WARNING! Your Legs WEAKEN First! Eat These 10 Foods To Strengthen Them!

as you get older your legs weaken first long before you feel it and this leads to a loss of control a loss of balance and for too many people a devastating fall which is the number one cause of traumatic death in the elderly but it doesn't have to be that way you can turn it around with simple lifestyle changes hello health champions today we're going to talk about the top 10 foods to help strengthen your legs i really felt I had to do this video because it's an important topic but there's so many videos out

there whose advice is just superficial random and misleading the people making those videos don't really understand health so they're grasping at straws they're talking about single nutrient solutions such as they say sweet potato has potassium and potassium is important for signaling so therefore you should eat sweet potato and they're talking about causes of leg weakness without understanding what that is so they say sarcopenia is a condition that causes muscle loss no sarco is muscle and pineia is weakness or lack thereof so that word only says that it is muscle loss or muscle weakness it doesn't

cause it it's just describing the condition and they talk about how muscles need energy and oats have complex carbohydrates so they provide you lots of energy well sweet potato and oats are not the absolute worst foods if you can tolerate a certain amount of carbohydrate but to mention them loosely based on a single fact like this is very very misleading and they're presenting this as if all you have to do is to eat some sweet potato and some oats and your muscles will grow strong and regenerate well it doesn't work like that and we're going

to give you the bigger picture here but the first thing we have to understand is why is there so much talk about this why are we legs so dangerous as you age well I mentioned that weak legs can lead to a loss of control and a loss of balance and that means that you are at a much higher risk of a fall which is the number one cause of traumatic death in the elderly because if you fall and you are a little bit older often times this can result in a hip fracture and if you

have a hip fracture now you can't move for a bit so you're losing a lot of your mobility and if you have a loss of mobility I've talked a lot about what the purpose of movement is the number one purpose is to drive the brain it's to send signals to the brain because if we lose movement we actually lose brain power we lose brain strength just like a muscle if you put it in a cast it starts to shrink it starts to atrophy well the same thing happens to the brain if we don't move we're

not sending it enough signals and that brain starts to degenerate and if we degenerate enough now that can actually lead to a loss of vitality and death so these statistics are pretty scary that for the people who have a fall and break their hip about up to 50% of those people die within a year and even if they survive their quality of life will never be the same because up to 60% will require long-term care so this is what you're trying to avoid and you can do it with simple lifestyle changes so the lifestyle that

can reverse this and prevent this consists of two things the first is exercise which is relatively straightforward and the reason that exercise helps you build muscle is that when you exercise you break muscle fibers and then during recovery your body can repair them but there is a second step here because we also need a signal exercise provides a signal and a challenge that is the reason for the body to start repairs if you are completely sedentary and you break down some muscle fibers you're not going to fully repair them because there is no reason there's

no challenge there's no signal for the body to repair them to the same level they were or stronger an exercise is relatively straightforward i'll be happy to do a video about it if you let me know in the comments if you'd like to see a video like that but the biggest confusion is about food so that's what I want to tackle in this video food is what gives you the stuff so that you can repair muscles and what is the food that provides the best solution for you well it needs to have fuel it needs

to have building blocks and it needs to have catalysts it needs to have little vitamins and minerals to drive the reactions and if we look at the detail this would mean fat quality fats for fuel a certain amount of carbohydrates if you tolerate them if you watch my video you know I'm not a fan of 300 grams of carbohydrate a day if you're a diabetic or carbohydrate intolerant I think that you should be very low carb or even ketogenic off and on if you tolerate carbs I still think you should keep them under 100 grams

a day so they can provide some fuel just make sure that they are whole food then we need quality proteins we need essential fatty acids and we need vitamins and minerals but even with all that that's still not enough because we have to understand the big picture and everyone's not the same your food must also support your metabolic health so if you're a diabetic or you're a 20-year-old athlete this foods is not the same for you the good foods can be very different it needs to lower your inflammation and here we're also talking about neuroinflammation

