Maintaining muscle mass

Puffy eyes for sleepless nights due to jet lag, dead toe nails for excessive walking, dry skin and hair due to extremely cold weather, irregular bowel movements because of foreign types of food in the digestive system - these are but some of the adjustments my body went through during my travel to Paris and Rome! But I am not complaining. I had such a great time strolling, exploring and eating in these wonderful cities!


Although I may have met my daily physical activity level in terms of walking (I think I did more than 10,000 steps a day!), I failed to do my usual load-bearing exercises because I was always on the move. I wanted to make the most of my limited time to see old and new friends in these two very rich cities (historically and culturally speaking). Besides my busy schedule, the winter season was a big challenge for mobility! I initially had stiff hips and legs and poor control over my body movements. I didn’t realize how tough it was to exercise in such a cold environment. But I know that excuses are unacceptable!


Two weeks after dropping my whole exercise routine, I am finding it difficult to return to my workout. With all the holiday festivities during Christmas and New Year (great food and wine, late nights, reunions with balikbayan relatives), I am all the more tempted to put exercise on hold. But the more I delay, the more I come to realize the truthfulness in one training principle called “reversibility.” What does it say?


Let’s take for instance, when you don’t turn on the engine of your car and you leave it parked over a period of time, eventually the engine will not work properly. In the same manner, if we don’t use our muscles, bones, lungs and heart, we lose their normal functional ability. They naturally deteriorate. Another example is when you get a leg injury and you immobilize the injured leg (ex. use of orthopedic cast), over time, that body part will no longer function correctly. Then after a month, when you finally remove the cast, what do you notice? The leg that was encased got thinner. It’s not because of the cast but because the injured leg has not been used and so the muscles shrunk. What happened to the non-injured leg? It became bigger because it compensated for the injured leg by carrying all the weight of the body.

To be more visual, if you look at the skin of very old people, notice how their wrinkled skin waves when they wave at you? Why? Because of muscle loss. Because of lack of exercise and the natural aging process, the muscles shrink. That’s why for the young and elderly alike, it is important to do resistance training to keep muscles toned and better bone density (more resistance training or load-bearing activities means increasing bone density). So if you are exercising on a regular basis, you will start to gain muscles, become stronger and be more flexible. When you become injured or when you travel and you start to become lazy, what will happen? Whatever you gain, you will lose - which is exactly what happened to me! When I decide to go back to exercise, I know I will have to start again at a low level and then gradually build up. I cannot workout at the same intensity right away because I already lost my strength.

Good thing that anyone can, in fact, prevent the speed of atrophy. In her book, “Fitness after 40,” orthopedic surgeon Vonda Wright writes, “… although muscles can deteriorate with time, studies show muscle atrophy is reversible at any age.” I may be too occupied or too chained to my desk or business travels at times, but one thing is for sure. If I want to become healthier as I age, I must use my muscles or I will soon lose it! So come on, move those muscles !