How do you reconcile the reality of your aging body with the memory of your younger self?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I run almost every day, and I've also recently added light weights. I don't see much difference at 37 and I love how toned my legs and butt are from running.

I really suggest you find an exercise routine you enjoy enough to do regularly, and then do it enthusiastically and hard enough that it will actually work your muscles. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but yoga has never been enough/effective for my body type, and it does not give me that glorious "high" I get from a super hard run. My friends whose exercise consists of yoga or similar ARE getting saggier with age, even if they are not overweight. You need hard, regular cardio as you get older to keep off the middle aged spread, but it is very possible to maintain if that is what is important to you.

Also, you don't care about your "age number" when in the throes of a runner's high; you only care about how great you feel. This is a lot better than fretting.

Uh, this is posted in 50 and over, brainiac. They don't want to hear from whippersnappers like us.

37 is not young. Only thing separating 37 and 50 is 13 years... it will go by in a couple of blinks. Aging is relative. You'll be here in no time. Just enjoy every age.

I don't know about you. But 37 for me was identical to 20. In my 40s, though, particularly 45+, everything changed. Perimenopause can do a number on you. I'm assuming menopause does even more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I run almost every day, and I've also recently added light weights. I don't see much difference at 37 and I love how toned my legs and butt are from running.

I really suggest you find an exercise routine you enjoy enough to do regularly, and then do it enthusiastically and hard enough that it will actually work your muscles. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but yoga has never been enough/effective for my body type, and it does not give me that glorious "high" I get from a super hard run. My friends whose exercise consists of yoga or similar ARE getting saggier with age, even if they are not overweight. You need hard, regular cardio as you get older to keep off the middle aged spread, but it is very possible to maintain if that is what is important to you.

Also, you don't care about your "age number" when in the throes of a runner's high; you only care about how great you feel. This is a lot better than fretting.

37 lol get back to us when you're 57--I did all of what you are doing and more through my 40s. At 55 I developed arthritic knees that mock "what is important to me". I do believe that hitting the weights is the key though. But you have no idea how much harder it is in your 50s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have zero issue with this. I got arthritis when I was 18. It was so severe that I couldn't walk for a year and had PT at home 3 x a week to re-learn to walk. I remember being about 22 or 23 and falling down while standing at work - my back and legs just momentarily stopped working so I fell, and everyone laughed.

Now I'm much older and your issue is really just not anything I think about.

And your sharing this helps the OP how? Sorry you have an autoimmune disease, which apparently made you tough and also smug, but that's not the topic at hand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I run almost every day, and I've also recently added light weights. I don't see much difference at 37 and I love how toned my legs and butt are from running.
]This is a lot better than fretting.[/b]

37 lol get back to us when you're 57--I did all of what you are doing and more through my 40s. At 55 I developed arthritic knees that mock "what is important to me". I do believe that hitting the weights is the key though. But you have no idea how much harder it is in your 50s.

+1

OP, I am struggling with the same thing at 49. Now my lower abdominal skin is sagging to the point that pants fit differently (that area that gets stretched out if you have big babies and you have Anglo skin). No amount of exhilarating exercise euphoria will change the fact that I have a dangling pannus which precludes any pants other than Mom Jeans.

My pre-baby-, 30-mile-a-week running self from my 30s didn't understand why any sentient woman would ever choose to wear Mom Jeans when duh, lower-rise pants were in style. Now, I get it.

[Anonymous]

I am 52. Recently started weightlifting. Feel better than ever! Am now stronger than at any time in the past 20 years.

Get your tired old body into the Iron Temple for daily worship.

http://roguehealthandfitness.com/weightlifting-anti-aging/

As an anti-aging intervention, weightlifting fights the loss of muscle (sarcopenia) that starts early in life, in the thirties, and maintains high insulin sensitivity, the loss of which is a main cause of the maladies of age.

