We’re celebrating a senior milestone in our War on Aging! This month I turned 75. It’s the start of a new chapter, as I’ll explain further. Believe me when I tell you I’m having more fun today than I did when I was young, rich and sassy.
My Pickleball game has never been better, my husband seems to get wiser and funnier the longer we’re together, even my rescue puppy Molly is thriving and healthy. Looking back, who could have predicted life would be so sweet?
Although my husband’s been a lifelong jock, I haven’t. I’ve been fairly active but sucked at sports. As a child, I was extremely nearsighted, couldn’t see a baseball, and never got picked for teams. I had long limbs and no muscles. If I gained weight it was all belly fat. I looked like a tomato held up by two toothpicks.
Each time I’d join a gym, the trainer did his fitness evaluations, and I was always in the below-average range. But at some point, all that changed.
My Life Transitions
How I ended up as a model in Paris in the 1970s is another story, but it was then that I became hooked on looking good. When I first started working out, I struggled with self-discipline, weight, and balancing good nutrition with partying and night life.
Around my 40th birthday I had an epiphany. Maybe it was all that existentialism in Paris, but I began thinking there was more to life. Maybe I was missing something important. I quit drinking, partying, smoking, and took up exercising with a personal trainer. I went back to school, studied psychology, and got my doctorate, and a few decades have slipped by since then.
That is not to say I’ve been a well-disciplined exerciser and fitness buff for all that time. No, rather, I rode the roller coaster like many women: one day up, another down, and around and around it all goes.
Until one day I realized I had made a great deal of progress despite it all. Evidently, over the course of many years, I had accumulated more healthy days than not. I reached a milestone, and hadn’t even noticed!
Somewhere down the road, I grew healthy habits, got rid of a few negative ones, and it got easier. I now think of myself as a “healthy person;” it’s part of who I am. It doesn’t feel good to not act healthy. I feel bad when I’m engaging in laziness, junk food, and excuses.
I must warn you, it took me a lot of time and work to get this way. That doesn’t mean it will take you a long time. I hope not. But even if it does, it’s worth it.
How I Became a Fit Senior
Starting in my fifties, in the 1990s, sometimes people remarked how young and fit I looked. Curious about their comments, I had some measurements taken at the gym for strength and flexibility.
And I couldn’t believe it. At some point, after off-and-on gym and sports regimens, I passed over into the “excellent physical condition” range. I don’t think I got that much more fit, but women my age, to whom they compare, were getting increasingly unfit.
All I had to do was keep going to the gym, eat a healthy diet, and not die, and eventually I got in the range of excellent. That was a senior milestone worth celebrating!
A New Senior Milestone
So, if you stay at it long enough, you will get fit. Oh, and you must stay alive also. So many people our age don’t do that, and that’s sad.
No matter your current state, you can increase your fitness level. Very few of us seniors are going to achieve bodybuilder status; that’s not the objective. Like Rob, I believe that most of us don’t exercise as much as necessary to get the life-prolonging cellular benefits. To me, that’s the real goal: improved cellular health that will ensure a better, longer, and “younger” old-age.
Everyone’s different and has different reasons for staying healthy. For me, it has to do with everyone in my family dying young (50s and 60s)―from heart disease, cancers, and alcoholism. I don’t want my life to be cut short now, because I’m having too much fun and enjoying myself more each year.
I don’t want to become debilitated either. It’s hard enough to not be able to do everything we could when we were young, but I still like to carry my own groceries, open jars, shop for hours, play tennis, and dance. Especially tap dancing. That always makes me happy.
Our New Chapter
This month we move into our new Winter home at Trilogy at Vistancia, a resort community for active seniors over 55 in Peoria, Arizona. It’s got two club houses, gyms, pools, multiple tennis and Pickleball courts, non-stop hobbies and even a culinary class room. More activities and new friends to make.
Although we’ve been in Mexico near Guadalajara since 2003, we felt the change would do us good. We’ll become “sun-birds,” visiting Ajijic in the summer months, and avoiding the flocks of “snow-birds” who spend their winters South.
You can’t live forever, granted, but you can try to stay strong and active for as long as possible. I am looking forward to reaching even another senior milestone. What about you?
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