because a lot of people who get a chronic low-grade inflammation they also get a inflammation a neuroinflammation which means that their brain and their nervous system is inflamed and now you can't have the proper signaling so the food needs to support your neuromuscular connections if you don't have the proper signals you just have a steak a muscle is nothing without the proper signal and the proper timing so when we're talking about the keys to not falling we're talking about strength balance and coordination which is a combination of the muscle and the signals so if your

nervous system isn't healthy if you have a bunch of neuroinflammation this is not going to work as well as it could but why is it now that the legs typically break down faster than the muscles in the rest of the body well if you have complete inactivity like if you're in a coma or complete bed rest in 30 days of complete inactivity you can lose up to 50% of your quadriceps muscle and this is about the same as what you do in 30 years of a sedentary lifestyle so a coma or bed rest would be

an extreme example where muscles break down but we're kind of doing the same thing to ourselves with a sedentary lifestyle when we're just not challenging the body on a regular basis and what that means is that we can lose the same 50% of muscle strength of quadriceps of leg strength at the age of about 60 to 70 so that's typical for that age range to have less than 50% of their muscles left and the reason legs deteriorate a little faster is that they generally have more fast twitch fibers than the average muscle in your body

and those muscle types tend to atrophy tend to break down faster so here are 10 foods with explanations in no particular order and number one is eggs and you have to eat it with the yolk if you want these benefits so eggs complete eggs have an amino acid called leucine they have they're a very rich source of amino acids in general but leucine specifically triggers muscle growth via a pathway called mtor mamalian target of rapamy don't worry about the name it's just a pathway that triggers muscle growth specifically eggs are also very rich in a

substance called choline which is a raw material for acetylcholine which is the neurotransmitter that the body uses to activate muscles eggs also have a vitamin called B12 which is super important for signaling and a lack of B12 can often result in neuropathy because the signals don't travel and one thing that the B12 does is it maintains the myelin sheath which is the insulation it's the outer layer of the electrical cables in the body and the nerves that transmit the signal eggs are also rich in essential fatty acids like EPA and DHA that the body uses

to make the right type of cell membrane so every cell in your body needs these including nerve cells and including muscle cells and with the right types of fat in the cell membranes you have healthy cells that can perform the proper signaling and you may have heard that eggs are a great source of protein and amino acids and in fact it is the best other than mother's milk and they're about the same eggs provide the highest percentage of available amino acids to the human body and then I also want to mention the quality of eggs

so when I'm listing these then you want to keep in mind that pasture raised eggs we're talking about eggs where the chickens walk outside they eat bugs and grass they get sunshine these eggs have about two to seven times more of some of these key nutrients that we're talking about food number two is salmon and other fatty cold water fishs like sardines and mackerel just don't go for the king mackerel because very large fatty fish also accumulate a lot of mercury so when we have a very very rich source salmon and these fatty fish it's

the richest source of the EPA and the DHA that we just talked about with the eggs eggs is a good source these fish is a great source of these fatty acids and when we get enough of them they tend to help the body balance inflammation so they're not anti-inflammatory like a pill that you take but they help the body balance the proper amount of inflammation so the end result is that they tend to be anti-inflammatory we reach a normal level of inflammation and they have also found that these fatty acids can increase the muscle protein

synthesis in older adults and just like with eggs it matters what the source is if we compare wild and farmed salmon for example when it comes to omega 6 to omega-3 ratios then we find that wild is going to have a 1 to4 ratio and I want to point out that this is with the omega3 being the higher value which is unique for fish there's no other food that actually has more omega-3 than omega sixs but that's so that they can swim and survive in cold water the farmed however is going to have about a

1:1 to a one:2 ratio again with the omega-3 being higher but you notice how big a difference it is between the wild and the farm i do want to point out though that we got to keep this in perspective that if you're in a restaurant and you're choosing between the mass prodduced chicken or you're choosing between farmed salmon the farmed salmon is always going to be a better choice and it's always going to be better than the breaded chicken and the mac and cheese and these fish are also an excellent source of protein it's what

we consider a high quality protein with high availability not quite as good as a complete farm-raised egg but close but then salmon has some other properties too they have something called selenium and aazanthin which are antioxidants and if we can reduce the oxidative damage in the body to the mitochondria and to the muscles and to the nerves now there's going to be less breakdown and a better chance of rebuilding them and in both eggs and in fatty fish we can find vitamin D which has the properties of helping reduce inflammation it supports mitochondria in muscles

