Time, they say, waits for no man. It also doesn’t hesitate to start chipping away at your adult form. One minute, you’re in your 20s and your body and brain are seemingly impervious to the clock and any debauched lifestyle choices you may be making. The next, you’ve tipped over into your 30s and everything changes. Fat begins to cling on due to you consuming more calories than you’re burning. Your bone density starts declining faster than you can rebuild it. But, says the prosaically titled 2004 paper ‘Muscle tissue changes with ageing’ in the journal Current Opinion In Clinical Nutrition And Metabolic Care, “One of the most striking effects of age is the involuntary loss of muscle mass, strength and function, termed sarcopenia. Muscle mass decreases approximately 3 to 8 per cent per decade after the age of 30 and this rate of decline is even higher after the age of 60.”
So what should you do? Roll over and accept your inevitable deterioration? Of course not. Here are some easy nutritional, physical, psychological and sociological ideas to help you be your best self… for a little bit longer, at least.
EAT MORE FIBRE
What
Fibre is so potent it’s practically magic. Eating enough roughage can help you stave off heart disease and diabetes, and keep your guts in good nick. And the data is pretty conclusive.
A 2019 study in , which involved “135-million person-years of data from 185 prospective studies and 58 clinical trials with 4,635 adults”, suggested those eating sufficient fibre reduced their chances of conditions like type 2 diabetes, while strokes plummeted by 15 to 50 per cent. “Fibre also lowers the level of inflammation in the gut,” showed that every 10g fibre consumed cut mortality risk by 10 per cent.
