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All I have to say is that the most AMAZING looking women I have seen in a long time were those I saw coming out of the senior yoga/pilates class at our local community health center.
They were women in their 70's and 80's, all in body-con work-out clothes. Incredible.
My dad is 87 and walks a couple miles 5 days a week. He also bowls 1-2 times a week. He went to the gym and did the weight machines for a couple of years but got bored of that. He was also a letter carrier so got a lot of exercise on the job for 35 years.
I sit behind a desk and have gained way too much weight moving from California to Tennessee. More work, worse weather, being very unhappy with having to move, loss of my training group and better facilities/weather for training, mild depression due to all of the above has really made things hard. Oh yeah - getting a new knee hasn't helped either.
I have the opposite fear. I have always taken fairly good care of myself; always worked out, eat healthy, limit how much I drank. But in my family everybody is living too damn long! My dad is 92 and after having a stroke at 88 is literally waiting to die. He tells everybody that he's "ready to go" but keeps on living. My mother's siblings, who were all smokers and drinkers are ALL in their late 90s, some with emphysema or dementia, but keep right on ticking. This is my biggest fear!
Oh God, you sound like me! I work w/ people in their mid 90's and it's awfully sad. Their bodies are shot or minds or both and yet they keep going on. Sad. Their families think it'll be a short time and it goes into years...in poor condition. I mean, poor. The quality of life is what to aim for, not the quantity.
Whom are you addressing there? My post is the one immediately before yours, but I was not telling anyone what to do; rather, I made a general comment about our evolutionary biology.
A lot of ambiguity can be avoided if we either quote the post we are responding to, or adddress the poster by user name. Sometimes I begin a post this way: "To Poster X:"
Nope, not addressing anyone, Escort Rider. You'll usually see I put the writer's name in if I'm specifically addressing them. It would be rare for me to be sassy to a poster.
And you're right - my comment wouldn't even fit as a response to your general phrase.
It's just my initial response to being told what's good for me.
Never too late for a healthy lifestyle. I've always eaten fairly healthfully and exercised a bit (like walking a couple miles a few times a week), but at the age of 55 joined a gym and started to do one to two hour-long classes a day. Also became a vegan and cook all my food from scratch. Never felt better physically (pushing 63). And the emotional/mental fitness is even better (lots of yoga and meditation).
Last night I watched a TED talk given by a psychologist who is into nutrition. She thinks even severe mental illness can be prevented/cured/lessened by a healthy diet (mostly categorized by real food that your grandmother would recognize as food, not processed stuff). So imagine what a good diet can do for those of us who don't have severe mental health challenges, but just need some tweaking to be happy, alert, functioning at her best. To this end, Tulane University Medical School is now teaching its medical students how to cook so they can see the benefits and advise patients!
And a recent study was very encouraging about senior fitness. It's long been felt that older people (65+) couldn't really develop their muscles, but the study found they WERE able to build muscle mass with strength training. The problem is that they were quicker to lose the muscle mass once they stopped exercising than were the younger (like under 30) control group. So okay, we have to try harder...but that's the beauty of all the time that we have in retirement.
It seems like the best thing to stay healthy is everything in moderation. From what I have read and observed, some people who take fitness to fanatical levels do not do their bodies any favors (knee, foot, back problems, etc.). Extreme exercise can take a toll on one's body.
Finding something that is both enjoyable and helpful for fitness works best for me. Kayaking is one of my favorite things to do. I never get tired of kayaking the same place or visiting a new one. Hiking and walking with our dogs are also relaxing activities (and a must, since the dogs need to get out). During the winter, we go hiking or snowshoeing in the woods. We enjoy cross-country skiing on trails or out on the frozen lakes. We also have a treadmill and a Total Gym, and there is always shoveling snow in the winter. But for me I don't want it to be an ordeal to exercise. My husband has a simple but effective exercise routine with weights and resistance bands, and I will do a little bit with him.
I've always done a lot of hard running, weightlifting and many other exercises, but kayak paddling has been my favorite. I started paddling and building them when I was 28. For 18 years, I've had a hard workout everyday on a "kayak simulator" that I built and keep in my front room. It uses a circular crank with long arms and roller grips, but duplicates the actual range-of-motion of the commercial cable-type simulators very closely. I made it from an old Schwinn road bicycle turned upside-down and a wooden frame. It uses the brake pads as an adjustable resistance.
Last edited by Steve McDonald; 01-04-2017 at 04:40 PM..
