Protein is not only for people who lift weights. Your muscles carry the shopping, climb the stairs, pick up your children and keep you steady on your feet. And from your thirties, without you noticing, they start to shrink.
Harvard Health says men can lose as much as 3 to 5 percent of their muscle in each decade after age 30. It happens slowly, so most people only notice years later, when the stairs feel harder or a bag feels heavier.
What helps
Experts most often point to two things: strength exercise and enough protein. Walking is great, but muscle needs something to push against, like weights, resistance bands or your own body weight.
How much protein?
The usual guide is 0.8g of protein for each kilo of body weight a day. For older adults, a group of experts (PROT-AGE, 2013) suggested 1.0 to 1.2g per kilo. For a person of 60kg, that is about 60 to 72g a day. It also helps to spread it through the day, instead of eating most of it at dinner.
Where to get it
Eggs, fish, chicken, tofu, beans, yogurt and milk all count. A protein shake is simply a quick way to add more when a meal falls short.
Read the label
Many ready-to-drink protein shakes are sweetened to taste like a milkshake. Check the sugar, and see how far down the list the protein comes.
Protein shakes at Juicy
At Juicy we make protein shakes to order. You choose the protein (whey, hydro whey or plant protein), the size (Maintain with 30g of protein, or Bulking with 60g) and the liquid (fresh milk, soy milk, coconut water, or oat or almond milk), and you can add collagen or creatine. The protein in each size is on getjuicy.vn/nutri.
If you have a health condition, ask your doctor how much protein is right for you.
Sources: Harvard Health Publishing, "Preserve your muscle mass"; Bauer and others, PROT-AGE Study Group, Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (2013).
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