Losing muscle mass is normal as you get older. You have sarcopenia. https://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/guide/sarcopenia-with-aging "From the time you are born to around the time you turn 30, your muscles grow larger and stronger. But at some point in your 30s, you start to lose muscle mass and function. The cause is age-related sarcopenia or sarcopenia with aging."
I have been using the all vegetable base version of this shake. It was recommended by my Oncologist. It seems the all-veggie version is no longer available. This brand was developed and formulated by a medical doctor and a cancer survivor and to my knowledge is the cleanest high protein shake available. The grass-fed beef ones are just as good and my new Oncologist says he sees no difference in it and the all-veggie version. Even if no cancer or worry of cancer, these are the best protein shakes available. I have been using them for two years at one per day but my doctor says to start using two per day and see if that helps me gain the weight I need. Orgain also makes a powder should you want to add it to other drinks or food.
I would be tempted to get a second opinion just to make certain that the weight loss is not due to something else. I know of the loss of muscle mass as we age, but 35# in a single year sounds high to this layman.
For strength, work the muscles with tension and relaxation. An example is to stand straight with 5 pound hand weights at your sides. Lift the weights slowly overhead, stand with the weights overhead in a static position, lower the weights slowly back to your sides, and stand straight again in a static position. If you can repeat the same cycle every 15 seconds for 5 minutes that will give you 20 repetitions. This is an excellent exercise to build up the tone and strength of your muscles. As long as you're eating a good healthy diet of natural foods, you will be getting enough protein. Eating junk food and junk supplements might add useless bulk but won't do anything to build up your strength.
Welcome to the Seniors Only forum, @John Nopales , glad to have you here with us ! ! At the top left of the main page, you will see “Notices and Announcements”, and one of the sub forums there is for introductions, if you would like to do that and tell us all a little bit about yourself. I am a greeter here, and if you have any questions or need information about the forum, I am glad to help out, so just message me with any questions. Hal has had some problems with balance and falling; so he will probably need to start with some really easy and basic exercises, maybe something that he can do while sitting down.
And yet you’re hoping you can still use a Walker and not be pushed around in a wheel chair? Without change there will be no change. Ensure is poison to the person who truly wishes to do better things for themselves.
Your doctor may be like many others who have a “thing” about building muscle strength and mass after a certain age. We get to 70-80-90 and they say it can’t be done, pill us up and wait around for us to simply roll over and die. I and thousands more like me have proven that the stigma of age is only a product of those who can’t be better because they won’t make the effort needed to be better. It’s easier to say I’m old and be waited on hand and foot until death comes. The truth is that every time I go to the gym I see people anywhere between 80-nearly a hundred years old out there enjoying life and there’s absolutely no reason you can’t do better too and to be perfectly frank, I’d like to see ya stick around for a while longer and be healthy while you’re at it. Heck, some of those same people have asked me what and how I do what I do when it is I who is in total awe of them! Nearly everyone including our new man, @John Nopales has made a couple of good suggestions and my earlier suggestion ( a year or so ago) of getting a temporary trainer to help you get more mobile and gain muscle strength and mass still stands. A good trainer will ask all the right questions and give the right answers and help you with your journey of getting fit again. Note: NO good trained worth his or her salt will turn you onto as much sugar as there is in Ensure. NONE. Note 2: By making a few good changes you might even slow down or even reverse your mental problems too.
Bought a New Strength / Weight Gain Supplement: This one is called "Serious Mass" and is a powder mixed and blended with milk. It comes in a 6-pound container and provides 8 servings of 1250 calories and 50 grams of Protein each. Compare to Ensure: Hal
I was browsing for threads on Supplements because I was on a significant supplement program when I quit drinking and then I stopped because I read that if you are deficient in a given vitamin/mineral you should notice a difference when you start supplementing. I never noticed a difference, so I continue to eat a varied diet and now just take a multi-vitamin. Due to COVID and minor health issues, I'm adding a few things to the daily multi. I'm also researching other stuff (like d-mannose.) Ken's comment regarding the variety of cabbages reminded me of my recent search for Bermuda onions. My dad used to make Bermuda onion sandwiches all the time, and you can no longer buy them. It seems that they were an important part of Bermuda's economy for a while, then we started growing them in the states, and eventually a different onion variety came along that yielded more onions per acre, so farmers started growing those and they stopped growing the Bermudas (although for some reason the seeds are still available.) I imagine this is exactly how we ended up with the selection we see in today's supermarkets. On the one hand, this is how we are able to feed a world that is twice the population previously thought to be the maximum supportable based upon the then-current food-producing capacity. And higher yields = lower prices. But I've always wondered exactly what is lost in our foods and if such a loss is significant relative to our needs (especially when even the most active of us is likely more sedentary than our hunter/gatherer ancestors.) And if the loss is significant, how would that manifest itself outside of a mass recurrence of maladies?
