Keep Moving!
Staying strong and mobile is key to long-term bone health. Now, there’s a simple eating plan that can help.
By Stephen Perrine, with Heidi Skolnik
A few years back, AARP surveyed adults fifty and older about their top health concerns.
The responses named many of the usual suspects: cancer, dementia and Alzheimer’s, vision loss, heart disease, and stroke. They’re the big, scary things that doctors have been warning us about from the moment we got our first cholesterol test.
But the number one health concern of older people isn’t one of those well-publicized conditions. It’s just as scary, but something doctors don’t really talk to us about: losing mobility. Thirty percent of those surveyed listed it among their top concerns, while an additional 14 percent listed falls and injuries. And losing mobility isn’t a worry just for the oldest among us. It’s the number one health concern among people ages fifty to fifty- nine. And that makes sense: Studies show that the speed at which we walk, known as our “gait speed,” starts to decline in our mid-fifties, while our “fast gait speed”—essentially, how quickly we can go when we’re really hustling—starts declining in our mid-forties.
Our fears are justified. Every eleven seconds, an older adult goes to an emergency department to treat an injury from a fall, according to the National Council on Aging, and every nineteen minutes, an older adult dies from a fall. It turns out that among older Americans, falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries requiring hospitalization.
Mobility is a vulnerable asset, and its loss isn’t always sudden. It starts with a creaky knee or a painful hip or an achy shoulder, and we learn to live with it, and adjust. But over time those accommodations to age pile up, until we’re no longer engaging in the physical activities we once enjoyed, whether it’s tennis or basketball or jogging or just gardening or taking long walks on the beach. It’s often because we’ve gained weight in midlife, which takes a particular toll on the lower back, hips, and knees.
The lack of movement increases our risk of weight gain, which makes us even less mobile. Studies show that a body mass index over 30 increases an older person’s risk of falling by as much as 78 percent.
That’s why, when we set out to write The Whole Body Reset, we made regaining mobility, and preserving what you have, one of the core goals of our nutrition program. The Whole Body Reset lays out some easy-to-follow tenets—six simple steps reducing age-related muscle loss, reversing age-related weight gain, and preserving muscle health, bone health, and mobility.
1. Eat at least 25 grams of protein at each meal (for women; 30 for men) to prevent age-related muscle loss.
2. Enjoy fortified dairy foods 2-3 times a day, to ensure you’re getting the calcium your bones need to stay strong.
3. Eat colorful fruits and vegetables at every meal and snack, to reduce inflammation.
4. Aim for at least 5 grams of fiber at each meal, to improve gut health and control hunger.
5. Enjoy more healthy fats, like omega-3 fatty acids, and fruit and nut oils from olives and avocados.
6. Avoid calorie- and chemical-laden drinks—both are linked to obesity—and drink plenty of healthy beverages like water, tea and coffee.
By stopping age-related weight gain, you’ll directly impact your mobility by reducing strain on your joints. By reducing inflammation, you’ll significantly reduce your risk of joint pain. And by improving your overall health through both diet and exercise, you’ll take back control of your gait, your balance . . . and your life.
Adapted with permission from The Whole Body Reset: Your Weight-Loss Plan for a Flat Belly, Optimum Health, and a Body You’ll Love—at Midlife and Beyond by Stephen Perrine with Heidi Skolnik, published by Simon & Schuster Inc.