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Latest new instructions from "top doctors"

(103 Posts)
Gonegirl Sat 07-Sept-19 09:38:55

For over-65s

some physical activity is better than none
on two days a week, activity to improve muscle strength, balance and flexibility, including Tai Chi, dance, bowls and aqua-aerobics
each week, 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, building up gradually
break up prolonged periods of being sedentary with light activity when possible, at least with standing

Full article here

Gonegirl Sat 07-Sept-19 09:40:03

I personally would have no energy left for living.

jura2 Sat 07-Sept-19 09:43:19

It is proven, without any doubt, that spending energy and moving, going out into greenery, etc, gives you so much more energy back than you expand. I can certainly attest to that.

So F* off seems like a very weird and unpleasant reaction tbh.

Wheniwasyourage Sat 07-Sept-19 09:55:22

Yes, sounds like good advice to me, assuming that you start off without major health problems. If you are already reasonably fit, it seems like a good idea to try to maintain that, but then, those who are doing so probably don't need the advice in the first place!

Gonegirl Sat 07-Sept-19 09:57:40

I have just come back from four climbing hills surrounded by very pleasant greenery.

I am knackered.

Gonegirl Sat 07-Sept-19 09:57:57

And my foot hurts.

Jane10 Sat 07-Sept-19 09:58:23

I certainly feel the better of increased activity levels since recovering from knee replacements. Aquafit three times a week along with yoga and a determined effort to keep my step count up is fine by me. A by product is getting out and about and meeting people for nice chats etc. Healthy and sociable. Whats not to like?

Gonegirl Sat 07-Sept-19 09:59:21

four days

TerriBull Sat 07-Sept-19 10:05:35

I do gym 3 times a week, 25 mins on treadmill and load bearing machine exercise afterwards good for bone density, as advised by an endocrinologist to head off osteoporosis, which my mother had in later years. I'm in there under 40 minutes. It's so bloody boring, but I take on board you have to move about in between the long periods of being sedentary. I also swim, not well, about once a week I did that yesterday we were staying in a hotel with a nice pool. Other than that we take walks in nearby Bushey Park, maybe twice a week, off to do one this morning, they usually take about 50 minutes. I do half hour sessions of yoga (on line) a couple of times a week in the privacy of my bedroom, so I don't have to expose my downward dog to others grin I'd love to have more vigour, but I feel so depleted in energy I do have to force myself quite a lot of the time. My dad always had this expression "the spirit is willing, but the body is weak" or something like that, but that certainly goes round in my head a lot these days.

GoneGirl I think you are bringing back the spirit of Jing to this site, she'd have posted something just like your opening title. It made me smile at any rate.

Jane10 Sat 07-Sept-19 10:12:12

I do some form of physical activity every day of the week. The formal Aquafit and yoga takes up 4 days. I bought a small step counter and aim to do at least 7000 steps a day on days I'm not at formal activity and at least 10,000 on aqua and yoga days. Its just a habit and not difficult. I like walking. Also we have a 4th floor flat. There's a lift but I use the stairs. All good exercise.

grannysyb Sat 07-Sept-19 10:14:00

Hobbling at the moment as hip quite sore, we're off to Croatia next week on a mini cruise, there are some sight seeing tours so I will be swallowing painkillers! Due to have new hip in October, so after recovery I will be walking which is my way of keeping fit. I walk in Bushy park Terri, you must be quite near me

Gonegirl Sat 07-Sept-19 10:15:33

Well, if you are approaching 78 and can still 30 minutes a day of moderate aerobic exercise you are better than I am. And I have been fit and active all my life, up until three years ago. When I suddenly aged.

I don't believe anyone can keep these things up into their eighties. There of course exceptions. I expected to be one of them. It was not to be.

Bathsheba Sat 07-Sept-19 10:17:25

TerriBull I have often wondered if Gonegirl is, in fact, jings. We need more like her on here to liven things up. She always makes me laugh in exactly the way jings did ?

jura2 Sat 07-Sept-19 10:17:50

move it or lose it - but honestly, walking in wild countryside or even parks, is so much better than time cooped up in a gym- for the soul as well as the body.

Gonegirl Sat 07-Sept-19 10:17:53

Perhaps I should have addressed this thread to the over seventies only amongst us.

Jane10 Sat 07-Sept-19 10:18:59

My grandmother and my mother in law were both very active and walked everywhere.. My MiL worked until her early 90s. Both were very slim. They didn't take part in any formal 'exercise' but certainly kept on the move the whole time. Genes may have played a part though?
I'm naturally slothful and love hours reading or watching TV so I have to force myself to get active.

Gonegirl Sat 07-Sept-19 10:19:04

bathsheba wink

Gonegirl Sat 07-Sept-19 10:22:42

My granny lived to 93. Mostly sat in her chair in later years. In bed in fact for the last few years. It was the days when they had sensible old ladies' wards in local hospitals. And let the old 'uns sleep all day.

Jane10 Sat 07-Sept-19 10:32:05

I bet they didn't sleep all day in their 70s and 80s though?

janeainsworth Sat 07-Sept-19 10:39:26

I saw the thread to title and thought the doctors were telling everyone to F off ?

merlotgran Sat 07-Sept-19 10:43:00

My brother will be eighty next year and told me that when he hobbled into his local surgery with his dodgy knee giving him hell he had the distinct feeling that the twelve year old looking doctor was thinking, Just eff off and die! grin

We laughed about it but I know where Gonegirl is coming from. My mother's idea of outdoor exercise was sitting at the kitchen table with the back door open and she lived to be 96!

We're as active as we can be because we have a large garden to maintain. DH naps in his chair a lot more these days though. He's 74 and a country walk would be his idea of hell - unless there's a pub at the end of it! I'm the so called fit and healthy one but you can be taken out by something that comes at you from left field no matter how much exercise you take.

To my dismay I've developed 'bungalow legs' and find stairs difficult. My granny could run up and down stairs well into her eighties.

Growing old is a bugger.

Lona Sat 07-Sept-19 10:43:18

I did too Jane ?

Cherrytree59 Sat 07-Sept-19 10:44:09

Do you have a late September birthday Gonegirl ? smile

jura2 Sat 07-Sept-19 10:44:58

Gonegirl - really not the way I would like to end, for sure. It is not about 'quantity' surely.

paddyann Sat 07-Sept-19 11:02:54

My lovely old granny could run for a bus..faster than my mum ,had no problems with stairs and went dancing every Saturday night with her sons and their wives,one of my aunts used to luaghingly complain that the old wifie got asked up more times than she did.Sadly a broken hip at 85 stopped her in her tracks and she died from pneumonia just weeks later .
My ambition is to be like my granny,in lots of ways .I'm training for the kiltwalk with my 70 year old sister.Thats a walking marathon..in a kilt .If anyone else tells me I should be "taking things easy at my age" I may get charged with assault .That is the biggest problem,people who stick their noses in because THEY cant or dont want to do it ,they think no one else should either .