The Journey of You

Travel is an activity that’s practically guaranteed to change your life for the better.

In fact, research establishes that Mark Twain was right when he said “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Spending time in diverse locations really does broaden the mind and increase your acceptance of others.

Now, I’m not talking about vacations where you recharge at a sheltered resort or on a cruise ship. Instead, you want to immerse yourself in cultures that are very different from your own, eliminating the comfort zone of your normal roles, status, and relationships.

This type of travel may raise challenging questions about what you view as “normal,” and the wonderful opportunity to come up with meaningful answers.

Personal growth from travel mostly comes from the adversity of being out of your comfort zone. There’s a very specific form of challenging journey that contains an inherent personal growth aspect, and that’s a pilgrimage.

Global Wellness Trends reports that thanks to a record number of fresh and revitalized pilgrimage trails worldwide, people are leaving home to partake in this age-old, soul-searching form of travel.

For more on the allure and benefits of pilgrimage, our own Trudi Roth has written up an illuminating Further Feature just for you:

The Transformative Power of Pilgrimage (Further)

Keep going-

Brian Clark

P.S. New to Further? Join us here.

Fighting Weight

While purists may scoff at using weight-loss drugs like Ozempic instead of the natural approach, there’s no doubt that the treatments can get people in a better position to take up that natural approach after shedding significant weight. As it turns out, unless you shift to naturally eating less and working out, that weight will simply come right back.

Study Reveals How to Keep Weight Off After You Quit Ozempic (Science Alert)

The Unrested Mind

Poor sleep can make anxiety, depression and other mental health issues worse. Here’s what to do about it.

Your First Step Toward a Better Mood (New York Times gift article)

Living Without a Net

Even when self-employed, some Gen Xers find it challenging to make ends meet, especially without benefits. This is why more and more location-independent people are seeking a lower cost of living and affordable healthcare by living abroad.

‘I’m never going to be able to retire:’ Gen Xers cast doubts on life after work (Work Life)

Midlife Career Shift

Changing careers at midlife used to be unthinkable. You built up your expertise and then enjoyed the benefits until retirement. However, as people live longer than they did decades ago, second and even third careers begin to make more sense.

Starting Over in Midlife (Psychology Today)

The Downside of “Miracle” Weight Loss

By Samantha Clark

Many of us could stand to lose some weight. But what we’re really trying to do is lose fat, not muscle. Unfortunately, the two are often inextricably intertwined.

In a recent article for The Atlantic, author Daniel Engber wonders about prescribing Ozempic and its sibling GLP-1 agonist class of drugs to older Americans. The issue is the deterioration of muscle mass that typically accompanies the dramatic weight loss caused by these drugs.

It’s important for people at midlife to understand that muscle is the “organ of longevity.” In other words, the loss of muscle mass and strength as we age is associated with an earlier death and cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes.

Without the intervention of strength training, getting older equates to a natural decrease in muscle and bone. But in a scenario where GLP-1 agonist drugs are prescribed en masse to those 65 and older, these drugs can deliver a one-two punch that dramatically increases the loss of lean body tissue.

Thin and Weak is Not Healthy Aging

So what does it mean for those in the upper age brackets taking a GLP-1 without actively maintaining muscle by resistance training? The risk of death from falls, already high, will be staggering. But beyond the worst-case scenario, falls often lead to fractures of the wrist, hip, shoulder, upper arm, and pelvis, and these injuries stand to rise dramatically.

The enfeeblement from muscle loss equates to the inability to do the most basic human things in the latter half of one’s life. Things like picking up your grandchild, retrieving your dog’s toy from under the couch, or placing your suitcase in the overhead compartment of a plane.

If you’re choosing to live well — and long — then start building muscle now in your 40s and 50s, no matter what your current level of strength or fitness. For that, two things are required: consistent resistance training and sufficient protein intake.

Join the Resistance

Resistance training takes less than you think. For a beginner, anything more than you’re doing right now will reap significant rewards. Start with bodyweight exercises and move up to compound (multi-muscle) movements such as deadlifts, squats, presses and pulls.

As for protein, it takes more than you probably think. Multiple studies have shown that at least double the RDA, or 1.6g per kilogram (about 0.75 grams of protein per pound) of your target body weight is the minimum you should be ingesting. That’s not easy. It takes a focused effort to prioritize protein at every meal, but the benefits are remarkable.

On the other hand, ingesting only the RDA level of 0.8 grams per kilogram of weight when restricting calories causes muscle loss. In one study, the group taking only the RDA of protein with a reduced calorie intake lost 40-50% lean body mass (about the same level of loss as those using GLP-1s). So whether you’re eating less on your own or with the help of Ozempic, Wegovy, or other branded forms of semaglutide, ingesting higher amounts of protein will help lessen the rate of muscle loss.

Without doubt, a lower body fat level is a major factor in living a long, healthy life – and for many people, the new weight loss drugs can help. But muscle is vital too, especially for your quality of life as you age. In striving for the former, be sure not to forsake the latter.

Further Exploration:

Older Americans Are About to Lose a Lot of Weight (The Atlantic gift article)