The Midlife Muscle Crisis: why we've gotten obesity all wrong | Gabrielle Lyon | TEDxWestMonroe

Foreigner, you've heard about

obesity

, it's

wrong

, what if I told you we don't have an

obesity

epidemic, but what we really have is a

midlife

muscle

crisis

? The turning point came for me when I was doing my geriatric and nutritional sciences fellowship at At the University of Washington, during my time in clinical practice, I have cared for thousands of patients from overweight to obese from age 65 to the end of their lives and of all those patients, one stood out and her name was Betsy. Betsy had big brown eyes and an even bigger smile, about 50 years old, mother of three girls, she had always struggled with the same 20 kilos now, at the time she was doing research on obesity, she was looking at body composition and brain function and I will never forget what I saw.

When I imagined Betsy's brain, it looked like the beginnings of an Alzheimer's brain and it reminded me of all the patients I saw on nursing home visits on weekends at the dementia award and I knew that one day Betsy was going to be there. You see, we failed Betsy. I failed Betsy. She had spent her entire life yo-yo dieting and had been told to reduce her calories. Another, she lost weight yes, of course, she lost weight and in that process she destroyed her metabolism, her

muscle

s and damaged her brain. Everyone kept telling me that this was just the standard of care, this is what the treatment was like, you know what that wasn't.

For me, that answer wasn't good enough, so I dove into research and realized that all of my sickest patients had one thing in common: they all had unhealthy muscles. Betsy was not too fat, she was not very muscular, now what I Love in life is the opportunity and the ability to help people fight for what is important to them and I want to share with you why I am fighting and why what I'm fighting for is muscle-centered medicine, muscle as the pinnacle of health now. Whatever you are fighting for, the more healthy muscle you have, the stronger your ability, the greater your energy, the better your ability to fight because muscle is the organ of longevity.

Now I will give you three strategies to maintain health. of your muscle, but before I do it I want to lay the foundation for you. 73 of adults are overweight or obese. Our health is in ruins because of our obsessive focus on body fat. How do we continue fighting? Why are there so many bets because obesity at its core is a disease of the muscle, we do not have a battle of the abdomen, what we have is a battle of the biceps. Now, if you don't understand this concept, you too will be struggling with those same 20 pounds for a lifetime that we need. changing the paradigm of medicine and thinking about muscle as medicine muscle is much more than looking good in a bikini, although that is an advantage, it is much more than athletic performance and movement.

Muscle is your metabolic sink and it is your body armor. Muscle is your site for energy metabolism, muscle will give you a boost, a robust immune system, now what happens to a lifetime of overeating and under-exercising? that metabolic sink, that skeletal muscle that is responsible for carbohydrate metabolism, fat burning, that sink gets clogged and your muscle looks like a marbled stake instead of a steak now we've been fighting the

wrong

battle for 50 years we've been fighting against obesity and for 50 years we have been getting worse today and together we are going to fix that the more healthy muscle mass you have, according to research It is clear that the greater your survival capacity against almost all diseases, which is very rare in medicine.

We also know that the main ways to support muscle health are resistance exercise and dietary protein. 23 percent of adults meet their exercise requirements. 23 Percent We know that as people age, muscle mass and strength decrease, resistance exercise offers us the closest thing to the Fountain of Youth. Someone told Betsy. If someone had given Betsy that advice to do resistance exercise, we could have improved her blood glucose level. We could improve it. metabolic markers we could have improved her blood pressure, no one gave that advice to Betsy, no one, including me, know that resistance exercise and dietary protein act synergistically protect muscle health, did you know that 40 percent of women Over 65 years old do not reach their average? daily protein requirements I recommend all my patients take 40 grams of high-quality protein at the first and last meal of the day.

Anything below that amount does not protect muscles in the same way that muscles are made of protein and I recommend high quality proteins that include lean meats, chicken, fish, eggs and dairy. Now you're probably hearing the narrative that we should reduce our consumption of high-quality protein. The unintended consequences of this will be devastating according to the USDA nutritional guidelines, from which we get 70 percent of our calories. processed foods processed grains and sugars we don't need a diet low in high quality protein what we need is a better diet that includes both plants and animals protein is not the problem it is the solution now this is a big fight . my fight and this is your fight this is our fight and this is our fight for muscle and that starts today I'm going to share with you three strategies but before I do it I want you to promise me something that I want you to promise to share Do it with Betsy in your life and then I want you to share it with three more people.

Resistance exercise number one three days a week, three days a week until you want to quit and then you'll continue. Number two, increase your high quality. protein number three increase your protein threshold at the first and last meal of the day now my vision for the future is for us to become advocates for our own health, to become physically and mentally strong and to take back control of the way we We grow old and we do it together, we don't all have to end up like Betsy and it's never too late to be Forever Strong together.