60 yrs and up

BCLadybug888

Hi, your energy and capacity sounds good to me, but that's compared to me lol, and since you are noticing a decline, you probably should get it checked out. Sometimes heart issues show up this way (not to scare you, just saying).

However if you are comparing your performance to some time in the past and trying to ramp up again, you are probably fine, just need to build up your stamina again.

AnnPT77

Good to hear from you, @Evamutt.

I think it's hard to say what's going on for sure (as a total stranger, even when reading your helpfully clear post).

I do find that as I age, I need to be more conscious and intentional about recovery - planning it into my workout schedule - and I don't bounce back from overdoing like I did when younger. (I'm not saying you're overdoing, though.)

More relevant here, I also find that I de-train much faster if I take a break from working out, or have to cut way back (which I've done during things like surgical recovery or illness). I find that it takes a period of gradually increasing (duration, frequency, intensity) to come back from those breaks. That period may take longer than the break itself, which is frustrating. I can't just jump back in and ramp up as quickly as I could when younger.

That makes me think (hope?) some of what you're experiencing is normal, though obviously not pleasant. But also potentially recoverable, with patient persistence. (Dontcha just hate things that require patient persistence? I do! )

That said, reading between the lines, there may be some reasons to talk with your doctor if this doesn't resolve. You mention Covid and BP. If you had Covid, that can have after-effects for anyone and everyone (and from what I've read, pushing hard against that is counterproductive for everyone of any age). If you had high/low BP and have new-ish medications, there could be side effects. There are also health conditions that become more likely statistically as we age that can trigger fatigue.

Yes, I think some of this sort of thing can be a normal aging effect (unfortunately), and some (bad) doctors will be quick to classify it that way, but if it's a more abrupt thing in someone who's been as active as you have, ideally our doctors will take us seriously and run the basic tests they'd run for anyone else.

I'm sure you're already on top of this, but making sure things like sleep, nutrition, hydration, stress management, etc., are as on point as possible can only help mitigate any problem issues.

I'm sorry you're going through this, and hope you're able to find some improvement! ((virtual hugs))

Evamutt

I took a long break from the gym due to getting a pinched nerve then it closing from covid & when I wanted to go back, I had retina surgery & couldn't strain anything, then skin cancer surgery then IT band syndrome which I'm not fully recovered from so I did get away from working out but did do some machines couple weeks ago but over did it one day I don't take any medications but did for couple months to regulate my BP but do take supplements. I am walking a lot more. Last week I got in almost 70,000 steps due to going on more walks because we are fostering a dog & have 5 of our own so I always go on 2 separate walks plus walk at the dog park which is a basin so I go up & down the hills. I was surprised when I added it up! I do feel better than I have before when I walked half as much. I don't know if I'll continue with the gym. The hot weather will be here in a couple more days & I do like going in the pool there. It's kind of pricey but only 3 block away. I did work out with YouTube but got out of the habit

lclark04957

Happy Sunday Everyone! My first week starting back up with MFP went well. I tracked everything I ate, even the unhealthy, because I thought “who am I hiding from?” If I want this to work I need to be totally honest with myself. My enthusiasm to exercise is back, and I contribute it to this app and this discussion group. It motivates me knowing I’m not in this struggle alone. I hope you have a good week and reach your personal goals. My goal this week is to cut out nighttime snacks. It’s my bad habit I’m trying to fix.

tnh2o

I'm someone who could be considered particularly active. In the past there has been masters swimming, triathlons, long runs (10+ miles). The last 10 years or so it's been mostly hiking, backpacking, and kayaking.
And I have really slowed down. I gauge my fitness not on what I do but on how well I recover.
Yesterday I went on a steep 6 mile hike. My legs were stiff and I was pooped! Today I feel better than expected.
Like most of us who have lived this long, I have injuries and illnesses.
I choose to focus on what I can do and it's a lot even though it's not what I used to do.
And to quote @AnnPT77 - "I'm sure you're already on top of this, but making sure things like sleep, nutrition, hydration, stress management, etc., are as on point as possible can only help mitigate any problem issues." I struggle with this on a regular basis.
My advice to everybody is just do something. This is not a contest.

lclark04957

Great advice. It’s easy to compare myself to others and lose focus on personal goals and why I am on this weight loss/fitness journey. I’ll do what I can, when I can, and focus on the positive.

Ttjesus

Add me too, I’m 66 and retired, I need to loose at least 70 pounds. It’s so difficult to exercise and plan meals when I have six picky eaters to cook accommodate. Yes, six, my child moved back home with her children. It was nice at first, but 12 years later it’s frustrating and adding to my bad habits. I need lots of motivation and ideas.

lclark04957

Good morning my 60 and older friends. Half way through the week and so far so good. Managed to exercise everyday this week. I definitely feel much better physically and mentally. I hope the rest of the week goes well for everyone, and I’d love to hear from you. Please share. It’s motivating to know I’m not alone in this wellness journey.

ridiculous59

@lclark04957 I agree.....life is better when all the moving parts are moving! And every pound that we drop makes it easier. On the other hand, (as long as a person's health care provider approves), it doesn't matter what our weight is, we should still be doing something.

