What about your eating habits?

Plenty of seniors hitting the gym, including my 74-year-old mom. In fact, weight-lifting is highly recommended for people over 40, who naturally begin to lose muscle mass.

 

God bless your mom. I still think she's in a pretty small minority, but maybe I'm not hanging out in the right places.

 

It's a "growing" trend. The idea is to retain some of the muscle mass that you would be losing naturally.

 

Wicked: I think the SportsJournalists.com world can live without pictures of me sweating at the gym! LOL. And if you seen one nice calf muscles, you've seen them all.

I'll give a shout out to my buddy Passy, btw. He has great calves!

Oh, and I'll weigh in on the "strenuous weight lifting." At my gym, there are so many seniors working out -- weights and cardio -- that it's amazing. I'm amazed by this one Korean woman who is 65 years old, yet looks 45. She's in amazing shape.

 

I eat whatever I want -- fried chicken, catfish, big ribeyes, pasta, chicken wings, whatever -- and drink lots of beer. No cokes (sodas, pop, whatever you call it), though.

I'm about 10 pounds heavier than the Army wants me to be -- 5-7, 184 -- but not fat. I consider myself pretty healthy; I get about 5 hours of exercise each week, and today scored 90 percent on the Army's physical fitness test.

I guess it's not as bad as it seems, really. We don't eat fried foods often (won't have any this week) and get a healthy dose of veggies.

 

I'm a legs guy, ya know ... anyway, I've never heard anyone say they love legs day. I certainly don't mind it, but damn, legs day always hurts, especially when you do lunges.

Anyhoo ... on the carb debate; make the switch from white to wheat in everything -- pasta, rice, etc. It makes a huge difference. You still get the carbs, but it's fiber, not pure sugar.

I've started to take a major liking to couscous. Very filling and tasty and incredibly easy to make.

 

i eat babies. good nutrition, like veal

 

Yeah, I usually eat a carb-heavy lunch when I'm on my way to work. For an eight-hour shift of lifting boxes and putting out giftware, I need the extra energy.

I eat Special K in the morning before I do pilates. Small bowl, just enough to take the edge off of morning hunger. I'll eat a bowl before I go running too on my off days.

I cringe whenever Dr. J makes pasta (spinach not white) or rice for dinner. I don't need anything that heavy before I go to bed.

 

I agree with Junkie. Taking the pounds off slow is a good way to make sure they don't come back fast.

BTW, I thought I'd share my favorite fitness website:

http://sparkpeople.com/resource/fitness.asp

It's got a ton of good exercises and great recipes.

 

Cosmo: I don't know why I like legs days. I agree with you, most days I leave barely able to walk, but I like the burn, I guess! Probably because I can see the results there better. (well, except for the biceps, those are easy)

 

Not true, Jack. If you go during the work day, you can see a lot of seniors on the treadmill and that sort of stuff. The seniors just don't want to be bothered with pests like you...

just kidding about the pests remark. But I have seen a lot of older people at the Y where I work out.

 

I find that shooting smack keeps my weight down. But I suffer in the hygiene department.