The article failed to mention another huge benefit of protein - it makes you feel full for longer. Eating 2000 calories of carbs is super easy. Eating 2000 calories of chicken breast is painfully hard.
It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
11–20 of 123 posts
Re: It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
#12> The answer is less about age and more about lifestyle.
I’m at the point where my peers complain about getting older.[1] And I’ve started wondering how much of that is really about age and how much is the cumulative effects of “lifestyle”. I mean if you sit in a chair for ten years for 12 hours a day you’ve probably become “too old” for doing cartwheels. But it could be reversed, maybe. [1] Am I 25 or 50? Impossible to say in this climate of complaining.
Yeah, late 30’s with a bad hip from childhood illness and I still managed to shed 50 pounds and get stronger than ever after being very sedentary for years. Diet and exercise and no drugs (I’d for sure take Ozempic if it was affordable too). Just me, but I spent way too much time thinking I was getting old and I was wrong.
Re: It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
#13I do wonder if this study is confusing, at some level, cause and effect. Yes, I definitely understand the argument that people blame things on "my slowing metabolism", but then don't seem to notice that the requirements of middle age (e.g. full time job and especially folks with kids) can make it harder to get exercise.
At the same time, I don't have kids, and while I've stayed relatively active into middle age I've definitely noticed that it takes me much longer to recover after strenuous exercise than it did when I was younger. And so it's simply harder to stay as active, because my body is basically telling me "stop!" more often. It's already well documented that testosterone levels in men begin to decline starting in your thirties at about 1% a year, so I think skepticism is in order if researchers would claim that this reduction in testosterone levels would have no impact on activity level and metabolic rate.
Re: It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
#14You see this often with middle class city people in their late 20s and 30s. You go from being athletic in high school and walking all day in college to suddenly being in your prime dating age, regularly out eating and drinking with friends or dates, hitting 2-3 cocktails a few nights a week. You start investing more into your ultra-sedentary career, which you drive to, which constantly requires more of your time to g…
I don't think it's a s simple as inactivity. IF this were true, then being active would reverse the weight gains, but it does not, at least not for me and others. I was still as active in my 30s as I was in my late teens and 20s but still gained weight. Likewise, gyms are full of people in their 30s and 40s who are not losing weight despite regular attendance. Despite the popularity of fitness apps, people keep getting fatter. It is only GLP-1 drugs that has put some dent in obesity rates. I think metabolism or some other biological, non-environmental variable plays some role. Or some reduction of NEAT that cannot be explained by careers.
Re: It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
#15This is from 2021 and was widely reported at the time.
I see a lot of know-it-all comments, but the reality is they do not yet know why people gain weight in their middle age. No - the data doesn't show that it's merely due to being sedentary or changing diets.
Re: It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
#16> The answer is less about age and more about lifestyle.
That doesn't seem to be what the study they cited said though.
Basically the common model was that metabolism steadily declines with age (for adults). The study cited[1] says that doesn't match their data.
What they found was that metabolism was higher than expected for kids 1-20, stable for adults 21-60, and lower than expected for senior adults 60+. [2]
I don't want to say thresholds but you can look at the figures and see the rapid increase (0-1), decline (1-20), stability (21-60), and decline again (60+).
So age probably matters more to metabolism (than we thought) for some age groups but not for other age groups.
And I don't think there was really anything about lifestyle other than this bit:
> consistent with the hypothesis that energy intake is coupled to expenditure
But obviously that won't help anyone lose weight (which is usually what people are complaining about when they complain about an assumed slowing metabolism) cause it's saying people take in more calories when they burn more calories.
[1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017
[2] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/surprising-findings-abou...
Re: It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
#17You see this often with middle class city people in their late 20s and 30s. You go from being athletic in high school and walking all day in college to suddenly being in your prime dating age, regularly out eating and drinking with friends or dates, hitting 2-3 cocktails a few nights a week. You start investing more into your ultra-sedentary career, which you drive to, which constantly requires more of your time to g…
I don't think it's a s simple as inactivity. IF this were true, then being active would reverse the weight gains, but it does not, at least not for me and others. I was still as active in my 30s as I was in my late teens and 20s but still gained weight. Likewise, gyms are full of people in their 30s and 40s who are not losing weight despite regular attendance. Despite the popularity of fitness apps, people keep getti…
Counterpoint - everyone I know who counts calories is able to either lose or gain weight roughly according to their plan.
This is borne out in essentially every sport which has weight classes at both the amateur and professional level.
Part of becoming healthy is calibrating yourself against other healthy individuals. No, not genetic freaks, just that neighbour who actually looks after themselves.
Re: It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
#18You see this often with middle class city people in their late 20s and 30s. You go from being athletic in high school and walking all day in college to suddenly being in your prime dating age, regularly out eating and drinking with friends or dates, hitting 2-3 cocktails a few nights a week. You start investing more into your ultra-sedentary career, which you drive to, which constantly requires more of your time to g…
I don't think it's a s simple as inactivity. IF this were true, then being active would reverse the weight gains, but it does not, at least not for me and others. I was still as active in my 30s as I was in my late teens and 20s but still gained weight. Likewise, gyms are full of people in their 30s and 40s who are not losing weight despite regular attendance. Despite the popularity of fitness apps, people keep getti…
As a counter-anecdote, I dramatically increased my exercise at 29, and reversed the weight gain I'd had slowly creeping over my 20s, and now in my 30s am at my lowest weight ans best physical shape since at least my mid-teens, possibly ever.
Re: It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
#19You see this often with middle class city people in their late 20s and 30s. You go from being athletic in high school and walking all day in college to suddenly being in your prime dating age, regularly out eating and drinking with friends or dates, hitting 2-3 cocktails a few nights a week. You start investing more into your ultra-sedentary career, which you drive to, which constantly requires more of your time to g…
In a sense I am thankful I graduated into the covid lockdowns. It made this dramatic change obvious to me, and I made a similarly dramatic change in my diet. I went from literally having a buffet every meal in college to having a cup of coffee for breakfast, and what I would consider a normal sized meal for dinner. I realized after about 2 years of this that I was borderline under-weight, so I decided to start eating more. It was a struggle to gain weight, but now I am at a much healthier weight.
My extended family does not understand how I have not been gaining weight while I work from home. The truth is I simply do not eat more than I need to.
Re: It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
#20I wonder if employers will be more receptive to regular breaks for knowledge workers who are mostly sedentary. One befits of working from home before being mandated back to the office was being able to go on a walk during lunch and less-critical meetings.
I always went on walks in the middle of the day at my office job. A quarter of the time I would bring a colleague, particularly from a different group but whom I would still interface with.