you don’t do any significant resistance training between the ages of 25 and 55 years old you will loose approximately 5.7 kg or 24% of your lean muscle!
How Much Fat Does My Muscle Burn?
Your muscles will burn approximately 25 calories of fat each day3, per kilogram. That’s 750 calories per month!
Lets go back to the original example. If you are 55 years old and have lost 5.7 kg of muscle;
· This means that your metabolism has slowed down by 4275 calories per month!
· The average person that runs a marathon (5 minutes per km) uses approximately 2000 calories. You would need to run more than 2 marathons a month to burn the same amount of energy as when you were 25!
References
1. Epidemiology of Sacropenia among elderly in New Mexico
2. Skeletal muscle mass and distribution in 468men and women
3. Predictor of skeletal muscle mass in elderly men and women
4. A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals
No comments:
Post a Comment