Savvy Over 60
Working Out After Sixty
I almost salivate every time I see a high impact aerobics class in session at my gym. I feel the same when I pass our local tennis courts and watch that yellow ball going back and forth over the net.I did aerobics most mornings for years. I also played tennis every day for years. But I don’t do either anymore. And I’ve stopped running 10Ks – an activity I was so proud to be able to do...
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Is the Decline of Cognitive Abilities Caused by Hearing Loss?
The more I think about the Johns Hopkins study’s conclusion that “adults with hearing loss are more likely to develop problems thinking and remembering than older adults whose hearing is normal…” (“Hearing Loss Accelerates Brain Function Decline in Older Adults, January 23, 2013), the angrier and more skeptical I get.Is This Study Hogwash?I even looked at the mass of comments abo...
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Don't Stress About The Little Things
With the onset of the new year I’ve begun to put things into perspective again – especially about the unimportant little things in life.Every once in a while I catch myself faulting my husband – in my own mind – about all the little irritating things he does: leaving empty or semi-empty drinking glasses un-rinsed on the sink counter, not checking for phone messages, leaving piles of paperw...
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"Why Women Still Can't Have It All"
I’ve been hearing a lot of hubbub about Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic Magazine (July/August 2012) article called “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” It’s had over a million views online in less than a week. I caught her appearance on the PBS Newshour on June 26, 2012 and also read Carolyn Anderson’s opinion, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All (at the Same Time)” in the June 26, 2012 issue of th...
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Savvy Over 60 Travel Tips
About six months ago my husband said he’d like us to take a trip around the world. He warned we should go soon while we’re still able enough physically to make such a long journey.I said sure, I’d like to go, but I would prefer to travel to all the places on our bucket list in small, bite-size chunks. I can’t bear the thought of traveling for weeks and months on end. That’s not because I’m...
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Living With Age Spots
I’ve always admitted to being vain. I got that way from my mom. It’s embarrassing. I remember a time very close to the end of her life when she was well into her 90s. She was in the hospital and I was sitting by her bedside. And she kept looking at me and finally said, “You’re so beautiful. Look at me, how old and wrinkled I look.” It was a nice compliment to me, but it showed how she still car...
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My Tragedy Survival Tool Kit
I think it’s safe to say that when we’ve reached age sixty and beyond we’ve already gone through our fair share of hard times, illnesses, and tragedy. I know I have. I was nine years old when my favorite uncle died in a plane crash, my first friend died of breast cancer when we were both in our forties, and my father and brother both died much too young – in their early seventies.During th...
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My Pedometer: The Great Motivator
My gym, the Spectrum Club, introduced a program called Virgin HealthMiles* in 2006, and I’ve been wearing a pedometer called a GoZone at my every waking hour ever since. I wear it everywhere, attaching to my clothes on the waste band of my slacks or skirts. It counts out my steps, and if I press a little button it also tells me calories spent, miles walked, or the time of day. My goal each day ...
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Does a Plant Based Diet Ensure I’ll Never Have a Heart Attack?
Dieting and food seems to take center stage especially after a holiday season of indulging. The Saturday after Thanksgiving my husband Bob and I watched a CNN article about Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn’s diet cure for heart attacks, and we discussed going on his plant-based diet ourselves. Neither one of us has excess plaque in our arteries and we want to keep it that way. Bob, however, has had bo...
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Accountability – It’s Up to Us
Every day for at least the last twenty-five years I write down the kinds of exercises I do and the number of minutes I do them. This every day habit is both self-motivating and a great way for me to be accountable for taking care of my body. Another way I motivate myself is wearing a pedometer. My goal is to have 12,000 steps recorded on it every day.I’ve never felt the need to keep a food...
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I Call It A Transition, Not A Retirement
So many people ask what I’m doing with myself now that I’m retired. They think with all the time I have on my hands, I can just lay on my couch all day and watch daytime television and eat bon-bons. Well, I don’t consider myself retired from work at all.I’m seventy-one years old, officially retired from the job I worked on and off for twenty-eight years in the aerospace industry, and...
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Fitness Over 60 And Counting
Becky Neumann sits perched on her instructor’s bike at the front of her full Saturday morning Spinning class. She has her trademark cowboy bandana tied around her closely cropped dark hair, her form-fitting tank-top shows off her muscular arms, and her skin is glistening from sweat. She wears a mike around her head and a pair of granny glasses low down on her nose. That’s right. granny glasses....
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Gray And Long: An Oxymoron?
It seems that men have been noticing my hair at checkout lines. Today the guy behind the counter at Costco told me he loves my silver hair – that it reminded him of his mother’s hair. Last week while I was waiting at the grocery checkout counter a short man with a full head of white hair turned, gave me a quick onceover, and with a wry smile asked if I’ve ever dyed my hair. And without ba...
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