Do you know how many muscles you have? According to scientists, that number comes in at around 650 to 700 — all enabling you to walk, run, jump, lift, reach, hug, and perform thousands of actions throughout the day. Pretty important stuff. Unfortunately, many of us will lose up to 30 percent of our muscle mass during our lifetime as a natural part of aging. However, there are steps we can take to slow that progression.
4 Tips on Maintaining Muscle Mass, Strength and Overall Health
1. Stay active. As part of your everyday activities, choose opportunities to walk, take the stairs and simply move more. Park further from the grocery store. Pick an activity like gardening. Take walks after dinner. And if you find that you're sitting behind a desk for hours at a time, periodically stand up to stretch, walk and move to avoid being overly sedentary.
2. Lift weights or perform muscle resistance exercises. Lifting weights doesn't mean you'll start developing the muscles of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not even close. However, regularly lifting 5, 10, 15 pound weights — or whatever you're comfortable with — will help you strengthen your muscles. Make sure you talk to your physician first before starting any exercise program.
3. Choose healthier food options. Healthy muscles also are developed from the inside out. By maintaining a diet of lean meats, plenty of leafy green vegetables, fruits, and other nutritious choices, you're better able to fend off chronic diseases such as diabetes, which can lead to decreased muscle mass.
4. Take supplements. If your diet is regularly lacking, you may need to take a multivitamin as a supplement to get to the recommended daily allowances of vitamins and minerals. A magnesium supplement also can help support the healthy function of the muscles, as well as the heart and nervous system.
Maintaining healthy habits on a regular basis, through exercise, diet and staying active, you can take steps to slow down the aging process.
Looking for a magnesium supplement? A regular dose of Wonder Lab's Timed-Release Enteric Coated Magnesium Supplement with (Calcium Sugar and Starch Free) provides 32 percent of the recommended daily allowance for magnesium.
