What can I do to ensure good muscle health?

Maintaining our muscle health is essential to prevent sarcopenia. Exercise, combined with a balanced diet, including adequate protein intake, are key considerations for strong, healthy muscles.

The best exercises to stimulate muscle growth are ‘weight-bearing’ types, which involve impact or resistance against a weight (such as our own body weight). Examples include brisk hill walking, running, lifting weights or step-aerobics. Animal based proteins, which include dairy, lean meat, poultry, fish and eggs are the richest sources of complete proteins, with legumes such as beans and lentils also providing some protein.

Timing and quality are important when it comes to our consumption of protein and the optimal approach is that we spread our intake across the day, rather than concentrating a larger amount at one meal. This enables the body to be efficient in supplying the constant amounts needed by active muscles throughout the day.