Also, intermittent fasting!

http://roguehealthandfitness.com/fasting-mechanism-longevity/

Arguably, the most important driver of aging is the decline in autophagy, the cellular self-cleansing process that rids cells of junk...

How do you increase autophagy?

Intermittent fasting. This is probably the best way to increase autophagy. While in young humans and animals, an overnight fast may be sufficient to ramp up autophagy, the decline in the process with age means that a fast longer than overnight is required. Fasting for 16 to 24 hours should do the job, and even longer may be better.

Drink water at night. This unusual way of increasing autophagy works by diluting the bloodstream. Leucine is the amino acid regulator of autophagy, and when it rises sufficiently due to the breakdown of tissues, autophagy stops. By drinking water at night (during fasting), the leucine concentration in blood drops, thus restarting autophagy.

Calorie restriction. Just mentioned in passing. Not many people want to do this, including me. But your BMI will be down around 19 or 20. Probably requires eating under 2,000 calories each and every day. fasting is easier.

[Anonymous]

I'm 43, so younger than many of you, but I have the saggy skin and creaky body, too. I lost a bunch of weight two years ago and I am just now realizing that the skin is never going to bounce back. I am going to wiggle and jiggle forever.

But. I decided to rekindle an old love - a sport I did in high school and college and ADORED and it has changed everything about how I see my body. It is still drooping in all the wrong places, but it does this sport well and it makes me feel fantastic. I simply don't care that I don't look like I did, because I can do this wonderful sport.

[Anonymous]

Anybody younger than 55 on this thread? Count your blessings and enjoy your youth. Because as you close on 60
you look your age and there is no escaping it, unless you have been blessed with incredible genetics. You can use every procedure there is and what you will look like is a 60 year old that has had procedures, not youthful. Its is really hard to be this age and makes me laugh that anyone younger is on this thread! I saw picture of myself recently at 40 and was happy I was so chiseled once apon a time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anybody younger than 55 on this thread? Count your blessings and enjoy your youth. Because as you close on 60
you look your age and there is no escaping it, unless you have been blessed with incredible genetics. You can use every procedure there is and what you will look like is a 60 year old that has had procedures, not youthful. Its is really hard to be this age and makes me laugh that anyone younger is on this thread! I saw picture of myself recently at 40 and was happy I was so chiseled once apon a time.

I admit that I'm just 49.5, lol.

But to the bolded, yes, I see this a lot in Bethesda / CC / Spring Valley. very toned affluent (white) women with $ hair and perfect clothes and ... procedures. that they don't think others can see, but we do, because no 66 yr old has a naturally taut jawline or startled eyes

[Anonymous]

No issues. I'm 46 and look 15 years younger. Good genes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anybody younger than 55 on this thread? Count your blessings and enjoy your youth. Because as you close on 60
you look your age and there is no escaping it, unless you have been blessed with incredible genetics. You can use every procedure there is and what you will look like is a 60 year old that has had procedures, not youthful. Its is really hard to be this age and makes me laugh that anyone younger is on this thread! I saw picture of myself recently at 40 and was happy I was so chiseled once apon a time.

Yes, but, don't you think a 75 year old would say the same thing to a 55 year old? You can certainly spend your whole life wishing you were younger (at 13: puberty sucks, I wish I was 6! At 25: Being in your 20s is so hard, I wish I was still 15! At 40: Having wrinkles sucks, I wish I was 25! At 55: I was so hot at 40! etc.) Or you can be glad you're still alive and enjoy your day.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the helpful comments and great perspective. My original post may have come off as too much about my changing appearance. It's that, of course, but also the sense that my body isn't as strong as it once was, that aches and pains (and worse) may be the new normal, and that my path in the world, once a wide road stretching endlessly in front me, is growing narrower and has a definitive end looming in the distance.

It's a time of life when I have to work harder -- physically, especially, but psychologically, too -- just to try to keep what I had before (energy, optimism about the future, the sense that adventures await).

