Start A Fitness Program
Staying healthy is critical to having an enjoyable, productive retired life. You will want to continue your healthy habits if you have them and if you don’t have any, start some. As you age, your muscles atrophy (sorry, it’s true) and your metabolism slows so the weight can pile on. You can control your physical health by visiting you medical providers regularly and through diet and exercise. The good thing is, now that you are retired, you have time to take care of your health.
A Fitness Program Is Key To Staying Healthy
If you have always been physically active with a regular exercise regime you may find that your routine is making your body hurt in places it didn’t hurt before. You may find that you are more tired during the days you exercise. It’s really OK to pare back without guilt. You may find that paring back on your physical activity results in feeling healthier and giving you more energy to pursue other activities during the day. There are a couple reasons you may resist lightening your exercise load.
You have always prioritized exercise and you feel guilty not getting the workout done
If physical activity has been part of your life routine, you can and should keep it going throughout your lifetime but your fitness plan may change. As we age two things happen, first your muscle cells start to die off and second, they loose the ability to do functions. To remedy this you may want to bulk up the muscle cells that are left and stretch them out to maintain their function. Bulking up the muscle cells that remain will help you to continue to have physical strength and stretching the cells out, will help you maintain your flexibility. If you have been a runner for decades, you may still want to run and may still be able to without aches and pains, however, you will want to add weights and stretches to your routine. You will need to tweak your routine to better fit your aging body.
You believe you can still perform like your 40 year old self when you are 60
Just stop that! You can’t perform like your younger self. You have to change your expectations to fit your physical ability. The only thing that will happen if you continue with this nonsensical thinking is you set yourself up for feeling bad about yourself. Be realistic.
Your Current Fitness Level Will Help You Find Your Path
If you have always been physically active, you are in luck, you’ve developed a body that can handle physical activity, and you’ve made time in you week to continue to work toward your fitness goals. Overcoming the need to overachieve and making some changes to your fitness expectations may be your main adjustments.
If you haven’t prioritized physical fitness in your daily routine, you will want to start now. You have the time, and you need to keep your body moving so the muscles don’t completely atrophy leaving you confined to the couch. Starting this new adventure takes fortitude and a sense of humor.
Create a Fitness Lifestyle
Sometimes prior experience with exercise gives you the confidence to take on more than your body wants. Maybe you were a swimmer in high school and decide you want to swim 4000 yards a day 5 days a week. You may have the skill and might be able to actually do it, but your body may rebel with aches and pains and you may find you are exhausted for the rest of the day after your workout. This is not good. You want to start a fitness routine that you can do on a regular basis, that doesn’t do damage to you body and gives you energy. You want to make a lifestyle change, a routine you can continue regularly for as long as you can move your body. Start with a visit to your health care provider. Let him/her know you plan to start a fitness routine and find out what you are physically capable of doing. After this, you may want to invest some money in a fitness trainer. If you haven’t exercised regularly during your lifetime, foundational work is key to success. It is likely the investment you make before getting started will pay off in the end due to fewer visits to your health care provider, lower blood pressure, and staving off type 2 diabetes, for example. Sometimes the financial tradeoffs aren’t quantifiable and you just feel better so it was money well spent.
It’s good to know a few things about yourself when you take your first steps toward a fitness lifestyle.
Do you like to exercise alone or with a group?
It’s important to know your social comfort level when embarking on any new situation. You don’t want to throw the towel in simply because you’ve chosen the wrong social setting. Your resources may dictate whether you work out alone or with others, but generally you have some control over the environment. For example, if you have started a swim workout routine and find you are unhappy with it because it’s too solitary, find a way to make it social and see if that works. Sign up for any challenges the facility might have like a checkbox for laps swum, join an on-line swimmers chat room, go with a friend, join the masters swim club, develop workouts with a friend and compare, have a weekly coffee group with swimming friends. There are things that make your solitary workouts more social if you like social interaction with your workouts.
On the flip side, if you like to workout on your own time, in your own space, you can do this by joining on-line programs, programs you purchase, doing solitary activities like hiking, walking, swimming and running. Most fitness programs can be as solitary or social as you want them to be. Don’t stop your fitness program because it doesn’t fit your social comfort level.
What types of fitness activities are available in your area?
If you live in a city, you will probably have endless opportunities to become involved in whatever fitness program you want to do. If you are in a rural area, your choices are probably limited. In a larger community, you will probably have to pay to stay fit, while rural residents may have more free options. If you are in a small town or rural area, you may have to be more creative to meet your fitness goals. Swimming is an excellent fitness activity but you need a pool and generally some money to participate, both of which may not be available where you live. There may be a pool 10 miles away and you may figure that into your routine, but you must be realistic about whether or not the travel will be something you want to do on a regular basis. Find something you can do easily, where you live so you don’t get discouraged and give up all together.
Put together a budget
You will need money to get started on your fitness journey as well as to maintain it so you want to figure out how much you can comfortably afford. You don’t want to start a great program to find out you can’t sustain it due to your financial situation. You will want to include the foundational costs of a visit to your physician and a maybe a personal trainer in your budget. If your fitness plan will be to lift 3 pound free weights and doing a series of stretches by yourself 3 days a week, the only cash outlay will be for the physician and the weights. You don’t have to fit the expense into your weekly budget plan. If you plan to do yoga 3 times a week with your favorite yoga master and go to the gym to lift with your personal trainer 2 times a week, your fitness budget will look much different. If you can’t afford a Cadillac plan, try a Volkswagen plan that fits your budget so you will be more likely to keep doing it. Don’t give up on including fitness in your life because you don’t think you can afford the programs you think you have to have.
Retirement offers more opportunities to control our health and fitness. Including a fitness plan in your new lifestyle will improve your health, your energy level, your physical capabilities and your general well being. Don’t put it off for one more minute. Get moving.