60 yrs and up

Welcome, @cruelas01!

I'm also a breast cancer survivor - stage III but now many years back. I'm 69 and am MFP old-timer, also retired.

Breast cancer is a cancer type whose survivors often gain weight, rather than losing it, surprisingly. Fortunately, IME it's loseable, though, and the benefits of doing so more than worth the effort.

Wishing you success here!

We have Dragon Boats at the paddling pavilion/launch/ramp about a mile from me. That's fun! Nice, Ann 🙂

me, too. i won’t use apps for anything. i came to mfp when fitbit trashed their webpage (which had been wonderful for years) and after some struggles have pretty much figured out how to make the mfp web page work for me. there’s the occasional fitbit sync lag, but all in all i can live with it. i’d gained back half of what i lost with fitbit by the time i was able to stabilize with the mfb web page after google destroyed fitbit and still haven’t gotten back to where i was two years ago.

Dragon boat racing just sounds so badass! And is, judging from the photo.

Today is one of those days I’m so grateful for wooden walls on the stairs, so I can hand-over-hand my way down the steps.

I’m trying to limit use of the Meloxicam, and probably went a day longer than I should have. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Feeling much better after a nice breakfast and even the High Anxiety Dog had an unusually good walk this morning. He’s struggled the past couple of weeks.

We saw the absolute spitting image of the little redheaded Carolina Spaniel he has such a crush on. She’s the only dog he will allow near him. He wagged, did his happy-to-see- you belly shimmy, then trotted up, sniffed, and then jumped back as if to say,”Heyyyyyy!!!!!!! Imposter! You’re not Biscuit!”

Was on the fence about cardio this morning, but will go very light weights and permit myself to reel it in for a change.

Yes, I feel like my appetite generally goes up in the Fall. By ancestry, I'm 1/4 Swedish, 1/4 Norwegian, and 100% peasant. I figure generations of ancestors trained my genes that Winters are long, cold, and food sparse. The holidays and my birthday being in there don't help.

I do try to moderate the effect, but now - in long term maintenance - it doesn't stress me out too much if my weight goes up a small number of pounds in Winter, as long as it drops down again come Spring.

I agree with @BigDfromNJ and @AnnPT77 : Something about the cooler weather makes me want to EAT. I anticipate that I'll get a bit blue in October as the days really get short. I need to find an activity to pull me through so I don't wait until Jan 1 to "reclaim my health." I've done that for too many years in a row!

I'm considering a flashy exercise class, like Orange Theory Fitness. Has anyone else tried that?

@AnnPT77 : That's really interesting. I see on the website that they have three different workouts, one intended for strength. Since I swim, run, and ride, what I'd be looking to focus on would be strength, cutting back on the other stuff for a while. I think group fitness classes would be the most fun, so long as they're well designed.

(It's been a great summer, improving in almost every month. Transitioning to the "off season" always challenges me.)

I do group strength training twice a week here at home, and have done it at my daughter’s gym in SoCal as well.

I think her gym’s is a branded (Beach Body or Les Mills?) type class. It’s a very large group, youngish group but some 60’s and 70’s, maybe 40 people, maybe 15% males.

They use steps with mats as benches, and use narrow lightweight barbells, which I loath because they dig into your shoulders, being so narrow.

The classes are super fast paced, and so people use really light hand weights and plates. The class is pre-designed so the reps fit the beat of the music, and the stop to explain the next move tends to be super short because they have to start on a certain beat. I get lost easily because I only go when I visit. You have to learn both the patter and the patterns to keep up.

They do a lot of squats and lot of overhead presses for standing moves, typically fast, repeated slower, and then fast again.

Anyone picking up a 10 pound dumbbell is goggled at like a super hero, and likewise with plates. If you’re using 5kg plates as your start on the barbells, you’re in the upper echelon of this group, but again, it’s super fast. I’m not a heavy bencher, but ten pound weights to bench with, or a lightweight bar loaded with maybe 30 lbs of plates is not much of a challenge. Even an empty “standard” bar is 45 in the gym.

SoCal is huge on fast, sloppy (imho) overhead presses.

Core in these classes is basically limited to push-ups off a bench. Again, if you use the floor, people act like you’re abnormal because you’re not doing exactly what the instructor is.

Both warm up and Cooldown is 2-3 minutes. I prefer a much longer cooldown.

My own gym, which tends to cater towards an older crowd, does a similar class (but more barbell oriented, those same narrow barbells) several times a week. It’s booked solid well in advance. I can’t get to those because they’re always late afternoon.

We also have what we call Muscle Madness (their take on the branded programs) which is normally strictly dumbbells. They encourage us to go as heavy as possible. I use 15s on most, but on some moves (skull crushers, bench, deadlifts, rows, plank rows) will use 20 and up. The heaviest we have in the room is a couple of 40s, and you’ve got to grab them fast. I like heavier weights for goblet squats if I know they’re coming up in a set.

