There’s a quote that floats around, “The best day to start was yesterday.” Well, that’s unhelpful because maybe you didn’t, and now it’s today and you’re left wondering, “Did I wait too long?” Maybe you spent your adolescence as an athlete, but the adult years replaced recreation with responsibility and your fitness became a memory. Perhaps, like me, sports were never your thing as a youth and you figured mediocre health and fitness was the best it was going to get.
So it is ever too late? It is absolutely not.
A diet of well-balanced, real food and a routine of regular, varied exercise will benefit your body no matter your age.
18 or 78, it’s never too early or late to lose excess weight, remove strain from your organs and joints, and build muscle mass that will help you move well throughout your life. In fact, building and maintaining muscle mass as we age is vitally important to continuing on with the things we love (gardening, traveling, chasing kids/grandkids) and preventing or diminishing injury due to life’s inevitable accidents.
Pain and discomfort from old injuries can become a reason that we avoid movement, along with the fear of being hurt again. Good enough reason to throw up your hands? Not quite. With the guidance of a supportive medical professional and the coaching of a solid trainer, much long-term pain can be addressed and diminished to improve your quality of life through exercise.
It’s never too late to improve our health, lives, and well being by tackling the responsibility to care for our bodies, inside and out. Maybe we can’t reclaim our youth in number, but we can work to get stronger as we go and have our best years ahead of us.