A Solution to Age-Related Weight Gain Take on Today

A Solution to Age-Related Weight Gain

Author Stephen Perrine talks about his new book ' The Whole Body Reset'

AARP

Wilma Consul: Hi, I'm Wilma Consul with an AARP Take On Today. Wilma Consul: Many of us struggle with weight gain as we age. You may be eating healthfully and exercising just as much, but you're still gaining weight. Science has learned that this happens not because your metabolism is slower, but that something else is going on. Wilma Consul: This week, we're discussing a weight loss plan for those at midlife and beyond, through a way of eating called protein timing. To explain how this all works, we talked to Stephen Perrine, Executive Editor for AARP the Magazine and the AARP Bulletin. He's also the Editor-In-Chief of AARP's newsletter, The Arrow. At this cool job, he also oversees health and wellness coverage. The writer of more than a dozen best-sellers on nutrition, Perrine has written a new book he co-authored with Heidi Skolnik, former nutritionist for the New York Giants, Knicks and the Mets. It's called the Whole Body Reset. Thanks for joining us, Stephen. Stephen Perrine: Thank you, Wilma. I'm so glad to be here. Wilma Consul: Well, the title of your book, The Whole Body Reset, what is it that really needs resetting? Stephen Perrine: Well, I like to tell people that earlier in your life, you were driving sort of a pretty good kind of, beat up old pickup that, it was fast, it was fun, but you've graduated to a sports coupe. You've graduated to a much higher level of sports car as you've gotten older. And because of that, you need to put in high premium fuel, if you want it to perform well. We think of ourselves as we get older as, "Oh, well, okay. I can't do some of the things that I used to do," or, "I can't look the way I used to look, that weight gain is inevitable. That muscle loss is inevitable." And what's terrific about the new research that's come out over the past year or so and that we talk about in The Whole body Reset, is that's not correct. In fact, we can actually hold onto a lot of our physical ability and our health as we get older, simply by changing the way that we eat, by eating in a way that primes our bodies to perform. Wilma Consul: Now, this is what you call the power of protein timing, correct? Stephen Perrine: Exactly. So as we get older, our ability to turn protein into muscle is diminished. So if you were to make a muscle, flex your arm, make a muscle, feel that bicep right there- Wilma Consul: I'm flexing my arm. Stephen Perrine: Yeah. Don't do of this, if you're driving. But otherwise, okay. That represents about 5% of our overall muscle mass. Stephen Perrine: That bicep, flex that bicep, that's about 5% of the muscle mass in your body. That's also how much you lose every decade after age 30. So the reason we lose muscle as we age, there are a few different reasons, but one of the primary ones is that we have difficulty turning protein into muscle. So as we get older and we lose muscle, we lose the ability to burn additional calories because muscle is very biologically active. We lose the ability to store excess blood sugar because it's stored in the form of glycogen in our muscles, so that puts us at risk for obesity and diabetes. And we lose the ability to fight back against inflammation because inflammation is fat's friend and muscle's enemy. Stephen Perrine: So if you can stop the process of losing muscle, you can stop the process of age related weight gain. You can also protect yourself from a number of diseases. In fact, studies show that people who retain the most muscle as they get older, are less likely to develop obesity and diabetes, but also heart disease, also Alzheimer's, and about 25 other major diseases that we associate with aging. So stopping this muscle loss process is so crucial. The way that we do it is through protein timing, which essentially means eating protein throughout the day, so that we're constantly punching that protein, make muscle button. Wilma Consul: Okay. So I eat three meals a day, plus a snack or two, explain how some people eat less. Some people eat more. What's the deal on how many times we should eat during the day with this protein timing? Stephen Perrine: Well, the great news about this is that it's not a big change in the way most people eat. Most of us actually eat the right amount of protein throughout the day, about 90 grams. Most of us eat three meals a day, so that's good. The problem comes when we eat less protein in the morning and more at night. So the average American has only about 10 grams of protein for breakfast. So maybe you have a bowl of oatmeal with some fruit. Does that sound like a healthy breakfast? Would your cardiologist be happy with you? Wilma Consul: Well, maybe they might think that oatmeal is good, right? It's fiber. Stephen Perrine: You get some fruit in there. Wilma Consul: Yeah. Stephen Perrine: The problem is you're only getting about six grams of protein. Wilma Consul: And we need, what, 25 or so? Stephen Perrine: We need 25, if you're a woman, 30, if you're a man. A little bit more if you're a linebacker, a little bit less, if you're a ballerina. But in that general realm. If someone 50 above does not get 25 to 30 grams of protein at breakfast, they will be in muscle loss mode all day long, regardless of what they have for lunch, regardless of what they have for dinner. So in our standard American diet, we're setting ourselves up for muscle loss even though we're eating enough total protein throughout the day, because on average, we eat about 60 grams of protein at night. Wilma Consul: So let's talk about this. You talk about the oatmeal. What should people add? What should we add there? I'm thinking maybe nuts and I think milk, if you use milk. Stephen Perrine: Sure. In The Whole Body Reset, we actually show you how you can prepare oatmeal in a way that will give you 25 plus grams of protein, instead of cooking in water, cook it in milk, add in some peanut butter, some hemp seeds, as well as some nuts. And then top it with fruit and you'll get up to 25 grams of protein. Or you could have some Greek yogurt with nuts and berries. You could have some cottage cheese, you could have some whole grain toast topped with peanut butter and avocado and/or avocado, both of which are rich in protein and fiber. Stephen Perrine: You could make a protein smoothie. We've got about a dozen great, delicious, amazing protein smoothie recipes. They're essentially protein delivery systems that come in chocolate. And each of these is a great and delicious and easy option for scoring a breakfast that's going to give you that muscle making ability that you need. We even have breakfast that you can get at fast food restaurants or at chain restaurants. You can go to your local diner and successfully eat a whole body reset meal. It's very, very easy. It's very, very effective and its delicious. Wilma Consul: Okay. So you said proteins will help with the muscle loss. What's the role of exercise in gaining muscle or preventing muscle loss? Stephen Perrine: Well what's interesting, not to beat up on the doctors, again, but if you go to your doctor and he says to you, he or she says to you, "What are you doing for exercise?" And you say, "Well, I bike a couple times a week and I walk every day." They're going to be like, "That's terrific." But a doctor if seldom, if ever is going to ask you, "What are you doing to preserve muscle mass?" And unfortunately running, jogging, biking, hiking, while they're very good for fighting inflammation, for keeping your mind sharp, for doing a lot of great things for our health, they don't to help protect muscle. Stephen Perrine: So we ask people to go ahead and add in some resistance exercises as well. Now that could be simply weightlifting. I like to go to the gym and pick things up and put things down. But maybe you don't like that. Maybe you want to try yoga or Pilates or calisthenics. We have in the book, a whole series of exercises you can do without a gym, without a trainer, without any equipment. It's all body weight and we have beginner, intermediate and advanced