fitover50

I never used to think of myself as a complainer. Everything that happened in life was just another aspect of the way things were. I was alright with that.

Somewhere along the way I started considering the way things should be. When I would compare the way things should be with the way things were, I saw discrepancies. At first I just scratched my head in bewilderment. Then I started to complain.

Sometimes simply complaining brings results, but not usually. For the most part, complaining must be followed up with a healthy dose of action.

It’s a waste of time to complain about something that cannot be changed by action - eg. the weather, the date on the calendar, our age.

It’s also a waste of time to complain about something and not follow it up with action - eg. being upset about your weight and not trying to diet, being offended by human suffering and not offering service or financial aid to alleviate it, not liking your job or family life and not doing anything to change it.

I’m working on a list of my complaints. This will be a two column list: complaints I can fix with follow up action and, complaints I can do nothing about.

I’m going to throw the second column of the list away. Then I’m going to start adding action responses to the remaining list. What I can fix I will fix. What I can’t fix I will not complain about.

What are you complaining about?

For anyone past the age of 50, we know that the economy rolls along like the waves on the ocean, highs and lows, rip tides and tsunamis, it all comes with the territory. We have all been through the good times and the bad. This recent roller coaster ride with the stock market is, maybe, a little scarier than others before. Most of us are getting to a point where, even if we aren’t thinking about retirement yet, we would like to think we could be thinking about it sometime soon. The idea that we may have to work longer, maybe the fear that we will have to work the rest of our lives, is more than a little unsettling.

I don’t really have anything to say to calm your, or my, fears. It’s been a rough year. Even if things have bottomed out, recovery will be a slow and arduous process. All I can say is, keep your chin up. We must all just keep on keeping on, because there really isn’t any other alternative. I will say that I believe recovery will come, and with it, a better overall level of economic stability. That doesn’t help a whole lot, I know, if you’ve just retired or were planning to do so in the near future. I, personally, have rethought the whole retirement thing. I’m not sure if I will ever be fully “retired.” I may not be doing what I am doing forever, but I’m pretty sure I will be doing something to earn some level of income for as long as my mental and physical faculties allow.

That’s not all bad. I actually like being productive and I never want to reach the stage where I will be a burden to anyone.

What are your thoughts on working, retiring, or doing something in between. Drop an e-mail and your views will be shared in this space.

An essential part of my busy life is taking time to look around me, take a deep breath and see what’s going on in the world. Of course I can do this any day, all I have to do is become aware of myself and my surroundings and let my mind run free. But every once in awhile I need something just a little bigger than that.

I found the bigger world view for myself this weekend when my husband and I drove down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We go there once or twice a year to visit my in-laws. The trip, as a whole, is more about visiting family than finding vacation solitude, but we always manage to find an hour or two to beach comb and walk along the ocean.

I have fallen in love with Coquina Beach, which is a stretch of beach that comes just a few miles miles before Cape Hatteras. The beach front is wide. The dunes are some of the most magnificent in the whole Outer Banks. The ocean tide here seems a little more gentle than at most other parts of the shore line.

We spent nearly two hours walking this lovely stretch of sand. (Hooray for my exercise goals!) This late in the season there were few swimmers, quite a few fishermen and a good many horseback riders. The pace was calm, much like the ocean waves, the air was coolish warm, and the sun still felt good on my skin.

Any time I get too full of myself, I like to find myself at the ocean. It is here that I realize just how insignificant I am in the overall scheme of things. Anything that seemed serious and important last week suddenly became minute as I looked out over the horizon. I was more than outnumbered by the pelicans, seagulls, terns, and assorted other sea fowl. Every creature that surrounded me was living its life with a purpose and a goal and not seeming to worry too much about the future.

I am back to my “real” world now. And so, I will begin again to deal with what matters to me. Maybe, for a short while at least, my perspective will be in line with reality. I have again found the calm I so often need to recapture. For me, there is no place like the ocean for finding my inner peace.

Where do you seek (and find) a sense of peace?

Being Fit Over 50 isn’t just a physical state of being. Mental well-being must be cultivated as well. It’s important to have a few really good relationships in life. In the world as we know it today, those relationships may not always be the traditional husband/wife, parent/child, girlfriends or boyfriends of past generations. Today there is lot of variety in how people choose to live their lives and the relationships that can result from those varying lifestyles. And, that’s a good thing.

I find, at this stage of life, that I am very picky about who I call “friend.” It is definitely a short list. Those people share my ideas about looking at life in broad terms, being generally accepting of people and situations around me. I’m done with narrow-minded bigotry that labels as “outsiders” anyone who doesn’t think, act, vote or dress the way I do.

That’s just one more good thing about being over 50, I guess. I know my own mind better than ever before and I am secure enough in my beliefs to let others have their own beliefs.

This open mindedness is a primary quality I look for in the people that make up my circle of friends. Some days, a good friend is all I have or all I need.

As I promised, I am making every effort to “walk the walk” as I talk about tips and ideas for coping with the life and the body that comes with being 50. Today I offer an update on my progress with my exercise routine. Twenty-four days into the month of September and I am proud to report that I have fulfilled my pledge to exercise on fifteen of those days. I have built up my time and a little more stamina on the elliptical machine. I have increased my time on the treadmill by a few minutes and increased my speed by a whopping 1/10 of a mile (Rome wasn’t built in a day!) I took a few outdoor walks in the late summer sun and took some time to clear the cobwebs from my brain.

All in all, I am not ashamed to stand on this record. I haven’t looked at the scale yet. I don’t really have a good feeling in that area. I still need to grapple with some of dietary choices (chocoholics can be incorrigible). I know all the right things to do, I just find myself turning the other cheek on occasion (too many occasions) when I really should know better.

