Nourishment, Mitochondria, Muscle, and the Long Game of Health
- Gary Moller
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Ageing well, walking the talk, and staying 20 years ahead of disease
Busy? Start Here — The Essentials in 2 Minutes
If you don't have time for the full article, here's the core message:
• Protein is essential, but excess becomes glucose and fat once needs are met.
• Protein quality and variety matter more than high numbers.
• Healthy fats are foundational for hormones, brains, immunity, and mitochondria.
• Mitochondria drive energy, resilience, and longevity — when they fail, everything fails.
• COVID infection and vaccination appear to damage mitochondria — recovery requires nourishment, not restriction.
• Loss of muscle (sarcopenia) is a major driver of ageing, frailty, and loss of independence — and it is largely preventable.
• Extreme low-fat, cholesterol-fear diets harm older people.
• Our ancestors ate the whole animal — bones, broth, organs, fat — and often went hours or days between meals.
• Constant snacking damages metabolism — mild daily hunger is normal and beneficial.
• Health improves slowly over months and years, not weeks.
• The goal is to stay 20 years ahead of disease, not 10 years behind it.
If this resonates, read on. This article explains why these principles work — and how to apply them gently and sustainably.
Introduction
I now write this with a degree of confidence that only time can grant.
Not confidence born of arrogance. Not confidence borrowed from titles, institutions, or consensus documents. But confidence earned through more than fifty years working at the coalface of health, sport, nutrition, injury, recovery, and human performance — in clinics, in competition, in coaching, and above all by living the principles I teach.
Now in my seventies, still training, still competing, and still winning at Masters world level in mountain biking, I am living inside the outcome of these ideas. That matters. In health, outcomes matter.
Authority That Comes From Lived Results
I encourage readers to pause and make a quiet comparison.
Many of the experts whose advice dominates modern nutrition and public-health messaging are decades younger than me. Yet few have the strength, flexibility, energy, recovery ability, or physical performance that I enjoy today. There is no TRT hormone therapy. No skin treatments. No photoshopping. I simply walk the talk.
This is not a personal attack. It is a simple observation.
In health, lived outcomes over decades matter. Appearance, posture, movement quality, energy, recovery, and consistency tell a story that guidelines alone cannot. I invite you to weigh lived results alongside credentials — and decide for yourself.
An Experiment of One
For most of my adult life, I have been an experiment of one.
I have never feared admitting when I got things wrong. I have never feared changing my mind. Health is not an ideology. It is practice of what seems best, but guided by feedback.
Running and cycling are brutally honest teachers. When you ride and run the same hills for forty or fifty years, the body gives you unmistakable data. If you change your diet, workout, rest, sleep, stress, or lifestyle, the effects will come out over time. They will not happen overnight, but over six to twelve months. I do my best to measure them.
Am I climbing that hill at a lower heart rate for the same effort?
Am I recovering faster between sessions?
Am I more resilient across a season?
The changes that truly matter as we age do not reveal themselves in weeks. They emerge slowly, over months and years. That long view is something few people ever experience. I have lived it — and will continue to live it.
Protein: Essential, But Not a Free Pass
Protein is essential. There is no debate about that.
But more is not always better.
Once the body's needs for tissue repair, enzymes, hormones, immune function, and structural maintenance are met, excess protein has no special metabolic exemption. Amino acids cannot be stored. Excess protein is deaminated in the liver, nitrogen is excreted, and the remaining carbon skeletons are converted into glucose. If glycogen stores are full, that glucose is ultimately stored as fat.
Dr Christopher D. Gardner of Stanford University explains this clearly in a widely viewed video. I consider it an excellent discussion, even though I do not agree with every conclusion. Where I agree completely is on avoiding extremes.
You cannot beat a human being into health any more than a farmer can beat an animal into good condition. Health responds to gentleness, nourishment, rhythm, and time.
Protein Quality and Variety Matter More Than Numbers
Protein should never be reduced to grams on a spreadsheet. Quality and variety matter profoundly. Humans evolved eating protein from many sources:
Red meat
Dairy
Eggs
White meat
Fish and shellfish
And especially organ meats
Plant foods
Monoculture protein diets create blind spots, deficiencies, and long-term problems. Diversity brings micronutrients, amino-acid balance, and biological intelligence that supplements cannot replicate.
