The two biggest problems with aging are weight gain and loss of muscles. Sound familiar? By the time you are 32 years old, it’s downhill from there. But, it can be avoided if you’ll deal with the top 4 biggest mistakes:
1. For all patients that we see, if we had to choose between cardio (aerobic exercise) or resistance training (weightlifting), hands down we would always pick resistance training. As we get past 32 years old, we start losing muscle mass. Over 50% of your musculature can be lost during your life—and that means getting older and weaker—and the less muscle you have the more fat you’ll gain. So if you only have time for one exercise, pick the weights up and move!
2. Don’t forget your hormones! As we age,our hormones drop quickly, especially if your stress levels are high. Thyroid drops, making you tired. Progesterone drops, giving you insomnia, anxiety, and irritability. Estrogen drops, and you get osteoporosis and hot flashes. Growth hormone falls, and you get flabby. Testosterone goes down, and you lose your passion for life.
3. So many of our patients come into our clinic on various medications that they may not even need and which may be causing a poor quality of life. For instance, taking a blood pressure medication may cause your blood pressure to drop too far, causing extreme fatigue/lethargy. Taking large doses of cholesterol lowering drugs can cause memory loss and sometime moderate to severe muscle aching. We always review these meds for our patients.
4. We saved the biggest aging factor for last. Ready? We know you won’t like this, but the biggest aging factor we see today is called glycation: a fancy word for when your body just starts rusting. What is the culprit behind it? Sugar. America is hooked on sugar. Reducing sugar in your diet is the biggest thing you can do to feel and look younger. Sugar ages your skin and your muscles.
At the Utah Wellness Institute we specialize in getting our patients feeling younger and looking younger through Bio Identical Hormone Therapy, nutritional counseling, and exercise education. For more information call (801) 576-1155 or go to www.utahwellnessinstitute.com and take our free online tests.