Latest new instructions from "top doctors"

I've probably got osteoporosis. Lost four and a half inches in height, and I've got a hump.

I would just like to make it clear that I don't sleep in a chair/bed all day.

Hello Gonegirl, as ever I love to read your posts because you tell it as it is.

My mother died two years ago one day before her 90th birthday.
She drummed it into us...'keep walking', 'Don't sit around'.
The fact that we all waited on her hand and foot always seemed to pass her by.

However, when she was 75 she took up Tai Chi and drove the lovely man, who tried to lead her group, to distraction.

Once when her troupe were part of a local fete-type activity; everyone turned out in black leggings and T shirts as did she. She also turned up with a plastic rain hat on because she'd had her hair done that morning (locally called 'polly hats').

Think her Tai Chi man dreaded her arrival but she gave them all a run for their money. She was keeping everyone on their toes up to a week before she died which was following a fall and the discovery that she'd had oesteoporosis for years.

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 .

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

Do you have a late September birthday Gonegirl ?

I did too Jane ?

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!

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.

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

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

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.

bathsheba

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.

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

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.

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 ?

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.

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

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.

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 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 at any rate.

four days

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?

And my foot hurts.

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

I am knackered.

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!