Senior Lifestyle and Fitness

1. Senior fitness is a hot topic these days.  Millions of baby boomers are beginning to hit “oldies” status and they bring with them their active lives.  Although elderly people have worked hard in the past, and rested when they retired, this new crop of senior citizens isn’t happy to sit idle when the time comes to leave the working world. 
2. Senior exercise  - while some of us think that’s a dirty phrase, others take it to heart.  Millions of people use treadmills, go for evening walks, or ride bicycles through their neighborhood.  A good number of them just happen to be over sixty.  
3. Senior sports are on the upswing, too.  My brother-in-law is an avid softball player and is equally good at tennis. While he is the eldest of my siblings, spouses and me, he is in the best shape.  He has never discontinued playing to win and he often does, over much younger opponents.  No rocking chair for this old man!

Personally, I find my senior lifestyle to be easiest in the city.  In the summer my husband and I live in beautiful farming country, far from any town.  In the winter we go to Mexico and live in a city of over one-half million people.  I am definitely healthier in Mexico.  Why?  Because we don’t take a car and we walk everywhere.  Those miles add up – I wore out a good pair of shoes last year and dropped thirty pounds!

Riding a bicycle has always been a favorite pastime of mine.  I don’t like to call it exercise because then I hate it.  There’s just something about the word exercise that makes me cringe.  But when I jump on my bike and pedal down a country road I have the same feeling of being carefree as when I was young and I like it. 

Our lives don’t end when we enter our senior years.  They begin.  With a positive, can-do attitude we can be even healthier than we were in our younger days.  I just read an article that said people with more education live longer.  I know some who have gone back to school to get degrees even in their seventies and eighties.  I had a good friend who was a ninety-three-year-old author.  She had sold a lot of books (after beginning to write in her sixties).

What can we take from this?  These are important to research and remember:

• Senior fitness
• Senior exercise
• Senior activities
• Senior Lifestyle
• Senior Eating habits

If we practice them all we’ll live longer and lead healthier lives!

Am I Old or Just Senile?

I sat with a group of Senior Citizens this morning in a meeting and I realized something.  I AM ONE.  While I was secretly chuckling at some of their mannerisms it struck me that I probably have idiosyncrasies of my own.  I realized that I have been thrown to the wolves – no longer a nifty-fifty, but a dyed-in-the-wool sixty-something genuine old lady! 

“When did this happen?” I asked myself.  Yesterday I was twenty and I had the whole world ahead of me.  Today I’m forty-two years older with a soon to be birthday on the horizon – next week in fact!

This morning it happened again while I was getting ready for my day.  “Oh, there’s another wrinkle,” I moaned.  I looked closely to be sure it was true, and then reassured myself.  “Don’t worry dear, everything will be fine.”

 “Yeah, it’s easy for you to say that.”

Startled, I glanced up at the twenty-something face I saw reflected in my mirror.  

“By the way, you might want to apply some concealer under those baggy eyes.”

“What?”  I reached in my bag for the white stuff and smeared it lavishly all over my face.  Can’t ever have too much, right?

“What on earth are you doing?” Mirror Girl asked.  “Didn’t you listen to that makeup artist yesterday?”

“What makeup artist?  Did I miss something?  Who are you and what in the heck are you talking about?”

“Settle down,” she replied.  “You know who I am so don’t try to act like you don’t.  Remember that time you caught your dress in your pantyhose in the bathroom and walked into your niece’s wedding reception with your butt hanging out for the world to see?”

“Oh, you are so cruel,” I said.  “You would have to bring up the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me.”

“Well, actually…”

“Ok, just shut up.  I get it.  Where’s my coffee anyway?  It’s too early for this nonsense.”

“It might be nice to add some color to your hair.  It’s getting a little drab,” Mirror Girl said with a smirk.

“At least there’s no gray yet,” I muttered.  “One of the good things about being blonde.”

“Have you been doing those arm lifts the trainer said would firm up your biceps?”