The idea that you will notice the effects of deficiencies if you supplement is true of some things, but not most. A majority of Americans and northern Europeans are vitamin D deficient, and notice no difference when their D levels are increased. The same is true of most minerals, with a few exceptions. Differences are noted, however, in long-term health and resistance to disease and deterioration with age. There was a famous study years ago concerning thyroid function markers in Switzerland. When thyroid assays were developed, people tried to determine what was "normal". A swiss study was commissioned and a "normal" set of values were determined. There was a high rate of goiter in Switzerland at the time, and when "normals" were calculated, most of the population was with the "normal" range. What was eventually determined was that the entire population were iodine deficient and hypothyroid. The same has been more recently determined with vitamin D. The standard in western medicine is that the level that prevents obvious disease, for example rickets, is the correct level. Only recently have efforts begun to determine not disease prevention but health maintenance levels. It is my belief that most of us are significantly deficient in many, if not most, dietary minerals if not supplemented if our diet consists mostly of commercially-grown food. If you buy mostly locally-grown food, check with local farmers and see how they supplement their livestock. Much more research has been done with animal supplements than with human supplementation. Vitamin E and selenium are good examples that we discovered when we had livestock. If we fed locally grown hay and grain, the animals would develop selenium deficiencies that were only evident in a high "infant" mortality. I worked with a local neurologist who would do vitamin assays on all his patients as he had found that many of the neurological issues he saw could be linked to low vitamin levels, particularly the B vitamins of which little research has been done. Research in the U.S. is primarily financed by Big Pharma, and the last thing they want to find is that many diseases that they are treating with expensive or addictive drugs could be resolved with cheap OTC vitamin supplements.
My blood tests from the last few doctor’s visits indicated that my vitamin D level was low, so I was prescribed vitamin D from the pharmacy which brought it up to where the doctor wanted it. At this last visit, it was only slightly below the desired, so she did not prescribe it again but asked if I took any supplements. I said no but asked if Centrum Silver was a good choice. It has 125% of the daily requirement of vitamin D. Well, I started taking it and we will see. This will be a good test of the efficacy of OTC vitamins because I won’t have to assume that it works because the blood test will give good hard data. I’ll report back in 6 months.
This whole supplement subject is an interesting one. I just bought specific vitamins & minerals to fill in the gaps in my multivitamin so as to bring all amounts up to RDA levels. The only extra amounts I'm taking are C, D and Zinc (plus a little copper), and those are moderate quantities. When I started a significant supplement regime in 1990, I read that the method the FDA used to test vitamins in no way emulates what goes on in the human digestive system. I recall reading that the vitamins are ground between two discs to crush them before they are analyzed. That book offered no alternative "better" method. You'll be the first person I'm aware of to engage in an actual human test. I'm curious to see the results. And since we're heading into winter and not summer, you won't have to adjust for the effects of extra sunlight.
One thing that is important when taking any kind of supplement, but especially something like a hard vitamin capsule, is to be sure to take it along with some food. When we eat food, our digestive system goes to work with the digesting and processing of the food, and sends out the necessary enzymes needed to do that. When we take any kind of a pill or capsule, our mouth and stomach do not perceive it as food, so no digestion happens. This means that sometimes, the pill does not dissolve even, and just passes on through the body, doing no good at all. Even a powdered or liquid supplement helps because you usually are drinking some juice or milk or something that our body recognizes as food. I usually take all of my supplements and even my medications along with food, and usually right after I have had a meal. The only exception would be my melatonin, which I take a half hour before bedtime, and it dissolves in my mouth.
When I was on that heavy duty regime, I would make an effort to take supplements along with food items that naturally contained those vitamins and minerals so as to enhance my metabolizing them. I recall taking potassium in powder form, and mixing it in with unsweetened grapefruit juice. Sadly, statins put an end to my grapefruit juice.
I eat a good diet and get a CBC every 3 months. If there is any deficiency my PC will have me take a supplement otherwise I just eat properly.