Where do you stand when it comes to eating or exercising for your own well-being? I’d like to hear from someone who really has it together, as well as from those of us with good intentions and less than stellar performances. Not so much because “misery loves company,” but more along the lines of “united we stand strong.”

We’re all in this together. How are you managing to cope?

Fifty is a great age for looking back and evaluating where we have been and where we feel we should be going in the future. It is common for people of this age group to say, “If I knew then what I know now . . .” or “If I had it to do all over again. . .” or “If only I was (fill in the age of your choice) years old again, I would do things differently. . . “

All of this is a waste of breath and brain cells. We aren’t twenty-one, we didn’t know then what we know now and we can’t go back in time. Even if we could, we would likely make the same mistakes or even a few that would have turned out worse.

For each of us, our past is a sealed vault. You can view it with the 20/20 vision of memory, but that’s where it stops. You can’t touch it. You can’t change it. Stop wasting time trying.

So, armed with the knowledge that you can’t do anything about the past, you might as well stop thinking about it with regret or remorse. You can’t rework the past but you can, and definitely should, do something with the present. It may not be too late to make the changes or improvements that you value.

Do you wish you had put more effort into your education when you were younger? Enroll in a class, a course of study or even a degree program to start you on a new career.

Do you regret the effort or lack of effort you put into relationships with significant others, parents, children, friends, co-workers, strangers in the street? Look to the people you interact with today and decide where to put your efforts.

It is too late for the past (it always was!). It is not too late for the present. Regret is a waste of time. If you have it, use it to make yourself a better person in the here and now. Beyond that just dismiss it for what it is - useless energy and emotion that does nothing buy weigh you down.

It’s not too late, but it’s later than you think. Considering the truth of those two opposing, yet absolutely true statements, it’s time to put one foot in front of the other and get on with it.

I would consider myself to be a hypocrite if I wrote a blog like Fit Over 50 while continuing my previous miserable habits without making any attempt to change.

I figure, if I’m going to Talk the Talk, I better Walk the Walk.

To that end I have been driving myself into an almost daily exercise program that will help my cardio-vascular system, improve my energy level and, hopefully, help me lose 6 or 8 pounds eventually.

I’m looking for variety to keep my interest from waning. The treadmill, elliptical machine and outdoor walking currently make up my repertoire. I would like to add some yoga or weight training to round out my workout.

I’m looking for suggestions. What tips do you have for adding interest and variety to your work-out routine? Do you follow the same routine every time you work out? Do you alternate days? Do you exercise alone? With a friend? At the gym or other exercise facility? How do your exercise needs and efforts differ now from what they were 10, 15, 20 or more years ago?

What about exercise videos? Are they of any real value? Does having an “expert” show you what to do inspire or discourage you?

Drop an e-mail and share your ideas and look for your ideas to be highlighted in future posts.

Being Fit Over 50 isn’t just about controlling the number on the scale or being able to do 100 push-ups (yeah, right!). Being Fit Over 50 has a lot to do with our mental state of being as well. Actually, mental well being may be the most important aspect of the whole thing - without the right outlook everything else pretty much falls apart.

Fifty is an age of change on every level. We already know what 50 is doing to our bodies. But what about the fact that our family life may be changing - children are grown and have left home or are about to do so. For many, marriages that have been the primary relationship of adulthood have ended or been altered drastically. Our career path has a different feel to it as well. If we have never given the concept of retirement a thought in our lives, we may be looking at it, wondering how it will happen for us or even if it will ever happen at all.

These thoughts can be overwhelming. But, 50 has a lot going for it as well. Really, I mean it. Fifty is the opportunity to begin the next phase of life. Fifty is the perfect time to learn a new skill, develop a new relationship with your spouse or significant other, consider career changes, or pack up your life as you currently know it and move across the country and start fresh (okay, that’s probably a little wild for most of us).

Fit Over 50 isn’t just a place to complain and look for answers to our problems. Fit Over 50 is also a place to say, “Hey, World, Look at Me.” If you would like to brag about the latest adventure in your life, send an e-mail. Future posting will showcase some of the positive aspects that have come into our lives.

Over the last few years I’ve started to notice changes in my body that I’m not altogether happy about. I don’t think I am as firm as I used to be. I see problem areas, either real or imagined, that didn’t bother me before. Things are starting to wiggle that used to be firm and fit. I am becoming increasingly aware of areas of softness and, okay, let me just come right out and say it, chubbiness and fat that have taken up residence on the lower half of my body and I can’t, in good conscience, say I feel good about it.

Recently, on a closet cleaning expedition, I came across a lovely Pendleton wool skirt that has been in my possession for something like 25 or 26 years. I loved that skirt, which is the main reason it still resides in the back of my closet. It is colorful and was a definite mood lifter for me over the years. As it started to show signs of wear and tear I started wearing it less and less and, eventually, it made its way to its present home at the far left hand side of my closet, doomed to live out many more years as a much loved, but never worn, garment from my past.

For laughs, I decided to try on this skirt. Must have been the masochistic side of me coming out. But, you know what? Lo and behold, I got the skirt on. I got it buttoned. Actually, as long as I stood up straight, it didn’t look half bad. Not something I would comfortably wear in public these days but still, I was able to put it on!

This small (and I do mean small) victory is inspirational for me. Maybe I’m not too far gone to pull things together before it’s too late. A few less pounds, a few more toned muscles and, hey, who knows, I just might be able to pull off this decade of life with a little bit of flare!

Do you have an inspirational anecdote that has helped you feel a little better and a little more Fit Over 50? Drop an e-mail and share your thoughts. We are all looking for a small sign of encouragement.