Warmup is about 5 min with no weights, cooldown is about the same, longer if you don’t mind if they run over a few minutes

Again, loud (not as insanely, can’t think, loud as the branded classes but still a lot of thump), and Tuesday instructor maddeningly does every variation of weighted lunges possible. I sincerely wish she’d change it up.

Thursday’s instructor leans into squats and using step as bench.

Frankly, I find my own gym’s classes to be more challenging because they encourage higher weights while still comparatively fast pace. They also include a lot more core- usually the whole last set is core.

The instructors at my gym will walk around during sets to check and correct form. SoCal does not. They don’t have time because it’s so fast paced.

Both gyms’ classes lean towards “flinging” weights at a fast pace, especially on standing OHP, bicep curls and Tricep kickbacks, which my trainer frowns upon, so I go heavier and more thoughtfully, if that makes sense. Lately, I do my own thing and I’m OK if I get a couple reps less than others. I’d rather have quality curls than sloppy volume.

we have maybe 15 regulars, including a pair of male cousins who’ve started coming the last three or four months. I think other gym-goers see it as a “girly”and for older women class and avoid, but the men who have come have been somewhat shocked (and shamed!) to see the ladies reaching for heavier weights than they did. We’ve had several guys who’ve just left in the middle of class because they couldn’t hack it.

“My” regular ladies are also stacked. 😉

Sorry for the long read, but thought I’d share.

In spite of minor aggravations (repetitive damn lunges) I do schedule these classes twice a week and they are a great workout. If it helps to judge, typically burn about 350-400 calories per session.

I swim laps immediately afterwards and it’s a relief to get in the cool pool and simply and take my time!

$200 a session?! They must’ve bumped their danged heads!

Granted my gym does a quarterly discount package sale, but their trainers also all have some kind of degree in physical therapy, rehab, exercise science etc. They are first rate. Worlds away from sorry *kitten* trainers I had at LAFitness and Workout Anytime.

(Not to slam those gyms-just the quality of personal training and the pressure to sign up. They take any Tom Dick or Harry who says they’re a trainer, at least in my experience.) I’ve got several very very good yoga instructors who also teach at the Y and LAF.)

I pay $1250 for either 20 or 25 one-hour training sessions. You can also buy them in half hour packages. Thats $62 an hour or less.

I drive a little old (but much loved) beater to afford to pay for my health. Priorities! 😂😂😂

Running joke at the gym is that the Care Cab (electric cart that takes the less mobile from parking deck to front door) is bigger and more luxurious than my car.

I was a big fan of Gregg Wallace’s podcast “A Piece of Cake”, but he got “cancelled” earlier this year, and all the episodes are now deleted from Apple and Spotify.

I think he was a judge on the Great British Bakeoff?

Shame. He’d lost quite a bit of weight, and was sincerely interested in the process. His interviews with various people involved in healthcare, weight loss industry, and nutrition were interesting, as were his followup episodes called “Another Piece” with a couple of “normal” people midway into the weight loss process themselves, and their takeaways on what they’d heard.

I never got to finish it because I tend to space out podcasts I enjoy so I have something to look forward to.

@SummerSkier You're lucky that Paxlovid works for you! I'm, unfortunately, one of the 1% that the Covid Vaccine and Paxlovid don't work for. Every year I get the vaccine, and I still get Covid, and the one time I took Paxlovid I got long haulers covid and coughed for 9 months. So, this year I'm not taking Paxlovid if I get Covid. Sticking to healthy eating, exercise, and good hygiene and letting God's Will to be done. 🙂

Oh I agree that everyone has to deal with their own set of medical history and their doctors. Fortunately I do not take any other Rx that would interfere with the Paxlovid. I think Covid is in a class by itself and everyone probably has a different experience.

As an example my Dr said this current strain was supposedly REALLY contagious. I was with a gal for over an hr Sat morning (I had no symptoms) and I tested positive on that evening because my throat felt funny. I contacted her several times to check, and she has not gotten sick. We suspect because I did not have a fever but that goes against a lot of the knowledge which says you are really contagious for a couple days BEFORE you have symptoms. Luck of the draw for her I guess.

unpopular opinion, belongs in the other thread, but…..I’ve gotten sick a lot less often the past few years. Maybe it’s weight loss, but I attribute it to slow and deep breathing “pranayama” techniques learned in yoga, which carry over to the weight room, much to the chagrin of my trainer. I’ve been so trained to do slow, deliberate in and outs, it obvs affects reps. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I seldom get stuffy, either.

Wish I’d had this training back when I played a wind instrument lol. I remember being instructed to put piles books on my belly and practice breathing that way, lol.