The Whole Body Reset

Your Weight-Loss Plan for a Flat Belly, Optimum Health & a Body You'll Love at Midlife and Beyond

Stephen Perrine, Heidi Skolnik, AARP

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781982160166
• eBook ISBN: 9781982160173
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: General Health

New York Times Bestseller

Stop—and even reverse!—age-related weight gain and muscle loss with the first-ever weight-loss plan specifically designed to shrink your belly, extend your life, and create your healthiest self at mid-life and beyond.

You don’t have to gain weight as you age. That’s the simple yet revolutionary promise of The Whole Body Reset, which uncovers why standard diet and exercise advice stops working for us as we approach midlife—and reveals how simple changes to the way we eat can halt, and even reverse, age-related weight gain and muscle loss.

The Whole Body Reset presents stunning new evidence about the power of “protein timing” for people at midlife—research that blows away current government guidelines, refutes the myth of slowing metabolisms and “inevitable” weight gain, and changes the way people in their mid-forties and older should think about food. The Whole Body Reset explains in simple, inspiring terms exactly how our bodies change with age, and how eating to accommodate those changes can make us respond to exercise as if we were twenty to thirty years younger.

Developed by AARP, tested by a panel of more than 100 AARP employees, and approved by an international board of doctors, nutritionists, and fitness experts, The Whole Body Reset doesn’t use diet phases, eating windows, calorie restriction, or other trendy gimmicks. Its six simple secrets and scores of recipes are easy to follow, designed for real people living in the real world. A dining guide even shows how to follow this program in popular restaurants from McDonald’s to Starbucks to Olive Garden. And best of all: It works!

Chapter 1 The Age-Defying Magic of Protein Timing

The Shocking New Breakthrough in Nutrition

If you feel helpless and hopeless about your weight, you’re not alone. In the United States, nearly 43 percent of adults aged forty to fifty-nine are overweight or obese. Among those sixty and older, 41 percent are obese. Among adult Hispanics and non-Hispanic Blacks, rates are even more dire, especially for women: 54 percent of adult Black women and 51 percent of adult Hispanic women are obese.

Chances are, you’ve already tried a bunch of other diets. And workouts. And superfoods. And even if you’ve lost weight successfully in the past, I can almost guarantee that you’ve since put those pounds—and more—back on your frame. In fact, one study¹ of more than 8,800 people found that those who had been on a diet in the previous year were significantly more likely to gain weight than those who had not. And the more diets you go on, the greater your likelihood of gaining weight in the future.

That’s because traditional weight-loss diets trigger our bodies to grow fatter in three specific ways.

The first is that, by restricting calories, a traditional diet sends your body the message that it needs to be prepared to live through times of famine. Once your body receives that signal, it automatically turns down your resting metabolism—the number of calories your body burns while you’re sleeping, sitting at the computer, or binge-watching TV shows. So as great as it might feel to lose a few pounds by cutting calories or skipping meals or restricting foods, what you’ve done in reality is to reduce the number of calories your body burns each and every day, setting you up for future weight gain.

“Once I knew what my go-to foods were, it was fairly simple. I’ve made permanent changes to what and how I eat.”

—Tracy Eichelberger, age 55, Washington, DC

Dropped 9 pounds on the 12-week test panel

The second is that when we go on a diet, we don’t just lose fat. Most of us lose muscle, too, and muscle is more metabolically active than fat. Once we’re into our mid-forties or so, muscle loss is already an insidious problem we must battle against on a daily basis. Because muscle plays a huge role in preventing belly fat, the more muscle we lose, the more belly fat we’ll gain in response.

The third and perhaps most important reason is that most diets are built for the general public, not for people in midlife. And our bodies at midlife ARE different.

But not in a bad way.

In fact, as we enter midlife, our bodies undergo an upgrade of sorts. They transition from old-school muscle cars—the type that run best on regular gas—to high-performance sports coupes. And high-performance vehicles require high-performance fuel.

