By Selena Yeager

Bicycling Magazine presents a surprising new approach to losing weight and keeping it off whileand riding longer and stronger than ever. In her article Selena addresses 7 Fallacies and THE GET-LEAN FIX for each Fallacy, including the importance of body acid buffering for athletes...

 

Fallacy #6 
You can eat the same at age 40 as age 20.  Muscle is the engine that powers your pedals, but it also drives your calorie-burning metabolism.  The more lean tissue you have, the more calories you burn and the leaner you stay. As we age, we naturally lose muscle and thus gain fat.  Cycling and strength training help stem that loss, but the right foods are more important for muscle maintenance than most people realize.  Because of age-related kidney changes, our blood becomes more acidic and we excrete nitrogen, an essential component of muscle protein, faster than we take it in, Joe Friel says. “Essentially we end up peeing away our muscles,” he says.  And with a net loss of nitrogen, you can’t form new muscle.

Turn the tide on nitrogen loss and preserve muscle mass by increasing the alkalinity of your blood to neutralize the acidity, says Joel Friel.  One way is with supplements like Acid Zapper, but you can also eat foods that enhance alkaline.  Fruits and veggies are the only foods that offer a net increase, says Joel Friel.  Fats and oils are natural.  All other foods, including grains, legumes and meats, have an acid-producing effect.  If you don’t get most of your carbs from fruits and vegetables, Friel says, you’re losing muscle mass as well as calcium from your bones, which also gets leached away in an acidic environment as you age.  For the complete article by Selena Yeager pick-up Bicycling Magazine May 2009 Issue, now available in stores and online.

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