A thread was started talking about "when will you pack it in?" It made me think of what I'm doing, what we can do to delay our diminishing physical abilities as long as possible.
Like most things in my life I didn't start until meeting my wife. I was in good condition but more by accident than anything. Obviously what one can do changes with age. We are not workout fanatics however so it has to be things we enjoy.
1. Walk. To me there's not an easier or better exercise and it happens simply. We arrive somewhere and we walk to explore. Whether it's NYC or Chesapeake City. Also, it's a form of exercise we can do always. If we've been cruising all day, the first thing we do upon docking is go for a walk. Now, I do not jog. The pounding on hard pavement is something I don't think is good on one's joints. If I'm housebound and can't get out and walk, then I do walk on a treadmill.
2. Sing. I know that sounds odd. First it brings us pleasure which is always good. However, to sing properly requires good breathing techniques and we attribute being in excellent respiratory health to singing.
3. Tennis. It's our most frequent sport and we love it. While tennis elbow is a potential injury to be wary of, it's otherwise not tough on the body. By comparison, golf doesn't give the exercise plus is much tougher on your body, especially your back.
4. Basketball. This might be the questionable one but it's a good endurance sport and we take some precautions. We don't play outdoors on courts built to just trip one up. We also tape our ankles anytime we play.
5. Diet. Our diet is good and bad. We do eat red meats regularly. I'm sure we eat a lot of other things that are on the bad list. We aren't willing to cut out all the joy of food. However, we've made easy sacrifices. We don't eat many fried foods, really just fried chicken. We drink no coffee, tea or soda. All we drink on a daily basis is water. We don't smoke. We don't consume alcohol daily, perhaps once a month on average. We don't eat french fries. Just cut them out and don't miss them. A burger with no fries and no soft drink is a lot better than one with all that. We don't eat bread daily. We will eat cold cuts but no bread, hamburgers with no buns, hot dogs with no buns. Now, at a nice restaurant, we'll have some bread. What we haven't done is sacrifice chocolate and sweets and ice cream. But we minimize carbs in other ways and we way daily and if we see our weight changing we tighten down for a week or so.
6. Laugh a lot and play. Just enjoy. My wife just asked "what kind of play" and I'm just leaving it at play.
7. Sleep. Should probably be first on the list. We try to get 8 hours sleep nightly. Yes, I once got by with much less but that was due to a sleep disorder and while I was convinced for much of the time it wasn't impacting me, it was. I'm sure some of you will say you do fine on 5 hours per night. Let me take you to a lab and I can prove to you that while you do fine, you don't do as well as you would with more. The afternoon drop off in functioning is there.
8. Prevention and reaction. We get vaccines, we avoid contagious people. Then we've already made it a practice that if something is wrong or just seems wrong, we immediately get medical care. As you develop conditions over the years, avoiding acute exacerbations is often the key. The number of unnecessary pneumonia deaths each year is staggering. We wear masks and gloves in dusty or dirty environments. If there are any of you over 50 who haven't gotten a pneumonia vaccine, go get one. Get a flu shot. Listen to Terry Bradshaw and get a Shingles vaccine. Also if you're over 50, get a colonoscopy. Last, know your health. You're in charge of managing your health and medical care, not your doctors. Get copies of everything, ask questions. Know why you're taking every medication and the alternatives. Know the side effects. Learn to read and understand your lab results. Don't let the doctor just tell you the results of tests or labs, you get a copy and review the reports. We also don't try to do things we shouldn't. Don't lift more than we should or in ways we shouldn't. As you age, each injury such as hurting your back or twisting your knee, takes more out of you. One leads to others. For instance a back injury prevents one often from doing any kind of exercise so one quickly sees an overall decline.
We have some older friends who live on our property and are very close family to us. They say we're a pain in the a... We say we're selfish, and we want to keep them around us and healthy as long as possible. Now one may do everything perfect and still get a terminal illness or major injury. We just try to improve the odds.
There's not a thing we do for our health that makes us less happy or that we dislike doing. We're not going on the infomercial as the couple selling exercise equipment or some magic elixir. We don't go overboard on our health but we do try to take some steps.
