If you envision getting older means getting feeble and weak, so as you age, you do less and less, and you’re completing a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead of being active, which would help you stay fit, you succumbed to inactivity, fearing that exerting yourself could cause injury. Rejoice that you’re getting older because it means you’re still alive. On the other hand, it’s vital to maintain your health with nutritious meals, plenty of exercise, and adequate sleep so you don’t look and feel older. It won’t guarantee you’ll live longer or feel better, but it gives you a huge advantage.
Sarcopenia is age-related muscle loss.
As you age, your hormone levels drop. Unless you intentionally intervene with exercise and a healthy diet, that causes a gradual drop in muscle mass. Reduced hormone levels make rebuilding or maintaining muscle mass difficult but not impossible. The loss of muscle mass affects bone density. The stronger your muscles, the harder they tug on the bone. That triggers calcium absorption by the bones to keep them strong and not break against the tug. If you don’t exercise, calcium leaches from the bone, and if enough leaches without replacement, you develop osteoporosis. Walking for a half hour daily can help prevent it.
Years of chronic inflammation can lead to serious illness.
You need to eat nutritious meals throughout your life and cut out highly refined foods, food with added sugar, and fried foods. Eating high-calorie foods that contain no nutrition and add extra calories leads to weight gain. The addition of sugar also causes inflammation and other damage to the body. Chronic inflammation plays a role in heart disease, diabetes, and a host of life-altering illnesses. It also speeds up advanced glycation end products—AGES. The sugar combines with skin collagen. That causes wrinkling by reducing firmness.
It’s never too late to start.
Living a healthy lifestyle can change your future. You may not look like you’re in your twenties again or run as fast as you did, but you will improve your fitness. Even though you won’t look 20, you’ll look and feel younger, too. You’ll have more energy than you did previously. Start increasing your activity level slowly by walking. One study showed that HIIT—high intensity interval training—combined with strength training improved health at the cellular level. A study noted the most improvement came in groups aged 65 to 80.
- Exercise and a healthy diet can improve your potential longevity by helping you lose weight. Excess weight contributes to heart problems, diabetes, cancer, and high blood pressure. It also can cause painful joints.
- Getting adequate sleep is vital for heart health and helps maintain mental clarity. You also need to maintain hydration. Even mild dehydration can cause seniors to have episodes resembling dementia and UTIs.
- The body uses stem cells to make new cells throughout the body. Increased physical activity also increases the body’s production of stem cells, which continues throughout your lifetime.
- Mental fitness is just as necessary as physical fitness. Exercising regularly, getting adequate sleep, and eating fewer refined, deep-fried, and sugary foods can improve brain health.
For more information, contact us today at Wellness On A Dime Coaching