You are what you eat.
(Shocking revelation, I know.)
I just hope you are not Rice Crispies in Soy milk.....
Approach this with an open mind and maybe a tiny pinch of skepticism toward the stuff you were taught in school/home/magazine/that-one-loud-guy-on-the-internet.
Weird truth about aging: most people gain weight as they get older… right up until the point the aging process flips the script and suddenly they start losing it (usually the parts they wanted to keep).
Early in life we’re basically building a human from scratch: bones, muscles, organs, the whole starter home.
→ Protein = the actual bricks and lumber.
→ Fat = rebar, insulation, and emergency generator fuel.
→ Carbs = mostly quick-burning gasoline… and honestly, do we need quite as much of it as the food-pyramid priests told us in the 90s? Questionable.
When you’re picking macros, the priority list is pretty straightforward:
Protein (animal sources get the gold star—they come with the complete set of building blocks).
Natural fats (yep, the animal ones again; sorry vegetable-oil fan club).
Carbs — nice to have, fun to eat, not strictly required. Your body can run on protein fat for a very long time. Carbs are more like the optional part.
Calorie zealots who count every gram of protein as “fuel to be burned” are… creatively misunderstanding human biology.
Newsflash: we don’t store extra protein the way we store extra carbs (glycogen) or fat (love handles).
Protein mostly gets bolted onto muscles, bones, organs, skin, hair, enzymes, immune cells… you know, the stuff we’d prefer not to cannibalize.
The body isn’t sitting there going, “Hmm, biceps look tasty today.” It really doesn’t.
Remember being a teenager? Bottomless pit of hunger, endless energy, growing like a weed? That was hormones screaming “BUILD!”
Fast-forward to grandma & grandpa: hormones have mostly clocked out, appetite drops, muscle quietly sneaks away, bones get brittle. Different game.
So the takeaway isn’t rocket science:
If you want to stay strong instead of slowly turning into a fragile version of yourself, maybe don’t blindly follow the high-carb-low-fat-low-protein gospel that’s been failing people for decades.
Instead:
Eat plenty of protein (build the structure).
Eat decent natural fats (support the structure fuel).
Move your body so it knows where to install all that protein.
Sleep like it’s your actual job.
Stop marinating in chronic stress (it’s basically emotional termites).
Do more of whatever actually makes you happy without wrecking you.
My cheat-code plate: call it the IMW Plate 75/25 rule
75% of the real estate = protein fat (which surprisingly to many is more fat than protein)
25% or less = non-junk carbs.
It’s not dogma.
It’s just math that seems to make biological sense.
I know, more Math. At least I didn’t make Math a verb this time, or did I?
Bottom line:
Not every bite you take is just fuel.
A whole bunch of it is literally construction material.
Treat it that way and your future self might send you a thank-you note instead of a medical bill for a hip replacement.