Hi, this is Kevin Don the Get Fit Guy.

And this week, I want to continue on the topic of using fitness to hedge against the aging process.

As I mentioned last week, there are several hallmarks of aging.

One of the main things we see is sarcopenia, which means death of the flesh in Latin,

and relates to the loss of muscle mass that we see as we age.

We know that muscle mass can be dramatically increased by resistance training.

In other words, we can effectively hedge against muscle loss through exercise.

Another question that often comes my way is,

how much protein do I need to build muscle or help retain muscle?

Which is a great question because we know that protein is a key component in muscle building.

We also know that the modern diet is quite low in protein.

However, there's also a lot of information and disinformation out there

about what kind of protein you need, how much of it you need, when you should be taking it.

So let's have a look at that and see what would be optimal for resisting sarcopenia when combined

with resistance training. So firstly, what is protein? Well, like I always enjoy doing, I looked up the etymology of the word, and protein comes from the Greek word proteos, which means primary.

She is quite telling. Even the ancient Greeks knew the value of protein to the body.

The proteins are a macronutrient, which is a group also containing carbohydrates and fats, and they're made up

of smaller building blocks called amino acids. There are 21 standard amino acids, and most

microorganisms and plants possess enzymes that enable them to synthesize these amino acids.

But animals, including humans, do not have these enzymes and therefore need to consume these amino acids. The animals, including humans, do not have these enzymes,

and therefore need to consume these amino acids in their diet. The amino acids, which we need to

consume, are referred to as the essential amino acids. And there are nine essential amino acids.

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