Survival among the fittest (and not so fit)

[Kingcreek]

It's that time of year. The New Years resolution gym crowd is thinned down to the last few. A few of them might hang in there and actually commit to a healthier lifestyle.
I'm going to be 60 next week. I go to our local YMCA and swim laps M/W/F and do weights and some functional training T/Th/S. I'm usually the oldest guy in the gym and the youngest in the pool. I don't get carried away since my episode of misdiagnosed and long untreated Lyme disease took me down 8 years ago but I do pretty well for my place in life.
Every January the gym fills up with new puffy sweaty faces. It's always interesting. Most of them are much younger and in worse shape than I ever was. I often wonder what they will be when they get to my 60 years.
So many people have no concept of health and fitness and even more don't realize that they are 2 different things. You can be fit and not healthy and vice versa.
Anybody doing anything different or real different to try and hang around longer?

[mtnbkr]

I'll be 45 in a couple months and am probably the fittest I've ever been.  I could stand to lose a few pounds, but that's my opinion, not my doctor's.  I was down to 172 this Fall, but with the holidays and my typical lack of self-control, I've gained a few pounds (as in less than 10, but more than 2).  I can lose that quickly as long as I keep my eating under control and remain active. 

As for routine, I *try* to get into the gym 3x weekly for a weight-based full body workout (some bodyweight exercises like pushups and pullups, and a bunch of barbell and dumbbell lifts), then 2-3 miles running on the treadmill.  That takes 2-3hrs depending on how busy it is and what lifts I'm doing (some require more rest between sets than others).  From early Spring to mid Fall, I also try to get a couple bike rides and maybe another run each week.  I do take a "break" from the gym during hunting season so I can spend more time in the woods.  I tend to start back in early January, so I start off with all the resolution folks. 

I'm not particularly strong for someone who works out as regularly as I do.  Growing up, I was a skinny, lanky kid (graduated HS at 5'10" and 140lbs) with little natural strength even though I was active and spent most of my free time outdoors.  Even now, if I don't keep at it, I lose any gains quickly.  I was born 2 months premature with a heart defect.  I don't know if that contributes to things, but I'll blame that rather than admit I could do more at the gym. :D

Every year, I run the same 5k and use it as a barometer of my progress.  Every year, I'm faster.  I also enter a few other 5ks here and there.  I've started placing in the top 3 in my age group pretty frequently and took 1st in my age group in an offroad 5k last Spring (took 2nd a when I ran it a couple years prior).

As far as "healthy", my cholesterol is a tad high (or was before I started taking medicine for it) and my blood glucose was in the "prediabetic" range.  My A1C has responded well to a low doses of Metformin and a modest change in diet.  BP and heart rate are great (former is solidly in the normal range and the latter is in the "athletic" range), and my physical each year gets good marks from the doc other than the two issues mentioned above.  I need to eat better, but I eat better than most as it is.  I read labels obsessively and tend to avoid carbs, sugars, and starches whenever possible (except when my willpower flags). 

Could be better, could be a lot worse.

Chris

[Kingcreek]

I'm not a runner, never have been, but I enjoy riding my bicycle and brisk walking is good with the knee replacement a year ago. I hate treadmills so I walk outside in good weather and the indoor track at the Y sometimes in winter. I want to be able to do atleast one more wilderness elk hunt before I can't.
We eat very healthy. No processed or junk food, haven't had a fast food meal in 15-20 years. We have a small greenhouse and additional vegetable garden and strawberry bed, small orchard, and wild berries in abundance. Wild game and grass fed beef and lamb. My doctor is younger than me and just had a stroke so I don't let him tell me what I need to do. He knows medicine not health. What we call health care is about disease management and has very little to do with health.
Genetics is part of it. My relatives seem to either die young or live long functional lives with no middle ground. I'm hoping I get into the long life group.

[mtnbkr]

I wasn't a runner either until 2014 when my BP started to creep up into the pre-hypertensive range.  This while I was going to the gym and biking regularly.  I needed some more intensive cardio and decided to give running a try even though I hated it previously.  Turns out, I needed better footwear.  With better shoes that fit my gait, I started enjoying running.  I'm not a fan of treadmills, but it's a necessary evil most of the time from Dec-March around here, especially with short days and a fulltime job.  When time and weather allows, I prefer to hit the trails in the various parks and wooded areas around here.  I can run all day out in the woods, but have to push myself to run even a couple miles on a treadmill (did 4 this morning!).

