Most of my post was about congratulating Carol, Mags. Hopefully that would keep her motivation up.
Nobody is incaple of doing a little exercise even if it’s just a walk. You surely cannot argue that looking after our health is the most important thing in our lives, it starts with exercise and a sensible diet.
Good morning to you too!!
Thanks for the encouragement Floydy. I’m certainly going to try & keep it up. 
I am not arguing with you Floydy, just making you aware that many older people are unable to exercise as such.
Good afternoon to you too!
Women are always right.
But many older people exercise too, Mags. Each to…etc 
It’s good to exercise if you can.
My local leisure centre does a ‘chair exercise’ class and it’s very popular.
When I was coming from swimming one day I saw them queuing to go in. They all looked over 70 yrs old and some didn’t look in good condition for standing exercise.
There’s something for everyone really - unless you’re in great pain of course.
That reminds me of one of my close friends, she has ataxia, which is very similar to Multiple Sclerosis and she is losing the ability to walk as her illness affects her balance badly. She has recently been going to a class for people like herself and its Zumba with a difference, it’s movements sat down in a chair. She loves it as she was beginning to feel pretty useless, it’s opened up a whole new world to her which is wonderful.
I’m trying to encourage her to come swimming with me but she hasn’t braved that yet, I’ll keep trying although I do understand she finds it so difficult and exhausting to simply dress and undress.
When I think about it, I’m so, so privileged to still be able to walk and carry out other exercises. On that note I am going to go swimming tonight, thank you Carol for getting me off my butt!
That’s so true Lion Queen, I’m so grateful for still being able to run every other day, some things we take for granted and only realise how lucky we were when we can’t do them anymore…
Hi, everyone. My grandmother, a single mother who reared my dad as a single mom when her husband abandoned them during the height of the depression, was a phenomenal woman. More than once, she told me that keeping one’s health, home, and finances squared to weather almost any storm.
Well, she was right. For the sake of her privacy, I won’t elaborate much but to say that my dear friend is dying of cancer and has her daughter now living with me. As you can imagine, I am privileged to be able to help as I can, but I have been unable to post for some time with my plate overflowing. I am still running and don’t know what I would do without that escape every day! I am so happy to read that so many of you are doing well and exercising!
Thanks for looking in Surfermom, and after following your situation for some time I almost expected the outcome, and had one of my parents survived the loss of the other I would have done exactly the same. Unfortunately, after over sixty years of married life together, after mum passed away my dad followed after only five months of living with a broken heart…Good to see you back…:hug:
I am still doing the exercises given to me by the Diabetes Prevention Team - they are a bit boring - but I am sticking with it. Can do 20 repeats of each of them and am happy with that. It gives the cats something to laugh at anyway and I certainly feel fitter.
That’s the trouble Tabby, will you keep it up if the only payback is something you may not notice for a long time. i.e. the long slow road to fitness and suppleness.
I’ve tried boring stuff (bending & Stretching regimes) in the past and even with the best intentions in the world, they last about six months’ish before the monotony and tediousness sets in and does my head in…
With walking or running (outside in the big wide world) it’s never the same, seasons change, there’s always something new to listen to or see and even your body reacts differently to changing weather systems and energy levels…No wonder I’ve been a runner for over forty years…
Just as the sun rises each morning so Foxy goes out for his long Sunday Run…With a cold North Westerly that felt like a thousand needles pricking my bare legs and face I jogged past the dark deserted church, and left the fading light from the streetlamps far behind and my eyes grew accustomed to the subdued light of the quiet country road.
I passed arable fields and leafless trees, the sound of the occasional disturbed pheasant clucking indignantly as it flew across an open field, and rustlings in the hedgerows as birds and critters scurried about preparing for winter.
My mind wandered to a summer’s day when heat waves rose from the hot tarmac, and sweat trickled down my forehead on this same stretch of road, was it the same road? It looks totally different in the cold and dark of winter…
I pressed on, warm now, I didn’t even notice the aggressive biting wind anymore, and as two miles turned to three and then four, I realised that this was going to be one of my better runs. Even as I ran past the now bright sunlit welcoming church on my last mile, my legs felt no tiredness, and smiled to myself as I put on some style while passing the newsagent as residents collected their armsful of magazines and newspapers, who knew that the old bloke in the shorts running past had just done eight satisfying miles…
Yes - I will keep it up, Foxy, boring as it is - especially if the alternative is diabetes and it’s attendant complications. I do agree with you about the walking and watching the world revolve - it is pure magic. I walk about 4 miles first thing each morning now - usually about 5:00am when the muggers and rapists are still tucked under their duvets and the air is free of traffic fumes. I alternate my routes - sometimes I walk along the river bank, sometimes through a little woodland.
I am no good at running though - never have been - somehow I never quite got the hang of running and breathing at the same time!
I’m sorry Tabby, I didn’t mean you should take up running and accompany me on my next Marathon…I was just suggesting that doing something you enjoy is easier to keep up over the years, but any kind of exercise will have great benefits for such things as High Blood Pressure and Diabetes…Keep up the good work Tabby…
Oh - how sad - and here was I struggling into a very fetching lycra number!
I’ll be with you in an hour Tabby to start your training, I must point out that my methods are far from orthodox, but exciting…
Sleeping off Christmas - perhaps? I hope he is OK.
I missed a couple of days exercises - but - am back on track now.
Happy New Year guys and gals. Just dropped in to say that after a very depressing couple of months I have been given the all-clear to restart some moderate training at the gym. Yay!! What I thought was a dry cough that lasted a few months and then turned into drastic breathing difficulties on that nightmare day was, after a CT scan, finally diagnosed as “multiple bilateral embolisms” AKA blood clots in both lungs and their blood vessels. I had to give myself 4 hefty injections of anticoagulants over two days than take equally hefty anticoagulant tablets.
The doc says I will be on anticoagulants for life and gave compelling reasons, namely even if people get to hospital the survival rate is about 3 in 10 because giving oxygen is of limited use if the clots have moved and are blocking oxygen getting into the bloodstream. He was quite surprised, in a nice way, that I had survived when the severe breathlessness hit me on the street! He said that with no treatment there is a 1 in 10 chance it can happen again. Unsurprisingly I said yes to the medication. 
I said it was probably the weight training that kept me alive because my heart muscle is in excellent shape (considering the old heart attack) and that my lungs were too, managing to cope with a very limited oxygen supply for those horrible few minutes. So, on Thursday that’s me back in the saddle and training (carefully) again. I’m so excited!!
Have a good New Year one and all.
Scary stuff, Tachyon, I am glad you came through it and are back with us on OFF. Here’s to a healthy New Year.