Larry Loftis

A taxing day, but what an experience! 2026 IBJJF Pan American Championship

Honored, brothers! Go Gators (and Gamma Theta)!

A complete surprise and truly honored! Many thanks to brother Steve Price for nominating me, and brother Paul Sangiovanni for telling the award committee that I don't drink out of the fish bowl (gave that up years ago!). :) In hoc, and Go Gators!

🅱🅾🅾🅺 'Code Name: Lise' by @LarryLoftis explores the remarkable life of SOE agent Odette Hallowes, the first woman to be awarded the George Cross. @GalleryBooks #CodeNameLise #LarryLoftis #SOE #WW2 2/2 amazon.com/Code-Name-Beca…

Hockey players are cut from a different cloth #USAHockey

"I'm lucky I'm from the best country in the world, and we've got great dentists there, too...😂 The USA brotherhood is so strong. We were so proud we could do it for them and everyone back home." Jack Hughes post game after his GOLDEN goal for #TeamUSA at the #Olympics:

MUSCLE: THE MOST POWERFUL ANTI-AGING TOOL YOU'RE PROBABLY IGNORING Your skeletal muscle is not decorative tissue that lets you carry groceries. It's the primary metabolic organ that determines whether you age well or deteriorate into chronic disease. Most people, including most doctors, completely misunderstand this. The medical establishment obsesses over BMI and weight scales. These metrics are garbage. Two people can weigh the same, have identical BMIs, and identical waist measurements, yet have drastically different amounts of visceral fat wrapping their organs. One person might be metabolically healthy. The other is a heart attack waiting to happen. The difference? Muscle mass. MUSCLE AS METABOLIC CONTROL CENTER Your muscles are the largest glucose disposal system in your body. About 80% of glucose clearance happens in skeletal muscle. When you contract muscle tissue, it pulls glucose from your bloodstream without needing much insulin. More muscle equals better glucose control. Less muscle equals insulin resistance, metabolic dysfunction, and eventually diabetes. Fat oxidation works the same way. Higher muscle mass means more mitochondria, more fat-burning enzymes, better fatty acid transport. Your muscles literally create the metabolic machinery that determines whether you burn fat or store it around your organs. Amino acid metabolism matters more than most realize. Your body turns over 250 to 300 grams of protein daily, possibly 500 grams if you're larger or carry more muscle. Think of amino acids as Lego pieces. Your body recycles some, but when you're stressed, sick, injured, or fasting, it breaks down muscle tissue to get those pieces. If you lack adequate muscle stores, you have no metabolic buffer during illness or injury. MUSCLE AS ENDOCRINE ORGAN When you contract your muscles, they release myokines into your bloodstream. These signaling molecules regulate glucose and fat metabolism, reduce chronic inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, protect brain function, and even have anti-cancer properties. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor, one of these myokines, acts like fertilizer for your brain. It improves neuroplasticity and cognition. You literally grow your brain by contracting your muscles. Other myokines protect against cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Some regulate muscle growth and repair. This endocrine function explains why muscle mass predicts mortality better than almost any other metric. Strong people die less often from everything, not just falls and fractures. Cancer, heart disease, dementia, all show inverse correlations with muscle strength. THE HORMONE CONNECTION Testosterone and estrogen are critical for muscle health. Testosterone is anabolic and anti-catabolic. It preserves muscle mass during stress and fasting. It increases strength, power output, and muscle fiber size. It improves the brain-muscle connection that makes contraction efficient. Americans have epidemic levels of low testosterone in both men and women. Fat tissue contains aromatase, which converts testosterone to estrogen. More body fat equals less testosterone. Alcohol does the same conversion. Poor sleep, lack of sunlight, sedentary behavior, all suppress testosterone. Estrogen matters just as much, especially for women. Postmenopausal women have less estrogen than their male partners. Estrogen is crucial for muscle growth and repair. It reduces inflammation and speeds recovery. It's anti-catabolic. Women in their follicular phase, when estrogen peaks, report feeling stronger in the gym. Estrogen also regulates mitochondrial function. It increases expression of respiratory complexes and antioxidant molecules. When women lose estrogen at menopause, their mitochondria suffer. They lose lean tissue, gain subcutaneous and visceral fat, and face sharply increased cardiovascular risk. Their A1C creeps up. All from estrogen loss affecting muscle and mitochondrial health. THE MORTALITY DATA Grip strength, sit-to-stand tests, push-up capacity, rise-from-floor ability, all predict all-cause mortality. These tests measure muscle strength, which serves as a proxy for total muscle mass. Strong people with healthy muscle tissue die less frequently from any cause. Hip fracture data should terrify you more than cancer statistics. More women die from osteoporosis and hip fractures than from breast cancer. If you break a hip after age 60, there's a 10% chance you'll die within a month. About 20 to 30% chance you'll be dead within a year. Nearly 40 to 50% chance you'll be dead within five years. Weak bones correlate with weak muscles, which correlate with poor metabolic function. Low muscle strength links to diabetes, obesity, metabolic disease, hypertension, inflammation, COPD, dementia, and Alzheimer's. THE AGING PROBLEM Three conditions destroy muscle as you age: sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss), dinapenia (age-related strength and power loss), and myosteatosis (fatty infiltration into muscle tissue). You start losing muscle in your 30s. After 40, you lose about 1% of muscle size annually, 3 to 5% of strength and power, and 8 to 10% of speed and explosiveness. You lose type 2 fast-twitch fibers first. This is why elderly people can't catch themselves when they trip. They still have slow-twitch fibers but lost the fast ones that enable quick reactions. Testosterone drops. Estrogen drops. Growth hormone declines. IGF-1 production falls. Inflammation rises. Oxidative stress increases. Nutrition becomes harder to manage. Stomach acid changes, impairing protein digestion. Mitochondria dysfunction spreads. Fat infiltrates not just muscle but heart and pancreas tissue. THE SOLUTION Resistance training is the only non-pharmacological intervention proven to consistently offset age-related decline in muscle mass, strength, and power. Not walking. Not cardio. Resistance training specifically. Studies in women over 60 show the required work isn't overwhelming. Resistance bands work for beginners. But power training matters most. You need high-intensity interval training or sprint work to preserve fast-twitch fibers. This sounds intimidating but it's necessary. The Metabolic Uncle platform will soon be online. I have prepared very comprehensive and detailed guides that enable everyone to strengthen their muscles at home, be it with bodyweight exercises or resistance band exercises. Dietary protein requirements are grossly underestimated. The US recommended dietary allowance is set to prevent disease, not optimize health. Most men get 80 to 90 grams daily. Most women get under 60 grams. This is inadequate. You need 20 to 30 grams of protein per meal to trigger muscle protein synthesis. This is driven by leucine, a branch-chain amino acid. Aim for minimum 90 grams daily, ideally one gram per pound of body weight. Balance the mTor triggering amino acids with collagen or glycine. Timing matters. When you break your overnight fast, your body needs a large protein bolus, at least 30 grams providing 2.5 grams of leucine. Same before your nightly fast. The body requires this protein at fast-breaking and fast-entering times. Meals in between matter less. Animal foods are superior protein sources. You can get adequate leucine from plants but it requires consuming more calories. A few ounces of dairy, steak, beef, or chicken delivers concentrated leucine efficiently. Sleep matters for growth hormone production and hormone optimization. THE BOTTOM LINE Muscle is the largest organ in your body by mass. It's not just structural tissue. It's your primary metabolic control system, your glucose disposal mechanism, your fat oxidation engine, your amino acid reserve, your endocrine signaling network. Everything that kills people early or makes late life miserable correlates with low muscle mass. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, dementia, falls, fractures, all show inverse relationships with strength. You control this. Resistance training and adequate protein intake are within your power. These interventions work regardless of age. The data shows consistent benefits even in people over 60. Eat animal protein and collagen and train your muscles. You can do that at home. No gym needed! That's the formula. Build and maintain muscle mass throughout your life. It's the most effective anti-aging intervention available.