I have to give my doc credit for not focusing just on disease management.  He's pretty focused on health, eating right, and all that.  I just don't listen to him as much as I should.  I mean, he wants me to cut out coffee.

My family, at least in the generations prior to my parents, tended to be fairly long-lived.  Most lived to their 80s.   If I take care of myself, I can reasonably expect to reach my late 70s to mid 80s.  

I'd grow more food, but I live in a townhouse and have a backyard that is smaller than many garden plots.  I do grow some stuff each year, such as peppers, beans, etc.  Since my sugar started creeping up, I've tried to incorporate more non-starch vegetables into our diet.  Lately, I've been using a spiralizer to cut squashes and such into noodles as a pasta substitute.  I actually prefer that to regular pasta.  The biggest challenge we've had to eating more fresh vegetables is keeping them around.  You pretty much have to shop per meal or no more than a couple meals ahead.  This isn't always feasible when you're working full time and dealing with kids and their school-related activities.  

Chris

[Jamisjockey]

My body isn't interested in running any more, but I've been biking more seriously again since last fall.
Weather permitting I ride when I can.  I eat a lot less crap than I used to, and I drink less alcohol.
I probably need a diet change to boost my metabolic rate.  If I don't workout, my body might burn 1800 calories according to my garmin.  I can easily have a HR in the low 50's if I'm not walking around.

[Kingcreek]

When they were prepping me for my knee surgery I was resting and relaxed and I kept setting the monitor alarm off when my heart rate dropped to 50 or lower and resting BP was 100/60. After the 3rd time of nurses running in they just unhooked it until they came to move me to the OR.
I'm almost 60 years old and weigh about 12 pounds more than I did when I graduated from high school. I used to be 6'1" but I'm right at 6' now and stay right at 218-220 pounds but I've been able to keep and even build some muscle mass.

[mtnbkr]

Where mine is depends on the time of year and how much running I've been doing.  By May, mine will be in the mid 50s, but in the dead of winter, when I'm biking and running less, it'll be in the mid-to-high 60s.  A few years ago, when I was trying to make the jump from 5ks to 10ks (failed due to foot/ankle issues), I counted my pulse into the high 40s a few times.  I could actually tell when it was that low because it's an odd feeling when your heart doesn't beat for more than a second. 

Chris

[Kingcreek]

Ideally, we would all be both fit and healthy.
Fit but not healthy is the 52 year old competitive marathon runner that dropped dead of a sudden heart attack with CAD.
Healthy but not fit is my great uncle who lived to be 99 and ate fried pork chops and fried chicken and beef roast with mashed potatoes and gravy and pie with ice cream every day and other than farm work when younger never exercised.
Neither example is fictional.

[mtnbkr]

I know.  You keep saying that.  But what is your point?  What exactly are you trying to say?  There are many examples of each, just as you point out.  The variable you are leaving out is genetics, which factors into both inherent fitness ability as well as base line health.  All we can do is strive to make good choices and stay active to manage the preventable factors.  Your genetic makeup will determine the rest. 

I've read within the last few years that CAD may be a factor of genetics as much as it is diet and exercise, so your your examples are not at all shocking like they might have been 20 years ago. 

Chris

[230RN]

My New Year's Resolution last year was to quit smoking... took me until September last year to actually do it.

So I hit 79 yo this year and have to work to get the extra weight from quitting smoking off.  What with various disabilities, it's more a matter of watching intake than exercise.

Terry

[T.O.M.]

I'm working on it. Last June, I gave up my 3-5 cans of Pepsi per day habit, and now drink 2 quarts of water instead.  As you all saw in my thread, my last cigarette was on December 28.  Now, if the weather would help, my plan is to try and get back to running 3-5 days a week.  My goal, get my BP under control and get off meds.  With my job, that's a difficult goal, but worth shooting for.

[Kingcreek]

I know.  You keep saying that.  But what is your point?  What exactly are you trying to say? 
Chris

My point is there are still a lot of people that think they can exercise thier way to health. I know people that spend 2 hours in the gym and then eat crap fast food. It doesn't work.
And this is the time of year that I see the new year new you crowd quitting and waddling back to thier previous lifestyle.
That's all