POWER FOODS

How to pump up the protein in your diet

Ever feel like you're wasting away? You're right, as it might be a function of age. Around the age of 50, our muscles start losing mass – about one or two per cent a year, according to some estimates. This increases to three per cent after age 60. “It's a normal part of the aging process. We're all going to lose muscle,” says Dr. Carla Prado, director of the Human Nutrition Research Unit and associate professor at the University of Alberta. “But there's a threshold where you lose too much, and that becomes a big problem.”

Sarcopenia – the medical term for age-related muscle loss – can affect balance and walking. The risk of falling goes up, too, as our strength goes down. And there's another problem. Muscle tissue is a sort of holding tank for amino acids, the building blocks for all kinds of functions