With ageing muscle strength decline is for sure. And it is a major concern where people do not put enough attention to. Muscle strength plays an important role in our metabolism. When we build out muscle strength, we increase our metabolic rate which helps to burn down the excess calories consumed.

3 years back when I had the issue of lumbar spinal stenosis in that I lost a lot of muscle strength. The pain shooting down to my legs due to nerve compression was severe. For 3 months I was struggling with the pain until I had no option but to get a surgery done. In all of that I had completely lost my muscle strength, specially in my legs and they had become very weak. I would have regular cramping at nights. The other thing was that the doctor had advised me to go slow on Yoga and other exercises, so even after the surgery though the pain was gone my strength had not regained.

To build muscle strength exercise, yoga, swimming, cycling, these are some of the best techniques. Foods, multivitamins, good sleep, all of these do help, but nothing beats training your body to build strength with any form of exercise. After a surgery for a year, I was not much involved in any form of heavy exercise except for regular walks and some simple yoga forms and a good amount of protein intake. I was not building up enough strength with that. After almost a year I asked my doctor if I could now proceed with some rigorous forms of yoga and exercise and he gave me a go ahead. Post that within 6 months I could see the difference in my muscle strength. My cramping started reducing and then eventually stopped. I could feel the strength in my legs back again.

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I am a meat eater so my protein intake is good and I also consume eggs daily, but with ageing I realize that with my diet I need more things to keep myself healthy. In the last one year suddenly this ageing thing is struck on me. Not that I am scared of ageing, all I want is a very healthy ageing. When I look at people around me who are younger than me and on different types of medications, it scares me. I do not ever want to end up taking medicines for life for any ailments. Insulin, pressure, thyroids, these are some very common ailments nowadays. With age the regenerative process of our tissues declines and this in turn declines the stem cell functions in the body. But it is not that it cannot be built up. With good diet and exercise this can be reversed and if the diet is not good enough then one should look at taking additional vitamin supplements.

Any form of resistance exercise will help build up the muscle strength. Weights does a good job, but personally I am not in favor of weights. I have never done and do not intend to. I prefer doing some Yoga forms like Surya Namaskar daily 15 to 20, then some squats, lunges and other forms where I need to push my own body weight.

I still have a long way to go with my age but I need to start preparing my body from now. Yoga has always been a good form for me, but when you do something very regularly it sets into your system and does not challenge your body. I want to challenge my body now and move to new levels. I will keep talking about a lot of healthy ageing in this year as this is also my ongoing focus to prepare my body for a healthy ageing.

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