Staying Active and Healthy at Sixty

It’s time for my annual cardiologist appointment, and thoughts of how well I’ve taken care of myself have been traveling thru my mind.  I’ve been pretty consistent with nutrition and exercise this year, but the third ingredient of quality sleep has often eluded me.  My mind wanders when I lie down for the evening and thoughts keep me conscious and restless.

My intimate friends know that I like a beer or two on the weekends, often followed by a slice of pizza.  Gina knows my darkest secrets of over-snacking and evening binges for ice cream.  It’s a struggle for real, but I’m hoping that the consistent habits will overcome the occasional unhealthy events.

Daily Nutrition

Each day I try to consume a net calorie intake of around 2,500 calories or less to maintain my 165 pound frame.  It’s really not difficult if you stay with Whole Foods (not the grocery store).  Meats, Veggies and Fruits are a great way to stay on track.

Evenly divided meals portioned by proteins, carbohydrates and fats are the key to staying lean, keeping muscle and having energy.  I eat four meals per day with the following proportions: 40 grams of protein,  160± grams of carbs and approximately 20 grams of fat per meal.

My friend Lori is a nutritionalist and came up with a visual formula that often helps when I have no food scale around.  Portion your food out around your hand: Meats about the size of your palm, Carbs approximately the size of your fist and fats about the size of your thumb.  It’s not extremely accurate, but it’s a good rule of thumb (pun intended).

 My go to meal is a salad built around a meat, usually chicken.  Just watch out for salad dressings because they blow the whole meal out of kilter.  Keep it simple with Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar. 

Exercise Often

My “Go To” exercise is CrossFit, which I do 3-4 times per week leaving days for recovery and rest.  At sixty I find that HIIT can mess with my body and mind if I go over four days per week regularly.  Gina says I get grumpy and I can feel miserable and unfocused with too much CrossFit.

The rest of the time, I work Charter Fishing, go surfing or simply do work on my rental properties which keeps me active in movement.  Owning an iWatch allows me to track my activities, but I rarely watch what I’m doing and simply keep track of my nutritional intake and let the weekly activities take care of themselves.  

Sleep

I have to admit that the sleep part of health has eluded me as I’ve grown older.  I believe I spend too much time on screens and need to put them down well before bedtime.  Gina says I worry too much about things I can’t do anything about, but what does she know?