Approaching 50. What advice would you give me?

[Redhairandhottubs]

I’m turning 50 and not feeling great about it if I’m honest. It seems like such a big number and looking at people around me, I’m worried about dealing with health issues and caring for parents as they get older.

To those in their 50’s and beyond, is there any advice you would give to make the coming years as good as possible? What (if any!) are the positives of getting older?

Weight training peeps - what do you actually do? My kids are still fairly small and I do my exercising at home generally. Do you recommend any programmes/apps/video programmes/bossy smartwatches that i could squeeze in of an evening? (I do pilates and cardio and I don't want to give those up, so I'm not going to find time to do 4 sessions of weights a week!)

If you don’t already, make sure you look after your health. Exercise, lift weights and cardio for heart health is important, as is staying a healthy weight. Becoming overweight and weak is not inevitable, but it does take work. Personally I have given up alcohol as it does your body no favours, but that’s an extreme course of action for many people.

Above all enjoy your life. You may be 50 but you can still be strong and learn new things. If there’s something you have always wanted to do, now is the time!

The 50s is a great decade for many, me included. I also loved my 40s, whereas I found my 20s and 30s were all about striving - get educated, get the job, the house, the partner, decide about kids and where I'm going to live. It was a lot. Now, all the big questions are answered! So my advice is to check your pension, decide whether you need to make any changes there, and then look to what you enjoy. You've worked your whole life to get to this point. How do you want to live it?

Be grateful that you have made it to 50. It is a privilege that is denied to many

I'm 50.

I'm on HRT and have been for about a year. It improved my sleep, my skin and hair and my moods and wellbeing.

I've made some improvements to my diet and track what I eat. I use Samsung Health on my phone, which calculates calories but also amounts of different nutrients and vitamins. It also tracks exercise. Using this I have made small changes and feel better for it.

I'm a lot more brutal about what I wear. I think about, research and try on before buy, and buy as good quality as I can afford.

I'm kind to myself. I am 'allowed' to have lazy days at home, reading, if I feel the need. It's OK to go to bed early if I'm tired - there are no rules have to follow.

And I accept who I am and that I am not in my 20s or 30s anymore!

Say no to things that you really don't want to do.

Remember your body is worth looking after and so is your mind.

A silly one, but don't keep things for good. Wear the fabulous shoes, the perfume, whatever it is that makes you happy.

Most importantly, stop giving a shit what people think of you.

You may do all these things already, but this is my advice.

Celebrate reaching 50 because many don't have that privilege.
keep your body healthy and your mind calm.
Love yourself in a society that profits off you hating yourself.
I love being in my 50s, after many turbulent years, life is good.
I'm lucky and grateful.

I'm honestly loving my 50s, now peri is out of the way. I just feel like the stars have aligned in terms of feeling fit, having a bit more financial freedom and giving fewer fucks about what other people might think of me. My friendships are secure and long lasting, my kids are old enough to be independent but still happy to hang out with me and my DH is my best friend and travel buddy. It's not always been like this, but I'm embracing this stage. Please look at the positives you have in your life and embrace them xx

I bloody loved my fifties. Loads of energy, a little bit of spare money to do some travelling and buy nice clothes. Much more confident in the work place, achieved more than I could imagine. I kept myself fit and healthy and was really confident with how I looked. Sixties a little trickier maybe because other women keep telling me I would look younger with dyed hair! All in all though I am enjoying my life. And I like my hair 😂
While other women have found menopause negative I have been surprised by all the positives it has brought me. I had it late at sixty which maybe is an advantage. No longer anaemic through heavy periods. No pmt. No agonising menstrual pain. Endometriosis lessened. No bloating. No worry about my period arriving and flooding. Generally less anxious and not depressed.
Grasp your fifties with joy! Live your best life

I felt off from mid 40’s. stopped smoking, menopause started HRT eventually found out I had autoimmune disease. Try & get into a well woman clinic get checked. Vit D in winter really important for your bone health. Start putting you first for a change not kids or husband( or just extended family). Say No often, practice. People always will be shocked that you are putting in boundaries.

• Take up some form of exercise. But make it regular. In other words, you need to get sweaty and breathless every day. Yoga is fantastic, and I can't recommend it highly enough, but you must also include resistance training (i.e weight lifting or resistance bands). As you age, it's incredibly important that you maintain muscle mass.
• Take up meditation. I would recommend Mark Williams. He does some guided meditation stuff on YouTube, and he's brilliant. He has a pleasant, soft RP British accent as well (sorry, I like Americans, but I can't bear the accent)
• Read the classics. Even if you don't enjoy every word, they can do wonders for your mood and mental health. If you are a reader, try Jane Austen and Dickens and George Eliot and Virginia Woolf and so on. Read books instead of newspapers. And don't watch the news. Also, reduce screen time to a minimum.
• Get outside and be in nature. Moving in natural light is vital.
• Try freshwater swimming. It changed my life.
• Learn a language (my 70-year-old aunt took up Russian when she retired).
• Be kind and polite. Sounds silly, but you get back what you put out there. If you want the world to be a kinder, gentler, more caring place, be kind and gentle and caring yourself. I am involved in animal rescue charities, for example. It is upsetting, but I've met the most wonderful people in the world.
• Give up alcohol.

