Exercise And Aging

Is it just me, or do others not like the ‘process’ of aging?

I am now totally fascinated with this process. I now often challenge myself to stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and accept that I don’t look young anymore. The only thing I have trouble with is having to accept my belly. I’m not obese, just that my belly is. I struggle with trying to reduce its size. I’ve even tried exercise to help reduce it, but that is another story, so on to the next paragraph.

Exercise At Sixty

I know I need to start stretching and lifting weights at this age. Funny how these days everyone has unsolicited advice regarding exercise for people of my age. They usually start their sentences with a few of these phrases:

• “What you need to do is…”
• “The best way to do it is…”
• “I had an uncle who…”
• “My father died at your age, while he was exercising.”

How…, inspiring.

I’ve accepted the person I am at sixty. I’m not out to win any awards or to prove that I can still throw a baseball over seventy yards. I am not going out of my way to impress anyone. After all of my life experience, I am the person that I am, and, I like me.

Another thing, I could have died thirty years ago when I was at the top of my fitness and no one would have said, “It’s the exercise that killed him. He pushed himself to hard. He wore his heart out early. He shouldn’t have exercised so much, did he think he was Hercules?” …or something like that. There is no rhyme or reason to all of it. If you asked me, I think we are just a fortunate organism in the right conditions on a viable planet that was able to evolve to this present day, and evidently there are many who gave up on evolving eons ago.

You can be as spiritual as you want to be, and if that is what “ticks” your “tock”, so be it. If I think you are a “nut-o” because of your spiritual excessive-ness, so be it. I guess you are the “ying” to my “yang.” Someday we both won’t exist and you will no longer be skinny and fit and I will no longer have a belly. Maybe my casket will be bigger than yours, but people will only see the difference for a couple of days before we are buried. Then the rumors will start, “I heard her casket was made of gold with inscriptions carved into it to help her along her spiritual journey.’ ‘Oh, well I heard his coffin was much bigger. You know, because of his b-e-l-l-y.”

I’ve just reread what I have wrote and it is the most hodge-podged writing I have ever embarked on. And, as I like to use my favorite word, it is highly ‘tangential.’ Woo hoo! I knew I’d be able to throw it in here somewhere. But back to the topic at hand which is…, ???

You know what I like to do at sixty? Sleep. I love to sleep and the best part of sleeping is not having to get out of bed on my days off. That, and waking up a couple of hours before having to wake up and just relaxing back into that gift of slumber for two more hours. You can’t beat that feeling at my age. The body is so relaxed and I often think, ‘This is probably what death feels like.” That’s why it is called the Big Sleep.

Favorite Foods & Milk

I am stiff as a board. I never meant to be like this at sixty. It’s not like I was sitting down eating my favorite fast food thinking, “At sixty, I want to be like I am at twenty-four. Because I feel good at twenty-four, and this Arby’s roast beef sandwich is delicious! What do they put in that sauce to makes it taste so spectacular?!” ‘Oh, those were the days’ I think to myself as I pat my belly after digesting that memory.

You know what my favorite food is now?? Milk. A nice tall glass of cold chilled lite-milk. I swear I don’t have to eat much food, because a couple glasses of that delicious goodness satisfies my hunger pangs. I could live on a milk diet the rest of my life! When people ask, ‘What food do you want an endless supply of, if you were stuck on a deserted island?” I say, let it rain milk and people would never go hungry. Unless, of course, you are lactose intolerant. But then, that’s how some species die out while others evolve.

Exercise Schmexercise

I’m going to walk my dog today as part of my new years resolutions to exercise. But she has to walk at my pace. I call it ‘snail walking.’ I’m not in a hurry to get anywhere at sixty. I was never in a hurry to get to sixty!! I’ve lived a ‘snails life!’ Sometimes I can’t actually believe that I am still here; Not for any reason except that I have thunk that.

Conversation and writing has replaced sex for me at sixty. When I was young, I had a penchant for sex like any other young man. Though I didn’t act on it often when I was younger, today I can’t get enough of conversation and writing. I mean, I have “mindgasms” a plenty when engaged in a good conversation or on a spectacular tangent when writing. Mind Blown!

Righto then, back to exercise. You know, I think I have done all the exercising for me when I was in my teens and twenties. In fact, I think I went far above the threshold of normal people at that age. I had a surplus of exercise, and now I’m coasting to the finish line.

Massage Anyone?

If I had the money to sustain me financially for the rest of my life, one of the things I would do is have a massage every night to ease the tightness I sometimes feel in my body. Also, while I’m on the subject, I would have a person come in and facilitate my stretching for me. Similar to what they do at a Thai massage center. When done properly it is such a good feeling. The thing is, when I have had that done to me, I lay on the table like a log and those girls sometimes struggle with the stretching of me. Once one girl asked me to help her! What’s the point of assisted stretching if I have to administer it myself??

You know what I like about being massaged? I like when the masseuse gently eases an elbow into my gluteal muscles. Layer by layer, in a soothing motion is bliss. Then the kneading of my buttock and the surrounding areas just releases so much tension in me and I am almost as good as new. The best massages for me are from the glutes on down to my toes. Seriously, an hour for each leg and I am happy as Larry. Mmmm-mmm-mm!!

I know exercise at my age will improve my quality of life. I still cycle from time to time, but not as hard as I used to. Now it’s just for the joy of being on a bike. I try to avoid hills at all cost. I’m into cruising because at my age I am done racing to a finish line. It’s the old ‘been there, done that’ analogy. You know Nike’s slogan “Just Do It”? Mine is “I’ve Done It Already.”

Well, it looks like the weather is wanting to welcome me outside into the sunshine. Time to pump up the tires and go for a ride. Then again, I could just as easily take a “Power Nap.” That sounds aggressive, but it really isn’t. It’s more of a way to just charges the batteries until bedtime.