Cheryl is the founder and editor of Heal Nourish Grow, an ultimate wellness, healthy lifestyle and advanced nutrition site. She helps others develop the confidence and habits to create lasting change and greater health by sharing her wealth of knowledge and over 25 years of experience in psychology, addictions studies, fitness, nutrition, yoga, meditation, overall health and wellness. Coaching others to reach their personal version of ultimate wellness is her passion. She hosts the Heal Nourish Grow podcast, a show dedicated to sharing information about all aspects of healthy lifestyle and weight loss. She posts keto food ideas daily in her Instagram stories and more in depth recipes, research and wellness content at HealNourishGrow.com. Cheryl’s first cookbook, Easy Weeknight Keto and The 21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Keto Made Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight are available on Amazon. She was the featured chef for August 2021 at US Wellness meats. Her recipes have been featured by outlets such as the local news, Kevin’s Natural Foods, Cut da Carb, Choc Zero and Women’s Health Magazine and she is a frequent speaker at keto and wellness events.
The study that proves muscle is medicine
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A quick reminder before we get into it: there's still time to enter the US Wellness Meats $175 grass-fed meat giveaway tied to my June Featured Chef spot. The contest closes June 14, so if you missed last week's email or haven't entered yet, here's the link. It only takes a minute and there's no catch. Now, on to this week. Something I read while we were traveling has been sitting with me since and I wanted to share it with you. It's actually a perfect follow-up to last week's conversation about why high-quality protein matters so much, because it gets at the why underneath all of it. Sarcopenia, the progressive loss of muscle mass and strength, went from affecting 35 percent of study participants to zero. Not reduced. Not improved. Zero. A 2025 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health followed 74 older adults through a 12-week progressive resistance training protocol combined with nutritional counseling. In the intervention group, sarcopenia prevalence dropped from 35% to 0%. The control group, the ones who didn't train or change their nutrition, actually got worse over the same period. It's a small trial; seventy-four people is not a sweeping conclusion. But it adds to a large and consistent body of evidence pointing in the same direction: resistance training combined with adequate nutrition is one of the most powerful tools we have against muscle loss with age. Not a drug and not a procedure. Lifting and eating enough protein. What strikes me most is that sarcopenia is still widely treated as inevitable, something you manage rather than something you can actually push back against. Studies like this one keep making the case otherwise. I think about this every time I'm in the gym when I'd rather be in bed. The compound interest on consistent training is real. Muscle isn't just aesthetic. It's the tissue that keeps you independent, functional and metabolically healthy as you age. It is, genuinely, medicine. If you've been waiting for a reason to start (or restart) strength training, I hope this is it. As always, hit reply and let me know what you're working on. I read everything and I always write back. Have a great weekend, Cheryl P.S. I have a few coaching spots open right now. If you've been wanting accountability and a personalized plan built around your goals, your hormones and your actual schedule, let's talk. |
Heal Nourish Grow
Cheryl is the founder and editor of Heal Nourish Grow, an ultimate wellness, healthy lifestyle and advanced nutrition site. She helps others develop the confidence and habits to create lasting change and greater health by sharing her wealth of knowledge and over 25 years of experience in psychology, addictions studies, fitness, nutrition, yoga, meditation, overall health and wellness. Coaching others to reach their personal version of ultimate wellness is her passion. She hosts the Heal Nourish Grow podcast, a show dedicated to sharing information about all aspects of healthy lifestyle and weight loss. She posts keto food ideas daily in her Instagram stories and more in depth recipes, research and wellness content at HealNourishGrow.com. Cheryl’s first cookbook, Easy Weeknight Keto and The 21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Keto Made Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight are available on Amazon. She was the featured chef for August 2021 at US Wellness meats. Her recipes have been featured by outlets such as the local news, Kevin’s Natural Foods, Cut da Carb, Choc Zero and Women’s Health Magazine and she is a frequent speaker at keto and wellness events.
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I've spent 30 years in the health and wellness space, have a training certification, have competed on a physique stage and I've read more study abstracts than I can count. So when the largest evidence review on strength training ever assembled landed earlier this year, I read the whole thing. Like many studies, we didn't REALLY need a study to tell is what we already know. The American College of Sports Medicine released its first major update to resistance training guidelines in 17 years. It...
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