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5 Vital Things Seniors Must Consider Before Trying Intermittent Fasting

It’s more than simply not eating

Glyn Bawden
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age
3 min readJan 9, 2025

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Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Last year, I gave intermittent fasting (IF) a serious try for about four months and a few things surprised me:

How easy it was to stick to.

The difference it made.

I wrote about it here. While I didn’t lose weight, I noticed my clothes fit better, and my body shape definitely changed.

I’m 64 now and when I tried IF, I went gung-ho, all in, with the 16:8 fast without regard for possible drawbacks.

IF is widely regarded as a safe way to control your diet, but, as with all things diet-based, especially as we get older, there are things you must take into account before embarking on a similar path.

Maintaining muscle mass

As with any diet, if you are losing weight, you run the risk of losing muscle mass as well as fat. This is especially true for seniors, who are at risk of sarcopenia (muscle loss) as they age. The aim is to combine any IF you undertake with regular strength or resistance training to combat muscle loss.

This needn’t be throwing weights around in a gym. It could be a series of simple bodyweight exercises or resistance band exercises, both of…

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Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

Published in Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” (Frank Lloyd Wright) Non-fiction pieces, personal essays and occasional poems that explore how we feel about how we age and offer tips for getting the most out of life.

Glyn Bawden
Glyn Bawden

Written by Glyn Bawden

An ex-teacher, aspiring writer. Trying to be healthy but still loving wine. Love to travel.

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