workouts. So there's a lot of ways that you can test your muscles and help to preserve them as you get older. Wilma Consul: So Steve is this plan just for weeks months, or is this a total lifestyle change? Stephen Perrine: It's a lifestyle change. So one of the issues that we face when we try to lose weight through a traditional diet, well, the thing is that most diets will help you lose weight. If you want to do paleo or keto or intermittent fasting, or the grapefruit diet or the eggplant and octopus only diet, whatever the fad is, you are going to lose weight because you're restricting when you can eat, you're restricting calories, you're naturally going to lose weight, for a short period of time. The problem is, much of the weight you're going to lose is muscle mass, not fat. So when you lose that muscle mass in that short term diet, and then you go back to your normal life, what's happened is you've lowered the number of calories that your body burns every day, because you don't have as much muscle as you did before you did the diet. Stephen Perrine: In fact, the number one risk factor for future weight gain is being on a diet right now. So we don't consider this to be a diet in any way. It's not the kind of thing we want you to do for a certain period of time. There are no phases. There are no restrictions. There's no only eating at this hour or on this day, only eating protein or only eating carbs or only eating fat. It's none of that. Whatever your favorite food is, whatever your favorite restaurant is, whatever your favorite family recipe is, you can eat it on this program. What we're doing is showing you how to eat your favorite foods in a slightly different way to make sure that you're moving protein towards the beginning of the day, preserving that muscle and putting an end to the risk of age related weight gain. Wilma Consul: Before I go outside of protein here, is there such a thing as eating too much protein? Some protein, people think it's meat. So can you eat too much of protein? Stephen Perrine: If you really put your mind to it, you can eat too much protein, it is possible. But again, what this program is about, is about eating the same amount of protein as the average American eats every single day. This is not a high protein diet. It's an adequate protein diet in which you're eating about the same amount of protein as you eat now, you're just pushing more of that protein towards the first half of the day, to make sure that your day is in muscle gain mode. When people eat that big meal at night and they have that 16 ounce steak, or even an eight ounce steak, they could be getting 50, 60 grams of protein. In fact, the average American 60 grams of protein at dinner, that's way too much. Our bodies can't handle that much. The most you can possibly process at a time is probably about 40 grams. So when you eat all that protein at night, guess what your body has to do, turn it into fat. What else can it do? It can't turn it into muscle. Wilma Consul: Okay. Your book also takes a special look at sugar and how it impacts brain health. What is the connection between the two? Stephen Perrine: Well, when you eat more sugar, you raise inflammation. When you raise inflammation, you raise your risk of just about every disease that's out there, including dementia and brain related health risks. So again, I've said we don't want to restrict your favorite foods. What we want to do is add in as much of the good stuff as possible so that you're not hungry and you're not feeling the need to grab a candy bar because you're starving and you don't have any time to eat. So that means eating, not just protein, but eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. Studies show that people who eat the most fruits and vegetables retain the most muscle as they age, that's in part because fruits and vegetables fight inflammation, inflammation is fat's friend, inflammation is muscles enemy. We're also talking about eating plenty of healthy fiber, staying hydrated throughout the day. Stephen Perrine: Because as people age, their ability to sense when they're thirsty is actually diminished, which is why Americans don't drink as much fluids as they should. But avoiding specifically, sugary beverages and chemically laced beverages like diet sodas, because those have been linked to obesity. There's also a little trick that's in the book that really helps with grocery shopping, for example. How do you tell if a food is healthy or not? One hack that I like to use is you look at the nutrition label and a nutrition label will tell you how many grams of protein is in the food. It'll tell you how many grams of fiber is in the food. Add those two together. Now look at the added sugars line. Is it greater or less than that number? If your protein and fiber combined are greater than added sugars, you've almost certainly got a healthy food. If added sugars are greater, probably not as healthy. Wilma Consul: Now, looking at your career. I see you've been covering health and nutrition for many, many years. What made you focus on this subject? Stephen Perrine: Well, it came about originally because our executive director, Myrna Blyth said to me, "You've had a lot of success with diet books in the past, is there something you could do for AARP along these lines?" And I said, "Sure, I'll look into it." When I started doing the research, Wilma, I was stunned at what I didn't know. After 25 years reporting on nutrition, I was stunned by what I didn't know about how our bodies age and how our nutritional needs change and how the way we eat has to change. Stephen Perrine: The science in The Whole Body Reset is not primarily brand new science. It's well established science. Its not in any way controversial. It's how people who study nutrition and aging suggest we eat. The crazy thing is that despite the fact that this is so well established and accepted in the medical community, nobody knows about it. And that's because the diet industry is so busy, pitching us instant weight loss, or shredded abs in three days or whatever kind of crazy new gimmick, that they're not giving us the information we need to eat and stay healthy as we get older. Wilma Consul: Well, Steph it has been a pleasure talking to you. I learned a lot, so thank you. Stephen Perrine: Thanks Wilma. I really appreciate the opportunity. Wilma Consul: Stephen Perrine is the Executive Editor for AARP The Magazine and AARP Bulletin. He's also Editor-In-Chief of AARP's newsletter, The Arrow. His latest book written with Heidi Skolnik is called, The Whole Body Reset. It's now available for purchase. You can also find more information at aarp.org/wholebodyreset. Wilma Consul: That's it for today's show. You can find more resources in the show notes. If you like this episode, please let us know by emailing us at . Thanks to our news team producers, Colby Nelson and Daniel Alarcon, production assistant Lindsey Johnson, engineer Julio Gonzalez, executive producer Jason Young, and my co-hosts Bob Edwards and Mike Ellison. Become a subscriber on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Stitcher or other apps, and be sure to rate our show us well. For an AARP Take On Today, I'm Wilma Consul. Thank you for listening. Many of us struggle with weight gain as we age. You may be eating healthy and exercising just as much, but you’re still gaining weight. Science has learned that this happens not because your metabolism is slower — something else is going on. On today’s show, Stephen Perrine, author of the new book, , explains how extra protein, eaten at the right time, could be the solution that can keep fat off and muscle on. Plus: Register for It's a free online festival with friends old and new. This 3-day virtual event will be filled with celebrity chats — Tina Fey and Amy Poehler; Dolly Parton, James Patterson and Louise Penny; Valerie Bertinelli; Sanjay Gupta, M.D.; and Ty Pennington, a special screening of the movie Forrest Gump, and a live Motown dance party with the Commodores, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Gloria Gaynor. Reserve your spot today — and get ready to party with AARP! Subscribe:

