We've all heard it, "Wait until you get to be my age, your metabolism will slow down and even you will get fat. Just you wait." Haha, I laugh in the face of those who say that and I will prove why. I can tell you at 30 years old I was in the best shape of my life for a Muscle Mania Body Building show. I got my body fat to read "E4" on the electrical impedance hand held tester. Skin fold readings had me at 2.5%. Many other competitors in their sixties constantly achieve very low body fats and maintain muscle. How is this possible if our metabolism slows so much? Why haven't these people lost all their muscle and gained fat?
The reason is their metabolism hasn't slowed. It is true, the average person loses about 1% of function per year after the age of 30. We lose speed, coordination and muscle size and function. This is for the average person. The average person also watches 4.5 hours of TV a day now! If we continue to stay active or even become active we can improve coordination, speed and gain muscle. If we gain muscle we increase our Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). This RMR is the amount of calories we need a day to maintain body function even if we were to lie around all day. It is about 65-70% of the calories we consume everyday.
You see, by gaining lean mass through resistance exercise we can actually increase our metabolism and "reverse" the effects of aging. We could even eat more calories everyday and not gain weight, wouldn't that be great? Now, instead of doing less as we age we should do more. I like the quote by Emerson, "We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stopped playing."
