the word optimistic on crumpled paper Aging. Aging? (Guest post)
aging · cycling

Aging. Aging? (Guest post)

Sam B1 Comment

by Winnie

I find all the talk about aging fascinating. We seem to worry about the aging process almost as much as we worry about climate change. And yet, as a very old man always said when I asked him how he was, “It beats the alternative!” I discovered this blog when I was already well past 50; it began after I was fifty, with Sam’s & Tracy’s stated goal of achieving great fitness by the time they reached that landmark age. I have been reading it steadily ever since, and realize I am quite a bit farther on the aging path than the other contributors. So, I thought I’d share a few of the things I have experienced and observed.

In my first post, The Origins of My Surprising Fitness Journey, I described my brain cancer experience:  I was told at age 46 that I was lucky; I could reasonably expect to live 10 to 15 years, but that didn’t feel very lucky to me. So I made ever-increasing forays into fitness. I’m 74, and honestly, I feel stronger and better than I did at 35. Yes, there are a few changes I don’t love: one knee, which was diagnosed with bone-on-bone arthritis about 15 years ago, has very recently made it clear that running is not a reasonable choice anymore. OK, I never really liked running much. I just used it as cross-training for a day or two most weeks, never went farther than the 7 miles (12k) of San Francisco’s (in)famous Bay to Breakers run.

And I wasn’t doing so many push-ups. Hmm. I got back to work on those and am back up to about 10 & still increasing, so no aging problem there. Balance? Nope, with all the dance classes I take, I can claim to have better balance than all the silly tests we keep seeing think a 30-year-old should have. Endurance? My bike rides right now are maxing out at about 30 miles, but I fully expect to work back up to 50 over the next month or two.

We moved four years ago to a Lifetime Care Community, a place that offers independent living, where you pretty much get on with whatever you were doing before you got there, assisted living if/when the need arises, skilled nursing (primarily for recovery periods when you’ve been released from the hospital but can’t quite be on your own yet), and memory care. Sounds sort of, well, weird, to want to live at such a place when we are still so healthy and active, right?

This community has taught me more about aging than I ever thought to learn, and I have never regretted our move. That is only a tiny bit due to one silly little thing: I never expected to go around saying, well, I’m only 70! I have met dozens of people here who are in their 90s and still taking brisk, hilly walks pretty much every day. I have learned about technology, history, sustainability… the list is long. People here are vigorous, intellectually challenging and fun to be around.  And this is a feminist blog, so I can happily add that women are, on average, holding things together longer than men. Which brings me to a concept I read about before I moved here.

Squaring the Aging Curve.

I get a weekly bicycle newsletter in which one of the writers pushed the concept. He had believed that we can keep right on doing a lot of the active things we enjoy. We just might have to slow down a bit. Or maybe not. He didn’t think it would extend our years, but rather than it would keep us feeling better longer, with perhaps a steep drop off at the end. In fact, that is exactly what happened to him. He was still riding his bike in mountainous terrain when he died suddenly. I admit I don’t know much about the science behind this. I don’t even know if it has been tested in any way. We do know that people who exercise more tend to be quite a bit healthier than people who don’t move much.  I do see that people who contribute to my community intellectually, musically, artistically, and who are often to be seen at the gym or out walking, seem to be a lot better off than I ever dreamed I’d be if I reach their ages. I plan to follow that thought for as long as I can!

I admit to being a chronic optimist. To prove that I don’t go too far in that direction, I will comment on a few elements of aging I could do without: getting up to visit the bathroom most nights; sagging, sensitive skin (I don’t burn at all easily & have had a hard time accepting sunscreen – but have grudgingly done it), plus there are more saddle sores; fussier vision, including reading glasses & cataract surgery; dreaded colonoscopy, but lots of years between them. 

Sure, it’s not all easy. With a little luck, though, I think we can breeze through it longer than I expected. I see the fitness everyone here aspires to as an amazing head start to a great old age. 

Bio

I am a lifelong Californian. My mother and father were not born here but moved to the state as small children. I have two grown daughters and five wonderful grandchildren. I spent my working life working at, and eventually running, the family insurance business. My father had introduced many employee benefits – sabbatical starting in 1970, optional four-day work week in 1972, elimination of all official work time rules in 1974. Adults like to be treated as adults, and people tended to stay a long time, so it was a very pleasant working environment with key elements of trust and respect. I also served on a couple of independent school boards, one a strong academic school serving grades 6-12, one a school designed to start helping city kids who had suffered the ongoing effects of racism & poverty to find opportunities they might not as easily discover without support. I live at a Lifetime Care Community where I serve on the finance committee and chair the sustainability committee. I also plan to join the newly formed fitness committee. And for fun, I have ridden my bicycle across North America. Twice.

fitness

Walking Walking Walking

Diane Harper1 Comment

Cardio rehab involves a lot of walking. It started with two six-minute walks on the first day I was released from hospital, and now I’m up to nearly an hour a day.