Can't help commenting here that my mother lived to 92 and NEVER did any formal exercise or ate any health foods. In old age the healthiest foods she ate were instant oatmeal (with sugar), peanut butter (Skippys, probably hydrogenated with sugar) on top of the equivalent of Wonder Bread, lots of instant coffee with artificial powder cream with sugar added, frozen peas, etc. Never a salad or a fresh veg.
A lot of store bought cookies and muffins. She was never fat/obese.
The only thing in her favor was stairs! The one bathroom was on the second floor and the 3 bedrooms too, so she was up and down those stairs 20 times a day. She continued living in our original home till almost 91, alone, no household help by choice. Refused to see a doctor for 50 years, not even for pneumonia, which she nursed herself through.
MIL lived till 91, alone in CA no far from her other son. Wouldn't know exercise if she tripped over it. Her younger adulthood included a fair amount of booze and party foods like pigs-in-a-blanket and salty peanuts. And always dishes of hard candies about! Steak and fried potatoes and nothing approaching the kinds of foods we think of today as "health foods."
Her second husband lived till late 80s. Same thing, same diet (better than my mother's though). His exercise was sitting on a riding mower to cut his big lawn. I don't think this couple walked anywhere, ever. Join a gym? Back then gyms were only for Jack LaLane fitness freaks, not for the common adult.
Then there's DH's father, still kicking hale and hardy well into his mid-90s. He's the one who dumped his wife (my MIL) for an 18-year-younger secretary. She's now about my age. I can't comment on their diet but I know she takes VERY good care of him, regular meals etc. But exercise? What's that? She has waited on him hand and foot all these years. 94! He stays engaged by teaching computer tech and genealogy at his senior center.
So my point is that so many in our parent's generation abused their bodies with poor food, booze, cigarettes, sit-down jobs, etc. and managed to escape cancer and other diseases. I think they were more prone to cardiac problems but I don't know the statistics. When I was a kid and someone died, it was more often than not a sudden heart attack.
What I'm trying to get at is how we boomers take care of ourselves with pricey exercise, exercise routines, foods known to stave off disease, etc. and yet we seem to have far more chronic disease (and maybe even crisis disease?) than those of the last generation.
My dad is 87 and walks a couple miles 5 days a week. He also bowls 1-2 times a week. He went to the gym and did the weight machines for a couple of years but got bored of that. He was also a letter carrier so got a lot of exercise on the job for 35 years.
I sit behind a desk and have gained way too much weight moving from California to Tennessee. More work, worse weather, being very unhappy with having to move, loss of my training group and better facilities/weather for training, mild depression due to all of the above has really made things hard. Oh yeah - getting a new knee hasn't helped either.
Same here. I really struggle in the winter. It's only nominally better than Indiana. 4-5 months of the year are still a wash. That doesn't help.
Can't help commenting here that my mother lived to 92 and NEVER did any formal exercise or ate any health foods. In old age the healthiest foods she ate were instant oatmeal (with sugar), peanut butter (Skippys, probably hydrogenated with sugar) on top of the equivalent of Wonder Bread, lots of instant coffee with artificial powder cream with sugar added, frozen peas, etc. Never a salad or a fresh veg.
A lot of store bought cookies and muffins. She was never fat/obese.
The only thing in her favor was stairs! The one bathroom was on the second floor and the 3 bedrooms too, so she was up and down those stairs 20 times a day. She continued living in our original home till almost 91, alone, no household help by choice. Refused to see a doctor for 50 years, not even for pneumonia, which she nursed herself through.
MIL lived till 91, alone in CA no far from her other son. Wouldn't know exercise if she tripped over it. Her younger adulthood included a fair amount of booze and party foods like pigs-in-a-blanket and salty peanuts. And always dishes of hard candies about! Steak and fried potatoes and nothing approaching the kinds of foods we think of today as "health foods."
Her second husband lived till late 80s. Same thing, same diet (better than my mother's though). His exercise was sitting on a riding mower to cut his big lawn. I don't think this couple walked anywhere, ever. Join a gym? Back then gyms were only for Jack LaLane fitness freaks, not for the common adult.
Then there's DH's father, still kicking hale and hardy well into his mid-90s. He's the one who dumped his wife (my MIL) for an 18-year-younger secretary. She's now about my age. I can't comment on their diet but I know she takes VERY good care of him, regular meals etc. But exercise? What's that? She has waited on him hand and foot all these years. 94! He stays engaged by teaching computer tech and genealogy at his senior center.
