Stop Trying to Lose Weight. Build Muscle After 40 Instead | Dr. Josh Axe

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Now, for 30 years, the fitness world has preached the same rule. Bulk up to gain muscle and cut to lose fat. And we see this today, right? We see a lot of men in the gym using even things like anabolic steroids and and and going to the gym every day and and eating all these calories to bulk up. And then we see a lot of both men and women using things like Ompic and GLP1s to try and lose weight and all the cardio machines.

[00:00:24]And most people tend to try and do one or the other. either I'm bulking up or I'm burning fat, but while I'm losing muscle at the same time. But the reality is this, you can do both simultaneously where you can build healthy muscle, you can burn fat, and you can get younger.

[00:00:40]Now, a recent metaanalysis study published in the Obesity Reviews journal covered data from over 100 studies. And here's what they found. Adults who combined resistance training with a moderate calorie deficit and adequate protein were able to both lose fat and gain lean muscle at the same time, especially for beginners and people that were returning to training. So, here's something I want you to stop doing, and this is going to surprise a lot of you.

[00:01:11]Stop weighing yourself and watch these three numbers instead. Number one, where's your fat mass? Is your body fat going down? That's what you want to pay attention to. Listen, it's not about body weight going down. It's about body fat going down. And by the way, now it's so easy to get a body fat analysis scale at your home. It's a much better way to track yourself and then track muscle up.

[00:01:32]So fat down, muscle up. That's what you want to be looking at. Here's another metric. Your strength, such as grip strength. Your strength going up is connected to longevity. And if you can do these three things simultaneously, lose fat, gain muscle, get stronger, and when you move those three metrics in the right direction, it's going to boost your metabolism. It's going to help greatly reduce your risk of everything from diabetes to cancer to heart disease to almost every health problem you can imagine. and it's going to increase your health span so you can be in your 80s and 90s and still having amazing health.

[00:02:13]Now, I want you to think about your body like renovating a building while people are still working inside. Okay? So, old school fitness said, "No, you got to empty the building and gut it and almost knock the whole thing down." Okay? But recomposition says you need to renovate one floor at a time. And work and renovation can actually happen in the same building at the same time if you are strategic about it. So the question is, well, how do we do that? Well, there are four main pillars to do that. Number one is training. What type of exercise you doing? We're going to dive into that. Number two, your protein intake.

[00:02:48]This is crucial for doing both. Number three, supplements. What are the ideal herbs and vitamins and minerals and a fatty acids and even peptides that are going to help move the needle for you in burning fat and gaining muscle? And number four is what are those other things that are foundational that you have to have in order to burn fat, gain muscle, all while promoting longevity.

[00:03:13]So let's dive into pillar number one, training. Now muscle grows in response to one specific stimulus, mechanical tension. And when muscle is placed under a load and forced to work against resistance, it triggers a process called muscle protein synthesis. And that's the signal that tells your body to build and to grow. Here's an important thing to know about cardio. Cardio does not send that signal to nearly the same degree as resistance training. So, no amount of running or cycling can replace it.

[00:03:46]Resistance training is not optional. If you want to build muscle, you have to do resistance training. So, here's what you want to do training wise. You want to lift weights three to four days per week. Okay? And when you lift weights, you want to do what are called compounding movements. You want to you want to move these larger muscle groups because they're going to help your body actually create more ATP. It's going to build more muscle. And those specific groups tend to be your butt and your legs, specifically your quads and your hamstrings. So butt, quads, hamstrings, your legs and butt. The single most important muscles to move, followed by your back and your chest. These are the muscles that matter the most when it comes to adding more muscle. And when you're lifting, you ideally want to do typically between 8 and 15 reps per set.

[00:04:39]That tends to be 8 to 12 reps. Tends to be ideal for most muscle groups. Certain smaller muscle groups like your calves, you can go a little bit higher, but you typically want to do about that 8 to 15 reps per set. And often times you want to repeat those sets at least two to three times. And then you want to do something called progressive overload.

[00:04:58]This is where, hey, every couple weeks you're going up in weight and up in weight and challenging your body more and more and more. You're growing stronger. And then one other thing you want to do is you want to walk. You want to do between 8 to 12,000 steps per day.

[00:05:14]Now, I can remember looking back uh when I used to actually work in a gym much earlier on in my life when I was in college and I was actually a personal trainer through undergrad and I worked out with a lot of people that were very healthy and fit. I noticed that a lot of the people that were doing more bodybuilding, the people that had the most muscle mass, the least amount of fat, they didn't really do cardio. maybe one day a week they would push themselves in cardio, but for the most part they would typically get on a treadmill at an incline and that's what they would do. Sometimes they would also do the stairmaster, but they weren't doing cardio every day if they did cardio in an intervals. They did one day of intervals a week and then that was it. And these individuals really had it dialed in on how to burn fat and build muscle. Now, you can do some cardio and you can do some walking, but here's what I would say. If you're going to do cardio, do it one day a week, okay? Do interval training. It could be about 20 minutes ideally on something like a pelaton or sprints or even swimming.

