@Susan Louise
Will start with I am 82. My beliefs in what my body needs to stay healthy and physically fit have changed as my age goes upward.
What I considered the best foods and exercises, to better my running competitions, and fitness in general have changed. What worked at 40 did not work at 50, and so on.
My overall health is still my concern, but what my fitness allows me to do, is more important to me, than how many years I live. As the old saying goes: "it's not the number of years in my life that have mattered to me, it's the life in how many years that happens to be".
Said on this forum that there is no way I would even suggest to anyone to eat as I do. Follow my exercise routine? Depends on their goals, and at what age they happen to be.
I have lived through 8 major health events that kill thousands every day. Several of them, according to my treating doctors, were because of my physical fitness, prior to these events.
Another major factor in my living through them was/is, listening to my body and understanding what it was saying to me. Time was the difference in my living or dying.
No way will I underestimate my being a lifelong Optimist, believing I could overcome whichever issue at hand. No poor or why me, just "what do I need to do to move forward". Then once having that information from my doctors and others, I set reasonable goals, and worked hard to achieve them.
Guess my greatest pleasure, though broken bones along the way, was getting back to ice skating. Having spent much of my time from 2002-2016 in and out of the hospital, I could never string together long enough periods to get physically fit enough to even think about skating.
Then at 78 I finally was fit enough to skate, but. I could not even stand up long enough to call it "skating". After breaking a rib and my nose, I decided that if I wanted to continue to recapture my love of skating?
I needed to quit and work on my balance. 12 weeks of Balance Physical Therapy, along with 3 more, months of 30 minutes to an hour of at home balance exercises. At that point, 4 months, I decided to get my skates out again.
Was better, but not injury free. After many falls and getting up, my skating began to get to a point where I was comfortable with what I could do. Still fell and just 6 weeks ago I fell. Broke 4 ribs and punctured my left lung.
3 days in the hospital with a chest tube, and then finding out I had Pleural Fluid, keeping my left lung from expanding. It ended up having to be drained out of my back, which ended up being 1.3 liters(about 45oz.) of fluid.
I have skated several times since, broken ribs and all. Skated last Friday and plan on skating again this Wednesday.
Long post of my more recent life events, and maybe somewhere in this novella, it made sense to you, along with addressing this threads topic. So if you and whoever else reads this far?
hckynut
hckynut(john)
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