What do you do to keep fit?

"old dog"!

Like many I walk a lot, 2 - 3 miles a day, uphill and down dale, on the footpaths around my village, I also do a lot of walking just in my normal everyday life. I very rarely sit down much before lunchtime.

I also enjoy swimming and try to swim at the local pool at least once a week, then there is our large garden, which is almost entirely my responsibility. I also have a set of flexibility exercises that devised for myself and do every day. They take about 10 minutes

I go to a belly dance class once a week. I think it helps to keep me supple as there is a lot of stretching. I also have a large garden which is hard work

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Atticus I was amazed reading that. Well done you. Good luck with your hernia recovery. I have alpha 1 lung disease, it makes it harder to get about, there always seems to be a small hill/incline... puff cough!
But at 63 I walk every day with DH and little dog

I took up running when I was 59 yrs and did 2 half marathons. I now go for short runs as often as I can manage it. I try to walk 10000 steps a day, which I have managed on average since January. I go to a Zumba class.
I keep meaning to start swimming again.

I bumble about on the boggy braes where I live, do some housework and gardening, go for walks. It's enough.

I'm 65 and recently (three months) widowed. I've taken up Indoor short mat bowls. Play Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Each session lasts three hours. We usually play 20 ends and that is a fair bit of walking. I am feeling the benefit and it gets me out of the house.

I'm nearly 69 and walk everywhere because I don't have a car. I've tried all the usual exercise routines, Yoga, Pilates, etc., but I think walking suits me best. I found Yoga difficult and I was only in my thirties, but I did enjoy Tai Chi for the over 50s and would do it again if I could find a class in my area.

Hello everyone!

Well, where to start? With my age, I guess.

I've just turned 78 and I have to say I feel like a 40-yr-old!

I've always kept myself reasonably fit - used to cycle 10 miles to work and back. When I retired I joined a gym for a while - never very keen on it, though. About 7 years ago I gained access to a small exercise pool, and, as well as swimming, I would jog round it as fast as I could for about 20 minutes at a time. (Can't run on the roads, my knees won't take it.)

Then a couple of years ago, I was inspired by the good folk on Mumsnet - principally a poster who styles herself BigChocFrenzy - to take up weight-bearing exercises. So I found a website that featured home-based exercises - I didn't want to go down the gym route.

(I got into Mumsnet looking for a forum on Intermittent Fasting - the 5:2 diet, which I began in Feb 2012, losing 24lbs in the process.)

I started a series of exercises in Nov 2013 unable to do a single press-up - but now, when I'm fit, I can do 4 sets of 20 press-ups with 8kg on my back. I can also do 5 pull ups at a time and I swing a 9kg kettlebell around.

For the past half a dozen years I've run a food blog, so when I started exercising (and fasting) it seemed natural to blog about it there.

I said earlier, 'when I'm fit' - what I mean by that is that I'm still recovering from a hernia operation 4 and a half weeks ago - and I've still got another week and a half to go before I can resume my weight training.

I firmly believe that anyone can take up exercising at any age. And the more you do, the more likely it is that you'll have a healthy old age. That's certainly my goal!

I am encouraged by you all. Although I walk most days I probably don't push myself enough for it to be of any great health advantage so starting tomorrow I shall get up that little bit earlier put on my trainers and walk for 30 minutes at a faster pace than usual. As I live by the sea I can enjoy the early morning view across to beachyhead.

My best way to keep fit is to get my husband to drop me two miles from home on his way to work! Can't walk any less whatever the weather as I have to get back home!! Have got a fitbit which is very motivating as I can tell if I have a fit day or a lazy day by quickly checking steps. Did break my little toe in the summer and have been a bit lazy since but definitely going to improve!!

I used to teach aerobics until I had to have cancer treatment that lead to infection, hip and knee replacements etc (a very long story!) But I wanted to say that I’m back to exercise and attend jazz dance, Pilates and teach low impact dancearobics to a bunch of mature ladies like myself at our local village hall. Thankfully the Lycra and tight leotards of my younger days has given way to jogging pants and baggy tee-shirts so I never feel out of place. My advice is find something that gets you moving, wear what’s easy to move in and listen to what you body tells you feels right and go for it!

I am 65 and have two daughters and 6 grandchildren ranging from 11 month old surprise twins to a nearly 13 year of! Oh yes and I have Parkinson's Disease and a wonderful husband. So I do yoga on Mondays and help younger daughter all afternoon (she has the twins and an 8 year old and a 10 year old). Tuesday's is usually a walking morning and then picking up another granddaughter and meeting eldest at their home, giving them supper and waiting there till a parent comes home.

Wednesday is Zumba Gold morning, Thursday Tai Chi and Friday walking with friends. All these exercises help to keep the symptoms of PD at bay.

I do Pilates, body balance( a mix of tai chi, Pilates and yoga) 2 or 3 times a week and swimming at least once a week. My DD bought me a waterproof MP3 player so swimming not as boring as it used to be. I can plough up and down quite happily for 30 minutes listening to Roy Orbison etc. You have to make exercise past of your routine, and it becomes really enjoyable.