Fat Is Foundational, Not Optional
A wide variety of natural fats is almost as important as protein itself. Fats are not only fuel. They build:
Cell membranes
Brains and nerves
Hormones
Immune signalling systems
And mitochondria
Vitamins A, D, E, and K, which are fat-soluble, are important for cell repair, immune control, mitochondrial health, and long-term resilience. Without enough, and varied fats, these vitamins simply cannot function.
This is why extreme low-fat and cholesterol-phobic diets, with cholesterol lowering drugs, concern me deeply — particularly in older people.
Mitochondria: The True Engine of Longevity
I have written extensively about mitochondria because they sit at the centre of health, vitality, resilience, and ageing. When mitochondria fail, everything fails.
There is growing evidence that both COVID-19 infection and COVID vaccination appear to exert much of their harm through mitochondrial disruption. Regardless of how spike protein enters the body, the downstream issue often looks the same: impaired cellular energy, impaired repair, and reduced resilience.
Recovery from this state requires nourishment, not restriction. It requires:
Adequate fats
Fat-soluble vitamins
Minerals
Antioxidants
Protein diversity
And suitable eating rhythm
Further reading:
Timing of Eating: Rhythm Matters
Our ancestors did not eat constantly. Successful hunts were irregular. There were long gaps between substantial meals. Feast and famine were normal rhythms, not emergencies.
Our bodies are exquisitely designed for this. Being mildly hungry for part of the day is not harmful. It is helpful. It promotes metabolic flexibility, mitochondrial renewal, insulin sensitivity, autophagy, and repair.
This is why constant snacking is so damaging — particularly as we age.
I often describe this as a "No Snack Diet". Not deprivation. Just allow the body time to reset.
Further reading:
Real Ancestral Eating — Not Instagram Paleo
Our ancestors ate the whole animal. Bones, cartilage, tendons, skin, marrow, organs — these were prized. Muscle meat was often the least valuable part of the kill.
Bone broths and long-simmered stews extract minerals, collagen, gelatin, and amino acids essential for joints, gut integrity, immunity, and recovery. I wrote about this years ago, and it remains just as relevant:
Much of what is marketed today as “Paleo” bears little resemblance to how hunter-gatherers actually lived or ate. It often over-emphasises lean muscle meat, ignores connective tissues and fats, and is eaten on a modern timetable of constant availability. That is not ancestral eating.
Sarcopenia: The Silent Thief of Independence
Sarcopenia is the age-related loss of muscle mass, strength, and function.
It is one of the strongest predictors of frailty, falls, loss of independence, institutionalisation, and early death. It is not inevitable.
Sarcopenia is driven by:
Inadequate protein quality
Inadequate fat intake
Mineral and micronutrient deficiency
Inactivity
Chronic inflammation
Mitochondrial dysfunction
And over-reliance on medications
One of the best predictors of longevity is the preservation of lean body mass as we age.
This is why I'm very worried about older people who are being pushed into extreme diets and medications that lower cholesterol. When these foods are eliminated, they are typically replaced by a lot of processed foods and sugar. This combination accelerates muscle loss, weakness, and dependency.
Related reading:
Nourishing Traditions, Not Extremes
My approach is simple. Honour your ancestors by taking the best of what they ate — and combining it with the best of modern nutrition science.
From about fifty years of age, I have progressively:
Increased my intake of fresh, natural proteins
Increased my intake of healthy fats and oils
Increased my natural salt intake
Increased my antioxidant intake
Reduced carbohydrates
Delayed eating each day
Nothing happened overnight. The changes were gradual. But over time, the improvements in health, resilience, recovery, and performance were remarkable. This is what I mean by staying twenty years ahead of disease.
Tools, Not Crutches
The Super Smoothie is a great addition to your diet when you are sick, tired, or ageing, or just want to keep healthy. But it is only as good as what you put into it. It complements real food. It does not replace it.
Ideas here about what to add to make it into a fully nutritious meal:
Playing the Long Game
Health is not hacked. It is not forced. It is not beaten into submission. It is built gently, patiently, and consistently over decades.
Strength can be rebuilt.
Mitochondria can recover.
Muscle can be maintained.
Ageing can be slowed.
But only if we nourish rather than punish the body.
I share this not as a belief, but as a personal experience. I've tried these ideas for over 50 years on the same hills, the same roads, and the same trails. I watch how the body reacts over months and years.
That is the Freerangers way.
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