It’s necessary, but oh so boring for someone who loves to do other activities that aren’t yet permitted. Especially with the cold, damp spring we have been having. I’m getting flashbacks to the COVID lockdown days when we all walked because that was what was available.

Image: a grumpy looking bald eagle stomps through the water for its stupid physical and mental health

I have mapped out various routes around the neighborhood and am slowly checking them off as my distances get longer: grocery store, pharmacy, church, community garden, the Pond, the cemetery (it’s huge and full of trilliums this time of year). Tonight I am seriously considering walking downtown to see a ballet, if it isn’t too rainy.

The best was going to the tulip festival with my friend Florence. It was delightful to get out of my immediate neighborhood and see something new.

Left: Florence and I get our picture taken through one of the scenic frames set up to show off the tulip beds. Right: a particularly colourful bed of red, yellow, purple and white tulips with trees and a brilliant blue sky in the background.

Thanks Florence!

A dunning kruger curve Some beginner minds are less in tune with reality, some maybe more so…
fitness · research

Some beginner minds are less in tune with reality, some maybe more so…

catherine w1 Comment

Finally, finals are over, and I’m doing a bushel of grading. The bulk of it is logic exams, which we now give on paper because otherwise, students would cheat using GenAI tools.

Argh. Sigh.

Speaking of logic, though, I’m reminded of one of my favorite cognitive biases: the Dunning-Kruger effect. This cognitive bias happens when we wildly overestimate our own knowledge or competence when we ourselves have very limited knowledge or abilities in some area.

I’ve used this graph when I teach this bias in class. What it lacks in technical jargon it makes up for in humor and clarity.

Graph whimsically showing beginner confidence as climbing the peak of Mount Stupid.
This graph whimsically shows beginners climbing the peak of Mount Stupid.

My favorite example of this is a result from 2019, where a poll showed that 1 in 8 British men (12%) believed that they could take a point off Serena Williams in play. By contrast, only 3% of British women polled held this belief. What explains the difference?

This article from 2025 on overconfidence in beginner sports players offers a few insights. The bad combo of overconfidence and low self-awareness alongside low competence that some beginners have results in low performance (and sometimes injuries or accidents).

But what about so-called “beginner’s mind”? Isn’t being a beginner supposed to free us from expectations and limitations? This article explains:

It’s dropping our expectations and preconceived ideas about something, and seeing things with an open mind, fresh eyes, just like a beginner. If you’ve ever learned something new, you can remember what that’s like: you’re probably confused, because you don’t know how to do whatever you’re learning, but you’re also looking at everything as if it’s brand new, perhaps with curiosity and wonder. That’s beginner’s mind.

In yoga classes, I try to maintain beginner’s mind (to go along with my beginner’s ability), even though I’ve been practicing for years. It’s just more fun for me, taking it one pose at a time, exploring what it’s like (including the difficulties and physical limitations of my own musculature and range of flexibility) to do some pose or other.

Except for hero pose. I cannot now, nor have I ever been able to do that one. Go ahead, judge me.

This post came about not just because I’m trying to distract myself from grading, by the way. I saw this YouGov poll in which Americans were asked if they thought they could beat Donald Trump in a fistfight. Turns out that more Democratic women respondents believe they could beat Trump in a fight than Republican men respondents. Here’s the data:

71% of Democrat women think they could beat Trump in a fight, compared to 46% of Republican men and 19% of Republican women.
71% of Democrat women think they could beat Trump in a fight, compared to 46% of Republican men and 19% of Republican women.

So my question I leave you with, dear readers is: Is this Dunning-Kruger effect, some form of beginner’s mindset, or are lots of women fed up with Trump and locked and loaded for a one-on-one showdown? You make the call…

Happy Wednesday!

Moving more makes Christine want to move more – go figure!
challenge · dogs · fitness · walking

Moving more makes Christine want to move more – go figure!

Christine Hennebury1 Comment

Khalee and I have been working on a walking challenge – The Great Sniffari 2026 – and I chose for us to walk 21km over the first 10 days of May.