[00:06:12]Something like that where you're doing intervals a day a week. And then outside of that, walking around 10,000 steps a day, ideally up and down hills or at an incline is really what you want to focus on. And one other common question I get is should if I am doing both weightlifting and cardio, which should I do first? And the answer is absolutely.

[00:06:31]You want to lift weights first. You want to do resistance training first, followed by the walking or that one to two days a week max of some sort of 20 minutes of interval training. That's really what you want to focus on is weights first, cardio second. And by the way, there's a study on this. There is a 12week controlled trial that demonstrated the effects of doing a full cardio workout in then doing resistance training after and vice versa. For those who did cardio first and then lifted, their V2 max went up substantially, but their strength gains were moderate. For those who did resistance training first, then cardio, they saw much better strength gains than their other group, but their V2 max increase was only slightly less than the first group. So based on these studies, you're always better off lifting weights and then doing cardio afterwards. Now, not only that, and this is really important, the group that did the weight training first, they also lost more body fat than the group that did cardio first. And you would think, well, if I'm prioritizing cardio, I'm going to lose more body fat and more weight. That's not the case.

[00:07:40]You'll lose more body fat by lifting weights first and then doing cardio after. Here's another commonly asked question. Should women train differently than men? Here's the surprising answer.

[00:07:51]No. Women respond to the same training stimulus. And no, you will not look like a male bodybuilder without testosterone or steroids. That's physiologically not happening. Women who lift get lean and strong and toned. Now, I know some women sometimes get worried about, and here's what I found, okay? Women tend to worry about how big their legs get and their arms get. And let me say this, typically the legs is a non-issue if you're both doing the weightlifting and some of that interval cardio together. And for arms, that really isn't the area of the body maybe you should focus on as much. You really want to focus on the larger muscle groups. Your butt and your legs and your back and your ch and your chest and shoulders. And I would say your shoulders and back and legs and butt are the areas you want to focus on then.

[00:08:37]Now, here's another frequently asked question. Should I lift heavy weights or should I do high reps? The answer is both. You want to do both in different cycles. Train in the 5 to eight rep range for strength weeks. in the 8 to 20 rep range for hypertrophy weeks. And but generally you want variety, okay? And so some weeks you're doing more of the higher reps, some you're doing the lower reps, but generally speaking, that 8 to 12 reps is what most people have found via their own experience will get them their best results. And here's another question. What is the best workout split for most people? Well, for most people, I would say it's an upper and lower body split. Four days a week. So, two days a week you're doing lower body. Two days a week you're doing upper body. And you're focusing on the larger muscle groups.

[00:09:28]We're doing a full body routine three days a week, still prioritizing your largest muscle groups. Now, I want to share with you one of the most incredible longevity principles when it comes to lifting weights and doing resistance training. By the way, when I say resistance training, that could be lifting weights. It could be doing machines. It could be doing bands, but you're having resistance. You're pressing against to build strength and build muscle. And what they found is is that when you lift weights, it's probably the single greatest thing you could do on a regular basis for building out more mitochondria in your cells.

[00:10:03]Every cell in your body. Now, most of the time, people think that when you have a cell, it has a single mitochondria in it. No. Your cells, many of them have thousands of mitochondria in each single cell. And these mitochondria are your body's power plants. They're providing your body with cellular energy to build hormones and heal and regenerate and overall promote longevity. Now, there was research done to see how many mitochondria are on a muscle cross-section of a sedary individual versus somebody who was doing resistance training. And listen to this.

[00:10:41]They found around 12 mitochondria per cross-section for sedary individuals, but closer to 45 for those who did resistance training. Think about that.

[00:10:51]That's three and a half times 350% more mitochondria if you are strength training on a regular basis. And remember this, mitochondria is key for everything from fighting cancer to promoting energy to looking and feeling younger to reversing disease. I mean, it's important for nearly everything. And resistance training might be the single greatest way to boost mitochondria of all types of health. By the way, there's also a lot of mitochondria in your heart and your brain. And so when you are doing this, especially and so when you are exercising, you're also building mitochondria, not only in your muscle, but also in your heart and your brain.

