If you take good care of your body, you will stay fit and vital into old age.
You can still stay fit and vital at the age of 50, but you now have to be particularly careful with your body. Wear and tear can pile up, you should watch carefully and take countermeasures in good time.
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Tip number 1: Proper Nutrition
You now need significantly less food; your metabolism has completely switched to burning slower. This process begins after the age of 30, now it is very noticeable. Practically every year you will find that you eat significantly less if you follow your real need and hunger for food. If not, you will get very fat super-fast and experience massive physical problems as a result of this fat-gain. Fat sausages and a lot of sugary carbohydrates are actually no longer good for you and should only be eaten occasionally.
Enjoyment is the magic word if you want to continue eating happily: cook yourself very healthy and delicious meals, make salads and be sure to try other, low-calorie meals from exotic regions.
A huge problem at our age over 50 is stress eating: we often ‘pig-out’ on unhealthy chips, chocolate and snack foods. I recommend you compensate for stress in a different way, preferably with moderate exercise that you can do daily.
Tip number 2: Reduce Lifestyle Drugs Like Alcohol and Cigarettes
If you haven’t done it yet, now is the time to avoid cigarettes and alcohol. You may be able to enjoy the latter to a very small extent. Red wine is acceptable; the very good varieties strengthen heart health. What you should avoid are too many sweets and other extremely unhealthy foods like potato-chips, crisps, pretzels and other salty snacks. Better crack some nuts to snack on.
The only luxury when it comes to nutrition that practically does no harm is coffee. For a long time coffee was frowned upon, but it has been vilified recently in various studies that coffee is very good for your heart and blood pressure – so these concerns have long since been resolved: coffee is healthy, even ten cups a day won’t hurt if you can still sleep afterwards. A major challenge from the age of 50 is to switch physical enjoyment to other pleasures in life.
Tip number 3: Engage in Physical Activity – Do More Sports
Under no circumstances should you become comfortable now, however excessive exercise is not good for you anymore. You might get muscle cramps at night after doing some weight training. This could be a new, annoying experience for you. You can of course counteract this with magnesium and potassium tablets. Sport for men over 50 is a complex topic. You need it more than ever, but you have to be as gentle and careful as possible on your muscles and joints.
Maybe learn something new like standard dances that are great fun and require the kind of movement your body needs now. Cycling is always possible, swimming too, jogging in moderation, strength training which means working out with weights if you REALLY know what you’re doing, otherwise hire a Personal Trainer or follow a good program you can get online designed for men over 50 so you ensure not to injure yourself.
In fact I believe working out with weights is the most important physical exercise you can do, because from age 25 we start losing muscle if we don’t push back. Imagine how bad it is from age 50 onward. Muscle atrophy is a huge problem in older men, and if you don’t keep working out with resistance training you will keep losing muscle mass at 3% each year.
Sport is very important even in old age and keeps you healthy. Working out with weights is the best way to keep strong, full of vitality and be independent in your mature years.
Tip number 4: Recognize and Avoid Depression
At 50, you are probably close to the zenith of your career. It’s time to take stock. This can plunge you into a crisis of the purpose and meaning of your life, because you know that you have very little time for any big goals that may have not been reached. Paradoxically, you are at the same time mentally at a high point: You have gained extensive professional and personal experience, your networks are well developed, you are needed everywhere (including in the family), your tasks and projects are more diverse than ever before.
You have the feeling that time is speeding up. Sometimes that overwhelms you. Physically, this is aggravated because your testosterone level drops, which is why you could suffer from depression, sleep disorders and problems with your libido as well. None of this may hit you all at once, but each is a potential danger, a threat to your physical and mental health. You have to pay attention to them, get professional help with possible depression and otherwise sort out your life so that you can cope with it positively in the next 30 years.
Tip number 5: Colorectal Cancer: Take Early Detection and Preventive Examinations
The risk of colon cancer increases significantly from the age of 50 in males. But it is treatable and curable if it is recognized in time. Early detection is very possible with this cancer variant. Therefore, you should take the free early diagnosis examinations that the statutory health insurers or state –run health providers offer to you. They include a survey, a chair test and the tactile examination. Many tumors are located near the intestinal exit. The doctor can already feel around 30% of all colorectal carcinomas with the finger. If there are other risk factors (certain previous illnesses, cancer cases in the family), an additional colonoscopy is possible.
Between the ages of 50 and 55, you should have the rapid test for blood in the stool carried out annually; from the age of 56, you should consider choosing a colonoscopy. Use possible preventive examinations offered by your health insurance or state health provider.
Don’t be precious about this. It may be uncomfortable and a little bit awkward, but that is a small price to pay for peace of mind!