And here's my plug for exercises and/or stretches that involve balance. We need to work on that now. We all know of older people who have fallen and broken a hip or some other bone. Balance is a skill that can be nurtured by some simple movements and if we're working on it now, it could have great benefits down the road.

I was at a meeting a couple of weekends ago and one of the people attending was 93. She is as bright as a button (as my mother used to say) and had lots of valuable input into the discussions. No shuffling for her; she walks upright and with purpose. And when we had lunch, she also ordered a beer. That is how I want to age 🙂 Hopefully eating well and exercising at the age I am now will help. Those are the only things I am in control of and the rest is pretty much up to genetics!

lclark04957

@ridiculous59 … totally agree. 93 and moving? Sounds fantastic. Stretching is something I should do more. I always feel better after. I don’t know why I skip that step. Good advice. I’m making it a goal for next week!

AnnPT77

I think I may've mentioned this on this thread before, but if so it was a lot of posts ago. It isn't a huge contributor, but it's a help with zero added time investment.

When I started out wanting to work on my balance, one thing I did was utilize those daily moments when I was standing, waiting - grocery store checkout line, for example.

Just standing there, I would just slightly lift one food off the ground, like half an inch, maybe - not noticeable. When that was no challenge at all, I started moving the foot around subtly, just out to the side a little, or back and forth, or a bit across in front of the other foot, still subtle and inobvious. When that got easy, I'd do things like reach out to the magazine or candy rack by the checkout line, or bend a little as if to look closer at something; or move my purse from one hand/shoulder to the other, or put in in front of me and fiddle with stuff inside. Any subtle thing that creates a bit of instability increases the challenge, and needn't make a person look crazy eccentric.

I also use spare moments now when I'm doing something easy in my kitchen, like poking the button on my little electric coffee grinder to grind the beans. I do side leg raises standing on one leg, or donkey kicks to the back. Leg swings of any form work, and one can be less subtle in one's own kitchen. My coffee grinder is really good because I can use it with one hand, pick it up, move it around to create more instability, still pulsing the button. If I tip, there's a counter right there I can grab with my free hand.

I know this sounds weird and trivial, but it really did help me improve, takes zero time. Little things, done persistently over time, add up.

BCLadybug888

@AnnPT77 - you truly are brilliant, and earn the PT in your name!

BCLadybug888

Hello peeps!
I am working hard with my personal plan, hitting all the bases I know:
- not just logging food, pre-logging food! (which is not my thing)
- aiming for a water target
- staying with a calorie deficit 12/14 days, then having 2 days at maintenance to mix things up & satisfy any deprivation I may be trying to convince myself of 😆
- cooking almost every meal from scratch, adding in lots of veggies, trying to get adequate protein. Weighing and measuring food to be as accurate as possible.
- fasting daily 14+ hours
- trying to regulate my bedtime and get adequate sleep (made progress on this but not quite where I want it to be)
- incorporate daily activity to build a daily habit (meeting my very modest activity/step goals for the most part, but still not there yet with a dedicated activity time daily)

And I have lost weight, not as much as I would've liked or think I 'deserve' but averaging a lb a week last 6 weeks and I do seem to have a bit more energy and am feeling stronger and more in control overall. So having a successful month or so! I am on my 3rd cycle of my plan and still gung-ho to keep going. 🙂

AnnPT77

BCLadybug888 wrote: »

@AnnPT77 - you truly are brilliant, and earn the PT in your name!

To be crystal clear for new readers and others who might not realize: The "PT" in my screen name are my middle name's and last name's initials. I'm not, and never have been a Personal Trainer or Physical Therapist.

I have a bit of coaching education in my sport, and used to have USRowing coaching certification to level 2, but I didn't keep up certification via continuing education units. That's it.

I'm an interested amateur. If I'd realized my initials would have potential for that confusion here, I would've picked a different screen name! By the time I realized, I was past the point where it made sense to me to change it.

AnnPT77

Happy Monday, all!

I did one of those weekend road trip thingies, lots of food indulgences and two days of 6+ hour car rides. Got the usual result: Up a couple of pounds today, may be up a bit more tomorrow (hard to say), but it's mostly water weight and will be leaving soon enough if I behave like a sensible human . . . or so I predict. I didn't eat 7000 calories in total above maintenance calories.

We went from mid-Michigan to Baraboo, Wisconsin on Saturday. On Sunday, we watched "our" team in the Big 10 Rowing Championships (women's rowing). That team didn't dominate, which we expected, but did move up the rankings from last year, as we had hoped. There's been a coaching change, we hope/think positive. They are rebuilding.

After the races, we drove home.

I did a bunch of walking around Devil's Lake State Park, where the event was held on Sunday (in gorgeous weather), but given all the car-riding time, it was a low-activity weekend overall.