Consider:

• As we get older, our body’s ability to turn protein into muscle is reduced (a phenomenon known as “anabolic resistance”). This process starts as early as our thirties and accelerates with age. Our protein needs skyrocket, as our bodies are beset by age-related muscle loss. New research shows that people in their fifties, sixties, and seventies may need considerably more protein than those in their twenties and thirties—and far more than current RDA guidelines recommend.² And not just a steak at dinner; we need to spread protein throughout the day if we want to hold on to our life-giving muscle; science shows that those who retain muscle as they age lower their risk of obesity, heart disease, even dementia.
• As we pass midlife, our ability to extract nutrients from food diminishes, so “nutrient density”—the notion of making your calories count, nutrition-wise—becomes a critical issue. In particular, vitamin D, calcium, magnesium, and vitamin B12 often become more difficult for us to access—even if we’re getting enough of them. And these nutrients are crucial to helping us hold on to muscle and prevent fat gain. That’s another reason why we need more protein and dairy, as well as more fruits and vegetables. Indeed, researchers have recently discovered that the more fruits and vegetables older adults eat, the lower their degree of muscle loss as they age.³
• Americans eat only about 16 grams of fiber per day—not nearly enough to keep our weight steady. A lack of fiber may be one of the biggest reasons we can’t drop pounds. One weight-loss study of individuals with metabolic syndrome (a combination of health factors including excess belly fat and high cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar) found that eating 30 grams of fiber per day, without dieting, was nearly as effective as following a diet that cut sugar, fat, salt, and alcohol. And yet—shockingly—the USDA guidelines actually recommend we reduce fiber intake as we age! No wonder we’re gaining weight!

Why the Whole Body Reset? And Why Now?

We asked our panelists why they needed the Whole Body Reset. Here are some of their responses:

• “I’m getting married to my partner in July and am trying to lose about ten pounds before then.”
• “It is simple: I want to see my grandchildren grow up!”
• “I’m planning a hiking vacation this summer and know by losing weight I’ll have more endurance and enjoy myself much more.”
• “As a type 2 diabetic, I am always looking for ways to control and reduce my A1C.”
• “I have lost some weight but the last ten to fifteen pounds are so stubborn.”

All these weight-related factors, and their effect on midlife Americans, have been extensively researched. They just haven’t been widely reported on. Until now. And no diet takes these surprising and significant differences in our bodies into account. Until now.

The Unique Promise of the Whole Body Reset

Enter the Whole Body Reset, and the magic of protein timing. It’s a very simple way of eating that helps your body resist age-related muscle loss—even while you’re burning fat and losing weight. Protein timing isn’t a new concept, and it isn’t a gimmick. It’s a long-proven approach to maintaining and even growing lean muscle tissue. Mostly, it’s been used by young athletes to improve performance, including muscular endurance, strength, power, and cardiovascular health.

But more and more evidence is showing that as we get older, timing our protein intake is no longer just a matter of being able to jump higher or run longer. Because of the way our bodies change with age, protein timing becomes crucial to keeping us lean, healthy, and disease-free. Eating the right amount of protein at healthy intervals means significant weight loss with no rebound weight gain. One study even found that overweight adults 50+ became both leaner and physically stronger when they started using protein timing.⁴

Here’s why: When you were in your twenties, you could turn a glass of milk into muscle. Just a single cup of milk—with its 8 grams of protein—could get your body’s muscle-maintenance process revving. But by the time we reach our thirties or so, we’ve already begun to see that ability fade—the aforementioned anabolic resistance. Metaphorically speaking, that glass of milk no longer boots up your muscle-building operating system. You need a bigger dose. The “make muscle” button has to be pushed harder and harder as we get older in order to make the process turn on.

This is a huge issue, because our bodies are constantly breaking down and rebuilding muscle tissue. But if you’re not able to convert the food you eat into new muscle, then you’re tearing down faster than you’re building back up.

And by the time we’re in our fifties, the problem has gotten severe enough that many of us have already begun losing significant amounts of muscle mass—leading to weight gain and all sorts of bad health outcomes. (You’ll read how this process increases our risk of heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s, among many other issues, in the coming chapters.)