I decided it was time to brush my teeth and end this nonsense.  But when I finished and looked back, she was still there. 

“What’s up with this?” I wondered, as she began again.

“Are you getting a little thick around the middle?” she looked down and tried to see me naked.

I threw a towel around myself.  “Oh no you don’t,” I said.  “We’re not having THAT conversation today.”

“What conversation?” she asked innocently.

“That one about cellulite and varicose veins.”  I began applying mascara.

“You’re pretty cool for an old lady,” she said with a smirk.  “If I were a little older we’d probably be best friends or something.”

I gave her the evil eye and put on my lipstick.

“Don’t you think that color’s a little dark?” she asked innocently.

“Do you always have to be so uncomplimentary?” I replied.  “Sure would be nice if just once you liked something I did.”

“Oh, I do,” she replied.  “You made me special.  See you tomorrow.”  She gave a jaunty wave that I just caught out of the corner of my eye.

I looked up to see the mirror was blank.  Except for some sixty-year old hag that peered back at me.  

“Where did she come from?” I wondered.  I paid her no mind as I got dressed and walked out the door.

“I look good,” I thought to myself.  “It’s going to be a glorious day.”  I backed out of the driveway listening to the sounds of Bruce Springsteen on the radio. 

“Humph,” I snorted.  “Old lady, my ass!”

MEET ME AT THE LOCAL SENIOR CENTER

Your local Senior Center can offer many helpful tidbits of information.  The Senior Center usually has lots of activities planned for older adults that may include meals, concerts, table games and other events geared to people your own age.  Often the Senior Center also offers transportation to doctors and information about where to obtain services an older adult may need. 

For instance, perhaps you have questions about Medicare.  Your Senior Center is likely to have a person well-versed in the jargon needed to wade through the rules and regulations.  Also, there are often guest-speakers at the Senior Center who offer free advice and help to older adults about Medicare laws.  Many seniors don’t know about these services.

The Senior Center posts schedules of monthly activities.  Pick one of the activities you are interested in and attend an event.  Many of these events will entice lots of people your own age and is a chance for you to meet new friends.  Often, a local County Fair will hold Senior Days, with food and gate fees greatly reduced or free to those over fifty years of age.  Also, the local zoo often has one day of the year earmarked for seniors and it’s free!  All of these events and more will generally be posted on the bulletin board of your local Senior Center.

If you are interested in meeting other people your own age and becoming involved in new activities, why not volunteer some time?  It’s a great way to get involved, get out of the house, and spend time with others your own age.  

SENIOR ONLINE DATING PROFILE

So, you've decided to take the plunge and create a senior online dating profile, hoping to meet someone on the Internet.  If you are reading this you are most likely a senior citizen, perhaps a Baby Boomer, over fifty and single.  You have thought about creating a senior online dating profile but perhaps you are procrastinating, worried about all the hype and the bad image you think it might give you.  Rest assured, a senior online dating profile is fairly easy to create and meeting other people your age online is a thing of the present.  It’s a hip thing to do in today’s computer-generated world.

A few years ago many adults turned to pen pal letters to meet other people.  Whether contemplating friendship or romance, it gave the correspondents time to get to know each other before they actually met.  If the two found they weren’t compatible on paper there is a good chance they wouldn’t want to even get together.  Let’s face it – it isn’t always easy to meet people our own age with our own tastes close to home.  Many mature adults live in small towns or rural areas with little opportunity to meet and date other people.

Today the Internet has changed everything.  There are many dating sites available, both paid and free.  It is relatively easy to create a senior online dating profile, just fill in relative information and give as much or as little as you feel comfortable with.  Don’t give your telephone number and address – there’ll be lots of time for that later.  Pick a few keywords to show the things you are most interested in and the computer will do the rest, matching you with other people who have the same likes and interests.  The senior online dating profile allows mature adults to email each other and take time getting acquainted.  If the two are compatible, they may want to exchange telephone numbers and meet eventually.  Many wonderful friendships and romances have begun this way.