The state park over the weekend was beautiful, and we had hot (80+ F, 27+ C), sunny weather. This is a photo of the event, with my very fit (but anonymized ) 77-y/o rower buddy J. watching from right of the photo (blonde woman in white jacket (it was windy in the AM) and dark shorts).



I was back rowing on the home river this morning, this time in a double with someone (retired woman around my age) who was in our learn-to-row class last year, and who has been rowing regularly since. She's doing great!

What's everyone else up to?

23majiki18

Morning!! I’m “Nana” and am hoping to lose a significant amount of weight and throw out meds for blood pressure (entirely doable!) and cholesterol ( maybe not so doable—-we shall see)! I would appreciate input on “easy on the knees” movement activities (aka—-exercises!) as my knees hurt most of the time (miniscus injuries and auto crash). I know losing weight will help with the pain, but it’s a double edged sword right now. I’m planning to start some water aerobics because I know that will relieve a lot of pressure on my knees. However any/all other suggestions are greatly appreciated. Have a great logging day and enjoy!

ridiculous59

@23majiki18 Welcome!! We're so glad you're joining us on this journey! I am very biased about water aerobics type exercises because personally, I love them. I lost 90 pounds and one of my main exercise activities was a deep water running class three times a week. I loved the "do what you can and if something bothers you, then don't do it" mentality of the class. There's a big difference between pain, and a bit of muscle soreness. Avoid the first, relish the second 🙂 Also, maybe search "chair yoga" on YouTube? I enjoy yoga for it's stretching benefits (I like "Yoga With Adrienne" on YouTube) but you may want to start out with chair yoga?

ridiculous59

@AnnPT77 What a great way to spend a weekend (watching racing). And beautiful weather made it even more enjoyable.

It was a long weekend in Canada (Victoria Day) and we took the opportunity to take the RV camping for this week. We're camping in an area that we used to live several years ago and taking time to visit old friends. It was kind of a spur of the moment trip. Despite being retired, we're pretty busy and we looked at the calendar and saw we had nothing major going on all week. A couple of beautiful travel days and a sunny ferry trip and now we are here. In the RV with a golden retriever and a border collie, and we've woken up to pouring rain. But we have our Gortex and a walk on the beach is still a walk on the beach, no matter the weather 😆 Steps are steps. Right?

AnnPT77

Welcome, @23majiki18!

"Easy on the knees" has some individuality to it, I think. I can only comment from my own experience, but your experience may be different.

Ridiculous59 has good advice there about water exercise. That will work for quite a few people, since the water supports body weight and takes some of the stress off.

I have osteoarthritis in my knees, and at least one torn meniscus. (I suspect both are now torn from the sensations, but only one was MRI-ed at the time.)

Myself, I find that I can do things that require work from my knees bending in the linear front/back axis, but things with higher impact or torque/twisting on my knees makes things worse.

By higher impact, I'm talking stuff like running, jumping, etc. Torque/twisting happens in some dance-type exercises, and in some games. (Some examples of games with twisting, things that I'm not suggesting are currently on your or my agenda, but are clear examples: Tennis, basketball, etc.) So I don't do things like that.

What I'd suggest is some cautious experimentation.

For me, with my limitations/reactions, major activities are biking (stationary or outdoor) and rowing (machines and boats, which is a leg exercise primarily, some upper body). Those are things I worked up to, and that involve only knee bending in the linear-hinging way, and pressure but not impact. I'm not saying "do those", I'm just giving examples of my personal thought process.

I do find that some activities are uncomfortable at the time I do them, but don't make the overall conditions or pain worse longer term. That's an even more scary level of experimentation, though.

For myself, I put walking (for exercise) in that category. I like to keep conditioned enough to walking that I can freely do things like art fairs or music festivals and whatnot that require quite a bit of walking. When I've cut back on walking (in Winter here!), I start gradually and build up distance over a period of time. My knees hurt by the end of a long walk, but don't get worse in general.

Another thing that helped me was physical therapy. At first, my orthopedist didn't want to refer me for PT, because he said it couldn't help treat either OA or torn meniscus. But when I told him I wanted to learn how to walk and (especially) climb stairs in ways that would reduce further knee stress, he was supportive and referred me. I took one cortisone shot that sort of tided me over, and did the PT. For me, it was helpful.

The physical therapist also assessed me to see whether certain muscular weaknesses or other musculo-skeletal issues were contributing to my knee pain. For many people, quadriceps (front thigh muscles) need strengthening, but that wasn't the case for me. However, I did have tightness in my hip joints that was contributing to my problems, and he gave me exercises to improve that. Very helpful!

It can take a bit of patience and cautious experimentation to find some activities that work, but in my experience, the results can be worth that effort. I'm hoping you find some things that a workable for you!

P.S. Apologies for the long post!

lclark04957

I love this group! Great advice and very supportive. Welcome, @23majiki18!