In the last week or so, there was a health/fitness highlight piece on MSN that "just one running workout a week" improves overall health.

As an academic psychologist and community running coach (now retired from both, but I coached one of the largest community adult running clubs in the whole country for over 28 years), I was not surprised to see that article.

Everything we now know about healthy aging indicates that for both mental and physical benefit as we age....Fitness is THE major positive we can (almost) all make a core part of our daily rituals. Walking is open to almost everyone as an "increase your heartrate activity," and running is something that many can make a part of their fitness routine. Swimming is good too, but it has less impact on losing and holding lower body weight.

I regularly ran 90-130 miles a week from age 33 to around 55 years of age, and held my body fat levels to around 8%, but accumulated wear and tear (injuries) caught up with me and chronic knee pain gradually reduced my "running and racing" down to virtually ZERO for about 12 years. In that period, sadly I gained about 40 pounds. YIKES!

Now 5 years ago, looking at photos of my fitness days vs. my then current photos, I decided to ...lose as much of that extra weight as possible by more careful eating. Reducing portion sizes and not snacking on really rich foods allowed my to drop about 25 pounds with minimal sacrifices, but I was hitting a barrier to getting that last 15 pounds off.

Fortunately at about 4 years ago, I was able to get BOTH of my chronically painful knees REPLACED.  The recovery had me up and taking a step or two the very night of my surgery, and within 3 months after total knee replacement in both knees I was jogging again.  There have been a couple of setbacks during this last 3 years, including getting HIT BY A CARELESS MOTORIST while on a beautiful Sunday morning walk near my house....and ending up with a fractured pelvis that took further surgery for repair!

But it is now about 2 years since that pelvic surgical repair, and I am consistenly getting in 6-10 miles a day, mostly jogging, and I use that term to recognize that it is SO SLOW that it would be a crime to call it running (I have run 2 hours and 41 minutes for the official marathon and was in the top 10 fastest men in the whole countryi at 50 miles, years ago; I actually wrote the chapter on "training for ultra-marathons" for a Runner's World "how to train" book).  But even though these days I am "slugslow" I am out there working my tail off and seeing some pretty high heartrate numbers (for my age anyway).  At least twice a week I do a jogging workout where I am totally redlining my effort level, and between those sessions and my other more controlled efforts, my resting heartrate is down to about 42 beats per minute, my blood pressure is back within the normal ranges, and I have lost that last 15 pounds I was having such trouble getting rid of.

Bottom line, staying sharp and feeling good to face every day's challenges depends importantly on staying as fit as possible all through life.  I am back to wearing, size wise pretty much the same numbers as when I WAS doing 100+ mile weeks in my 30's.  We don't have to do the workouts of our youth, but we do need to set age-appropriate workout goals and use our physical bodies as actively as possible to live the richest both physically AND mentally. Start with just walking around the block; step away from the TV and get outside as much as possible; take a yoga or Tai Chi class, find a neighbor to walk with, play golf even.  But DO SOMETHING ACTIVE.

Note:  I turn 76 next month. Youth might be "wasted on the young," but staying as fit as possible means WE can even more enjoy all the days here we have.