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How do we know how well we're aging?
Aging Well | Last Active: May 18 3:59pm | Replies (16)Comment receiving replies
That's a really interesting question, and pretty much everything I'm running into when I try to poke at it requires extrapolation for your situation (for example: https://www.rush.edu/news/are-you-overexercising). It does seem to boil down to that hoary cliche of listening to your body -- if you get sick more often, injured more frequently, fatigued more easily, experience new patterns of insomnia, see a pattern of worsening routine blood tests, etc. As I understand it, our need for protein also increases as we age -- the level of protein we are used to consuming may not be enough to build or maintain muscle mass. And finally, if you've never had a dexa scan to determine the state of your bones, you might want to at this point.
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Fortunately, my annual physical along with my twice a year diabetes follow up have all been good and getting better. All my numbers are in line and my diabetes is very well controlled. As I write this (knock on wood) things are pretty much where they need to be. But to your point, you are correct it is situational and hard to compare how well one person fares compared to the next.
One guideline I have seen is based on exercise tolerance. If you can spend 9 - 12 mins at your target heart rate (220-your age x .85) it's a good indication that your system is performing. That's an interesting guideline but is subject to how well my old knee and its new counterpart on the other side are doing at the time.