How to Maintain Muscle Mass and Lose Weight as You Age

Aging brings wisdom and experience yet ultimately shifts muscle mass, metabolism, and energy levels. While these changes can feel discouraging, there are effective ways to maintain muscle mass and achieve weight loss.

With the correct lifestyle adjustments and advanced therapies like peptide therapy, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), growth hormone replacement, and medications such as Semaglutide® and Tirzepatide®, you can feel stronger and more energetic at any age.

And the best part? The Performance Rejuvenation Center team is here to help you achieve these goals.

Here are our top tips for maintaining muscle and losing weight as you age.

Your lifestyle changes matter

Maybe you had an active career and now find yourself less active as you age. This decline is a typical experience, especially for men in physically demanding professions like the military and law enforcement.

Regardless of your younger years, now is the perfect time to revisit your lifestyle changes. They can be the jumping-off point for maintaining muscle mass and losing unwanted pounds.

Strength training

While aerobic exercise is good for your heart, resistance exercises like weightlifting, bodyweight, or resistance band workouts are the gold standard for preserving muscle mass.  

Strength training helps prevent muscle loss, speeds up your resting rate metabolism (so you burn more calories in the long run), and improves bone density.

Aim for at least two to three weekly sessions and focus on all major muscle groups.

Eat protein with each meal

Your body uses protein for muscle repair and growth, and that’s true at any age. Don’t load all of your protein in just one or two meals. Instead, distribute protein intake evenly throughout the day (in snacks and meals) to optimize muscle-building effects.

If you’re plant-based, you can get all nine essential amino acids through complementary proteins. Complementary proteins are a combination of foods, like rice and beans mixed, that give you all nine essential amino acids.

Get a good night’s sleep

Poor sleep can disrupt hormone balance and slow your recovery and your gains. Without quality sleep, your body can’t repair and rebuild muscle tissue to its full potential. 

If you have a smartwatch, check your sleep data and see how you stack up. Ideally, you should log 7-9 hours nightly.

Stay active

While strength training is good for building lean muscle mass, cardio helps burn calories. Log at least 30-40 minutes of daily exercise to reach the American Heart Association's recommendations. 

You can also track your calories in (what you eat) and calories out (what you burn) to help refine your weight loss progress.

Consider therapies to jumpstart your wellness

While healthy lifestyle habits are non-negotiable at any age, aging may still bring challenges — like hormonal imbalances — that require additional support. 

The Performance Rejuvenation Center team offers targeted therapies that can help address underlying hormonal shifts, increase lean muscle mass, and address excess fat.

Peptide therapy 

Peptides — short chains of amino acids — stimulate your body’s natural growth hormone production. We recommend this therapy to help with muscle recovery, to support a healthy metabolism, and to promote fat loss.

Our team offers several types of peptides, including:

• Growth hormone peptide therapy 
• Pentadecapeptide Arginate 
• Tesamorelin
• Semorelin
• Semaglutide
• Tirzepatide 

Depending on your goals, you might need just one type of peptide or a combination.

Hormone replacement therapy 

Your endocrine system — all the organs and glands that produce hormones — influences countless bodily functions. Your hormones (chemical messengers) tell your body what to do and when to do it. 

Hormones help influence the speed of your metabolism, your body temperature, and even your sexual health. (also why hormone imbalances can contribute to erectile dysfunction.) 

Hormone replacement therapy restores declining levels of key hormones like testosterone so you can feel your best. 

Growth hormone replacement

Growth hormone production begins to dip in your thirties, and unfortunately, low growth hormone levels are associated with excess belly fat.

Replacing declining levels of growth hormone can boost your body’s ability to build muscle, burn fat, and recover from exercise.

Weight loss injections

Medications like Semaglutide and Tirzepatide were initially developed to treat type 2 diabetes but have since proven highly effective for weight loss. 

Weight loss injections regulate appetite and improve blood sugar control — a powerful duo that helps you shed pounds while maintaining muscle. 

Take control of your aging process

Aging doesn’t have to mean losing strength or gaining weight. With a combination of healthy lifestyle habits and targeted therapies, Dr. Tyson at Performance Rejuvenation Center can help you feel strong and healthy — and it all starts with a consultation.

Give us a call at 202-251-4472 to learn more. Or, click here to request an appointment today — we see patients anywhere in the United States via our telehealth platform.