Staying Healthy and Active over 50

Please enjoy this guest blog post by Emily Johnson on fitness and aging.

Hitting 50 doesn’t mean you can quit worrying about your heath and fitness. It’s important to keep active and maintain a healthy lifestyle as you grow older. Here are a few tips and tricks to staying healthy after you’ve hit the big 5-0.

1. Have a workout routine with different fitness regimes. It’s important to stretch (yoga), keep your muscles strong (weights), and work your heart (cardio). It’s a good idea to track your activity, too. A good way to do this is with a heart rate monitor, no matter which type of exercise you’re doing.

2. Protect your body. While you’re working out, it’s smart to save your limbs from too much impact and muscle soreness. Products like compression socks, arm sleeves, and braces are great accessories during any work out to keep your muscles and joints at their best.

3. Don’t forget to work your brain! Taking time to read or do puzzles (like sudoku) will increase your brain function as you get older and decrease your chances of early dementia. Take time to learn new things; maybe take a class at your local community college or start up those tennis lessons you keep saying you’ll take. You can get involved in your community, play with your grandkids or pets, even take that trip you’ve been putting off. Getting out and staying social will increase your brain activity and help you stay and feel younger. So grab your friends and go out for some fun! There’s no better time than now.

4. Update your diet. Along with keeping yourself physically fit, you need to make sure your diet is more specified toward an older age group. Some vitamins will be harder to obtain, so a good multivitamin might be necessary if you can’t get them from certain food groups. Also, making sure to drink plenty of water is as important as ever as you get older. You may feel less thirsty as you get older, but your body still needs at least 20 oz of water every meal.

5. Don’t let your relationship with your doctor diminish. It’s most important to keep up with your check-ups and keeping communication open. Even the little things that you think aren’t important could be, so don’t be afraid to make an appointment.

Just because you’re getting older doesn’t mean life is going to stop. You can be your happiest and healthiest self, even after crossing the 50-year mark!

**If YOU have a topic to share, please email me neelyruns@gmail.com with your pitch and I would be happy to have you as a guest blogger :)