But we can stop this slow descent into muscle loss and weight gain. This process is reversible. And so easily!

All we need to do is to up our protein intake to 25 to 30 grams per meal, and our bodies respond the same way a younger person’s would. Indeed, one study found that when people in their sixties combined a high-quality protein meal and resistance exercise, their bodies responded in the same way as the bodies of people in their twenties.⁵

Let’s say that again: If you eat the right amount of quality protein, your body responds as if it were forty to fifty years younger. Voilà. The Whole Body Reset.

This isn’t a controversial point or some sort of far-out idea, by the way. It’s the official position of PROT-AGE, an association of gerontologists and nutritionists. It recently reaffirmed that older people should eat about 1 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight—or roughly 0.5 to 0.6 grams per pound. But they also concluded that 25 to 30 grams of protein per meal was crucial⁶ for older people to reach their anabolic threshold—the point at which muscle can be maintained. And maintaining that muscle mass is what we’re after.

And don’t get the idea that this is some sort of “high-protein diet.” The average person following this plan won’t actually eat much, if any, more protein on a given day than he or she does already. But what will happen is that the timing and concentration of that protein is going to change. And the results will be extraordinary.

Nor is the Whole Body Reset one of those miserable “low-carb” or “low-fat” diets. No, there will be plenty of comforting carbs, including whole grain bread, with an emphasis on high-fiber cereals, beans and rice, and plenty of satisfying, healthy fats as well. And of course, delicious salads and flavorful fruits and vegetables. Once you understand the power of protein timing, you’ll see how easy it is to build nutritious and satisfying meals around all your favorite foods. Nothing is—pardon the pun—off the table.^I

Essentially, to stay lean and strong, our bodies need to be treated more like those of elite athletes. If you think of your midlife body in this way—as an upgraded model that needs special care, in the form of quality protein and higher-nutrient foods—you’ll be amazed at how well it can perform and how good it can look. More important, you’ll see many of the markers of age and ill health—blood pressure levels, cholesterol counts, blood sugar readings, and the like—come back under control. These numbers are the warning lights on your dashboard. They’re not telling you that you’re getting old. They’re telling you that the very cool, upgraded vehicle currently transporting you around simply needs better care.

For people at midlife, protein timing begins at breakfast. Indeed, research shows that women who eat less than 25 grams of protein in the morning (for men, it’s 30 grams) will probably be in muscle-loss mode all day.⁷ So if your day typically starts with little more than a croissant and coffee, or even with a bowl of oatmeal and fruit, you’ll find that single biggest step you can take on your midlife weight-loss journey will come on your very first meal of day one. Of course, your physical size and features need to be taken into account: If you’re a ballerina or a ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• The Whole Body Reset Advisory Board
• Introduction: A Flat Belly at 50+
• Chapter 1: The Age-Defying Magic of Protein Timing
• Chapter 2: Our Changing Bodies, Our Changing Needs
• Chapter 3: Let’s Spend a Day on the Whole Body Reset!
• Chapter 4: The Six Simple Secrets of Better Health
• Chapter 5: The Inside Story of Your Gut
• Chapter 6: How the Whole Body Reset Can Help Fight Disease and Save Your Life (Over and Over Again)
• Chapter 7: How the Whole Body Reset Can Help Keep Your Mind Sharp
• Chapter 8: Your Magic Supermarket Label Decoder
• Chapter 9: Take Your Whole Body Out to Eat
• Chapter 10: Toss Out Your Old Diet Books
• Chapter 11: The Metabolism Myth
• Chapter 12: Your Whole Body Fitness Plan
• Chapter 13: Troubleshooting the Whole Body Reset
• Chapter 14: Whole Body Recipes
• Appendix 1: The Complete Whole Body Reset Mix ’N’ Match Meal Maker
• Appendix 2: 10-Day Reset Plan for Your Whole Body
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors and AARP
• Notes
• List of Recipes
• Index
• Copyright