Like most things in my life I didn't start until meeting my wife. I was in good condition but more by accident than anything. Obviously what one can do changes with age. We are not workout fanatics however so it has to be things we enjoy.
1. Walk. To me there's not an easier or better exercise and it happens simply. We arrive somewhere and we walk to explore. Whether it's NYC or Chesapeake City. Also, it's a form of exercise we can do always. If we've been cruising all day, the first thing we do upon docking is go for a walk. Now, I do not jog. The pounding on hard pavement is something I don't think is good on one's joints. If I'm housebound and can't get out and walk, then I do walk on a treadmill.
2. Sing. I know that sounds odd. First it brings us pleasure which is always good. However, to sing properly requires good breathing techniques and we attribute being in excellent respiratory health to singing.
3. Tennis. It's our most frequent sport and we love it. While tennis elbow is a potential injury to be wary of, it's otherwise not tough on the body. By comparison, golf doesn't give the exercise plus is much tougher on your body, especially your back.
4. Basketball. This might be the questionable one but it's a good endurance sport and we take some precautions. We don't play outdoors on courts built to just trip one up. We also tape our ankles anytime we play.
5. Diet. Our diet is good and bad. We do eat red meats regularly. I'm sure we eat a lot of other things that are on the bad list. We aren't willing to cut out all the joy of food. However, we've made easy sacrifices. We don't eat many fried foods, really just fried chicken. We drink no coffee, tea or soda. All we drink on a daily basis is water. We don't smoke. We don't consume alcohol daily, perhaps once a month on average. We don't eat french fries. Just cut them out and don't miss them. A burger with no fries and no soft drink is a lot better than one with all that. We don't eat bread daily. We will eat cold cuts but no bread, hamburgers with no buns, hot dogs with no buns. Now, at a nice restaurant, we'll have some bread. What we haven't done is sacrifice chocolate and sweets and ice cream. But we minimize carbs in other ways and we way daily and if we see our weight changing we tighten down for a week or so.
6. Laugh a lot and play. Just enjoy. My wife just asked "what kind of play" and I'm just leaving it at play.
7. Sleep. Should probably be first on the list. We try to get 8 hours sleep nightly. Yes, I once got by with much less but that was due to a sleep disorder and while I was convinced for much of the time it wasn't impacting me, it was. I'm sure some of you will say you do fine on 5 hours per night. Let me take you to a lab and I can prove to you that while you do fine, you don't do as well as you would with more. The afternoon drop off in functioning is there.
8. Prevention and reaction. We get vaccines, we avoid contagious people. Then we've already made it a practice that if something is wrong or just seems wrong, we immediately get medical care. As you develop conditions over the years, avoiding acute exacerbations is often the key. The number of unnecessary pneumonia deaths each year is staggering. We wear masks and gloves in dusty or dirty environments. If there are any of you over 50 who haven't gotten a pneumonia vaccine, go get one. Get a flu shot. Listen to Terry Bradshaw and get a Shingles vaccine. Also if you're over 50, get a colonoscopy. Last, know your health. You're in charge of managing your health and medical care, not your doctors. Get copies of everything, ask questions. Know why you're taking every medication and the alternatives. Know the side effects. Learn to read and understand your lab results. Don't let the doctor just tell you the results of tests or labs, you get a copy and review the reports. We also don't try to do things we shouldn't. Don't lift more than we should or in ways we shouldn't. As you age, each injury such as hurting your back or twisting your knee, takes more out of you. One leads to others. For instance a back injury prevents one often from doing any kind of exercise so one quickly sees an overall decline.
We have some older friends who live on our property and are very close family to us. They say we're a pain in the a... We say we're selfish, and we want to keep them around us and healthy as long as possible. Now one may do everything perfect and still get a terminal illness or major injury. We just try to improve the odds.
There's not a thing we do for our health that makes us less happy or that we dislike doing. We're not going on the infomercial as the couple selling exercise equipment or some magic elixir. We don't go overboard on our health but we do try to take some steps.
And a couple of natural items that I don't push on anybody, works for us period
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