A lot of people are frustrated about gaining weight after age 40, 50, or 60…
It’s an especially awful feeling if you’re sincerely making an effort to stop the creep, but to no avail.
But there’s something even worse than this “middle age spread” or “menopause belly” problem (the creeping body fat).
I call it “The disuse syndrome.”
What is disuse syndrome?
The scientists have a fancy word for it – “sarcopenia.”
It’s the the way men and women lose muscle – automatically – as they age.
But that technical term doesn’t tell you what it really is.
The simple definition of Disuse syndrome is exactly what it sounds like: Don’t use it (your muscle) and you lose it.
If you’re not using it (your muscle), consistently, year after year, you may have a problem.
Disuse syndrome is killing people. And the scariest part is that it’s killing people slowly.
Most people have no idea that you may start losing muscle mass automatically as early as in your 30s if you don’t do the right type of exercise to maintain your muscle.
This creeping muscle loss continues through the 4th and 5th decade, and sometimes it’s not noticed that much until around 60, when it really starts to accelerate and you see it and feel it (when it’s affecting your life in a really bad way).
In late life, it can get so bad, the consequences are frailty, brittle bones, losing mobility, losing even basic daily functions, needing a walker or wheelchair, and putting a burden on family or depending on caregivers.
What happened to my family, and myself these past few years is what made me decide to start talking about this again. And it won’t be the last time.
Mom got her diagnosis of Alzheimers from a neurologist 5 years ago. The memory loss was gradual at first. Just forgetfulness, and failing a cognitive test.
Then the first major thing to go was her ability to cook.
Then she didn’t know what day it was.
The slow decline continued, and then it sped up earlier this year…
She lost all short term memory. All of it. She’d eat breakfast and 30 minutes later say, I didn’t get anything to eat. 5 minutes later sometimes. Then repeat that all day long.
Then she forgot our names.
She knows we’re “friendlies”, but it’s been a couple months since she looked at me and said, “Tom” or even asked my name. Today she referred to dad as “that guy.”
Then there was increasing confusion and less ability to communicate coherently.
She started declining physically too. Shuffling instead of walking, getting unsteady on her feet.
I was on my MacBook writing the Friday blog post when I heard a faint, “help, help!” She was in her room, door closed. She hadn’t fallen, but she had knelt down to look for Max the cat under the bed. She couldn’t get up off the floor.
Then it DID happen.
I woke up on a Saturday morning and she was holding her arm saying, “It hurts, it hurts!” I saw her grossly swollen wrist, then turned her arm a little and her whole forearm was black and blue and purple.
I rushed her to emergency. They took X rays. Doctor confirmed it. It was broken. Surgical level break. But the doc explained how at her age, surgery is iffy.
I’m not even going to talk about how hard it was to watch her getting those bones set (they call it “reduction”). Only consolation is I knew she wouldn’t remember it later.
We didn’t see the accident happen, was probably middle of the night, but we’re pretty sure she fell at the bottom of the stairs. My guess is, her leg gave out after missing the last step.
It was a colles’ fracture, the kind where you fall forward on your hand and your wrist bends backwards. Snaps. Of course, it had to be her dominant arm. Leftie.
In a young person with strong bones and strong muscles, it’s sometimes just a bad sprain. But this break is very common in older women with osteoporosis and weak muscles.
That’s just the start of the story, I won’t get into details of what it was like for me the 6 weeks she was in a cast through September and October, except this:
I didn’t have a single night of real sleep in that month in a half.
When someone with advanced dementia is in a cast, they don’t remember it being put on. So she woke up every 20 or 30 minutes through the night, crying, “Help! What is this thing? This wasn’t here when I went to bed! Who put this on me?
And then it continued, all day long…. For weeks.
And in the two days before I had the pet/child gate put up in front of the stairs, I pulled all nighters watching to make sure she didn’t go down and fall again.
All this time, my dad, also 87, was declining too. He was almost 150 pounds a year ago. Already a little underweight.
In July 2024 he was 129. At his doctor check up a few weeks ago, down to 125. Frail. Gaunt. So little leg strength, hard to even get in and out of a car seat. Hard to pour from a full jug of milk. Not even a gallon – even just a small jug.
Earlier he’d started suffering from dizziness when standing. He called it “vertigo.” Doctor said the cause was his blood pressure drops when standing up.
When that happened, he stopped his previously religious 30 minutes on the treadmill every day, and his other exercise (just a little bit of resistance training). He was sleeping excessively, including hours of naps in morning and afternoon.
His muscle wasting correlated almost exactly with the timing of him stopping exercise and being in bed well over half of every day. At an active 86, he was doing pretty good for that age. At a sedentary 87, there was a rapid decline.
This is an example of disuse syndrome that hits too close to home for me.
And I’m feeling some guilt about it too.
Some readers might remember 4 years ago me talking about how I had my then 83 year old mom doing legit resistance training and was proud of it. She was even doing squats with a dumbbell (even with two knee replacements).
And I stopped helping her with workouts. And I can’t stop wondering, if my moms legs were just a little stronger maybe she wouldn’t have fallen. And what if I had pushed my dad to keep doing some kind of exercise, anything?
I’m telling you, I believe, and right this minute more than ever, that one of the most important things every man and woman can do, through our entire lives, from our very youngest years, to our very final years, is to USE IT. If you don’t, you will lose it.
And specifically, I’m talking about resistance training. Strength training. Weight training. I’m not saying skip cardio. I’m just saying resistance training first priority.
If you never started, start, regardless of your age. If you lifted before and stopped, re-start. Once you start, please don’t stop. Don’t be a disuse syndrome victim.
Resistance training is so vital, not just so people can look muscular, but for a long health span with a high quality of life.
That is one of the reasons I’ve worked hard to make our website Burn The Fat Inner Circle not just the body transformation challenge and fat loss support community we are best known for, but also one of the best resources to get your resistance training programs to help you build muscle…
If you’re a member, I hope you’ll keep on pumping and tell all your friends and loved ones to keep doing the same… share this article… invite them to join us here in the circle too.
If you’re not a member, and if you want help with resistance training, then as I always do, I invite you to join us.
You’ll not only be part of the support community, but also you’ll be getting access to 20 complete training programs, including programs for every level of experience.
I’ll be looking for you on the Inner Circle forums, and thank you to everyone who sent support already and thanks in advance to everyone else who does as well.
==> Join Us At Burn The Fat Inner Circle Support Community
Sincerely,
-Tom Venuto,
Author of Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle
Founder of Burn the Fat Inner Circle
Leave A Comment