I recently turned fifty-nine, only one short orbit of the sun away from a big decade milestone. A snapshot of the moment shows a man who is overweight, out of shape, living an unsettled life, and lucky if he actually makes it to sixty. Well, my friends, I not only intend to make it to sixty, I expect to make it to sixty healthier than I have been for the last ten years.
That is a big goal and judging from my past attempts, a smart man would be betting against me. The truth is, however, that it is not so much a goal as a necessity. I imagine there are many of you baby-boomers out there in the same condition. You have let your life become a bit too sedentary and have put on some (a lot of?) extra pounds and have lost muscle tone and mass. Getting out of a chair isn’t as easy as it used to be, and getting down on the floor and up again without holding onto something is darn near impossible.
Our changing hormones have not helped us with that either. For us guys, declining testosterone levels set the stage for reduced upper body strength, not to mention a general lack of libido. Supplementing with testosterone medications can lead, as it did in my case, to conditions conducive to prostate cancer, so unfortunately that isn’t a magic solution to the problem.
As we age, our bodies think that they need to hang onto body fat more tightly than in our youth, so we start our efforts to lose weight and gain muscle with a built-in handicap. Throw in the handicap of bad knees, hips and backs and no one would blame you for thinking that you might as well give up before you start. Well, many people do.
For good measure, let’s throw in one more road block – depression. With the ultimate end staring you in the face, knowing that you are not getting out of this alive, and knowing that you will never be the young person you once were, it can be easy to just say, “Why bother?” Good question, and I an afraid that I don’t have a single, all-purpose answer. I can come up with every platitude in the book, but in the end, we each have to find the spark somewhere within ourselves to want to carry on. I will offer only one hopeful thought – when you get into better physical shape, your mental state also improves, so if you can fake the desire to improve your situation long enough you may just find that it becomes a self-fulfilling situation.
So, here I am looking at a rather daunting task and trying to decide where to begin. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve done this, but hopefully I can make the lifestyle changes that will help me avoid the endless reruns of the same old story. Unfortunately, what is new this time is that my body is no longer that of a young man, or even a middle-aged man. As difficult as it is to accept, and believe me, it IS difficult to accept, I realize that I am at the early edge of being a “senior.”
I can’t just rip into myself with a hardcore approach to bodybuilding or I’m going to hurt myself so badly that I will only wind up setting myself back. I have to ease into this and, as much as I wish I could do this instantly, I need to accept the fact that it is going to take time. I also have to accept the fact that no matter what I do, I will never be able to look like some twenty-year-old hard body model, either.
So, here is where I am beginning – books and DVDs. I suppose that finding a personal trainer skilled in dealing with senior bodies is a good alternative, but I can’t afford that, even if I knew where to find one. Besides, it’s like having your house cleaned; you clean your house before the cleaners come so that they don’t think you live like a pig. I would have to be in better shape to go to a gym or to present myself to a trainer.
First place to go for me is Amazon.com. A search on “senior health” (and yes, it hurt to type that in) brings up several books and DVDs. A few additional searches and much reviewing later and I have ordered two books and three DVDs –
Strength Training Over 50: Stay Fit and Fabulous
Stretching, 20th Anniversary Revised Edition
Essential Yoga For Inflexible People
Yoga For Inflexible People
Energy Boost for Seniors
You will note the emphasis on flexibility. I think that this is very important as we get older. We tend to move a lot less than we used to and that serves to shorten and tighten muscles. We can be as skinny as a rail or as muscular as a pit bull, but if we are not flexible we will eventually wind up in a wheelchair or bedridden. Flexibility training also improves balance, which helps prevent one of the senior citizen’s greatest health threats – falls and broken bones.
You don’t see anything about diet listed, do you? That’s because I know what I need to do, and it really is simple. Eat less, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, and avoid high carbohydrate, refined foods. I’ve been reading and doing the diet thing for years. I have had success but I have also yielded to convenience and emotional eating, which has brought me to my current state. Knowing that I have lost weight in the past gives me confidence that I can do it again.
As a side note, my wife is going to laugh at a lot of this. She’s been pushing these ideas for years. She will particularly get a kick out of me buying the book on stretching – a book that she has owned for years and that I never looked at even once. Then again, she’s not allowed to laugh until she is in as great a shape as I will be.
My books and DVDs are supposed to arrive today, so I expect to start developing my plan for getting into shape tonight. Actually, I’ve already started with the improved eating, but that alone will not fix my problems. The biggest pitfall I face is my past failure(s). It is very, very hard to start this with the expectation that I will succeed when my past record shows anything but. Still, if I stop before I start I won’t get anywhere. (Now there’s a deep thought.) I will also have wasted money on books and DVDs.
I cannot allow myself to think this way, and to tell the truth, it is getting to be a true life-or-death situation. I am no longer just playing with my health; I am in hand-to-hand combat with it. If I don’t beat the status quo, if I don’t defeat my complacency, if I don’t absolutely squash my inertia, I might as well just lay down and die now. It would be much less painful than the future that awaits me in the condition I am in.
I know this was a long post, and one that is pretty boring and self-centered, but I can’t help believing that many other boomers are fighting the same battle. I hope I can provide a little inspiration. In the worst case, I can be the bad example. Either way, here I go. Follow along with me if you wish.