As a woman over 30 myself, I’ve fallen victim to or given into some common myths, but also found truth in them. Today I want to discuss possible shared experiences for those of us nearing 30 or in your 30’s.

I say nearing because I personally started to notice some of these “differences” in my late 20’s vs in my 30’s.

Let’s dive in.

A slowing metabolism:

There is new research that suggests that metabolism does not slow due to age alone until later in life - around 50’s and 60’s. And that the result of a slowing metabolism is more to do with lifestyle than age. 

Diet needs to be more restrictive:

It “felt” like I could eat anything and get/keep results. Many twenty somethings do. But we must go back to the metabolism data. Were you more active overall “back then”?

You know what, maybe it DOES need to be more restrictive now than when you were 22. But is that because you’re 33 now? or because you have a lower TDEE? You workout less frequently and less intensely? Because I’d bet buko bucks it’s the latter.

I could eat whatever I wanted (which is not true but I had a much larger buffer) when I was 22 because I was training twice per day for short bouts, or once a day but six days per week at very high work intensities, coaching competitive cheer where I was on my feet, spotting tumbling and coaching, and/working an internship in college strength - another very active job.

Let’s compare that to my 30’s…

Self employed, sitting at a desk, barely leave my house, and train for 35-50 minutes four days per week…

Which lifestyle allots for more leeway in the diet? Not age specific, lifestyle dependent. higher TDEE, higher intensity in workouts overall - intensity being heavier loads and likely higher work capacity, more consistency at a higher training frequency.

This is just MY example and comparison from 20 something single college student to working for myself to build my business, traveling the world full time starting at 28, and training taking a huge back seat.

That does bring me to another point. Muscle mass.

Muscle mass:

Having muscle mass is so so so important for many functions. If you’ve never listened to Dr Gabriel Lyon, I suggest you do if the conversation of obesity or having fat mass vs the importance of having muscle tissue. She knows far more than I do about the metabolic function and health of muscle. So, I’ll lead you there.

But what I can infer and speculate, is that having muscle is an important game changer. And it’s importance may increase with our age.

Because if one thing DOES change, it is the rate of tissue decay and regeneration. We know that around age 30 this increases decade by decade. Meaning higher rates of tissue decay vs generation. 

Please do not use that as an excuse to say you can’t build muscle past 30 years old or that you atrophy much quicker than you used to. Because that’s stretching this claim big time.

The same muscle building and retaining principles apply at 20 as they do at 30 as they do at 40. 

We need to provide a stimulus strong enough that requires new tissue to be built and we have to provide proper recovery for this to take place - sleep, hydration and protein intake being at the top. Stress management being secondary to those. I said what I said.

Obviously muscle mass comes from the training we take part in.

Adaptation to training: