I am 75 and have lifted on and off most of my adult life, regularly 5x wk for 12 years. I am finding that I have not gained weight and yet I am soft and somewhat flabby around middle. My diet is low carb. I realize age is a factor, but is there anything I can do about this?
Answered by Roman Footnick
First, I recommend getting some blood work done. It should include tests to make sure your testosterone/estrogen, thyroid, TSH, and IGF-1 are in good ranges. You didn't indicate if you are male or female, but both sexes need proper testosterone levels for muscular development and regulated estrogen levels for fat loss (e.g. low testosterone with high estrogen relative to each sex can make fat loss VERY difficult.) Same goes for thyroid and growth hormone levels.Second, you can try restricting your calories, and seeing if that makes a difference. Try a 20-25% calorie reduction for at least 8 weeks and see if that helps. Also, make sure your "low carb" diet is NOT high protein. If your carbs are very low, and your protein intake is high your body will convert the protein into glucose (sugar). This is called gluconeogenesis. For this reason, a low carb diet should be high in fat (70%) moderate in protein (20%) and low in carbs (10% or less.)
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