Have things improved in your 60s?

foxie48

Just before my 60th birthday I was overweight and unfit but I signed up with a personal trainer and my fitness improved very quickly. Our bodies are fantastic machines! I have eaten sensibly since then and kept up with my exercise regime but during Covid I had a problem with my heart and then had an accident which put me in hospital for two weeks with a long recovery once home. I was in my 70's and I'm now 77. I started weight training 9 months ago and have seen huge gains in fitness and muscle tone despite not having done much in the way of exercise for nearly two years. It is never too late to improve your health. I am fitter, stronger and feel so much more positive about life. Go for it, you have absolutely nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Good luck!

Thank you. xx

Happy birthday Dragonfly

Just before my 60th birthday I was overweight and unfit but I signed up with a personal trainer and my fitness improved very quickly. Our bodies are fantastic machines! I have eaten sensibly since then and kept up with my exercise regime but during Covid I had a problem with my heart and then had an accident which put me in hospital for two weeks with a long recovery once home. I was in my 70's and I'm now 77. I started weight training 9 months ago and have seen huge gains in fitness and muscle tone despite not having done much in the way of exercise for nearly two years. It is never too late to improve your health. I am fitter, stronger and feel so much more positive about life. Go for it, you have absolutely nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Good luck!

Health-wise I've fallen off a cliff in my 60s. Never saw a doctor for years, along came COVID offering chronic respiratory problems. Now added osteoarthritis that has stopped me doing all my sports. I can't even walk my dog now. I'm lucky not to be American though, I am seeing a neverending line of specialists trying to help, so I'm still firmly fixed on that little light at the end of the tunnel 🤞. Equally my best school friends and similarly aged family seem to be sailing through their 60s, so individual differences at play.

Things have declined in my 60s due to several physical problems I now have limited mobility, therefore I often think of the way I used to run around juggling work and raising a family like most women I never stopped to take a breath as there wasn’t time, and now how I envy my younger self who used to run up the stairs and walk for miles with the baby in the pram

Thank you all for your good wishes.

A rather late happy birthday, Dragonfly! Hope you’ve had an enjoyable day. 🎉🍾

dragonfly46

I loved my 60’s. I was quite active. In my 70’s I had breast cancer so not such a good decade although I have now hopefully recovered.
Today I became 80 and not yet sure how I feel about that.

Happy Birthday !

My health definitely took a nose- dive, however things looking up as was contacted to be offered a house with en-suite shower& facilities soon and this will be a Godsend to me as my health& mobility worsened since last year.So am looking forward to my homelife improving shortly.Even if health is worse i can at least be able to manage it all better.😐

A better diet and more activity will almost certainly help. I was diagnosed with heart problems just before Covid, but meds seem to be keeping me stable, and I feel healthier now than previously because I lost weight and I’m more careful about my diet. I’m vegetarian, rarely drink alcohol and try to do some exercise daily.

I’m 67, have a myriad of medical conditions, am doing all I can to mitigate and manage them but I was most definitely much fitter and healthier in my 50’s.

I feel very inspired by those of you who have turned things around in your 60s. That's what I'm planning to do. Having been overweight most of my life (5 stone to lose now) and diabetic, having had breast and colon cancer in my 30s, I'm turning 60 in a couple of weeks and am going to make this the decade of wellbeing! I will have to work full time at least another three years and then probably part time till 67 but so be it...I can still find time to exercise and eat healthily. Bring it on!!

My general health improved as soon as I retired in my early 60s. My blood pressure, cholesterol and weight all improved. I put it down to less stress.

I was widowed at 58 so my 60’s haven’t exactly turned out the way I’d hoped or expected, but health-wise I have been fortunate (so far ) as I approach my 70th birthday next month.

Both my sisters died from breast cancer aged 54 and 71 so I’m hoping things don’t go downhill in my 70’s.

Been in my house 40 years. When we bought it it was an extended 3 bed semi, rooms have been repurposed a few time over the years. Down stairs is a lounge, dining room, kitchen, large utility room, garden room and shower room. If we needed a bungalow the garden room could be a bedroom, it has been before then it was a home office, when we retired we added French windows as it looks on to the garden, which is private. Of the 3 rooms upstairs a certain amount would contain a bit of storage but not be used much same goes for the bathroom. To move would end up costing money, bungalows are quite expensive round here if you can find them. A few very small 2 beds come up now and again but I would feel really claustrophobic in one. Larger 3 beds tend to be new builds and are very over priced and by the time moving costs are factored in not worth it

I had problems with my small bowel in my 60’s due to hysterectomy in my 30’s I had a major operation to repair my bowel now in my late 60’s I feel fit and able again after years of feeling sick

My 60s haven't exactly been a laugh a minute, healthwise.
I can't believe I've gone from healthy (in that I never needed to go to the doctor) to an achey, creaky old fart so quickly.

