How to Stay Fit and Limber in Your Golden Years

how to stay fit

This post may contain affiliate content from which we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read our full disclosure.

Want to Know How to Stay Fit?

You need your body to be in good working order to enjoy retirement. Your golden years are a time for slowing down, but rather for using your time to enjoy all the things you wanted to do when you were too busy working, taking care of your family, and establishing yourself. Consider these easy tips to keep active and accomplish your retirement goals!


How to stay fit in your golden years

Some seniors are forced into retirement due to illness or varying disabilities.

Here are tips for you on how to stay fit and enjoy life in your golden years and beyond, while also avoiding those pesky late-life conditions.

Mind Your Weight

How to Stay Fit and Limber into Your Golden YearsYou should do whatever it takes to prevent extra pounds from packing on. If your weight is creeping up, take immediate steps to halt its progression. It becomes increasingly harder as each year passes to lose weight.

Extra pounds exponentially increase the stress on your joints and are also linked to a 79 percent increase in degenerative disc disease in your back.

Three-Fold Factor of Metabolic Syndrome

Excess weight, sedentary living, and a less-than-ideal diet all work together to promote acquiring the symptoms of metabolic syndrome, which include elevated blood glucose levels, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. One of the visible symptoms of metabolic syndrome is an expanding waistline.

Extra weight, lack of exercise, and daily consumption of refined sugars and highly processed foods can cause your body to develop insulin resistance. This is where your own insulin is not being used correctly and your blood glucose begins to run high.

Elevated cholesterol from poor dietary choices can cause dyslipidemia, though genetic factors do make you more at-risk. Exercise leads to metabolic changes that can lower bad cholesterol and increase the good kind, as well as improves your insulin regulation by promoting weight loss.

Maintain Muscle Mass

Perform weight-bearing activities to the degree your doctor recommends, including resistance training of some kind to maintain muscle mass. If you are on a weight loss diet, be aware that your body will sacrifice muscle mass when you are restricting calories in order to keep up your energy levels and body function.

Doing a weight training regimen three times per week can help you maintain or even regain lost muscle. We begin losing about 3-5% of our muscle mass each decade after the age of 30. Once we reach 60, however, we start experiencing what’s called sarcopenia — age-related muscle mass loss.

This and other gerontological issues are part of an expert field of study where it may be beneficial for you to seek expert advice.

Stretching and Balance Training

Loss of range of motion can be severely limiting. The best way to stay limber is to practice stretching exercises that increase the range of motion in your major joints such as your hips and shoulders. Stretching also reduces the risk of injury during exercise.

Balance training is crucial to seniors as the likelihood of injuries from simple movements like walking upstairs or getting out of the tub becomes more likely as the years go by.

Hindered movements may even make some exercises more dangerous or put seniors at more risk. Remember that exercise and other physical activities involve a lot of different movements. One way to make moving easier, whether it’s during exercise or another activity, is to have reliable adult diapers that do the job well.

Falls can lead to major setbacks in being able to freely move around in your environment and in public, require hospitalization, surgery, and protracted rehabilitation, and allow chronic pain to develop. Yoga can be a great way to increase flexibility and balance, without too much impact on your joints.

Wrap-Up

So how are you going to stay fit during your golden years?

Medical science has not yet advanced to the degree to permit you to negate every negative genetically inherited issue that has been passed onto you.

However, there are many things under your direct control that you can correct. It is never too late to make positive health choices. As the saying goes, better late than never!

If you smoke, quit. If you do not eat right, correct your diet. If you sit too much, get up and move.

What you do now can mean the difference between being able to enjoy family, hobbies, and the other joys of retirement, or barely being able to get around. Or worse.

Anica is a professional content and copywriter from San Francisco, California. She loves dogs, the ocean, and anything outdoor-related. She was raised in a big family, so she's used to putting things to a vote. Also, cartwheels are her specialty. You can connect with Anica here
Anica Oaks

Disclosure: In the spirit of full disclosure, DIYactive.com may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain reviews or links on this website. View our full disclosure.

How to Stay Fit and Limber in Your Golden Years