As soon as you stop maintaining them, the muscles melt. As for osteoporosis, any woman knows that she should be wary of it during menopause and that it will go better if you have built up good bone capital. Advice from experts on caring for bones and muscles.
Preserve your muscles rather than lose weight
Even with a stable weight, we tend to lose bone and muscle with age and that’s not good, warns Dr de Jaeger, president of the French Society of Medicine and Physiology of Longevity. Likewise, one can appear slender, display a BMI within the standards, but having very little muscle and too much fat. This is why we should be thinking “how to gain muscle”, rather than “how to lose weight“, advocates the doctor.
We focus on diets but, when we lose pounds, we lose muscle and when we gain weight, we gain fat … It’s time to change our approach.
- Sufficient protein: these molecules are essential allies for the renewal of muscles and bones, but also hair and skin. “For each meal, you need a small portion (meat, fish, ham, egg), insists Isabelle de Vaugelas, dietitian-nutritionist. Vegetarians must provide plant alternatives : tofu, legumes (lentils, peas …), cereals (corn, rice …), nuts and hazelnuts. “
- Vitamin D for the bones:this vitamin is valuable for immunity. It is mainly synthesized by the sun’s rays from cholesterol, but it can be supplemented by food, especially in the bad season. Double advantage, the foods which are the richest (cod liver and oily fish) also provide omega 3 fatty acids, which protect against inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases.
- Antioxidants, good for everything: we have not found better than diets mediterranean type or Okinawa. Frugal but rich in oilseeds, fermented products (sauerkraut, kefir …) and seasonal fruits and vegetables, they are full of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant nutrients.
Test the “kaizen” method
It means “continuous improvement” in Japanese. This method consists of adopting new reflexes, better for your health, but very gradually. The explanations of Isabelle de Vaugelas.
• What is it about ?
It is known that the excess of sugar and the abuse of foods high glycemic index (GI) constitute one of the main scourges of the current diet. It shows on the scales, of course, but above all, it weighs on the joints, causes diabetes and accelerates aging. But drastically cutting back on these foods can be frustrating. The Kaizen approach proposes to proceed in stages, by first reducing the foods with high GI that we eat most often or, conversely, removing those that will deprive us the least. Ditto for the harmful fatty acids present in industrial dishes, which lead to an abundant production of toxic oxidizing radicals.
• The advantages of the kaizen method
Less painful, more personalized, this method is also in the long term. You only adopt a new good attitude when the previous one has become a reflex.
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