What if I told you that everything you’ve heard about obesity is wrong? What if I told you that we don’t have an obesity epidemic. But what we really have is a midlife muscle crisis.
The defining moment came for me when I was doing my geriatric and nutritional science fellowship at Washington University. In my time in clinical practice, I’ve seen thousands of patients from overweight to obese, 65 years up, and to the end of their life. And out of all those patients, one one stood out, and her name was Betsy.
Betsy had big brown eyes and an even bigger smile in her mid fifties, a mother of three girls. She’d always struggled with the same 20 pounds. Now at the time, I was doing obesity research. I was looking at body composition and brain function. And I will never forget what I saw when I imaged Betsy’s brain. It looked like the beginning of an Alzheimer’s brain. And it reminded me of all of the patients that I was seeing on the nursing home rounds on the weekends in the dementia ward. And I knew that one day Betsy was gonna be there.
You see, We failed Betsy. I failed Betsy. She had spent a lifetime yo yo dieting. Being told to cut back calories, focus on fat, focus on the pathology of fat, rather than building and maintaining the health of her skeletal muscle. And she traded one problem for another. Did she lose weight? Yes. Of course, she lost weight.
And in that process, she destroyed her metabolism, her muscle, and damaged her brain.
Everybody kept telling me this was just the standard of care. This was just how treatment went. Well, you know what? That wasn’t good enough for me. That answer wasn’t good enough. So I dove into the research and I realized that all of my sickest patients had one thing in common. They all had unhealthy muscles. Betsy was not over fat. She was under muscled.
Now what I love in life is the opportunity and the ability to help people fight for what’s important to them. And I, I wanna share with you what I’m fighting for.
And what I’m fighting for is muscle centric medicine. Muscle. as the pinnacle to health. Now whatever it is that you’re fighting for, The more healthy muscle you have, the stronger your capacity, the greater your energy, The better your ability to fight because muscle is the organ of longevity.
Now, I’m gonna give you 3 strategies for maintaining the health of your muscles. But before I do, I wanna lay the foundation for you. 73% of adults are either overweight or obese.
Our health is in shambles. because of our obsessive focus on body fat. How are we still struggling? Why are there so many Betzies? Because obesity at its core is a disease of the muscle. We don’t have a battle of the belly.
What we have is a battle of the biceps.
Now if you fail to understand this concept, you too will be struggling with those same twenty pounds for a lifetime. We need to change the paradigm of medicine and think about muscle as medicine.
Muscle is so much more than looking good in a bikini. Although, that’s a plus.
It’s so 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 and augment a robust immune system.
Now what happens from 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 up. and your muscle looks like a marbled steak rather than a fillet.
Now We have been fighting the wrong battle for 50 years. We have been fighting obesity. And for 50 years, we’ve been getting worse. Today and together, we are gonna fix that.
The more healthy muscle mass you have, the research is clear. the greater your survivability against nearly every disease. That is very rare to be able to say medicine. We also know that the primary ways to support muscle health, our resistance exercise, and dietary protein.
23% of adults are meeting their exercise requirements, 23%.
We know that as individuals age, muscle mass, strength, decline. Resistance exercise offers us the closest thing to the fountain of youth that we have.
Now Had somebody told Betsy, had somebody given Betsy’s advice to do resistance exercise? We could have improved her blood glucose. We could have improved her metabolic markers. We could have improved her blood pressure. Nobody gave Betsy that advice. Nobody, including myself.
We know that resistance exercise and dietary protein acts synergistically to protect muscle health. So did you know that 40% of women over the age of sixty five don’t meet their average daily requirements for protein.
I recommend all my patients have 40 grams, a high quality protein at that first and last meal of the day. Anything below that amount does not protect muscle in the same way.
Muscle is made from protein. And I recommend high quality protein, which include lean meats, chicken, fish, eggs, and dairy. Now you’re probably hearing the narrative that we should cut back on our high quality protein.
The unintended consequences of this will be devastating. According to the USDA nutritional guidelines, We’re getting 70% of our calories from processed foods, processed grains, and sugars. We don’t need a diet that is lower 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. This is my fight. and this is your fight. This is our fight. And this is our fight for muscle? and that begins today. I’m gonna share with you 3 strategies. But before I do, I want you to promise me something. I want you to promise to share it with the Betsy in your life. And then I want you to share it with 3 more people.
Number 1. Resistance exercise. 3 days a week 3 days a week, till you wanna quit, and then you’re gonna keep going.
Number 2. increase your high quality protein.
Number 3. Increase your protein threshold at that first and last meal of the day.
Now my vision for the future is that we become advocates for our own health, that we become physically and mentally strong and that we take back control of the way we age, 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.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