But I also realize, as folks have pointed out, that things can and do get worse. And certainly some people have their youth stolen from them by illness at a very early age, and I'm very sorry for that.

The key word someone used may have been "acceptance." I'm just trying to get there. I'm 49, btw.

Thanks again all!

[Amazin]

My parents both lived into their 90's and were very physically active until their mid-80's at which point dementia began and really slowed them down. I think the key is to be both physically and mentally active and hang out with people with the same attitude. There are a ton of people my age (65) who are really old physically and attitudinally. I feel sorry for them.

While I've always been physically active it was just a few months ago that I decided to really begin rigorous workouts. 2-3 times a week I swim a 1/2 mile (or ride 20 minutes) followed by a one hour workout routine developed for me by a trainer. At the end I'm gasping for air but feel great. Along with a modestly better diet I've lost 5-10 pounds and converted some fat to muscle. I need to keep this up....forever!

It also helps to be in love! I've been married 38 years to a woman who looks more like 50 then almost 65. She still loves to fool around even though she's a grandmother. She is the smartest and most loving person I've ever known....though my own mother comes close.

So how do I reconcile the reality of my aging body with the memory of my younger self? I don't! I compare myself to people my own age...or ten years younger! Despite some aches and pains I feel pretty darn good!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Enough with the melodrama.

I do my best to stay in shape despite some chronic health issues. I work in n filling my life with the right people.

Getting old is not for the meek, but it beats the alternative.

+1

[Anonymous]

Amazin wrote:My parents both lived into their 90's and were very physically active until their mid-80's at which point dementia began and really slowed them down. I think the key is to be both physically and mentally active and hang out with people with the same attitude. There are a ton of people my age (65) who are really old physically and attitudinally. I feel sorry for them.

While I've always been physically active it was just a few months ago that I decided to really begin rigorous workouts. 2-3 times a week I swim a 1/2 mile (or ride 20 minutes) followed by a one hour workout routine developed for me by a trainer. At the end I'm gasping for air but feel great. Along with a modestly better diet I've lost 5-10 pounds and converted some fat to muscle. I need to keep this up....forever!

It also helps to be in love! I've been married 38 years to a woman who looks more like 50 then almost 65. She still loves to fool around even though she's a grandmother. She is the smartest and most loving person I've ever known....though my own mother comes close.

So how do I reconcile the reality of my aging body with the memory of my younger self? I don't! I compare myself to people my own age...or ten years younger! Despite some aches and pains I feel pretty darn good!

OP here. Love this! Thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I run almost every day, and I've also recently added light weights. I don't see much difference at 37 and I love how toned my legs and butt are from running.

I really suggest you find an exercise routine you enjoy enough to do regularly, and then do it enthusiastically and hard enough that it will actually work your muscles. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but yoga has never been enough/effective for my body type, and it does not give me that glorious "high" I get from a super hard run. My friends whose exercise consists of yoga or similar ARE getting saggier with age, even if they are not overweight. You need hard, regular cardio as you get older to keep off the middle aged spread, but it is very possible to maintain if that is what is important to you.

Also, you don't care about your "age number" when in the throes of a runner's high; you only care about how great you feel. This is a lot better than fretting.

Uh, this is posted in 50 and over, brainiac. They don't want to hear from whippersnappers like us.

37 is not young. Only thing separating 37 and 50 is 13 years... it will go by in a couple of blinks. Aging is relative. You'll be here in no time. Just enjoy every age.

I agree that 37 is not particularly young. I didn't post to gloat about my youthful status (in fact I'm 38, not 37, like pp). But I know I get annoyed when 28 year olds come into threads moaning about their "wrinkles" and "how old" they look, so I would imagine it's equally eye rolling for 30 somethings to barge into a thread for the 50+, smugly opining that hard exercise is all one needs, and that they don't see any difference from when they were younger. Of course they don't! They haven't hit menopause yet.