Often when I try to take photo of Khalee, she steps out of the way. This time she kind of photobombed my photo of this fallen tree with the roots exposed and a ‘witch broom’ tangle of branches on it. Image description: a photo of Khalee, my medium-sized dog with short, light-brown hair on most of her body and white paws, tail, and face, wearing a jaunty green bandana with cartoon bugs on it. She is looking to the right in the photo and her neck is foreshortened because of the angle so she looks a little squished. Behind her is a fallen tree with the roots exposed.

The challenge seemed like it would be fairly easy at the outset – a small extra effort on top of our usual walks – but things went a bit awry and I realized last Thursday that I was going to have to do a bit of a push to finish on time.

So on Thursday we walked 2.78km, on Friday we did 2.81, Saturday was 3km which technically brought us to the end of our challenge.* (In fact, we only needed .29km on Saturday to finish.)

I say technically because I didn’t realize the settings in the app wouldn’t carry over from my other, year-long, challenge and the Sniffari was pulling Apple Health step data.

I didn’t actually want to include steps from things like walking around the house or the grocery store but because they automatically uploaded at the end of each day, I didn’t realize they were being rolled into my total and I was surprised to find out that I was finished.

Once I figured out why I had finished a day early, I calculated my actual distances and then added extra amounts to my daily walks for the next few days to match the way I wanted things to play out.

No matter the details of the challenge, on Saturday I realized something important.

These longer walks were making me feel great.

I mean, I generally enjoy going for a walk – even when I have to drag myself out for them – but this was a different kind of enjoyment.

I was starting to feel those kind of intangible benefits I get when I exercise regularly – a looser feeling in my hips, a certain ease of movement, an overall feeling of wellbeing – after only 3 days of extra effort.

That seemed kind of quick but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in its proverbial mouth here. Instead, I decided to keep building momentum.

So, on Sunday, we walked 4.42km and, on Monday, we walked 4.08km, and it felt purposeful, straightforward, and kind of tiring – but in a good way.

And, on top of that, all of this extra movement seems to have flipped a mental switch for me and I have found myself doing a bit more yoga, a few more strength training exercises, taking a few extra trips up the stairs, and adding mobility exercises while I am doing things around the house.

So, it seems that, like the title says, moving more makes me want to move more.

And I like it!

Of course, I know that this has happened to me before – I’ve gotten into an exercise routine, started to feel the effects, been enjoying myself, and then something has gone sideways and I lost momentum or had to change gears.

So, I have told myself to keep an eye out for when that happens and in the meantime I am developing some backup plans.

I’ll let you know how it all goes, obviously. 🙂

a photo of a dog next to a small river
a photo of Khalee, my medium-sized dog with short, light-brown hair on most of her body and white paws, tail, and face, standing next to a river on a bright, sunny day. She is sort of side on and she’s facing the left side of the photo. She has a harness and leash on. She’s standing on dried grass and mud, the river next to her is filled with brownish red rocks and there are trees and more dried grass and mud on the other side of the river.
equipment · fitness

Two things that made me go grrr at the gym this morning

Sam B1 Comment

I know that the blog used to be an angrier place. These days, we’re mostly pretty chill. We’ve been there and done that for most fitnessy things and trends. We’re still very much a feminist fitness blog, but I’ve noted there’s less feminist outrage around the place these days.

And yet, sometimes, some days I encounter things in the fitness world that make me go grrr.

Both of these examples come from my fancy gym, which is really quite a lovely, inclusive place. I don’t have very many feminist complaints.

But this, my friends, bugs me. It’s the lighter, smaller bar at the gym. It’s 35 lbs, rather than the usual 45 lbs, and it’s a little narrower for smaller hands.

And it’s PINK! Because of course it is. Some people, though not our personal trainer, call it the women’s bar. I’ve written before about why gender specific anything is likely a bad idea. See Why “women’s specific” anything is likely a bad idea.

It’s great that there’s a smaller bar, but there is zero reason to call it the women’s bar or paint it pink. Lots of men might prefer a 35 lb bar.

Exhibit A

Close-up view of a weightlifting barbell on a squat rack, featuring a pink pad, with various colored weight plates visible in the background.

The second thing is a motivational saying stenciled on a weighted bag that you carry when doing weighted lunges. I think it’s a slogan meant to push you through the hard reps.

“Don’t quit. Ever.”

Oh, gym. We need to talk.

