This ‘staying fit as you age’ thread of my substack is all about embracing ageing. Which also means disgraceful ageing, as opposed to graceful ageing. Accepting that we’re older doesn’t mean giving up on fitness and health which is how a lot of us interpret graceful ageing - because lycra and sweat aren’t exactly graceful, are they? But necessary. Nor does graceful ageing mean we pretend we can eat or exercise the way we have till now. Or haven’t! Exercised I mean. Do you want to grace the sidelines in chiffon and pearls, nodding sagely or do you want to stay in the thick of things? Relevant, strong, fit, irreverent. That’s just me I think, the irreverent bit so you don’t have to commit to that aspect. But health, yes and how to get there through the minefields of information and misinformation.
Trying to stay fit as I age is a lot more complicated than before I fell into the vat of ‘fine wine’. Now, at 64 I find myself with high blood pressure, high cholesterol (the wrong kind), joint pain, overweight and with excess uric acid. What am I going to do about it? You will be kept updated with my attempts at regulating all these ‘highs’ whether I’m successful or unsuccessful.
Somewhere between my 50’s and my 60’s I became careless with my health. From clean living and eating, yoga all the time, and salad with every meal I turned into a teenage boy. Attitude wise. Not my body. I don’t really know the reason for this. Maybe I didn't want to think about the additional restrictions that come with being proactively healthy at my age. I’ll explore the reason behind this decline along my journey back to fitness. This journey or quest promises to be quite the hero’s journey.
In the middle of last year, I found myself boosting the flagging spirits of my younger brother whose cholesterol was high. This is slim-as-a-reed individual who walks wherever he can if it’s between Berlin subway stations. {“An active lifestyle” is what he would have ticked off if he had downloaded one of the fitness apps. You have to tell them how much you move in a day - who thinks they are a couch potato especially when they’re trying to keep up the appearance of being someone who is generally fit but has recently piled on the pounds - quite unfairly - said fitness hopeful usually thinks. You also have to give the apps your motive for losing weight. I wonder whether anybody admits to ‘wanting to look good’ when they are presented with more serious choices such as, ‘improve my health,’ or ‘improve my mental health’ because so many of us have been seduced by the belief that “thin is beautiful” and aspire to it, even in the face of less tangible but more sensible benefits of losing weight. And why do we need to choose only one reason? Isn’t it usually all those motivations if truth be told? Why should you have to choose?} Back to my brother, whose blood work, and other doctor investigations proved he had to diet however slim he looked.
Dieting turned this happy individual into a mournful caricature of himself. He felt deprived because he was denied butter and cheese. The enforcer was my sister, who takes no requests. This was quite a change from the generous slabs of cheese he usually laid out on his Abend Brot.
This marks the beginning of the time when innocuous questions about his meals, conversationally asked, turned into dangerous terrain riddled with minefields. Usually, talking about cooking, sharing recipes or dinner menus is a fun way to connect. More interesting than the weather. He began listing the items on his plate in tones of great sadness. Rice and dal, with a side of spinach. It’s a good meal, tasty and what he would eat even before the blood test revealed the lurking cholesterol. But starting the day with a brötchen without butter ruined his day and his appetite for healthy options.
At the same time my sister, even younger than the pair of us, found she had high bee pee (Blood Pressure). She didn’t complain though. There wasn’t much discussion. She took her medicine, cutting out whatever the doctor had forbidden her to eat with great stoicism. She’s a woman after all.
The inevitable happened. Both lost weight and high bee pee within a month of becoming careful. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I was under the scanner now. Both turned their mournful eyes on me while chewing spinach, (I was eating it too but joyfully since nobody had told me to eat it), urging, ‘You should get yours checked too.’
I laughed my teenage boy laugh (reserved for suggestions to take health check-ups). This laugh and attitude is a recent development. I used to be quite good. Doctors cited me as a shining example of a person who ‘takes care of themselves’). I said I would get mine checked. In Delhi. I added that I would walk a lot for a month before going for bee pee and cholesterol check. I explained.
Bad results are frightening.
Doctors give you unnecessary medicine if your blood work is the slightest bit off
Restrictions
I would rather restrict myself beforehand for a bit and then go to the doctor and the phlebotomist.
They were quiet, absorbing this information. I sensed disapproval but they were trying to get the spinach out of their teeth and discuss Putin and Zelensky.
When I returned to Delhi, I had to attend to various other difficult things till December.
I began the first phase of my check-up plan by walking in January. Sporadically I must add. Mornings were much too cold to get out of bed. Evenings too cosy. There was only a very short window for exercise. I often missed the walk so I did some yoga. But not every day. And I laughed my teenage boy laugh, consoling myself with the amounts of broccoli I was consuming. Plus, An Apple a Day…
Good one! Keep it up!