Is getting fit after fifty worth your effort?

Why should you consider improving your health and fitness when you’re already 50 years old?

Adopt the glass is half full perspective to see why your level of fitness is key to your happiness and success in your second fifty years.

Do you realize that if you live to 50 years old, you will likely make it to 79 years old?

That’s right. The insurance companies are very good at predicting this. In the US today, a 50-year-old will live to an age of 79 years, on average. That means you likely have another 29 years or so to live on this earth. That’s a long time. If you continue to do nothing about your fitness and follow a path of declining health, those 29 years might seem like an eternity.

Go grab a 10 pound sack of flour or bag of potatoes and carry it around for just 5 or 10 minutes. How does that feel? It’s heavy! That will wear you down. And that is just 10 pounds! Do you really want to carry around any excess weight for the next 29 years? I don’t think so.

So if you are going to live long, you might as well enjoy the journey. Think about the little things that bug you in your daily life. Things like:

• straining to bend over and put your shoes on because your belly seems to get in the way
• having to stop and catch your breath after walking up a flight of stairs
• not tucking your shirt in because it accentuates the girth of your waistline
• straining your lower back from picking up a sack of groceries

If this describes you at fifty, then sixty, seventy and eighty will be downright ugly. Take control of your life now. Your last 50 years (or at least the next 29 years) can be better than your last 10 if you live like the glass is half full.

Everything that affects your positive outlook on life is related. Physical fitness, mental fitness, financial fitness, social, spiritual and so on. These aspects of your life tend to ebb and flow naturally over time. Hopefully as you age, they stay in positive territory for longer and longer durations. However, physical fitness in the one area completely under your control at all times. You just have to make it a priority. The primary elements of physical fitness for the over-fifty crowd are:

• exercise
• nutrition
• sleep
• stress management
• mobility

The key to success is to work in all of these areas as they are interrelated. You cannot get better sleep without managing stress levels. Stress is improved by exercise and eating better. Strength and endurance are improved only with good nutrition and working out mobility problems. Take a holistic view of your fitness to get the best results.

Getting fit after fifty certainly makes sense. You will likely live for many more years so why not enjoy the ride? Don’t give in and become old before your time. Age is just a number. Make your numbers count.