Robert Iafelice - Hold On to Your Muscle, Be Free of Disease

Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.

Edward Stanley, the 15th Earl of Derby,
late 19th century

The views and opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views or opinions of Gatekeeper Press. Gatekeeper Press is not to be held responsible for and expressly disclaims responsibility of the content herein.

Hold On to Your MUSCLE, Be Free of Disease: OPTIMIZE YOUR MUSCLE MASS TO BATTLE AGING AND DISEASE WHILE PROMOTING TOTAL FITNESS AND LASTING WEIGHT LOSS

Published by Gatekeeper Press

2167 Stringtown Rd, Suite 109

Columbus, OH 43123-2989

www.GatekeeperPress.com

Copyright 2022 by Robert Iafelice

All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

The editorial work for this book are entirely the product of the author. Gatekeeper Press did not participate in and is not responsible for any aspect of this elements.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022940165

Copyright for the images:

DM7/shutterstock.com

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ISBN (paperback): 9781662929229

eISBN: 9781662929236

To the memory of my beloved father, Elio Iafelice, a good Christian man who, though beset by physical misfortune throughout his senior years, accepted and carried his cross, making the most of what God gave himand to my dearest mother, Ameriga, whose selfless love and unending care for my father endured into her 90s.

Contents

Part I
Why is Muscle so Critically Important for Our Health?

PART II
What Causes Muscle Loss?

PART III
How to Preserve and Strengthen Your Muscle Mass

Y ou might presume that a book about muscle would target athletes or anyone interested in bodybuilding or exercise performance. While its true that athletes can certainly benefit from the latest scientific discoveries and simple lifestyle changes well be discussing, this book goes far beyond sports and bodybuilding or even just cosmetic appealthis information is aimed at anyone who wants to achieve or maintain optimal health and evade the age-related degenerative diseases of our modern world.

Most of todays headlines about health and disease prevention are fixated on excess body weight and body fat and give little attention to muscle. For most people, muscle doesnt come to mind when discussing ways to help prevent the major killer diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimers disease. Nor do people generally associate muscle with living longer.

So how is your muscle mass associated with preventing disease and extending your healthspan?

The answers youll find in this book will transform your way of thinking about health and fitness. Youll understand that its more about being undermuscled rather than just overly fat. Youll learn that muscle is a fundamental pillar of health and vitality. Youll discover the fascinating inherent mechanisms weve evolved to preserve this overlooked but extremely vital organ and how you can maximize the effectiveness of those mechanisms.

Our muscle mass is indispensable! Its not (necessarily) about building larger musclesits about the critical importance of preserving your muscle mass and strength as well as muscle quality throughout the course of your life. When your muscle mass or

Of course, when it comes to muscle health, exercise is king. The adage Use it or lose it! certainly applies here. Conventional wisdom says that over time, we should progressively lose functionality and suffer from the expected aches and pains associated with advancing age. But age-related functional impairment is not inevitable! We have the genetic potential to sustain complete functionality throughout our lives. We dont slow down because were getting oldwe get old because we slow down.

After reading this book, youll gain a greater appreciation for resistance exercise and understand why it should be a mainstay of everyones fitness program. Youll learn that brief stints of high-intensity exercise provide more substantial benefits than continuous, steady-state exercise does. Ill clear up the confusion about protein and reveal the truth about how much, how often, and what types of protein are best for muscle optimization.

All that said, its not just about exercise and protein! Remarkably, simply eating less often and/or minimizing your carbohydrate intake can actually mimic some of the effects of exercise and exert a powerful effect on muscle tissue maintenance. This book will also teach you how to weed out the hype from the truly effective dietary supplements such as creatine that have been proven to benefit muscle mass and function.

Ultimately, all roads lead to muscle, which is why its not surprising that most of todays popular lifestyle interventions intersect with our muscle. A multifactorial approach integrating the right exercise, the right diet, and the right supplements will lay out the ideal path toward having optimal muscle mass and therefore overall health enhancement.

Ive packed this book with valuable information to help people of all ages improve their health and maintain those improvements. The earlier you incorporate these recommendations, the better youll feel today and in the long term. Nevertheless, aging adults will benefit the most from this book because they are battling a new nemesis: sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is the gradual loss of muscle mass and strength with age.

After age 30, you begin to lose as much as 3% 5% of muscle mass per decade. Unfortunately, just at a time in your life when you have a more pressing need to shore up your muscle health, your normal exercise and dietary routines become less effective precisely as a consequence of your advancing age. Similar to a football team losing at halftime, aging adults need to make adjustments during the second half of life in order to turn the tide in their favor. This book will teach you how to make those all-important exercise and dietary adjustments to push back on muscle loss and functional aging.

So lets begin a journey to discover why muscle is the key organ in our bodies that drives robust health and healthy agingand how we can all build, protect, and sustain it.

T he primary focus of this book is the more than 600 skeletal muscles in our bodies.

While we take our ability to perform daily activities for granted, we also assume that our functional capacity will gradually deteriorate as we age. (But it doesnt have to! See Part III.) Sarcopeniathe age-related loss of muscle mass and muscle strengthis a major determinant of impaired functionality in older adults. There is also a progressive decline in the quality of muscle with advancing age.

Sarcopenia predominantly affects older adults. However, similar to dementia and osteoporosis, sarcopenia has been observed in younger adults as well.