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> Maintain a low waist circumference and maintain muscle mass Is there a reliable, proven (i.e. actual science, not broscience) way to do both of these at the

> Maintain a low waist circumference and maintain muscle mass Is there a reliable, proven (i.e. actual science, not broscience) way to do both of these at the same time without drugs in middle-age or elderly people? I was under the impression that this was an unsoved problem because many (if not most) people undergo age-related changes that cause them to put on fat way more easily than muscle.

graeme 5y ago
At the risk of sounding simplistic: literally doing any strength training. Most people abandon it entirely. My whole strength training routine recently has been: * 5-8 chinups, 5-8 pullups * 15-20 pushups * 30-50 air squats * 7-9 dips * 12-15 rows up on the dip bar * A plank about a minute long Takes about seven minutes. Very low risk. Most could learn to do it. I am not as strong as when I did barbells but I’m quite strong and have high muscle mass. The equipment cost about $200, once. An 18 year old will have an easier time starting that than a 60 year old. But if you start that sometime between ages 20-40, and build the muscle mass and motor skills while young, it is extremely possible to maintain that muscle while older. The process you’re describing is sarcopenia. Here are the main causes listed in Wikipedia: > Immobility dramatically increases the rate of muscle loss, even in younger people. Other factors that can increase rate of progression of sarcopenia include decreased nutrient intake, low physical activity, or chronic disease. Most of these are lifestyle factors. Including chronic disease in many cases, where the disease was a lifestyle disease eg type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, etc There’s nothing there that says it is impossible to build muscle from a strength training program when older. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcopenia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcopenia —————- As for diet, the biggest one is cooking your own meals with healthy ingredients. Older people didn’t previously get obese in large numbers. It is a more modern phenomenon. This is probably harder to do than the strength training process I laid out above. Cooking well both takes more time and more money than strength training. (Cooking well can save money of course but this depends on circumstance) As this topic is more complex I won’t go into too many specifics, but my own method for making it more efficient has been roughly: * Batch cooking and seasoning meat, then freezing it * Cooking enough rice as a side to eat over three meals. So I only cook rice afresh every third meal * Steaming vegetables in the morning, then eating again in evening I would not recommend this to everyone, but it has worked very well for me. I’m satiated, can prepare food even when exhausted, and the weight has melted off. And I was already at “last ten pounds” weight. My parents switched to a similar style of eating in their 50s and weight also melted off for them. So it works for older people. Aging does make things worse, but people overestimate how many of the changes they observe are due to aging vs lifestyle.
- 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
  My question regards the fact that that we obviously have methods to reduce waist circumference by reducing overall weight through calorie deficit, but those methods also tend to cause muscle loss. You have a lot of bullet points here about muscle gain/maintenance and weight loss as though they're two independent problems, but the problem I'm asking about is the fact that they're coupled by energy balance and age-related changes in nutrient partitioning.
  - graeme 5y ago
    Do you have any firm source for this or is this just your general belief? Whenever I’ve done the above, I’ve both lost fat and gained muscle at the same time. And once you are at the desired waist level, you do not need to be in a calorie deficit. I’m not 60, but I don’t know of any biological reason that leads to more fat and less muscle with age for the same calorie intake. Leangains is the best method for combating the issue you speak of, but I’m not doing that presently other since the workout I describe everyday. Leangains is a method of cycling macronutrients: more carbs on workout days, more fat on rest days.
    - 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
      > I’m not 60, but I don’t know of any biological reason that leads to more fat and less muscle with age for the same calorie intake. Not just more fat and less muscle, but also a higher ratio of visceral fat to subcutaneous fat (waist circumference generally being a proxy measurement for visceral fat, which is the actual thing we're worried about). [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3357299/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3357299/
      - graeme 5y ago
        I only got a few pages in but that seems to be correlational? Does it day somewhere specifically that the same diet and exercise regime produces worse outcomes for older people? Perhaps I am misinterpreting your decision, but it seems like you are saying that in older people there is some inevitable tradeoff between waist circumference and lean mass, and that if one tries to lose fat they must grow weak or if one tries to grow strong they must gain fat. If older that is. This doesn’t seem to be true in practice for people in our society, and hunger gather societies didn’t have obese elders. I could believe it is harder to gain muscle when older, but I’m not convinced it becomes impossible to meet both goals with fairly modest effort.

graeme 5y ago

At the risk of sounding simplistic: literally doing any strength training. Most people abandon it entirely. My whole strength training routine recently has been: * 5-8 chinups, 5-8 pullups * 15-20 pushups * 30-50 air squats * 7-9 dips * 12-15 rows up on the dip bar * A plank about a minute long Takes about seven minutes. Very low risk. Most could learn to do it. I am not as strong as when I did barbells but I’m quite strong and have high muscle mass. The equipment cost about $200, once. An 18 year old will have an easier time starting that than a 60 year old. But if you start that sometime between ages 20-40, and build the muscle mass and motor skills while young, it is extremely possible to maintain that muscle while older. The process you’re describing is sarcopenia. Here are the main causes listed in Wikipedia: > Immobility dramatically increases the rate of muscle loss, even in younger people. Other factors that can increase rate of progression of sarcopenia include decreased nutrient intake, low physical activity, or chronic disease. Most of these are lifestyle factors. Including chronic disease in many cases, where the disease was a lifestyle disease eg type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, etc There’s nothing there that says it is impossible to build muscle from a strength training program when older. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcopenia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcopenia —————- As for diet, the biggest one is cooking your own meals with healthy ingredients. Older people didn’t previously get obese in large numbers. It is a more modern phenomenon. This is probably harder to do than the strength training process I laid out above. Cooking well both takes more time and more money than strength training. (Cooking well can save money of course but this depends on circumstance) As this topic is more complex I won’t go into too many specifics, but my own method for making it more efficient has been roughly: * Batch cooking and seasoning meat, then freezing it * Cooking enough rice as a side to eat over three meals. So I only cook rice afresh every third meal * Steaming vegetables in the morning, then eating again in evening I would not recommend this to everyone, but it has worked very well for me. I’m satiated, can prepare food even when exhausted, and the weight has melted off. And I was already at “last ten pounds” weight. My parents switched to a similar style of eating in their 50s and weight also melted off for them. So it works for older people. Aging does make things worse, but people overestimate how many of the changes they observe are due to aging vs lifestyle.

0xcde4c3db 5y ago
My question regards the fact that that we obviously have methods to reduce waist circumference by reducing overall weight through calorie deficit, but those methods also tend to cause muscle loss. You have a lot of bullet points here about muscle gain/maintenance and weight loss as though they're two independent problems, but the problem I'm asking about is the fact that they're coupled by energy balance and age-related changes in nutrient partitioning.
- graeme 5y ago
  Do you have any firm source for this or is this just your general belief? Whenever I’ve done the above, I’ve both lost fat and gained muscle at the same time. And once you are at the desired waist level, you do not need to be in a calorie deficit. I’m not 60, but I don’t know of any biological reason that leads to more fat and less muscle with age for the same calorie intake. Leangains is the best method for combating the issue you speak of, but I’m not doing that presently other since the workout I describe everyday. Leangains is a method of cycling macronutrients: more carbs on workout days, more fat on rest days.
  - 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
    > I’m not 60, but I don’t know of any biological reason that leads to more fat and less muscle with age for the same calorie intake. Not just more fat and less muscle, but also a higher ratio of visceral fat to subcutaneous fat (waist circumference generally being a proxy measurement for visceral fat, which is the actual thing we're worried about). [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3357299/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3357299/
    - graeme 5y ago
      I only got a few pages in but that seems to be correlational? Does it day somewhere specifically that the same diet and exercise regime produces worse outcomes for older people? Perhaps I am misinterpreting your decision, but it seems like you are saying that in older people there is some inevitable tradeoff between waist circumference and lean mass, and that if one tries to lose fat they must grow weak or if one tries to grow strong they must gain fat. If older that is. This doesn’t seem to be true in practice for people in our society, and hunger gather societies didn’t have obese elders. I could believe it is harder to gain muscle when older, but I’m not convinced it becomes impossible to meet both goals with fairly modest effort.