I’m feeling energized today with the arrival of the first day of Spring! Are you? I woke up today feeling extra refreshed, vibrant, with a pep in my step like never before. After these crazy few weeks of Mercury’s retrograde and coming off of yesterday’s full moon, today, I can literally feel the fresh, positive energy pulsing through my system.

I’m excited to feel this way today, after being super perplexed only 2 months ago, as to why I couldn’t seem to up my energy game, no matter how much sleep or exercise I did. I also couldn’t understand why I was now underweight, but looked like a wet noodle without any tone or definition at ALL.

In January, after working my a$$ off to do all that I could to feel and look my best, I took myself into my integrative doctor’s office confused as to why I was still in a deficit.

I felt like I had been doing all the things, yet, still didn’t feel the way I longed to feel.

Yes, I had good energy and great sleep, but I wanted to feel FANTASTIC!

Then, it all became crystal clear.

We did a body composition scan and it reflected how practically non-existent my muscle mass had become over these 5 years of birthing child after child, healing and aging.

I swear, it’s as if I forgot that I’m not 21 anymore and am not able to build and maintain muscle the way I once was able to.

Muscle is what burns fat, speeds up our metabolism and gives us energy. No muscle = no energy! 

What happened to our muscles?

After age 30, you begin to lose as much as 3% to 5% per decade. During the pregnant and child birthing years, we’re often not engaging many of those muscles the way we were before (and rightly so) causing them to atrophy. 

In my case, I had 3 children in 3 1/2 years and then spent 1 1/2 years healing my diastisis recti, settting me back 5 years and 38 years old, without consistent and optimal strength training.

When you’re working from such a deficit and at this age, building lean muscle is going to require more time, strategy and work, than it would when we’re 21, unfortunately.

It became absolutely critical for me to pull out all the stops to start increasing my muscle mass to improve my over all health, energy, strength, metabolism and mood.  Want to know what I’m doing to flip the script?

6 things I’m doing to build muscle

1. Strength and Interval Training

I swapped my boring less productive work outs for strength training and interval training at CrossFit 3-4 days a week.

2. Rest & recovery

I ensured I incorporated enough rest and recovery to support the muscle building process. Rest days allow your muscles, nerves, bones, and connective tissue time to rebuild.

3. Branch Chain Amino Acids

I started taking BCAA’s before and after I worked out to help support muscle building, decreases muscle soreness, reduces exercise fatigue and prevents muscle wasting.

4. L- Canitine

I started taking L-Carnitine before my work outs to increase oxygen supply to the muscles. It also helps reduce cognitive fatigue and supports fat burning.

5. Increased lean protein

I focused on increasing more lean protein to my diet both in snacks and in meals.

My favorite on the go protein snacks are turkey jerky, chia seed pudding or celery with almond butter. I bought single serve almond butter packets that I throw in my bag with celery sticks to have after a work out.

6. Upped my hydration

I upped my focus on hydration. Water helps keep energy levels up, provides lubrication between joints, regulates body temperature, and helps with digestion and absorption of nutrients, all of which are important when trying to build muscle.

I’m now about 4-6 weeks into incorporating these elements and am already feeling so much stronger and more energized!

If you’re feeling tired, or your metabolism is slow, I highly suggest you do a body composition scan and assess where your muscle mass is. That could be the thing to fix to get you feeling your best!

Please let me know if you have any other muscle building tips or if this article was helpful to you below!

xo

Misha

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