Tip number 6: Have Regular Prostate Examinations
Diseases of the prostate are a further danger from 50, it concerns the male prostate gland. It can be felt from the rectum. A typical clinical picture is prostatitis, which is an inflammation of the prostate. It can be treated relatively easily and effectively. Benign prostatic hyperplasia, a benign enlargement that leads to urinary drainage disorders, howevere it can also trigger life-threatening bladder obstruction, and of course malignant prostate cancer is more dangerous. This causes the most common premature deaths in men after lung and colon cancer. There are very good prostate exam options that you should be aware of. In addition to scanning, other methods include ultrasound examination and computer tomography as well as elastography. This new imaging method clearly shows tumor areas. The ultrasound-assisted HistoScanning also helps very well in early cancer detection. Ask your doctor about the examination options.
As mentioned previously in Tip number 5 – don’t be squeamish, precious or up-tight (pun-intended!) about having your prostate examined, early detection of any problems can help you avoid serious problems further down the track. Get it done!
Tip number 7: Monitor Your Cholesterol
The word cholesterol has gone undifferentiated into the general vocabulary, which leads to some confusion. The natural product, which is found in all human and animal cells, is not harmful in itself, but is necessary because it stabilizes the cell membranes, helps with the function of the nerve cells and has various other tasks up to the production of sexual hormones. Basically, the “good” HDL and the “bad” LDL cholesterol can be distinguished, although this distinction is too striking. We need both types, but too high an LDL and too low an HDL level can be dangerous. The latter happens rather rarely, but the LDL cholesterol level is often far too high due to our preferred diet. The total cholesterol level increases in higher years of life, so you have to watch out for the LDL level. If it increases too much, the risk of atherosclerosis and its complications increases significantly. An exact, optimal LDL value for all people cannot be named. The optimum changes with age, and it also depends on the risk of CV (total cardiovascular risk).
The following applies: The higher your overall risk of developing cardiovascular system due to other clinical pictures, the lower your LDL level should be. You can lower it by eating a healthy, low-sugar diet that is geared towards, for example, the Mediterranean diet with lots of unsaturated fatty acids.
Tip number 8: Kidney Stones and Kidney Functions
Kidney stones can be a problem at any age, but unfortunately the risk of developing them increases with age if you are a man over 50. If you are affected, they could permanently damage your kidney functions. A recent Canadian study suggests that a single kidney stone problem associated with a stone significantly increases the risk of subsequent chronic renal failure. This could follow years later. The Canadian cohort study was published in 2012 in the BM (“British Medical Gazette”, 345: e5287). In addition, kidney stones cause violent and extremely painful colic pains, which often forces invasive treatment. The stone needs to be removed, so that direct organ damage does not occur. However, kidney stones are often only a symptom of other disorders outside the kidney that favor the formation of concretions, so you should have this checked out and properly analyzed.
Tip number 9: Dental Care For Men Over 50
A lot of men have lost one or two teeth at the age of 50. Our dentures are originally designed for an age of around 50 years, our ancestors rarely got much older. Now we are much healthier and at 50 we have to remember that we will probably need our teeth for another 30 to 40 years if we are lucky to live until age 90! Tooth loss is almost inevitable, so hopefully you have the right insurance to cover the dentures. But you can delay it significantly with the right dental care. Your most important tool for this is an electric toothbrush, the bristles of which are set in motion with sound vibrations (not rotating ones). The rotating bristles are suitable for younger people; from the age of 50, only the method with sound vibrations should be used. You can choose an inexpensive model, you do not need special functions such as different speeds.
So you brush your teeth thoroughly after every meal – even after every piece of chocolate or nut, after every plate of salad. Always brush after 30 minutes after you had something in your mouth, be it 20 times a day. The teeth have to stay clean. In addition, after every tooth brushing, you use an inexpensive mouth gargle that is highly rated by your dentist. If there are still problems, you have to go to the dentist. For good dental care I recommend an electric sonic toothbrush.
Tip number 10: Look After Your Joints
Another problem looms at age 50 for men – and that is your joints. They are gradually worn out and can start to hurt. Moderate exercise and proper nutrition are helpful. You shouldn’t get too heavy with your weight-training either, because joints that have to carry a lot wear out faster. You should avoid a lot of meat and fat sausage, salmon with its omega-3 fatty acids is helpful because it repels arachidonic acid, which is harmful to the joints. Also eat nuts, use rapeseed and olive oil, include the good vitamin D and don’t forget the minerals calcium, magnesium and zinc.
So there you have it. My list of 10 Health Tips for you if you are a man of age 50 or over, to keep you fit, healthy and bursting with vitality. Sign up to my newsletter to get more tips and advice to make your mature years the most enjoyable time of your life. The sign up form is to your right.
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I see you on the inside!