The older we get, the more we think about how little time we have. The 70- to 90-year-olds I know already have longevity. But as we enter our final 10 or 20 years, quality of life becomes an issue, especially as it affects our capacity to live independently.
I’m told that most people know when they are in their final 10 years. The question we should be asking is what we want of our health and fitness during those years. If, for instance, we want strength, life energy, and mental acuity, then we must train for them before we lose them completely (if we haven’t already).
Some seniors deplore their ailments. Yet they seem to wear them as a badge of honor, comparing medications they take for high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and other maladies. The one medication they don’t discuss is not medication, per se, because there’s nothing to ingest. Yet it is proven to augment life energy, improve sleep, and stave off cognitive decline. Call it the healthy senior magic pill: fitness walking!
Did you know that fitness walking is the only thing proven scientifically to lower dementia risk? (See JAMA Neurology, September 6, 2022.) 78,000 people aged 40-79 were studied over seven years, comparing a sedentary control group with people who used a fitness tracker to record the number of steps they walked each day. Those who walked 2,500 steps a day lowered their risk of contracting dementia by 25%, and those who walked 10,000 steps lowered their risk by 51%.
“In one study, seniors who walked 2,500 steps a day lowered their risk of contracting dementia by 25%, and those who walked 10,000 steps lowered their risk by 51%.”
Recently, I saw another article in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporting that research demonstrates how the health benefits of walking increase up to about 7,000 steps a day, before leveling off. Whew. That gave me some breathing room as I began tracking my daily output using the step tracker that appeared, unbidden, on my iPhone several months ago.
At first, I disdained it as a means of judging the quality of my fitness walking. I love my evening walks. I rarely miss one because I’m committed to giving my body the movement it wants and needs. My body and I have a lifelong association. Now, I confess, I’ve become addicted to the charge I get seeing concrete evidence of the number of steps I’ve accumulated that day. It’s usually accompanied by an emotional pat-on-the-back. My octogenarian walking buddies also brag about their steps. And why not? Bragging rights are deservedly ours. But we also talk about the brethren our age who haven’t made the leap to daily fitness walking. If you’re in that group, here’s our advice:
If you used to exercise, but now you don’t, forget about the way it was back-in-the-day. As an elite runner, I used to disdain age group competition as a bone thrown at us when we got too old to run with the young guys. “Getting too old” is the operative phrase. For many years I thought I could do better next year if I trained well this year. But those five-year age divisions, though seemingly arbitrary, show up on racing performance regardless of how well we might train. I’ve realized that we must dial our expectations back accordingly.
If you’ve never exercised, or hated it whenever you tried, you have a lot of surprisingly enjoyable things to learn. When you do, I’m convinced you’ll be able to truthfully say that you love your fitness walking activity. Here’s a starter’s tip: Start short and walk slow.