{"id":14244,"date":"2009-11-23T01:00:14","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T06:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=14244"},"modified":"2009-11-18T17:13:39","modified_gmt":"2009-11-18T22:13:39","slug":"turning-40-and-what-it-means-for-fitness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/11\/turning-40-and-what-it-means-for-fitness\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning 40 and What it Means for Fitness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"40<\/a>Recently, I turned 40. It was a monumental event, heralded with much fanfare and celebration. (I may or may not have had a severe headache the next day. Ahem.) In talking with many of my friends about the big 4-0, all of them said the same thing. “Your body will never be the same,” one muttered darkly. When I asked why, she just sighed. “Remember how your body changed after you had a baby or two? It’s just like that, only worse, when you turn 40<\/a>. It’s all downhill from here.”<\/p>\n

I laughed it off, but wondered if there was any truth to the matter.<\/p>\n

I may not be OLD yet, but I do know one truth – the older I get, the more work it takes to maintain where I am right now. In my 20s, and partly into my 30s, I could skip an exercise session (or two, or three) and have very little change to my body. I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted (hello, chocolate cake for breakfast, anyone?) and my jeans still fit. Well, starting in my mid-30s, I had to be more vigilant, and I think that this trend is just going to intensify as I get older. What do I plan to do to keep myself in shape and age gracefully?<\/p>\n

I find that I am easily bored, but I know that exercise is vital, so I try to keep myself entertained with different forms of exercise. I don’t just walk around the block, I run intervals, changing up the location and the scenery. I might go to the beach and run<\/a> in the sand, digging with my hands after to build arm muscles. I take boxing class<\/a>, but add extra bag rounds at the end with my friends. I no longer obsess if I can’t get a full hour of work in, but break it up into multiple ten-minute segments several times a day. I mix it up so that I never get bored and I always have fun.<\/p>\n

Food is the other key to this equation, and it too requires more vigilance as I get older. Gone are the days of skipping meals and eating whatever, whenever, now I find that I need to take the time to plan what I’m going to eat and when I’m going to eat it. That said, I try to avoid saying “no.” I don’t say that I’ll never have cupcakes, my own personal arch nemesis, but I know that they need to be a special occasion food<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Taking care of my body means balance, both with regards to good and exercise. The benefits are tangible and long lasting – and will help me to be long lasting as well!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, I turned 40. It was a monumental event, heralded with much fanfare and celebration. (I may or may not have had a severe headache the next day. Ahem.) In talking with many of my friends about the big 4-0, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3695,18,4333,58],"tags":[767,67,22,29],"class_list":["post-14244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diet-and-nutrition","category-fitness","category-senior-health","category-womens-health","tag-aging","tag-diet","tag-healthy-lifestyle","tag-nutrition"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14244"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14247,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14244\/revisions\/14247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}