By: Anthony Campo
There are plenty of individuals entering into their middle aged years wondering why their physique has turned into a jello-like consistency. I have realized through the years that many individuals fall into a pattern that slowly but surely replace their lean mass with fat.
Let’s be honest, the vast majority of people are not on a nutritional and training plan that they stick to year round. Instead many people follow a pattern of letting themselves go for a period of time before having a traumatic realization that they have put on a few. They then frantically try to drop the weight by restricting their calories and doing steady state cardio.
Here in lies the problem. Without focusing on putting on muscle through learning proper resistance training and macro-nutrient partitioning then when the individual puts on weight it likely will be mostly fat.
Then the person attempts to lose weight without preserving lean mass through proper nutrient intake and training. They usually restrict their calories and do mostly steady state cardio (because they have been told to “eat less, move more”.) This results in weight loss that mostly consists of muscle.
So think about what we have going on here with this Yo-Yo pattern. On the surface the person may think they simply put on 5 lbs., then lost 5 lbs. Everything’s back to normal right?
WRONG! Actually what is happening is the person is gradually replacing muscle with fat over time. The end result after many years of doing this is a middle aged individual who may be the same weight as they were when they were younger, but at a far worse body composition. Once this has happened the person then wonders why they have all this extra flab.
The good news is that at any age you can slowly do just the opposite. If you lean proper eating and training habits then whenever you put on weight it will be mostly muscle, and whenever you lose weight it will be mostly fat. Do this consistently for years and you can dramatically improve your body composition.
In part II I will explain exactly how to do this.