Still hard to believe this honor ...

Attention shoppers: CODE NAME: LISE in ebook format is now on sale at Amazon for $1.99! Looking at the rankings, it appears that people love sales! #books #sales #ebook #wwii #ww2 #history #nonfiction #truestory

@JFMCO1969 Saw it!

Just saw a huge meteorite zooming across the Orlando sky. White ball of fire that slowly disintegrated and disappeared. #meteor

@Unbellerose25 Saw it!

Did y’all saw that big thing flying on the sky in Orlando a few minutes ago???? What was that??

@LMDubyah Saw it, too!

Yoooo what’s flying around the sky’s in Orlando tonight? #weirdshit #flying #sky

@JakeP9O Saw it, huge red fireball ...

Anyone see a fireball in the sky in Orlando just now? Googling it appears could be Leonids… but seems too “red”…

Running an errand at the mall today and stopped by @BNBuzz in case they had any stock to sign ... and they did!

@SOEhistory No, my book is about OSS agent Aline Griffith.

🅾🅽 🆃🅷🅸🆂 🅳🅰🆈 October 13, 1943: Noor Inayat Khan, who chose to stay in France after her network collapsed, is arrested. Interrogated by the Gestapo, she does not reveal any information and is later shot. Today we remember her courage. #NoorInayatKhan #SOE #WW2 1/3

Judge hit a homer, Blue Jays fan caught it and without thinking gave the ball to the little kid who’s a Yankees fan who was also wearing a Judge t-shirt.

@LadaIvashchenko Yes! ;)

Honestly!! Embracing the beauty of 15th-century Ukraine in traditional attire. Yes or No

@LadaIvashchenko Lovely!

If you're crushing on a gym girl😊💙 drop a Hi👋 in the comments

Hey @thetimes, why do you keep SPAMMING my email account? You email me EVERY DAY with your newsletter but I never signed up for it and have never even visited your website. From where did you buy my email address? You have an "Unsubscribe" button but it requires me to "Log in" to my account, but I DON'T HAVE a @thetimes account! Looks to me like an INTENTIONAL spamming operation that can never be stopped! @FTC @RonDeSantis