Women over 55+

zee1957 wrote: »

Hi. You’re probably 10 pounds is a lot but I have a very good reason for it. I haven’t seen my husband in over a year and I’m going to see him March 15. That is why. I now weigh 164 I’m losing slowly which is the right way. I was 189 last year. I’m only 4’11 so that is a lot of weight for me. I don’t exercise as I’m on the road most of the time. I’m a district manager so I do a lot of traveling. I did joined a gym just recently but I get bored so easily I stop going any ideas on that ?

My only personal strategy - and it happened by accident - was to find an active pursuit that I really enjoy: I'd want to do it, even if it weren't good for me. Then, I started doing other things, to get better at "my" thing.

People seem to immediately think of gyms and machines when they want more exercise. Anything that involves movng more counts, and if it challenges you in some physical way, so much the better.

Some people like gym machines, weight training, or group classes at the gym (of which there are many diverse types). Some people like swimming or pool exercise. But there are also games (pickleball is a currently-popular one in our demographic, but also tennis, golf, racquetball or handball, etc., etc. Then there are outdoor activities, like walking (including variants like bird-watching or geocaching), biking, canoeing, skating (in-line or ice), gardening, etc.

There are dozens of kinds of dancing, from ballet and tap to couples dancing (if you have a partner) or things like line dancing or clogging that work solo, plus all of the usual "exercise dance" kinds of classes. There are other active things one can study, like bunches of types or martial arts, from fairly gentle to fairly vigorous: These, like dancing, have the added benefit of quite a bit of intellectual challenge alongside the physical, because there's so much technique and background to learn. Yoga is similar.

That's just a tiny subset of options.

So, joining a gym is great, but consider other options (some of which would be portable for travel). Any kind of moving more will improve physicality and burn calories. Sure, more vigorous activity will burn more calories per minute than gentle activity, but that's not the be-all and end-all goal. It may be easier to find something that's enjoyable, and build on that gradually over time. Too many people assume that exercise has to involve panting, mega-sweating misery, or there won't be benefits. It's just not true.

You don't sound like this kind of person, but I'll mention it anyway: Sometimes, people in our age group have low expectations of themselves, believing they can't do things. That's not true, either. Many of us have some physical limitations, but there are often alternate activities that work around those. We can do a surprisingly wide range of things, and develop surprising amounts of new physical capabilities. It's smart to start gradually, and work up to more challenging things - since injury is a bigger risk for us, and recovery can take longer than when we were 20. On the plus side, though, most of us have the self-knowledge and patience to work at something new, over a period of time. We can surprise ourselves.

Best wishes!

Hi Everyone! I hope your Sunday is going well. I worked out for an hour today. I am really feeling it. It feels good, though too, because it is 2 days in a row I stuck to my commitment. It is just the beginning, but it is where I am.