AIBU to think the pressure for ‘older’ women to exercise is wrong?

[StitchInLime]

So as a woman in my late 40s, I keep getting told (via ads, from some people in my life, via tv and so on) that I need to do strength exercises and cardio if I don’t want to suffer later in life. And yet, it’s the woman I know who did f-all exercise at my age and before who seem to be thriving in their 60s/70s (eg my aunts) and the ones who did more exercise at my age now have issues with knees, hips etc. I find it difficult to find the motivation in light of this. If you have opposite examples, please share as I really need to motivate myself!

I think the comments about our lifestyles becoming more sedentary overall are really accurate.

Even thirty years ago when I was growing up, walking was the "default" mode of transport for getting around unless it was genuinely too far or we'd have too much stuff to carry. We walked to the shops, to the doctors, to the dentist, into town - I only got the bus to school as it was 15+ miles away.

Exercise was just part of day to day life, it wasn't something we specifically needed to carve out time for. It was just how we got around. I also remember my dad working in the garden or washing the car - again, exercise but part of normal life so not something he really thought about.

However if your default (for whatever reason) is to hop in the car and drive everywhere, then you do need to set aside time in your week to exercise - and most people pick the gym because it's indoors, dry and safe.

I do think walking is the magic bullet though.

I was away on a work trip recently and my boss ( late 50s) was amazed I planned to walk from the train station to the venue ( 30 minute walk in good weather). She ended up walking as well and was really pleased with herself.

I just think for short journeys the benefits of fresh air and moderate exercise is amazingly beneficial and free of charge.

Probably because the only exercise women were encouraged to do was high impact cardio to make them thinner. Hardly the same as as resistance exercise.

(Btw, I’m not suggesting my aunts don’t do any exercise, they are walkers so walk each day as am I. But no strength training etc)

I think that the difference between MIL and DMum - driving and not. Also MIL did carry bags round with her walking - so while not strength training as such possibly equivalent.

We get monthly shop delivered but I did pre prices increase head down 3 times a month to further away supermarket - not doing that I do think had bad effect on my fitness - plus DH often gets taxi back from town when once we'd have walked back with stuff.

My mother has done 0 exercise in her life and now in her mid 70s is wobbly and starting to get prone to falls. There's nothing wrong with her, she's just had such a sedentary life that her body is finding it hard to cope, given that she's spent the last 20 years sitting in a chair reading a newspaper and little else

I think it perhaps depends on where you live or mix with but to me and everyone I know going for a walk at the weekend and not sitting all day long is not a particularly active lifestyle. It is just normal. Those with what I call an active lifestyle do a lot more.

I should add that she had me at 42 and was always very adamant that it was fine as she was very heathy at the time. However I now am very nervous of letting her hold my 1yo as the last time she did she nearly dropped her (while standing) as she just isn't strong enough. My MIL is 60 but still runs and plays sport and is down on the floor playing with my daughter while my mother watches from a chair! So it's all very well to get irritated by the message but you have to think about what you want to achieve and what you still want to be doing 60+, I think.

Walking is good but we do need to do something that raises our heart rate quite a bit higher for a time (for moderate exercise, 30 mins 5x a week.) For most people, walking doesn't reach that level of intensity, unless maybe it's very brisk or uphill.

I do it for my mental health and so I can continue to enjoy my life, I am 49. Strength training has really changed my attitude to my body. I have not lost weight, but I am much stronger and I carry myself better. It depends what you want out of it, my expectations are much different from my 20s and 30s - I do it for myself 🤷🏻‍♀️

In my teens/20s I was a malnourished goth so my fitness (or potential fitness when I slack off) is actually better now. In, say, 1996, all that was important was being as thin as possible.

Another cool thing is being able to achieve things physically you couldn't do in your teens/20s.

I did that a few times, and hope to again.

I live in Cumbria, so a very outdoorsy place - 99% of people I know go for weekend walks as part of their normal lives. Mostly because they have dogs but also just because that's how they spend their time.

I would say regular weekend walking is a pretty active kind of lifestyle, personally. You don't need to be doing loads to be active!

Exercising into your 50s and beyond gives you a better quality of life in old age in terms of core strength for balance and flexibility to do things like pick stuff up off the floor, put shoes on, reach into cupboards etc.

The examples are only anecdotes. The data show that exercise is beneficial.

My paternal grandma was the same. She did nothing in terms of exercise and was practically confined to a chair in her seventies as she couldn't even walk around the supermarket unaided.

My mum's mum on the other hand - she was walking unaided well into her nineties, doing the gardening in her mid-eighties and could manage a walk around the shops with a stick until a few months before she died at 96.

Being active in your forties pays dividends in your twilight years!

No evidence of that, just a load of assumptions. If you are going to suffer significant bone loss following menopause, you're going to get it no matter how much bone-building you did beforehand.

I posted upthread - resistance exercise for 12 months when you have post-menopausal osteoporosis improves bone density. If you can find large-sample empirical evidence that 'preparation' prevents it, please share because I haven't been able to find it.

As I've said before, you can have lovely thick hair before menopause but, if you're genetically disposed to lose it, you'll go as skimpy-haired as any other woman.

There are things we can do to promote good health. And then there are delusions of control over our destiny!