it helps muscles make energy and it supports neural membranes meaning the cells that send the signals so overall here we can see that it supports increase in strength in balance and in energy production food number three is grass-fed beef and it has something in it called creatine there's a popular supplement among bodybuilders called creatine phosphate and basically what it is it's a carrier that it attaches it carries the phosphate molecule so when the body makes ATP and it cycles back and forth between ADP and ATP which is how we transport and make energy available in

the body now we can do that a little bit better if we have a little more creatine now we can cycle that ATP back to energy a little bit faster beef is very rich in bioavailable iron and iron is super important for making red blood cells if we have enough iron then they get nice and large they get to the right size and of course iron is used for oxygen transport it's a part of the molecule that carries oxygen for us and beef is also rich in B12 and B12 also helps in maturing the red

blood cells and then on top of that B12 helps with the nerve conduction so these two factors put together make sure that we get the signals to the muscle and that we get the oxygen delivery to the muscle because all of that's obviously necessary for muscles to function and grow and repair beef is also rich in zinc which helps with muscle repair and beef is one of those proteins that we consider high quality protein high bioavailability which of course we can extract amino acids and build muscles and I talk a lot about grass-fed beef as

opposed to grain-fed beef and I would suggest you do the best you can i talk a lot about it because there is a difference when we compare grass-fed to the kayo to the mass- prodduced beef and we compare omega-3 fatty acids we can have as much as five times as much of the good omega-3s in grass-fed as in mass-produced when we talk about an antioxidant called conjugated lolinic acid there's two to three times as much in the grass-fed vitamin E has two to three times as much in the grass-fed so if you can get it

especially with something affordable like ground beef I would strongly recommend the grass-fed but again if you're in a restaurant or if you can't find grass-fed or you can't afford it then regular is still going to be much much better than any high carbohydrate or sugar or processed food food number four is yogurt and we're not talking about the fat-free flavored sugarladen stuff that has more sugar than the average dessert we're talking about the unsweetened full fat yogurt if you like Greek what you're getting is a strained yogurt that has higher protein content but I would

still suggest that you get it full fat in Greece the Greek yogurt has about 10% fat in it now most of the time in the US when you buy Greek you're going to get fat free which means that they have probably added something else to create the right consistency so if personally between fat-ree Greek yogurt and a full fat regular I would go for the full fat regular i would try to get it as tart as possible because that means that the bacteria have consumed a lot of the milk sugar and it also means that

there's more bacteria in there and if you can't find a great one then it is always possible to make your own and yogurt also has bacteria called probiotics and they support your microfllora your biome and when you have a functioning microbiome you have a better nutrient absorption you can make available to your body more of the nutrients that you actually eat and you can also reduce inflammation because a healthy flora kind of reduces the chaos down there a lot of the inflammation in the body comes from not being able to break down and process the

foods properly because you don't have the proper bacteria and yogurt also has calcium which is necessary for this proper signaling for muscle contraction and it is also an animal food which means it's a high quality protein number five is bone broth and bone broth has collagen which supports the rebuilding the repair and the maintenance of your joints your ligaments and your gut so we talked about the gut if you can help repair that then you'll have less inflammation you can absorb more nutrients etc but if you can maintain joints and ligaments that's also important for

strength because if you have pain then your muscles shut down they protect themselves from pain and if you have a lot of inflammation and aches and pains you have less mobility you tend to move less so by supporting the connective tissue and the supportive structures you can actually gain more mobility and more strength that way bone broth is also rich in an amino acid called glycine which helps reduce chronic inflammation and it also supports neurological calmness and it is very rich in another amino acid called glutamine which helps reduce helps heal leaky gut and helps

reduce neuroinflammation there's something called the gut brain axis because if we have a leaky gut we typically have a leaky brain and all of those inflammatory compounds in the gut can leak out into the blood and make their way into the brain and that's why there's so much emphasis on this brain gut axis number six is vegetables and I would emphasize the nonstarchy vegetables and the leafy greens you can eat a ton of those and not overload on carbs and blood sugar and these vegetables tend to be very rich in minerals like magnesium and potassium