Because here at Fit Is a Feminist Issue, we have a whole different relationship with quitting. We’ve celebrated Quitting Day with an entire series of posts. Several of us are on the record as proudly, thoughtfully pro-quitting.

Christine H quit early and she’s completely at peace with that. Tracy quit the bike and triathlon after years of dedicated effort — and it was the right call. We’ve even turned to Kenny Rogers and Aristotle for wisdom on knowing when to fold.

Quitting isn’t failure dressed up in cowardly clothes. Sometimes quitting is the clear-eyed, courageous, correct choice. When something no longer serves you — your body, your joy, your actual life — walking away isn’t weakness. It’s judgment.

“Don’t quit. Ever.” is the kind of advice that sounds tough but is really just oversimplification. It flattens a genuinely complex decision into a bumper sticker. Not every pursuit deserves your forever. Some things deserve a graceful exit. It’s sometimes okay to quit.

But still — I love my gym

And yet, here I am, back tomorrow for personal training and maybe aquafit later in the day. Despite the pink bar and the over-the-top motivational sayings, it really is a good gym.

Exhibit B

Close-up of a black gym bag with the text 'DON'T QUIT. EVER.' printed on it, positioned above a person's feet wearing white athletic shoes.
Don’t quit. Ever. (And Sam’s feet.)
camping · dogs · fitness

Sam and Cheddar’s Big day at the beach

Sam B1 Comment

Our last weekend camping trip, in April, was all about the bikes: Exploring Pelee Island: A Cyclist’s Weekend Adventure.

This month’s camping trip, at the Pinery, would normally also be about bikes, but instead we brought Cheddar along. Cheddar loves the beach. Who was on the trip?: Sarah and me, my eldest adult child Mallory and her friend Sarah, and Cheddar the beach dog!

Mallory and friend Sarah went for a swim (brrr!) but Sarah and I mostly walked along the beach, admired the sunset and the waves. It still sometimes amazes me that Lake Huron is a lake and not an ocean.

Since I’m pretty committed to not driving around the park–and it’s a very large park–that meant a lot of walking. More than 16k steps of walking. My feet are sore, but my knees are fine. This sore feet thing is new. For years, it’s been my knees that limit how far I can walk.

What else to tell you about our weekend away camping trip? We borrowed the middle kid’s luxury tent. Thanks, Gwen, Cheddar loves having room for his own bed. I love the Pinery at this time of year when it’s only partly open. So quiet. So beautiful. (Okay, also cold. It went down to 3 C at night.) We played CrossCrib, and Wizard, and Mallory’s new Library game.

10/10 recommend. Will definitely go again. We stayed in Dunes Area 1, site 79, right next to the path to the beach.

A raku ceramic vase of frilly pink and magenta tulips, all open. Remembrances for Mother’s Day: moving with my mother
family · fitness

Remembrances for Mother’s Day: moving with my mother

catherine wLeave a comment

Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day) are multilayered holidays. We celebrate, remember, mourn, avoid, look forward to, revel in, ignore– our reactions run the gamut of emotions.

My own mother is almost 83 years old. Our relationship has certainly run the gamut of emotions. She has had life-long mental illness, with all the strife that brings. That is not all she has brought to our relationship, though. My memories of fun with my mom include:

  • learning to play tennis at age 7 with her
  • riding bikes out to my aunt and uncle’s house in the country
  • going to the beach for the day, swimming in the ocean, heading home salty and satisfied
  • hearing about her adventures at the new gym in town, looking forward to being old enough to go with her
  • swimming at the local pool in summers, her looking up from her magazine, checking on me
  • tent camping and cooking on a camp stove, both of which yielded mixed results

I don’t have a lot of physical activity memories of my mom from my adulthood. She became less interested in swimming, tennis, outdoor walks, and instead we would drive to local parks and gardens and walk to see what was in bloom. We still do this, and it’s a nice experience for both of us.

My adulthood looks completely different from my mother’s on multiple fronts. I’ve been more physically active, more professionally active and more socially active. I plan to continue in the same fashion, and will adjust as needed. This is something I have also learned from my mother– when circumstances change abruptly, make adjustments, course corrections. She is still navigating life with a sense of openness to change, and I want that for myself, too.

I wish us all agility and nimbleness in our course corrections, today and moving forward.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Nat’s new motto “little and often.”
fitness · habits · Sat with Nat

Nat’s new motto “little and often.”

natalieh (she/her)2 Comments

As word of my retirement got out, I started receiving invitations to do cool things on weekdays.

