This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

Can only speak for myself, but since the beginning of the pandemic I got pretty ritualistic about doing yoga everyday (the Yoga with Adriene videos are great!) and going outside and walking around. The end result is that I’m back to the same weight I was in college and my health overall feels more - I dunno, resilient?

I have tennis elbow in both arms, and I think it's probably from taking the garbage down to the RV park dumpster and throwing it in. I also have arthritis in both pointer fingers from various injuries, a painful left knee from decades of nurse's aide work and the incessent driving I do for my companion work now, and a stiff and very painful right ankle and heel from stepping off of a park fixture wrong in the middle of the night a few years ago.

since the beginning of the pandemic i've been doing tons of youtube strengthening, HIIT & stretching videos. working from home has helped so i can use late afternoon for exercise rather than getting home at dinner time after commuting 1+ hours every day. not back to college weight (pretty amazing ET) but in better shape than when i was going to the gym pre-pandemic. definitely get aches and pains with mysterious origin that luckily fade away after a few weeks. also go through the maintain health vs cocktails/ "i'm old & life is getting shorter" internal debate.

My view of health vs. cocktails/"good life" is AND rather than OR. Doing things to keep myself healthy makes it easier for me to enjoy cocktails and french fries. All things in moderation including moderation, etc.

Quite right

I turned 50 late last year and left my 40s much healthier than I entered them after getting back into running. And am still improving now as had a half marathon PB of 1:26 this morning so it's not all downhill.

Like others have said, the main reason I exercise (other than enjoying it and also the social side) is that I then don't have to worry about eating cake/pizza/beer

Half-marathon! Congrats, that's awesome. Running has never been my thing, but I admire the dedication it takes.

bloody hell, nice work groovypanda! not got a marathon planned have you? you're defintely in the zone for a sub 3 there

I think i’m finally “mid 50s” at 54.5. I’ve got a history of serious injuries:

-(broken femural neck/hip now bolted)
-3 separate incidents of broken rib(s)
-3 broken collarbones (plated and screwed, then de-plated, then finally resected (doc just cuts the last 6mm right off) to fix a-c arthritis)
-separated shoulder w/ a
-broken scapula
-3 broken metacarpals in right hand (third meta now w/ 3 wee screws, four and five were temporarily pinned) and
-finally, a broken skull with subdural hematoma and some scattered diffuse axonal brain injury. Severe traumatic brain injury.

Then prostate cancer with robot surgery last Dec.

The TBI is by far far far the most difficult- killed my career, almost my family, but we hang in there.

What I’m saying I guess is I’m “aging” well, all of this is me being good only at catastrophe. It’s a recipe for arthritis and joint issues. But no recent arthritis probs until the last 6 months— on the broken hip from 1991. That’s pretty dece outcome. I can still run just as terrible as always. I was told post-surgery that I would lose my hip, either in 6 mos or eventually, and will likely need a replacement.

still and as fat mantises kno (ancient iltrmb ref) my weekly endurance hours are 6 to 12 of combined bike and nordic ski (rollerski in summer). I got back on the bike for real 8 weeks after cancer surgery, now i can do 3 hour rides and I don’t really notice the diff even on my usual saddles, which are stereotypically minimal.

hopefully this is less brag than encouragement. do try to be kind and good to yourself. also try not to give up. the body often responds well. until it does not or cannot. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Wow. Wishing you well through all that.

thx. rereading, it sounds like a stupid humble/brag, sorry. the tbi does tip me impulsively to blurt out too much of my crap.

maybe the greatest thing that a couple months in a rehab hospital taught me is that i have no fucking clue the extent to which many many people i whom see or meet regularly have also had huge difficulties, and they are overcoming challenges i cannot imagine. nor could i meet those issues as well as they are. and never to assume that my issues are more challenging than another person’s. people are absolutely astounding and work far harder than i have. more than once i’ve learned that they are people whom i know. but until you start sharing stories and support, you may not have an idea. ppl are often amazing.

and now, back to “fightin’ the fifties”…

words to live by, thanks for the update

I did my first live DJ set in two years last night and spent a fair amount of time on my knees on the floor digging through the two LP crates I brought. After carrying the record crates back to the car for the night, the backs of my knees were in excruciating pain that only subsided overnight after bed rest. OK, I am officially out of shape.