Also, be optimistic. Serious progress is being made on anti-ageing technologies. Pretty soon we'll have the first generation of drugs to slow and reverse the ageing process (look up senolytics if you don't believe me). God knows where AI, medical nanobots, gene editing, stem cell research, etc, will take us. You may have a lot longer to live than you think.

What everyone else says about exercise. Shortly after turning 50 I joined my local gym & signed up with one of the PTs there, who was a woman about my age. I couldn’t afford sessions with her long term but she designed a weights & cardio plan for me with 6 different workouts, so I alternate & move to bigger weights as necessary. It’s working really well.

It's just a number and nothing you can do about it!

Keep active and moving; give your kids their independence by asserting yours; write a bucket list, make no1 something fun, uplifting and go do it!

I help my elderly Dad look after my Mum living with severe Dementia, but on my terms. It is very draining emotionally and physically, so I choose to offer what time I can manage and not feel guilty about looking after myself.

Stop fretting and enjoy the time you do have!

If you are happy with your lot in life, it's a special birthday to be celebrated. If you are unhappy with an aspect of your life, then work out what it is and make changes.

I am 54 and have never been happier. Career is where I want it, kids are a bit more independent, I’m getting my life back. Got a lovely partner and having the best sex ever. Financially in good shape, physically comfy in my own skin and have had a bit of filler and Botox. Ex husband has fucked off and thankfully gone no-contact, the garden is looking great, even the dog seems happier and mostly listens to me.
Also I’m fresh out of fucks for everyone that gets on my nerves. That’s liberating.

Enjoy!

Think it's normal to dread the decade milestones: 40, 50, 60 etc, but for me being post 50 has been the best time of my life. More money, more freedom, more wisdom, happy with long-term DH. Being younger was harder and I put up with things then that I wouldn't now. Yes - the inevitable decline of parents (mine are dead) and health concerns. Keep as fit as you can. Accept the things you can't change and enjoy yourself for all your worth.

@Tealpins I started a 4 years ago and followed Caroline Girvan programmes on YouTube, all free & the results are incredible. You can go at your own speed & will find you have to increase the weights the stronger you get.

I have her paid app now and she’s releasing new programmes regularly but you don’t have to get that as there’s plenty on YT.

A sensible one...If you're anything like me, you'll be working for a fair few more years...try to future proof your career. I am sick of the instability of my current career / industry, so I'm investigating a transition. We are Gen X the most adaptable generation...we didn't grow up with tech but most of us have adapted and embraced it!
Take magnesium at night for sleep.
Declutter and make your space lovely ❤
Get a cat 🐱
Embrace whatever style you want 😊💃
Stop caring what people think

This! I piled the weight on when I had kids and just ate crap for years. I'm 47 now and when I started going through peri (at 44) I realised how unfit and unhealthy I actually was.

Have you started peri yet? I'm on HRT but also take a ton of vitamins and have started eating much better now, and exercise even just a small amount of activity everyday is so important. If I don't move enough for a day or two I really start to feel the stiffness in my joints.

Why mushroom? Is it because of vitamin D?

I’m 48 and in the last few years we have lost three of four parents, so already done the caring part. Luckily my mum is healthy, although she has done her knee in.

But I took my health in hand a year ago after my dad died of heart failure brought on by years of obesity and laziness. I have lost almost 5 stone, I have a PT and do strength workouts twice a week. I’m trying to add a couple of yoga sessions a week but that has been trickier.

I would say eat well, do strength and flexibility training, sleep, drink water and take care of your mental health. Then what will be will be, but at least you have done your best.

I have no idea!

I’ve been on the Ankhway ones which are a mix of 10 essential (🙄) super-shrooms with mystic properties. There is limited believable scientific evidence they do anything at all, but I think there is something in Lionsmane & cordyceps. I like to think they’re an ancient medicine Neolithic perimenopausal women would have been prescribed by the village Shaman.

All I know is that I started taking a bunch of stuff and I feel more tired, achy & punchy when I stop taking them! (NB due to being daft I have no idea what actually works as I started a few things at once. I haven’t had the mushroom gummies for abut 3 weeks and fingers/arms/back/legs are defo more painful and I’ve been taking the turmeric & magnesium & HRT).

Don't be surprised to wake up one day to find that your fucks have all gone AWOL. I went from being a people pleaser to the complete opposite. Apparently it coincides with waning oestrogen and is actually a thing. I found it very weird, now I am used to it I love. The people I endlessly pleased not so much 😁.

Me too, it's great!

My mother is less pleased about not being able to manipulate me though 😁

Oestrogen is definitely the Be Nice hormone!

When mine decreased I thought “Is this what being a bloke is like?! Do they just not worry about what happens to other people?? WOW!”

😂