It was awful in my 60’s . I had a traumatic divorce (abusive ex husband) then through my 60’s my spinal stenosis got worse and worse affecting my mobility and causing increasingly debilitating pain. I’m recovering form an operation to cure it at the moment and am hoping for a new lease of life ( Im currently 72) I’m also diabetic but that is very well controlled.

Through it all I have continued to work, the last 8 years only part time. I’m temporarily on the sick whilst I recover but intend to go back to work for at least another year. I hope the awful 60’s will be the wonderful 70’s.

In my 60s I felt as fit as I had done in my 20s (probably even more so as I was smoking then) and I worked until 65. Since I retired, I think that although I am slowing down a bit I am still very fit and try to do an average of two hours of exercise a day - swimming, cycling, dancing and gym. I also have a very part-time zero-hours job which I love and I try to stay on my feet for at least ten hours a day. The trick is to keep active in any way possible and, if you are widowed or just living alone, seek out company as much as possible whilst still enjoying your alone time. I am 75 now and have no plans to slow down!

All seriously downhill since I hit 60. I was made redundant at 60 because the firm lost a big contract. I had to sell my house as the redundancy meant I couldn't afford the mortgage, & my Dad had a brain haemorrhage, all happening in less than a year. Dad died of pneumonia after a couple years in a care home, my mother got neuroendocrine cancer and dementia, and needed loads of looking after. She also ended up in a home, where she died. My siblings and I had to sort out a houseful of stuff, organise building repairs to the old family home, sell the house, make a complaint about an incompetent solicitor. My very best friend in the whole world developed a very rare auto-immune (para-neo-plastic syndrome) condition just a year after my mother died. Her daughters and I tried our very best to look after her in her home, but it sadly became obvious we really were incapable as her disabilities became too severe. She spent 4 years in a care home near to her elder daughter, which was miles from where I live, before dying in 2023. My daughter developed skin cancer (melanoma) on the site of a burn scar on her arm. She burnt her arm at work in a restaurant kitchen (she's a partner in a restaurant business). I am now in my mid 70s, much too old to even think about trying to get another job, and feeling very lonely, ancient and depressed. I am part of a group that does some voluntary work, and that's just about the only thing that makes my life bearable, apart from the fact that I've very recently become a grandmother.

Another recovering alcoholic here - I haven’t touched alcohol since August 2023 and that’s the best thing I could have done for my health.
I try to eat healthily (no processed food) and am pretty much vegetarian except for fish. I wish I could give up dairy but don’t think it’s a step I can take at the moment. So much protein in Greek yoghurt!
I do at least an hour’s walking every day with the dog and Pilates exercises at home in the morning with a class once a week.
I do get the odd ache and pain and find stairs more difficult and am very careful
where I put my feet after I fell recently and sprained my ankle.
I’m 68 and so far haven’t developed any health issues and I see each healthy day as a bonus. I do what I can do and the rest is out of my control.

Because of covid I had to retire at 70, except for one lesson. I enjoyed working and was sad when it stopped. However, I am not rushing from one place to another, eating better, and go to slow gym nearly every morning, so yes, all in all, I believe my life is better.

I wasn't too good in my 50s probably menopause - no recognition or treatment back then. Retired a year early due to ill health and gradually improved during my early 60s - again probably hormonal. By 65 was fitter than I'd been for years. Packing up the 2 hour each way public transport commute certainly helped as well. Tore two tendons in my ankle a couple of years ago and told it was OA for 10 months, result further injuries from trying to walk on it, so my fitness has plummeted. Not very impressed with the way older people get treated by NHS to be honest, but I'm still better than I was at 58....😊

Happy Birthday dragonfly46 have a lovely day. Welcome to the the world of octogenarians.

I returned to work at the age of 61 yrs (following tragic death of my youngest child aged 25yrs). Had done lots of voluntary work over the years but not in paid employment since I was in my 30's.
Great years the sixties. Old enough to feel pretty secure in who I was, mortgage all paid, I stayed at the job until just before my 70th birthday.
Obviously as we age we develop medical and physical conditions, our bodes are not really designed to get as old as many of us are.
Now, at 85 I have lots of physical conditions, some helped with medication, others I just cope with - thanks to some wonderful mobility machinery. I am a member of several different interest groups and try to ensure that most days I have something on to organise my day around. Still do voluntary work and am thoroughly enjoying life.