As an occupational therapist who worked in a falls prevention team, and has just completed my tier 3 frailty training you are being very very unreasonable. Strength training is essential to maintain bone mass and muscle as we lose it due to age. Midlife is the time to prevent frailty and ill health in older age. Exercise is vital. It doesn't need to be knee destroying running, it can be yoga, pilates, tail chi, training using bodyweight or actual weights, swimming, aquafit. Sarcopenia, osteoporosis, falls and poor mobility are definitely reasons to exercise, backed by research.

While I'm here pouring cold water over everyone's sense of self-determination: when old ladies fall & break their hips, it's not the fall that breaks the hip. It's the hip breaking that causes the fall. You won't be able to get up from that, no matter how yogic you are 😥 Also, the resistance training cited above did NOT improve hip bone density.

Re running: lots of PP conflating arthritis with injury. Runners don't get more hip & knee arthritis than non-runners, but they do get more joint injuries. Knee and hip replacements are usually for injured joints, not arthritis. Women get far more knee injuries than men, thanks to femoral placement, and we suffer far more hip injuries in old age because of osteoporosis.

Strength training has changed my life, not joking. Its improved my PCOS symptoms, my posture, my balance, my back pain, my skin, PMT issues, core strength, my insulin resistance and I also think my immune system has benefitted. Gone from 31% body fat percentage to 26% in 8 months. Lost a dress size. Feel amazing.

I'm mid 30s and want to be in the best shape I can to cope with perimemopause / menopause in next few years. I'm very glad I started when I did.

I went to the gym 4 or 5 times a week for 15 years, doing a mix of classes including lifting weights, Pilates, Cardio etc. I was fit as fuck.

When menopause came along I put on 4 stone whilst still following this regime. I was eating exactly the same too. I also lost all my motivation to exercise. I literally can't be bothered to go to the gym, can't force myself to do an hours walk. I do Zumba once a week, that's it. It has been a couple of years now. I'm now so unfit. I've spent a fortune signing up to apps I don't use, the gym I didn't use, wetsuits for sea swimming. I can't push myself any more. I feel all those hours I spent in the gym were wasted.

I'm not saying don't exercise, obviously! I'm asking people to modulate their expectations.

I can't push myself any more. I feel all those hours I spent in the gym were wasted.

Ha, me too, @Movinghouseatlast! Especially since I now realise I was trying to exercise my way out of ME-CFS and made it ten times worse. Exercise can do great things; it can't do miracles.

I really wonder about cause and effect here. Are the older women who exercise healthier because they exercise, or is it that women who exercise do so because they’re healthier to begin with and have more energy to
do so?

I ask because I was very fit, slim and healthy and a real gym bunny - until my early to mid 40s. At that point over a few months my levels of fatigue rose until I really, really can’t exercise. I so wish I could, for the mental as well as physical health benefits. On a bad day even a gentle Hatha yoga class is too much; on a good day I can just about manage that. If I try and push through and do anything I used to love (body pump, cardio) I can do it - but then 24 hours or so
later the fatigue hits so badly that I’ve literally been unable to work for days. It’s not just DOMS or unfitness - I used to be fit and I know what normal tiredness after exercise feels like. It’s being so tired and sore I literally can’t do anything. For up to a week.

I’ve had every medical test imaginable and there’s nothing much wrong. I am definitely perimenopausal and HRT has helped a
little bit but not enough to allow me to do vigorous exercise or strength train. I do walk
every day but wonder with bewilderment how I ever used to manage the 100
miles plus trails I used to enjoy walking on holiday.

I recall my mother becoming quite sedentary and no longer coming for long walks etc in her 40s, and I know both statistically and anecdotally women often reduce their activity around this age, and I do wonder how much is hormonal/medical. Perhaps lots of us simply can’t do vigorous exercise from our 40s onwards, or perhaps it’s just during the menopause transition, I don’t know. All I know is that I get all the messages about the importance of exercise, I feel
constantly guilty that I’m so sedentary, and I remember how much i used to love it and truly wish I could do it now, but I really, really can’t because of fatigue.

@margotrose, your grandma did nothing in terms of exercise? Did she have a house full of staff or a crippling disability? Nearly every woman over 60 has lived a physically demanding life.

If we're doing anecdotes, my mum ran herself ragged with a large family and an unhelpful husband, cycled everywhere, gardened extensively and hiked up mountains every weekend. She carried on gardening into her 80s but became increasingly frail and can now barely walk. She's lost a good 30cm in height. She's well past 90, she ain't doing badly, but it's crazy to assume being fit & healthy will guarantee a bouncy old age.

Same. I was diagnosed with M.E and graded exercise under nhs guided... put me in bed for 6 month. I do what i can now...after years if doing heavy duty work(i was very fit) ..i fractured ankle, frozen sholulder, knee issues, hip bursitis ..all from doing too much..theres a fine line isn't there?. Genetic arthritis has also not helped.
However, i always walk...i dont drive...i carry bags to from home supermarket etc. i can do 10.000 steps and more walking round town.
I do need to do resistance training but my frozen shoulder, shattered knee cap, hip bursitis, limits me..but i dont just sit, i move. I am limited with m.e and i struggle. Just do what you can.

Also, apparently when asked, the symptom of menopause most often cited as troublesome by women going through it is fatigue. However, it’s often barely listed as a symptom and doctors don’t ask about it - perhaps because it’s so non specific and other things like hot flushes and night sweats are both more diagnostic and respond better to HRT. But I think there’s a massive burden of fatigue experienced by women in middle age that deserves more attention. Like women’s pain being taken less seriously, I think our fatigue and general debilitation is also often missed or dismissed.