My neck is fucking killing me all the time. The pain moves from one side to the other. I think it's just tired of holding up my head.

Two devices that made the random aches of my latter 50s bearable: a continuous ice machine and a USB rechargeable TENS machine.

The organ recital isn’t supposed to start until your 70s, people!

While we're trading health tips, these massage pillows are killer. I get sore shoulders and neck a lot, mostly from time at the keyboard typing. My wife and I both swear by this: https://zyllion.com/collections/body-massagers/products/zma13bk-shiatsu-massager-pillow-with-heat.

I posted about it on FB and got like seven friends to buy it, all of whom were happy with it. Sadly I do not get any commission from the Zyllion people.

One health tip I learned after having two separate basal-cell carcinomas frozen off my head - wear a hat if you're spending any significant time outside. Take care of your skin as you would any other organ of the body.

Re massage, those fleshhammer massage guns are incredible for local muscle soreness. I was a huge skeptic but a couple trial uses proved incredibly effective. I find less is more, i now rarely hit any spot more than 30 or 40 secs, in low or middle speed. Difference between “i cant walk down stairs” to no problem really.

In the days when I went to see bands on weeknights, I never called in sick the next day because I was hungover or tired.

Last night I went to see a movie and am fighting to stay awake. Even allowing for the time change and the stress of taking my mother to the theater, this is weird. But I assume this is a sign of my age?

I think it's more you forget how much of a struggle the next day was, when you were 20, even then.

just realised i am older than jean luc picard at the END of ST:TNG

(show was '87-'94, stewart was born in '40)

Hello. Today is the day.

My wife turned 50 two months ago which mentally prepared me. Not another option really. Keep on keepin' on.

Welcome to the suck

La Dolce Vita

Being 50+ is awesome. (One piece of semi-heartening news: apparently the surveillance state doesn't quite have me as pinned down as I thought, as I have yet to receive anything from the AARP in the mail. My understanding was that they pretty much sunk their hooks into you on your 50th birthday.)

The old boy may be barely breathing.

The old boy may be barely breathing.

The old boy may be barely breathing.

WTF? Sorry. Anywhere in less than a year I will darken the door of this thread no more.

- Huey Lewis and the Blecchs

My wife was traumatized by the AARP mailing a couple weeks before her birthday in July but nothing for me so far.

Some chronic pains/conditions aside, I really am feeling very lucky. A lovely spouse, professionally/financially doing well, theoretically wiser.

It's been a good spot, honestly.

Welcome to the club! I just ticked past 53 last Friday, one of those indeterminate years but one where it really very much feels like I'm "in my 50s."

- Huey Lewis and the Blecchs

I am happy to be Blecch with you

I only realized I was getting old when I was 38. I still feel uncomfortably 14.

my GF signed me up for AARP last year when we went to Utah so we'd get some kind of travel discounts on our trip to Utah

The magazine features many of my contemporaries: P-Diddy, Matthew McConaughey, Kathleen Hannah, etc.

That was my reaction to my wife's first AARP mailer: do you at least get a museum discount?

Goddamn right I'm going to take advantage of every senior discount at civic facilities - the nice pool at the Duarte civic center, the golden eagle passports that get you in to all the national parks, etc...

35 cent bus/train fares (off hours)!

First colonoscopy - lots of polyps and I have to do it again in two years. *sigh*

I've had two (I started in my 40s becz of some mild family history), probably due for another one next year. They were OK, the propofol worked as advertised. Tho it is a singular experience to wake up from a nap to some chatty cathy showing you pictures of your innards.

haven't had that yet.. I'm with a cheap HMO and they just ask me to crap on a piece of wax paper, take a swab, and mail it back to them. It even comes with a little 'biohazard' bag lol

My parents are super nervous about any kind of anesthesia, so when my dad had his first colonoscopy he insisted on just getting local anesthetics and staying awake for the whole thing. His description of the ensuing discomfort persuaded me to never ask for that. (And he never did for subsequent ones either.)

I've had two, plus a surgery to remove my secum (?!) and appendix, since the tissue there was too thin to burn the polyp off

... and it's time for another, lol. I always think of crut's immortal thread abt barium shakes "if I hear the word I will barf"

it me now.

happy birthday!

hbd and congrats on leveling up

congratulations with your quarter bicentennial