Advice please

[ButterfliesandMoths]

I’m a woman of 50. Rheumatoid arthritis & painful knees.
I’d like to increase my muscle mass and reduce my fat % what should or shouldn’t I be eating. What exercises can I do at home bearing in mind my knees are painful, so for example I’m unable to do squats. Thank you.

For lower body, think deadlift and single leg deadlift. Glute bridge and glute walk( you start on glute bridge and then walk your eels away until legs almost straight and back) , a kettle bell swing would also work .

The amount of body fat you will lose depends on how much weight you will lose.

Really cut on sugar, processed food, refined grains, fried food. Have a lot of fresh vegetables, increase fibre, use Cronometer.com to see how much and how well you are eating.
Eat less in general. People have wars on low carb, low fat or whatever. Ditch the crap instead of a macro, don’t snack, eat colours and fresh and the best quality you can afford. Buy food that comes from a farm and not a factory. Bin takeaway menus and save the money for some home equipment

Walk, move and buy a good set of dumbbells and fill an old gym bag with bags of sand / salt or anything cheap for the heavy weights.

Don’t go nuts on nuts, don’t even think about protein balls or other very fattening snacks.

Hopefully, your knees will be better once you have lost some weight

This is an effective but not too challenging arms workout udine dumbbells:

Carolina Girvan is excellent - just use lighter weights than she does and substitute alternative exercises for the squats and lunges.

Diet should focus on protein and vegetables, plus limited amounts of healthy carbs such as wholewheat grains, lentils, quinoa, as well as healthy fats such as olive oil.

Diet wise;
Increase muscle mass - eat lots of protein, think at least 100g per day.
Lose body fat - reduce calories consumed.

Exercise wise:
You might find that squatting helps in the long term? Plus other lower body exercises such as deadlifts, lunges etc. You just need to find the variations that work for you. For example a box squat which is essentially just sitting down and getting up again might be doable, and you can make it more difficult over time by adding weight (just holding something will do initially), or lowering the surface you are squatting down to.

As you lose fat and get lighter hopefully the pain n your knees will decrease.

Setting aside the RA - which I understand might not be possible to do ...

Have you seen an exercise physiotherapist about painful knees? It's a complex joint and part of the way to keep it healthy & secure is to strengthen all the muscles around it - so mainly your quads, but also glutes and calves.

Bodyweight squats are a brilliant way to work quads & glutes (and abs), but talk to a physiotherapist first. My physio says everyone should do glute bridges and other glute activating & strengthening exercises. Pilates can help as well.

Full body weight exercises such as press ups, planks etc are great for all-over body toning, but they won't help you build significant muscle.

Could you also do cardio exercise that's non-weight bearing such as swimming?

For diet - well @Cormoran and @BasinHaircut are right - no magic formulae! Track your calories against your exercise, and aim for a calorie deficit each day. I do this using my FitBit. Others do it with MyFitnessPal or Apple watches or whatever. I aim for a 250-500 daily calorie deficit and high protein: chicken breast with salad, tuna steaks, Fage greek yoghurt 0% fat with a bit of fruit & honey, are my go tos, and eggs and spinach for breakfast. I eat a lot, but it's a lot of vegetables: peppers, lettuce, cucumber, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach. I keep Iceland in business with my consumption of their frozen spinach and frozen blueberries.

I am not sure I share the advice on 100g protein per day which is more than double what I eat and I am very slim and slender. Unless you are a pro athlete or bodybuilder , you don't need 100 gr protein.

Many protein containing food make rheumatoid arthritis worse, such as red meat, processed meat, cheese, (all saturated fat) ... and a lot of animal protein will increase inflammation so again making rheumatoid arthritis worse.

Think beans, soy is a great source of protein and will reduce rheumatoid arthritis pain.

You are also 50, and at that age you need to be aware of what increases/reduces cancer risk, stroke and such and thinking more plants is better than more protein. Excessive protein will raise your insulin in the same way excessive sugar does, so it is not only counterproductive for weightloss but it increases risk of diabetes type 2. And will accelerate aging. After the age of 65 , yes to more protein, but even then not 100.

Do not aim for a high protein diet.

If you have access to a pool, try acquagym classes, especially acqua scult or any high intensity acquagym, if no classes, but a pool, walking and jogging in water, using a belt if too hard on knees, and great for leg circulation as well.

@Cormoran if she is trying to increase muscle mass then sufficient protein is important, especially if trying to lose fat at the same time. When in fat loss/a calorie deficit it’s important to ensure that you are stimulating muscle protein synthesis or you will lose lean mass (muscle).

You do not need to eat red or processed meat, or lots of cheese. Lean poultry and fish are great sources of protein as are eggs. Also tofu and mycoprotein. You could even use a protein supplement.

This is a misconception, that you need to load protein. IF you train for 6 hours, then yes, otherwise it will not help. I go to the gym every single day and lift weight. I am very toned, great muscle definition, and all this on normal protein. Excess protein is stored as fat. Don't eat more than you need.

And protein supplement are not ideal for the gut microbiome and could actually make it harder to lose weight by incrementing harmful bacteria.
Plenty of research on that pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29534465/

Ultra processed food is bad and will increase the calories absorbed, and you can get more artificial than protein shakes. Great study here pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31105044/
So stay away from quorn and similar abominations.

I would recommend you watch a very famous Uni professor called Christopher Gardner and he will explain how much protein you need (between min 22 and 26 should answer your question even if I recommend the whole video and at min 28 how any excess protein will be stored as fat.

Now high protein are all the craze, but this is usually promoted by someone who earns money from their gospel, selling books, memberships, YouTube channels or whatever.

How good is your source on the 100gr protein @BasinHaircut ?