in vitamins like folate which is a B vitamin vitamin K1 and K2 as well as polyphenels and nitrates and nitrates that's a precursor for nitric oxide which helps with vasoddilation and blood circulation they also tend to reduce inflammation systemwide inflammation and the polyphenols in particular even though your body doesn't need them and some people consider them plant toxins plant poisons they're very very important they're not for you they are food for your gut bacteria and there's a wide variety of them so the more variety of them that you eat the better the variety of your

microbiome bacteria which supports the gut brain axis again and that's how we bring a lot of this inflammation down and they also fuel your mitochondria not in the sense that they provide calories for energy or anything but mitochondria make all your energy and a lot of these nutrients are necessary catalysts for helping the mitochondria do that number seven is nuts and seeds and again they're rich in certain minerals like magnesium and zinc some of them like flax seed and chia seed especially can have a lot of omega-3 it's not as good or as beneficial as

the one in fish oil because that's the end product but these plant products contain something called ALA or alpha linolinic acid which can become the EPA and the DHA but we convert it very poorly however it still helps us maintain the omega 3 to omega 6 ratio even if we don't convert it to the final end product and they also have some vitamin E and protein now how do these help well for muscle contraction and relaxation we need sodium potassium calcium and magnesium when we have all these in the proper ratios now we can contract

and relax we prevent muscle cramps and they are also necessary for nerve transmission for tissue repair and for the production of neurotransmitters which are the little chemicals that help the nerves signal number eight is legumes or beans and here we have things like lentils chickpeas and black beans and previously I haven't talked much about these because so many of my videos have been geared toward diabetics people with metabolic problems people who try to go extremely low carb and these are not extremely low carb but they are moderate carbs and if you want to you can

include them in moderation and what they do have is protein iron potassium fiber B vitamins and again polyphenels so what this does it helps support your microbiome it becomes fuel and food for the bacteria in your gut so especially the type of fiber in some of these legumes as well as the polyphenels they're kind of unique so by including some legumes again if your metabolism tolerates it if you're not trying to go keto because then these don't fit in that picture but if you can tolerate some carbs you can actually diversify your microbiome by including

this a little bit and these beans also contain arginine which is a nitric oxide precursor so we talked about nitrate becoming nitric oxide well here's another component that participates and number nine is berries and my favorites here are going to be raspberries blueberries blackberries and strawberries and the reason they're so good is that they are high in fiber very high in nutrients and they are low in sugar and carbohydrates they also contain something called anthocyanins at least some of the berries and they help reduce neuroinflammation but they can also help actually boost the BDNF the

brain derived neurotrophic factor which is your nutrient your miracle grow for making new nerves and new synapses and those are the connections so if you're going to connect your brain to the muscles if you're going to build strength and coordination you need to make new synapses and you need to train those pathways and that's what you need this BDNF for so that helps you improve your nerve to muscle control and in doing that you also help your motor coordination and your balance and all that and berries also contain polyphenels which we've talked a lot about

they help support the microbiome and therefore the gut brain axis and they help improve blood flow to both muscle and the brain and they also help preserve the fast twitch muscle type so I'm talking a lot of brain in this video because that's the other component of muscle strength and balance and muscle control and food number 10 is one of my favorites perhaps the perfect food from the plant kingdom it is packed with monounsaturated fatty acids the same type you find in olive oils it is full of soluble fiber it has tons of minerals and

vitamin B6 and vitamin E so here we can see an improvement in nerve conduction in signaling we can see that the healthy fats all these monounsaturated fatty acids they help reduce systemic inflammation again not because it's an anti-inflammatory but because they're neutral and we're replacing a lot of inflammatory fats and vitamin B6 is necessary for making neurotransmitters these signaling molecules so if you're going to build muscle you don't need a single ingredient food with some magical property you need a variety of the most complete and whole foods that you can find and if you want

to see a video on how to build strong legs then let me know in the comments below if you enjoyed this video you're going to love that one and if you truly want to master health by understanding how the body really works make sure you subscribe hit that bell and turn on all the notifications so you never miss a lifesaving video