One of those invitations was from my friend Heather to hang out in her garden. Oh. Maybe that was “work” but I just love her vibe and I’m happy to help anyone in the garden.

I tried to remember how we met. It was probably Food Not Lawns or The Carolinian Food Forest. It was definitely around growing plants!

In addition to gardening, we share a love of crafting, especially sewing.

I was so glad I got to see Heather this week. She procured scones and we enjoyed tea as we shared our hopes for our gardens.

Heather has beautiful gardens on all sides of her house. Some plants are for pollinators, some are for eating and still others are for pure joy.

Heather shared her motto for her garden this year: little and often. I love it and have decided I too will do a little amount of things often.

On Tuesday I was getting more work done on my tattoo. Kaley shared she had been doing some chopping of roots with her wife.

“I don’t know why gardening is framed as a gentle activity. I’m always moving wheelbarrows of stuff, lifting, digging, it’s hard work!”

Kayley is very wise. I often get caught up in puttering in the garden and forget how hard I’m working. A bit of weeding and light pruning can drift to chopping down a tree and hacking away at roots. Two days later wondering why my hamstrings are sore.

“Little and often” works not only my gardening efforts but also my crafting and writing. My goal is sustainable efforts that avoid burnout or injury.

Two hours in the garden caused me some lower back pain and some tender muscles. It’s humbling that what used to be a reasonable effort is now a bit too much, at least early in the season.

So I’m changing my expectations. I’m going for 30 minutes at a time for gardening, an hour at writing, crafting and housekeeping. Small, continuous progress always yields satisfying results.

I am so glad Heather shared her motto with me.

A pretty garden with a bicycle decoration. The best things in life!
white push pin on orange calendar paper Time management in a post menopausal world
fitness

Time management in a post menopausal world

marthafitat551 Comment

By MarthaFitat55

I love planners of all sorts. I have a handy purse-sized diary used for tracking work milestones, business appointments, work and family deadlines etc. I have my own online calendar and a shared one with my partner. I use monthly planning sheets to map projects. I also have a whiteboard where I map out my day. Oh, and I used to have a wall calendar where we tracked everyone’s primary activities before we moved into the online calendar. 

Several years ago, after I went through menopause, I realized I had also relied on an internal calendar. I had always tracked periods but I didn’t appreciate how it helped me manage time until they finally ended. 

The first change was that I had to start scheduling breast self-exams for the first of the month since I no longer had a period to remind me to check in between. 

The second was the way the absence of periods restructured my whole approach to time management. While periods never stopped me from doing things, period cramps often had other plans for me. Thus I was used to planning around their possible manifestation vs. an actual period’s appearance. 

The third thing was what my planning around a period meant in reality. It meant I rested; I took it easy; I treated my body with tenderness and kindness. I still got a lot done but I have given myself a lot of grace. 

The internal clock meant I was multi tasking by shifting the emphasis I placed on things from one month to the next. 

These days I find my electronic calendar takes on that burden. I get a reminder for my HST and tax returns, so I decided why not schedule reminders for other things too? So now my calendar has notes to remind me to make appointments for things I need to get done. 

The challenge is tracking the followup. In the days before menopause, I was aware if I missed a month in terms of scheduling but the arrival of a period would signal that time had passed. 

These days the signal I get is when I have had the forethought to schedule something. It’s not because my internal clock was tracking the passage of time. 

So how is this connected to fitness? My calendar notes two training sessions a week. The training intervals give me a structure I can use to track my often over-scheduled life. As I look forward to retirement in the fall, I wonder what new ways I will use to track time? 

Martha Fitat 55 lives and works (for now) in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

small houses spread around rocky coast
Photo by Erik Mclean on Pexels.com
aging · habits

Nonnamaxxing

Diane HarperLeave a comment

I’m not big on following trends, especially those using terms like “maxxing” but this one made me laugh because I may be a trendsetter.

What is nonnamaxxing? Apparently, it’s a viral TikTok thing that encourages people to adopt the habits of an Italian grandmother, or “nonna.” Things like cooking from scratch, daily walking, gardening, long family meals, real-world social interaction and reduced screen time.

I don’t do all of these things (especially screen time), but I do love to cook from scratch, garden, go for walks or bike rides, and chat with friends.

As the Miami Herald says, movement, real food, social connection and mindset are the pillars of a nonna lifestyle.

An older woman in white shirt and pants enjoys a walk along the beach