30/07/2026
Every diet you’ve done has been about getting smaller. This is about getting harder to knock over.
Here’s the chain, and every link holds.
You lift. You build lean tissue. Your resting metabolic rate goes up. Nine months of proper training raises it around 5%. A ten week program in one study added 1.4kg of lean mass, lifted resting metabolic rate 7%, and stripped 1.8kg of fat. That’s not a supplement claim. That’s measured.
But the number on the metabolism isn’t even the main event.
Muscle is where your body puts sugar. More lean tissue means better insulin sensitivity, less visceral fat, better blood sugar control. That’s the exact machinery that starts misfiring in perimenopause when oestrogen drops. So the woman lifting three times a week isn’t just burning a few extra calories on the couch. She’s fixing the system that’s making everything harder.
And here’s the part nobody tells you. Inactive adults lose 3 to 8% of their muscle every decade. From your mid thirties you’re already leaking it, every year, quietly. Which means “building muscle” at 45 isn’t vanity. It’s plugging a hole.
Muscle is your metabolic currency. Lean tissue is your key to long term results.
You don’t lose muscle because you get older. You get older because you lose muscle.
So stop trying to shrink. Start trying to build.
Get to the f***ing gym.
