Maintenance of a lean body mass with a relatively low level of body fat is important both for health and for slowing aging. Fat tissue is not neutral, but produces inflammatory cytokines that lead to overall, generalized inflammation, which is bad.
While having too much fat is bad, having too little muscle may be worse. This can be seen in the fact that waist circumference is a much more accurate indicator of health than body mass index. Muscle is a highly metabolically active tissue, and contributes to glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity.
We all lose muscle as we age, and most people do nothing about it. Lost muscle, if taken far enough, leads to sarcopenia, frailty, and loss of independent living in old age. Increase and maintenance of muscle mass is one of the most important health interventions around.
Insulin sensitivity is important for health and aging. A decrease in insulin sensitivity (an increase in insulin resistance) is often seen in aging, and is the main feature of type 2 diabetes. But it doesn’t have to be this way, and attention to diet and exercise can maintain youthful levels of insulin sensitivity.
Weightlifting, also known as strength training and resistance training, is the best form of exercise for staying lean, maintaining and growing muscle, combating the frailty of aging, and maintaining good insulin sensitivity.
High intensity training (HIT), is a very effective form of exercise and can be used as an adjunct or, for some, a replacement to weightlifting.
Aerobic exercise, that is exercises such as running, walking, or the use of cardio machines in the gym, have health benefits, but as such they come in a distant second to weightlifting and HIT. They are very ineffective for fat loss, mainly because they don’t build muscle and may in fact accelerate its loss. Distance running can actually be harmful, leading to joint injuries that sometimes necessitate surgery, and heart problems.
You can’t outrun a bad diet. Weightlifting and HIT are the only exercises that have been shown to have a material effect on fat loss, but even here, if fat loss is the goal, attention must be paid to diet. It’s extremely easy to eat more than enough calories than you exercise away. “Burning” calories through exercise is close to nonsensical. Hunger always wins.
If hunger always wins, then to lose fat one must choose a way of eating that dampens hunger. Low-carbohydrate diets, especially those that forbid sugar and refined carbohydrates like flour, are the best for controlling hunger.
The cholesterol hypothesis of heart disease is nonsense. Statins have tiny effects on mortality with the potential of large, deleterious side effects.
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