How to Listen and Subscribe to Take on Today Podcast

iPhone or iPad Open the , search for the show title and select it from the list of results. Once on the show page, click the "Subscribe" button to have new episodes sent to your phone or tablet for free. Click the name of an episode from the list below to listen. Android Phone or Tablet Open the , search for the show title and select it from the list of results. Once on the show page, click the "Subscribe" button to have new episodes sent to your phone or tablet for free. Click the name of an episode from the list below to listen. To play podcasts on your Amazon Echo smart speaker, ask the following: "Alexa, ask TuneIn to play Take on Today podcast" OR "Alexa, play Take on Today podcast on TuneIn" To play podcasts on your Google Home smart speaker, ask the following: "Hey Google, play Take on Today podcast"
Cancel You are leaving AARP.org and going to the website of our trusted provider. The provider’s terms, conditions and policies apply. Please return to AARP.org to learn more about other benefits. Your email address is now confirmed. You'll start receiving the latest news, benefits, events, and programs related to AARP's mission to empower people to choose how they live as they age. You can also by updating your account at anytime. You will be asked to register or log in. Cancel Offer Details Disclosures

Close In the next 24 hours, you will receive an email to confirm your subscription to receive emails related to AARP volunteering. Once you confirm that subscription, you will regularly receive communications related to AARP volunteering. In the meantime, please feel free to search for ways to make a difference in your community at Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again.