Creatine Benefits For Older Adults And Why I'm Taking It

Plus A new month's challenge for the Walking Group and A Breathing Exercise

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(DISCUSSION: What do you think about taking supplements?)

Photo by Aleksander Saks on Unsplash

Why I’m Taking Creatine

I’ve been interested in health and longevity for a long time. Supplements play an important role in this. As a non-meat eater of some 35 years standing, pescatarian for around 10 of those years, supplementing my diet has been vital. Also, an ageing body is less able to absorb nutrients from food which can lead to deficiencies, although supplements should not, of course, replace a healthy diet. If you have read any of my posts on food like this one, you’ll know I follow the Mediterranean diet.

Last year, I began to get interested in creatine. It was being talked about by the longevity scientists and promoted as an aid to muscle builders. As we get older, we lose muscle mass. Our bodies create creatine, which is a chemical and a natural energy source. It’s made in the liver, kidneys and pancreas, and stored in the skeletal muscle. However, we create less as we age.

It’s the most studied supplement there is with around 64,000 studies into its benefits. Results consistently show that 3-5 grams, even up to 10 grams a day, is safe and effective. There’s data to show that it builds and preserves lean muscle mass, which directly impacts the brain. Various results show that it clears brain fog, may help with depression and enhances emotional resilience. Sleep is another area that it may help with.

Who Benefits From Supplementing With Creatine?

So, who benefits from taking creatine? Vegetarians and vegans, post-menopausal women, body builders, older people for building and maintaining strength and bone strength, and it’s also good for the ageing brain. Preventing frailty is so important, as the more frail we become, the greater the risk of dementia.

I started taking 5 grams of creatine monohydrate in December of last year and I recently increased that amount to 10 grams. I found that when I first started taking it, and again when I upped the dose, my weight increased. This is a known side effect caused by water retention in the muscles; it’s not fat, and it’s temporary.

It could also be muscle growth if it's combined with resistance training. I add it in powder form to my daily porridge, along with ground pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds and chia seeds, topped with blueberries, nuts and a dessertspoonful of Greek yoghurt.

After over four months of supplementing with creatine monohydrate, I believe I’ve benefited from taking it. I feel stronger, with more energy and my brain fog has cleared. It’s one of the cheaper supplements because it’s been around for a while, resulting in competitive pricing. As with all supplements, it’s best to get them with no additives and as pure as possible.

I’m not a medical doctor or dietician and therefore suggest that if you’re interested in trying this supplement yourself, you do so under the guidance of your medical adviser. We are all unique, and each of us needs our own supplement intake, designed just for us.

I used various sources for this research and here’s the links to 2:

Source 1 Source 2

Photo by Andrus Lukas on Unsplash

Walking Challenge Group

We’re about to go into a new month so it’s time to change the 2nd challenge. This means dropping the backwards walking challenge. I don’t think it was very popular anyway, and I certainly didn’t get around to doing as much of it as I’d planned.

So, what to replace it with? It occurred to me that as we’re now officially in spring, there’s lots to do around the house and garden. This means physical chores like getting the garden into shape ready for summer growth and spring cleaning the home inside and out and the garden shed and greenhouse, perhaps, if you have them. So, rather than have an official exercise why don’t we include whatever big activity we’ve done in the house and garden as our 2nd challenge, over the month of May?

That means still trying to meet our 4,000 daily step target, but also including our physical spring chores. If you don’t have any, or someone else does them for you, you could do exercise snacks or whichever exercise you normally do, like yoga, Pilates, Zumba, a dance class, etc., as your second challenge. We’re all about movement in this group; keeping moving, staying active. I hope you all agree with this. Let me know in the Discussion section below.

For any new subscriber who might be interested in joining us, we started this group at the beginning of the year to do a 4,000 step count challenge and we’re still going. We’ve added a second challenge which is changed each month but the step count remains. Our plan is to continue throughout the year.

Members of the group are all over the world, so there are time differences, but it works. We log our daily efforts on the relevant Chat thread for Life in the Second Half. You’re welcome to join us if you are seriously interested. Some of us do both the challenges, others do just the one, which is the 4,000 step count. So, on May 1st we change the second challenge. No more backwards walking!

A Breathing Exercise

Breathing is a natural instinct and something we do without thinking. But making breathwork part of your daily routine will improve your lung health and create more energy as more oxygen is distributed to all your cells. Deep breathing allows the body to take in more oxygen, fuelling the production of energy. I wrote a post about it last year: Breathe Well and Live a Long Life.

When I’m feeling stressed or I can’t get back to sleep I breathe in deeply and exhale slowly a few times, or do the exercise below. It calms down the whole system and helps me to relax. It’s the very first breathing exercise I learned when I took up yoga.

Try a breathing exercise every day for a week and see if you feel a difference.

Sit comfortably and upright in a chair, hands in lap and

Inhale to the count of 8,

Hold the breath to the count of four,

Exhale to the count of eight,

Hold the breath to the count of four.

Do three rounds.

DISCUSSION

What do you think about taking supplements?

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