[00:11:32]And that blood flow, it's also helping to build mitochondria throughout your body. And what resistance training does is it sends the signal to build and regenerate. But your body can't build anything without the raw materials, which brings us to the second pillar, protein. If resistance training is the foreman signaling where work needs to be done, protein is the construction crew that actually shows up to build. The best training plant in the world won't build a thing if the raw materials aren't showing up. Right? If you're going to build a new house, if you're remodeling this house, which is what all of us want to do, right? We want to take this house, this temple of God, and we want to take, you know, th those boards and materials that are rotten by by water or termites or beaten up. We want to get rid of the old cells and we want to build new healthy cells. Right?

[00:12:20]Protein actually did you know in Latin in Greek it means primary of primary importance. Protein is the most important thing you want to focus on when it comes to building mitochondrial health, building muscle and burning fat.

[00:12:35]And most people want to have between.7 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight. Okay? So think about this. If you weigh 140 lbs, you want to have at least 100 gram of protein a day, but maybe closer to 140. Or if you weigh 180 lbs, that's going to be close to 125 grams to 180 g. So, you need more protein if you want to burn fat, build muscle, and promote longevity. And your best sources of protein are going to be pasture-raised eggs, grass-fed beef, bison, lamb, wild caught fish like salmon, organic poultry like turkey and chicken, organic yogurt like Greek yogurt, raw cheese, and clean protein sources from both plants and animals.

[00:13:24]These are the forms of protein that you want to focus on. Now, here's another common question I get is, "How many calories should I be eating to recmp my body?" Most people eat too little. Okay, they cut calories so hard that the body cannibalizes their muscles to survive.

[00:13:43]Okay, the sweet spot is a moderate deficit of around 300 calories below maintenance with also high protein.

[00:13:53]Okay, if you go too low calorie, it sends shock waves through your hormonal system with cortisol going up, then creating this cascade where your body starts to eat its own muscle. So, there's a mathematical formula. It's really simple, by the way. You can all do it. Uh to figure out exactly what your calorie should be per day for maximizing building muscle and burning fat. And what you're going to do is you're going to take your body weight times 14 and then you're going to minus around 3 to 400 calories. And so if you're 140 lbs, that's going to be around 16 to,700 calories per day with at least 100 grams, but closer to 140 gram of protein. And if you can be hitting that, it's going to greatly help you in burning fat and building muscle all while promoting longevity. So, if you're watching this and you're even over 40 years old, okay, you want to aim closer to that one gram of protein per pound of body weight with your protein needs and hitting that protein goal.

[00:14:54]Let's say for instance, you weigh 160 pounds, okay? And you want to hit that one gram of protein per body weight. All right? What you want to do is you don't want to try and get this all in one meal. Because this is what I see a lot of times people doing is sometimes they'll say, "Okay, well, I'm going to eat, you know, I'm going to have maybe 10 grams for breakfast and 30 for lunch and 30 for dinner." And then it's like, "Well, you're not going to come close to hitting it." The science shows that you can typically absorb around 30 gram of protein per meal. Sometimes a little higher. Once you go to 25, it starts to go down a little bit and a little bit more after that. But still, by the way, even if you don't fully can't fully absorb and utilize it all, it's still going to support your metabolism.

[00:15:40]Protein can be better than doing excess carbohydrates. But for most people, what you want to do is take 30 grams of protein and have that four times a day.

[00:15:50]And so, here's what I personally do is I typically do about 40 g of protein four times a day for myself. I wake up for breakfast and I have 40 grams of protein. I then work out and then I have a shake right afterwards with protein.

[00:16:03]So, if in the morning I might have eggs or maybe it's another a protein shake and then and that's around, let's say 6:30, 7 a.m. and then I work out and then let's say around 10:00 a.m. I might have a protein shake and then I have lunch around 12:30 and then I have dinner around 5:30 and but I have about 40 grams of protein four times a day.

[00:16:25]That's what you want to be doing to optimize your protein absorption and to maximize your metabolism. Now, here's another question I get. Does collagen protein count?

[00:16:37]Here's my answer. It counts partially, not completely. I would say you can count collagen as about maybe half of a protein serving. Okay? But you cannot count it as full. So, let's say you have 20 grams of collagen. You might count that as towards 10 grams of protein, but you can't count it fully towards your protein because part of what we're talking about with building muscle are muscle building proteins like leucine and valin and a lot of those branch chain amino acids that are important.

[00:17:06]All right, here's another frequently asked question I get. How long does this all take? Okay, in order to burn fat and build muscle and actually see my body changing. beginners and people returning from a long break will see really significant changes in about 8 to 12 weeks. I mean, for myself, I've noticed it's about 3 months. 3 months, I will see some really big changes. For someone who's already lean and trained, recompose a little bit slower, but you can expect to see still significant changes and about 6 months to sometimes 12 months for visible body composition shifts.

[00:17:43]Heat.

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