50+ AND FABULOUS: HEALTHY EATING AND WEIGHT MANAGEMENT ( Part 3 )

BY JOANNA ROBINSON

GETTING REGULAR EXERCISE

Two and a half hours of moderate exercise a week is the recommended to get your heart pumping, and that’s easier to achieve than you might think. Because your body goes through some fairly dramatic changes at 50+, the types of exercise you can do will change. That doesn’t mean you can’t still be sporty though.

Your joints will become less flexible meaning sports like running – which put a lot of pressure on your knee joints particularly – are not such a good form of exercise for you. Whereas as something like swimming is an excellent all-round workout without putting any undue stress on your joints.

Swimming, walking, hiking, water aerobics, and tennis are all the sorts of sports you could do, while yoga and pilates are great for maintaining flexibilty and muscle strength.

If you’re worried about how you might meet the two and half hour target, havea look at Age UK’s fit as a fiddle campaign. They’re getting over 50s all over the UK toegther to socialise, exercise and generally enjoy a healthy lifestyle. So if you want to take up a new sport but you’re nervous about doing it on your own, this is the place to start. We’ve also got a great article about exercising for free here.

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