Wilma, good point about the stop start element of dog walking. The sniffing and other stuff is totally eclipsed by the high prey urge of my older dog and the over enthusiasm shown by the younger dog to follow this lead.
If we're walking on lead, we go at a brisk pace. I let the dogs off in quiet areas or on our round the (3 mile) reservoir walks. I keep up the brisk pace and the dogs gallop along, occasionally leaping in for a swim (no no, don't chase those ducks). If it becomes too stop/start, back on the leads they go for a quiet calm down moment.
I do have some advice, don't fall for the lovely doodle nature, disney designed me looks, these dogs are not for the faint hearted

Okay, I just have to ask about all the dog walking. Although I enjoy dog walking and it gets me out in the fresh air, it's always been stop start as I wait for the dogs to finish sniffing (and other stuff . Unless we're on a pavement our dogs are off the lead. So, are you all walking your dogs on the lead? Dog walking to me is much more of a stroll. Tell me more please!

Whilst walking fast to the hairdresser, took a superwoman pearler in the High St, tripping on uneven paving. Hobbled to hairdresser, where pub next door supplied ice to a rapidly swelling right knee. Agony next day, so to local hospital for x-ray (no damage) and crutches - bliss! Although I do 40 minutes cardio and 40 minutes weight training particularly for my arms and shoulders, twice a week, my arms were in agony after 2 days with crutches, when I was permitted to weight-bear again. My rehab has been speedy and appropriate (I'm a Pilates instructor, aged 65), and made me realise all over again the importance of exercise. Along with gym visits, I walk for an hour each day, and do half an hour of Pilates exercises, so fitter than average.

After reading posts, some suggestions. By the way, I have been known as "the nagger." There is no way of avoiding exercise, which some are trying to persuade doctors to prescribe, as it is really, really important, along with the healthy eating and active stress management to have an enjoyable old age, as you are all very well aware. Trying to break down poor habits is hell, I know.

So, ability and strength to get up and down off the floor vital, and a proper Pilates class will easily accommodate anyone struggling with this. Try to find hills to walk up, to work your cardiovascular system to a state of puffing. Dancing to your music at home is a great way to work up some puff, and use different muscles. That's the concern with osteoporosis and just walking, as there is no weight-bearing of shoulder girdle, elbows and wrists, the latter being particularly vulnerable in a fall. So press-ups need to be added - these can be done against the wall, as well as many other modifications. That's why weight training in the gym is particularly useful. And, by the way, we all eventually get osteoporosis, if we live long enough.

Some impressively fit gransnetters! I do think it is vital to keep as active as possible - I too walk a lot and would (will?) find it hard to adjust if my joints make that more difficult. It is so easy to make it part of everyday routine - always walk rather than drive or take the bus unless weather is an issue.
I have always enjoyed swimming but when working found it hard to keep it up because I am a boring 'serious lengths' swimmer, and when I was free, the pool was too busy. Now I am retired (66, two children) I can find times twice a week when it is possible to swim a mile (64 lengths, 45 mins). As a result I am feeling stronger and fitter than I have in many years - hope I can keep it up for many years to come.

I'm quite obsessive about my fitness. I attend 2 studio cycling classes every week, (thinking about taking part in another fitness class called body combat) go on a 5K run once if not twice a week, and walk my spaniel most days. In between, I work for three and a half days a week and child care for one and a half days, and lastly care for my 91 year old mother. I'm not sure how I fit it all in a week, however I believe you need to keep fit and well.

I'm 63

What an active bunch of people! [impressed emoticon]

66, 2 children.

I do something called "Fitness Pilates" once a week which is like a cross between yoga and "ordinary" Pilates from what I can make out. I really enjoy it and I am knackered afterwards even although we spend a lot of time lying on a mat doing floorwork.

I also go once a week to a Dancersize class which is basically bopping around the the likes of Neil Sedaka singing "Oh, Carol" for an hour then cappucino after

I sing in a choir and I count that as exercise because it is quite physical, we do breathing and voice warm-up exercises for half an beforehand. I am always amazed at how my voice improves and "loosens up" and improves when I haven't been for a while and I go back to the choir.

I walk everywhere and sometimes overdo it when its to to the shops, and then I have to do that thing where you rest or swop hands with the bags en route home.

67, 2 children. I'm born lazy, but can't sit down for five minutes. How on earth do you all find time to do all these things?!! We cancelled the newspaper delivery this year and take it in turns to cycle 5.4 miles round trip to collect it instead. Loads of gardening all year, mountain hiking in the summer but no scheduled classes etc. But from this time of the year we get back into doing a pre-ski exercise DVD 3 times a week because we ski for 6 weeks or so in the new year. I feel really guilty now, off to look for something to join.

I've being going to a Pilates class for over ten years. We are all ages, from twenties to seventies. Most wear lycra with a loose tee shirt. I dread to think what I'd be like without Pilates as I have bad knees and a bad shoulder. I think I'd be crippled without the exercises.