So my point is that so many in our parent's generation abused their bodies with poor food, booze, cigarettes, sit-down jobs, etc. and managed to escape cancer and other diseases. I think they were more prone to cardiac problems but I don't know the statistics. When I was a kid and someone died, it was more often than not a sudden heart attack.
What I'm trying to get at is how we boomers take care of ourselves with pricey exercise, exercise routines, foods known to stave off disease, etc. and yet we seem to have far more chronic disease (and maybe even crisis disease?) than those of the last generation.
Are my perceptions off? Comments?
I think a lot of it goes back to fast food. Back then, it just wasn't consumed or was a very occasional treat. Processed food as well.
[quote=RiverBird;46715500]Can't help commenting here that my mother lived to 92 and NEVER did any formal exercise or ate any health foods. In old age the healthiest foods she ate were instant oatmeal (with sugar), peanut butter (Skippys, probably hydrogenated with sugar) on top of the equivalent of Wonder Bread, lots of instant coffee with artificial powder cream with sugar added, frozen peas, etc. Never a salad or a fresh veg.
A lot of store bought cookies and muffins. She was never fat/obese.
The only thing in her favor was stairs! The one bathroom was on the second floor and the 3 bedrooms too, so she was up and down those stairs 20 times a day. She continued living in our original home till almost 91, alone, no household help by choice. Refused to see a doctor for 50 years, not even for pneumonia, which she nursed herself through.
MIL lived till 91, alone in CA no far from her other son. Wouldn't know exercise if she tripped over it. Her younger adulthood included a fair amount of booze and party foods like pigs-in-a-blanket and salty peanuts. And always dishes of hard candies about! Steak and fried potatoes and nothing approaching the kinds of foods we think of today as "health foods."
Her second husband lived till late 80s. Same thing, same diet (better than my mother's though). His exercise was sitting on a riding mower to cut his big lawn. I don't think this couple walked anywhere, ever. Join a gym? Back then gyms were only for Jack LaLane fitness freaks, not for the common adult.
Then there's DH's father, still kicking hale and hardy well into his mid-90s. He's the one who dumped his wife (my MIL) for an 18-year-younger secretary. She's now about my age. I can't comment on their diet but I know she takes VERY good care of him, regular meals etc. But exercise? What's that? She has waited on him hand and foot all these years. 94! He stays engaged by teaching computer tech and genealogy at his senior center.
So my point is that so many in our parent's generation abused their bodies with poor food, booze, cigarettes, sit-down jobs, etc. and managed to escape cancer and other diseases. I think they were more prone to cardiac problems but I don't know the statistics. When I was a kid and someone died, it was more often than not a sudden heart attack.
What I'm trying to get at is how we boomers take care of ourselves with pricey exercise, exercise routines, foods known to stave off disease, etc. and yet we seem to have far more chronic disease (and maybe even crisis disease?) than those of the last generation.
With your mother it must have been genes + stairs. That's all I can think of if she ate like that.
In studying genealogy, I have seen a lot of cases where people lived to be really old. It was in the genes because the weak didn't even survive. In every generation, the weak ones died young. Sometimes in one family, all the babies would die but one would live. That one would reproduce and perpetuate the good genes. It got even better if the offspring married someone whose parents had longevity.
They often didn't have enough to eat and what they did eat wasn't what we would call a balanced diet. But they weren't eating fake food either. No artificial additives that your body doesn't even know what to do with, for example.
Now those excellent genes are fast fading as people who never would have survived are saved by medical science. (I think the next generations after ours are really unhealthy because a lot of them wouldn't have survived without strong medical intervention and also they tend to eat junk food and drink soda.)
Maybe our generation, raised on pretty good food with some junk though, and occasionally with some degree of early medical treatment, will have a fighting chance to make up for our deficit by eating really well and exercising. But I see us as being on the cusp between the Greatest Generation that often had great genes and the various younger generations that lack the genetic advantage and have the added negative of often being raised on bad food. Look at the obesity and the type two diabetes in that group! They're far too young to be having these issues in such large numbers.
I don't know if this explains it and I, too, have to wonder why some relatives lived to be 100 even though they smoked. Their close family members chalked it up to tough genes though.
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But for me I don't want it to be an ordeal to exercise. My husband has a simple but effective exercise routine with weights and resistance bands, and I will do a little bit with him.
