A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE of the importance of PROTEIN

Meet Amy. She’s a personal training and nutrition client of mine. Recently, it was time for her nine-week reassessment.

Overall, the data wasn't drastically different than previous assessments.

Some of my clients are disappointed with that. But not Amy. Depending on where you are in your fitness journey, maintenance can, and should, be a WIN.

Over the past year, Amy has pretty much maintained a small range regarding weight, body fat mass, and body fat percentage.

However, there was an aspect to these results we honed in on....Skeletal Muscle Mass (SMM).

This reassessment showed that SMM didn’t move much. But looking closer at the overall trend, it was decreasing slightly over the last 4 reassessments.

(As a side note, the slight increase in percent body fat wasn't necessarily due to an increase in body fat mass, but due to a small amount of muscle loss)

In the personal training and fitness world, this is the beauty of data. And the beauty of technology. Thanks to our InBody scans in every client reassessment, we are able to go well beyond the scale and monitor the bigger picture from multiple angles.

So, now seeing this trend, it was time for Amy and I to dig in.

Why had SMM been decreasing? We went down the list of fitness pillars … training, sleep, stress, and nutrition.

Over the past year, strength training and exercise had been consistent. Sleep had been good. And stress had been low.

So, what was left? Ah yes, nutrition.

And here we quickly found the issue. We went over Amy’s eating patterns and determined her protein intake had been off … consistently lower than it had been prior to the downward trend.

That’s how quick it can happen. That’s how important ALL FOUR fitness pillars are. And that’s how important the appropriate level of daily protein intake is for each and every one of us.

Moving forward, a minimum of 90g per day is the goal for Amy to reverse the trend and regain the muscle mass she has lost.

How did we come up with 90g per day? A combination of formulas and personal data/goals specific to Amy. (As a dietitian, it’s what I do!)

Is it a perfect science? Not necessarily. But you can bet over the next nine weeks we’ll keep a close eye and pay special attention to the data from her next reassessment. Adjustments may be necessary, we’ll see.

Bottom line, as we age, it becomes harder and harder to maintain (much less gain) SMM. Pay attention to your protein intake and your trends. Find a resource (we know of a good one!) to get YOUR data and let it guide you appropriately.

Remember this: what gets measured, gets managed!

As always … GIVE YOUR BODY WHAT IT NEEDS, WHEN IT NEEDS IT!

Jaime Rothermich, RD, CSSD, LD, PPSC*KB, CSCS

Functional Elements Training and Nutrition

TRAIN FOR LIFE

(c) 314.518.4875

@functionalelements

functionalelements@gmail.com

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