Maybe you are 30-something and live a super busy life and rarely find time to exercise. No big deal, you’re still relatively young, right? What if you are 50-something, or 60-something and you have put your family or career before your own health and have not made regular exercise a daily habit? Is it too late to make some improvements to your fitness?
Before I answer that, I want to share a few interesting and possibly alarming statistics:
Without resistance training, your muscles will atrophy and lose mass (use it or lose it!);
Age-related loss of muscle mass or sarcopenia, affects 10% to 25% of seniors under the age of 70 and up to half of those over the age of 80;
You can expect to lose about 15% of your muscle mass between your 30s and your 80s if you do nothing.
I hope I have your attention now. While those statistics are a bit frightening, here’s one more statistic:
According to this study, it doesn’t matter if you haven’t been a regular exerciser throughout your life, you can still derive benefit from exercise whenever you start.
That is great news! People who only began exercising in their 70’s and 80’s reaped huge benefits including improved walking ability, improvement in performing daily activities, easing joint and low back pain, improved blood sugar control and prevention and management of type 2 diabetes, increased bone mineral density, reduced resting blood pressure and increased HDL cholesterol and improved brain health and cognitive ability.
Certainly seems like scheduling 30 minutes of exercise into each day is a small price to pay to reap all those benefits! While the study specifically focused on resistance exercise, simply walking every day is one of the best exercises almost anyone can do. One simple way to ramp up the benefits of a walk is by alternating between gentle strolling and fast walking.
Are you a life-long exerciser or someone who is now aware of the need to begin penciling a workout into your schedule?
Want to see more articles like this? Subscribe to this blog (just click on “Follow”) and get each new post delivered to your email or feed reader. To follow me and get even more tips on how to live your life in 3-D, including improving your diet, choosing cutting edge nutritional products and effective weight loss strategies be sure to like me on Facebook here and here, sign up for my FREE weekly No-Nonsense Nutrition Report (and get a free gift!), follow me on Pinterest and Twitter!
**January is almost over and most people have already given up on their New Year’s Resolutions. Why not try something different this year? Work with me using the Today is Still the Day Plan and you will be surprised at the changes you can make in 7 weeks! What do you have to lose except the extra weight?**
Make gradual changes. Boost health, vitality and energy. Become your best YOU.
3-D Vitality 
Ann, my great aunt walked every evening after supper in her dress, nylon stockings, and low pumps. She was healthy until she died at age 100. In fact she walked the night before she died.
Well God bless her! She had it absolutely right!
An alarming statistic indeed Ms. Ann. I think I’ll be walking down to the mailbox today. 🙂 Thank you for this gentle reminder that we need to remain active as we mature. God’s blessings ma’am.
Yes J.D. we have to keep moving if we want to keep moving!!