After 60, your body starts getting stubborn about protein — and your muscles quietly pay the price. Rally breaks down a fascinating new study, explains what’s really happening inside your body as you age, and gives you five practical steps to fuel your muscles better starting today. (Yes, peanut butter is involved. And yes, it counts.)
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hello, beautiful people! How you doing?
Rally Preston here — 70 years young –- that’s what I’m telling myself…don’t burst my little bubble here.
Hey, welcome back to the Silver Beast Podcast. Thanks for dropping by…
So, today…let’s talk about something near and dear to my heart…peanut butter.
Oh yeah, love that stuff. I don’t partake much as an older adult these days.
But y’know, I’m thinking I should…and you might want to too after you hear this.
Okay…here’s where this is going…
Skippy, or Jif, or whatever your preferred peanut butter brand, is having a moment…
There’s this new study out now… peer reviewed and all that, published in a scientific journal…
Here’s the upshot: Eating some peanut butter every day…might actually make you stronger.
No kidding, okay… stick with me…oh, that’s a peanut butter pun right there.
So these researchers at Deakin University in Australia — they ran a six-month study on adults 65 and older.
They had the subjects eat 3 tablespoons of natural peanut butter every day for six months.
That’s about what you’d get on a couple of slices of white bread back in the day – your school lunches — remember those? Yeah, with your little carton of milk.
So these Aussie scientists are testing whether the peanut butter makes you stronger, right?
So it says the group eating the peanut butter improved their performance on what’s called a “five-times sit-to-stand test.”
Yeah, I’ll explain.
So this is where you sit in a chair, stand up, and then sit back down…five times in a row, as fast as you can.
The peanut butter group did it about 1.2 seconds faster than the people who didn’t eat peanut butter.
Now I know — a second faster? Really?
Maybe not Olympic-worthy in the sit-stand speed competition there, but the study says you’ve gotta look at the bigger picture.
It’s a little change, yep, but could matter for bigger things, like…not falling. Getting up from a chair without grabbing the armrests for dear life. Climbing stairs without stopping to catch your breath so much. Stuff like that.
So here’s what surprised me the most about this: Are you ready for this?
The peanut butter group didn’t gain weight.
That seems wild to me – I mean it’s peanut butter…but okay…
So now… we need to zoom out a little on this…
Peanut butter is the fun part of this story…who doesn’t love peanut butter?
Well, those with nut allergies listening are probably breaking out in hives right now…I’m sorry…
…but the real story here is actually about protein.
So what the peanut butter was doing — and the reason the researchers think it worked — is it bumped up the protein intake for the people eating it.
Three tablespoons of peanut butter gives you roughly 7 to 8 grams of protein. Plus some healthy fats.
And for a lot of older adults, that little protein bump could make a real difference.
Because here’s the thing most of us probably don’t know about protein: that after about 60, our bodies start getting (how can I put this nicely?) uh, stubborn about protein. Kinda stingy.
Why? Well, when you were younger, your body was pretty efficient about using the protein you ate to build muscles and keep them strong.
Well, now, us more worldly and wise folks need more protein to get the job done.
This is what scientists call anabolic resistance. Or you can just call it your body being difficult.
And shocker here, we lose muscle as we age — that’s a duh, you knew that. So we lose somewhere between 3% and 8% of our muscle mass every decade after 30. Yeah, starts early. So, if you haven’t been paying much attention to this, you’ve probably lost a pretty significant amount by now.
Now don’t let that freak you out. You can fix this.
Or at least, manage it better.
And making sure you get enough protein in your diet – that’s a big part of the fix.
So, according to the latest government Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released this January, adults should eat between 1.2 grams to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight every day to protect your muscle mass. And this range is backed up by lots of independent studies too.
So for a very rough estimate of the minimum amount of protein you should eat each day…no calculator required here…just take your weight in pounds and divide it in half…that’s about how many grams of protein you should eat daily.
So for me, I weigh 150 pounds …so at minimum, I should eat at least 75 grams of protein every day. Now, technically, it’s a little more… but it’s a good ballpark number to get you going in the right direction.
And there’s a ton of recent research out there that says adults over 65 just aren’t getting enough protein. Not nearly enough.
And what doesn’t help the situation — most of us load up on protein at dinner, no problem, but barely touch it at breakfast or lunch. Guilty as charged here with that.
Ideally, eat some protein at each meal. Your body can only use so much protein at one time.
Spreading your protein intake out over the whole day works out much better than trying to jam it all into one meal.
Alright, so we’re probably not getting enough protein.
Very few of us are.
So what do we do now?
Well, step one would be this: Do a quick protein audit. For a day or two, pay attention to what you eat at each meal. Are you getting protein at breakfast? Breakfast is where most of us mess up, by the way. And I normally skip it…so maybe a dumb move on my part. Anyway, just keep tabs on your protein intake for a couple of days.
Step two here is to aim for 25-30 grams of protein at each meal. Just you know, on average. If you really want to get an accurate count for your body weight, there are smartphone apps for protein counting…makes it way easier.
But here’s a simple rule of thumb: three eggs at breakfast is about 18 grams of protein. Add some Greek yogurt or cottage cheese and you’re there. A decent chicken breast at lunch is about thirty grams. Not that complicated. Just start paying a little more attention to your protein.
Step three…you’ll like this one: Add peanut butter. Yeah, the study I mentioned up top. It’s legit.
And hey, be sure and go with natural peanut butter. You know, the kind where the oil separates, and you have to stir it. No funky fillers in it.
Peanut butter gives your protein intake a little boost, plus you get healthy fats, and it’s easy to eat.
Step four: Mix in some resistance exercise. Yeah, there’s a little catch here if you’re going to do this protein thing right.
Just getting more protein, and leaving it at that, isn’t really enough.
The peanut butter study even said this.
You need to pair it with movement to get all the benefits.
Something like light resistance training. Chair exercises. Resistance bands. Walking.
Anything that gets your muscles going.
Protein’s the building block…but exercise puts that protein to work building stronger muscles. That’s really what you want… and the whole point of this.
And hey, oh and this is step five. You may need to talk to your doctor before amping up your protein intake. Especially if you’ve got kidney issues…you need to check. Your doc can help you dial in the right amount of protein for you. If you have any doubts, don’t skip this one.
So here’s the big takeaway from all this:
I’ve always heard this: the key to growing older gracefully is to eat less and move more. And yep, definitely truth to that.
But the protein part of the equation, is important too, and a lot of us don’t think about it enough. Your muscles need protein, so adding more is usually a good thing…with your doctor’s blessing if you need it.
Man I love that peanut butter study. It’s a delicious way to get a little extra protein oomph right?
So bottom line Beasties, track your protein intake – up it if you need to, and get those muscles pumping so it goes right where it’s needed most.
Alright, that’s it for today. Thanks for hanging out with me. If you’ve got a friend who could use a little protein pep talk, share this episode with them.
Thanks for listening, appreciate you, I’ll see you next time on the Silver Beast Podcast! Take care!