I’m turning 60 this year. I’ve had two bouts with kidney stones. I have to be careful eating hard foods because my teeth with amalgam fillings are prone to breaking. I tweaked my back last week getting out of bed.
3 Likes
I can’t sit in the same position for more than an hour. As long as I oscillate between the living room chair, the office chair, the couch, laying flat on the bed, and walking, I’m fine. But if I forget and sit in one place too long, something starts hurting.
7 Likes
This morning I have to prove to the DMV that my vision is good enough for them to renew my licence. Normally I would have had 3 more years but I’m about to cross the officially old threshold. I’m not sure they understand their own standards so I give myself 2 chances in 5. Wish me luck.
Edit: I passed. Still got it.
2 Likes
Yahy Sinwar was 61 when the Israelis got him last year. I started thinking of him frolicking with his 72 virgins and wondering how he could handle that many. Ten years ago and I would’ve been fine, but I’m 54 and I think I’d top out somewhere between 36 to 42 virgins. If anyone wants some of my surplus virgins just say the word.
2 Likes
I got up in the middle of the night to pee for the 3000th time in a row last night. Keeping the streak alive!
I always assumed I would change a lot as I got older, but the reality is I have stayed pretty much the same while everyone around me has gotten dumber and weirder. And don’t even get me started on the music
9 Likes
Only got up once?
3 Likes
Hip-hop died around the year 1999 is the most Boomer opinion I have.
I usually fill my 12 hour stand ring by 3pm because of getting up to pee.
1 Like
I would imagine saying that never was alive would be more boomer…
1 Like
Been exercising for an hour 5 days/wk for the past 8 months after being mostly sedentary. Am 50, but now feel better than 40. My goal is to hit better than 35 by June. Our body presumes an activity level based on a few million years of evolution that we have engineered our way out of, and if we don’t hit that level systems start to break down. I, for one, developed diabetes because my infrequently used muscles downregulated insulin receptors for which there was no need, leading to an excess
of glucose staying in blood and being stored as fat.
That said, exercise for most “normal” people who are not born athletes is not natural and has to be a religious conversion. It has to be close to the number one priority in a day. I knew I should be exercising for 15 years before I got on a program (Oragetheory Fitness), but this was six months before covid and I fell off during lockdown. I finally got back on the pony last May, and I expect I will need to exercise for the rest of my life. The upside is that it has significant mental health benefits and you actually gain more useful time in a day than you spend exercising because you are sharper, feel better, and more focused.
An analogy that comes to mind is the guy in Dune who has to daily milk a cat for antidote to a poison to stay alive. Exercise is like that. It can be a pain, but it’s basically essential. An inconvenient fact about exercise, however, is that its difficult to get started for the first few months but not that hard to keep going.
You see people like Zuck and Bezos who have all the money in the world. Well, they have come around to the idea that it’s important that they exercise regularly even though it’s not something they can buy (sure, they can “buy” a trainer, but they can’t buy showing up regularly and doing the last few hard reps in a set). There is nothing more democratic than fitness, because it’s just lying on the ground and anyone can pick it up.
This is “easy” for me to say at this moment–the future is uncertain and I may fall off again–and people face all kinds of physical, interpersonal, family, and work challenges, but if you want to turn back the clock exercise is the only magical solution I know of.
3 Likes
Got a senior citizen phone plan from T-Mobile for 55 plus.
2 Likes
I’ve been dealing with an Achilles pain in my right leg for a few months. It has gotten worse and the pain varies throughout the day. Causes me to limp a lot. I really should get it checked out but having so much other medical stuff processing at the moment I don’t want more.
I had to do this like a year ago. But they walked me past the eye chart so I could memorize it before they had me step back. Still don’t know if my vision is good enough.
Here, if you fail at the DMV you can get an optometrist to fill out a form saying you’re good. The last time I had to retest because of peripheral vision. Mine might not be great but I’m pretty sure it’s in the normal range and the requirement is not stringent so I didn’t understand the fail. I just had an eye exam a couple of weeks and no issues came up but the DMV environment makes me anxious.
1 Like
That’s where I am. 49 and diabetic. I know I have to exercise every day or lift weights the rest of my life. I’m OK with that. I’ve been under 50 grams of carbs a day since Jan 1st. My uncle passed away a few years ago and his wife (my aunt) recently passed. She was 90 and hadn’t left the house in 10 years because she was overweight. There’s no way I’m spending the last 10 years of my life like that.
2 Likes
I actually don’t even monitor my carbs that closely, and my blood sugar has returned to normal level thanks to exercise. I’ve now ceased two common diabetes meds (metformin and glipizide). That said, I’ve been eating at a 500 calorie deficit to lose weight (using Macrofactor app) and trying to hit 180g of protein per day, so I don’t go nuts with carbs.
Glucose enters cells in two ways, via normal insulin receptors but also through “exercise mediated glucose uptake”, where glucose basically gets sucked into cells during exercise (and 24 hours thereafter). This is good because diabetes and prediabetes are often described as “insulin resistance”, but exercise uses a different pathway that sidesteps the resistance.
What finally lit the fire under me was my Dr. talking about the next in line medication, probably insulin, when I knew that path only goes in one direction and I suspected that I could fix things with regular exercise, though my Dr barely mentioned it, probably because most patients do not adhere to that prescription. Also, my feet were getting number, making exercise and physical activity more difficult, and that wasn’t going to get any better on its own. That has been the most difficult thing to reverse, as it means rebuilding capillaries and nerves in feet which isn’t easy. After 180 exercise sessions my foot neuropathy has finally gone from like a 3.5 out of 10 to 1.5 of 10.
So there were definitely additional factors to motivate me, but people who aren’t now dealing with such issues can avoid them through exercise.
3 Likes
I’ve been AP-ing slots at a local casino and the rewards kiosk keeps spitting out senior discount coupons.
I’m 51.
3 Likes
Sell them for half price to the person next to you at the slots. EZ game.
1 Like