How A New Study is Changing the Way We Think About Metabolism and Aging
There have been a few accepted theories about metabolism.
You gain weight year after year once you turn 20 years old because your metabolism continually slows down.
Women have slower metabolisms than men.
And middle age is when your metabolism bottoms out.
A new study is challenging those beliefs. Over the weekend, The New York Times published a piece about the findings.
Here’s what to take away and (more importantly?) how it relates to pickleball and exercising as you age.
What the New Study on Metabolism Shows
The article shows that we really didn’t have a good handle on how metabolism actually works. It varies from person to person, but on average, here were the findings.
“There’s infancy, up until age 1, when calorie burning is at its peak, accelerating until it is 50 percent above the adult rate.
Then, from age 1 to about age 20, metabolism gradually slows by about 3 percent a year.
From age 20 to 60, it holds steady.
And, after age 60, it declines by about 0.7 percent a year.”
What this means is that our initial understanding of metabolism (that it steadily declines throughout adulthood) is wrong. It actually slows down before you’re 20. Then, it holds steady until 60 years of age. And after that, it only drops less that 1% per year.
What This Means for Pickleballers
Pickleball is a great sport for many reasons. Not the least of which is that you can play it no matter what kind of shape you’re in and no matter what age you are. Even in your later years, after blowing out 60 candles. This means you can hit the courts when your metabolism is slowly dropping by .7% after turning 60. Staying active will help offset that decline of metabolism.
