How do we know how well we're aging?

Spend time doing activities with guys in your age cohort and you will observe
a wide variation in fitness and activity capabilities. Your weight loss is the best
priority. We have a golf group in our seventies weekly. Most of them ride carts.
When we talk among our foursome that walks we find we all work out as you do.
Exercise, even walking 30 minutes 5 days a week is key. Mediterranean diet and good sleep habits are very important for aging healthfully and avoiding
cognitive decline. Socializing is also beneficial. Knowledge about your medications and side effects is very important. Find an interested primary
doctor and maintain an interest in your care.

Tony, that's a great question!
Climb stairs, park on the far side of the parking lot, stay out of the kitchen and avoid fast food outlets. Consider getting a dog for walk coaching.
Listen to your body. Muscle strains take longer to heal and can become chronic, so learn when you've done enough.
Pause to enjoy what you've done and be satisfied.

Your body will tell you when it’s time to “scale back.” We are all experiencing what you are, Tony. I find that structure to my day is really helpful. I try to have these four things in every day: Purpose - Exercise - Socialization - Leisure. At the end of the day I do a check to make sure I can check each off the daily to do list. Remember Desiderata: “Take kindly the counsel of the years.”

@itstony
I am in my mid 50s and do not feel like I am physically aging well. My body feels like I’m in my mid 70s-80s. I focus on my mental health and what I can do vs. what I can’t do. This helps a lot.

If I could turn back time, I would ensure I took better care of my health in my 20s and 30s and build better health habits. I would work less and do a better job managing and reducing stress, exercising more, eating healthier/reducing portions, sleeping better, not smoking as a teen, no alcohol (not a drinker but would have chosen not to drink at all), spend more time with friends and my pets, take more vacations, get to know my neighbors more, volunteer more, get more involved in my hobbies and community, etc.

With my current health, my focus on aging well is listening to my body more and managing my energy levels. Doing what is most important first. Enjoying simple things like helping my teen son with studying for his chemistry test, petting my cats/dogs, going for walks with my dogs and enjoying the fresh air/sunshine, saying hi to my neighbors and their dogs, helping my neighbors, digging in the dirt to plant things, reading more books (especially the Bible), spending less time on my phone/online, watch more documentaries/learn more, donate more, purge clutter, going to church more, eating healthier/cooking more, sitting in my yard and enjoying watching the birds/squirrels/rabbits bounce around, praying/talking to God more, stretching more, taking baths with candles and music in the background, painting my nails, doing a facial mask, visiting nursing homes/veterans homes/hospice to hold patients’ hands and sharing a smile and helping hand, etc. It helps you value your life more when you help others in need. Not having regrets is important, too.

Aging well to me is just being in your body, loving yourself as you are, taking the best care of yourself as possible, not comparing yourself to others (fake social media pictures/AI and plastic surgery/injection obsessions), eat well, sleep well, get some exercise but don’t push to injury/pain, enjoy the small things and relationships more.

Happy aging! 😉

I am 90 years old. However I do not feel that old. In my mind I am still about 60. I contribute this to years of racewalking. The price I paid was wearing out a hip and had to have it replaced. Maybe no racewalking but walking is fine now that I am healed. I have had 3 major surgeries, but due to a condition, not a disease. Drugs do funny things to me so I resist taking them. I firmly believe they make you sicker. My mind is still good. I am a widow now and live alone and am able to take care of myself and drive. Getting to this great age has slowed me down somewhat, but that's it.

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.

Never is a good time to scale back on fitness activities.
I'm 78 and just returned from a 66-mile bike ride with my significant other. Being active keeps most health problems away. I went to my physician 20 years ago because my systolic blood pressure was up to 140. This morning it was 103/62 without any blood pressure medicine.

I biked 10 miles a day for 15 years until......... August 14th, 2023. On that day, even with all my experience, I hit a manhole under construction that was left exposed in a bike lane. I had LOC greater than 5 mins, loss of memory for almost 12 hours, broken ribs, wrist and elbow to go with a serious concussion. Ended up back in the hospital 4 weeks later with a bout of total short term memory loss. Still fighting double vision and light sensitivity today with a PCS diagnosis.

That's one of the things that makes it difficult for me, I knew exactly how my body should feel at each stage of my ride, so it was easy to tell when I was performing at my limits. Sadly, I was told I could not risk another concussion, so I had to hang the helmet up.

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.