Muscle Loss Starts Earlier Than You Think, Here’s What Stops It

[madman]

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Dr. Stuart Phillips is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Skeletal Muscle Health in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University. He has over 400 original research papers studying how nutrition and exercise affect muscle growth. In this episode, Dr. Phillips debunks myths around protein, exercise, muscle & aging. He explains why sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss) begins decades earlier than most people think, the ideal protein intake to maintain & gain muscle, how GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic affect muscle, and why lifting weights doesn’t make women bulky.

• How much protein you actually need to build muscle, and why “more is always better” is wrong
• Why muscle is one of the few tissues that can still grow and get stronger in your 90s
• What anabolic resistance is, and why exercise, not more protein, is what makes aging muscle responsive again
• The real risk GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy pose to muscle, and how to protect it while taking one
• Why the “lifting weights makes women bulky” myth is not supported by decades of research
• Whether you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time
• The minimum effective dose of strength training that actually works (two days a week, as little as 10 to 15 minutes)
• Why the “weightlifting stunts kids’ growth” myth persists, and what the evidence actually shows
• His honest take on creatine, vitamin D, red light therapy, cold plunging, NAD+, resveratrol, and peptides, what’s worth it and what’s hype

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Timestamps:

0:00 Why muscle is having a moment
2:43 When muscle loss actually starts (it’s earlier than you think)
7:20 Why muscle can still grow in your 90s
10:30 The real protein intake number: why the RDA is too low
17:31 Anabolic resistance explained (the wood-to-stone analogy)
25:53 Resistance training guidelines to gain or maintain muscle at any age
55:11 Will lifting weights make you bulky?
57:37 GLP-1 drugs and the real risk to muscle
87:17 NAD+ and resveratrol: did the hype hold up?
105:41 Can you build muscle and lose fat at the same time?