Far 2 Fabulous

Crafting a Resilient Body and Mind for the Later Years

May 23, 2024 • Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 20

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Episode 20
Ever fantasized about performing backflips well into your senior years? This week on Far Too Fabulous, we’re dissecting the secrets to a life filled with vigor and vitality. Your hosts, Julie and Catherine, steer you through a lively discussion about flexing your body and mind to preserve those youthful springs in your step. Discover how to take control of your health, tackle injuries and conditions head-on, and stitch consistency into the fabric of your daily habits for long-term luster. By the end of our chat, you'll be brimming with strategies to keep your independence polished and ready for the years ahead.

Loosen up those joints and get ready for a chuckle, because we're also putting the spotlight on the 'use it or lose it' philosophy, sprinkled with personal tales and a dash of humor. We're not just talking about keeping on the move; we're talking about embracing the "four legs of the chair" of wellbeing: sleep, nutrition, hydration, and movement. And yes, we'll show you how to dodge the ageism trap with a positive mindset and a thirst for learning new skills to keep that brain sharp. Join us, share your triumphs on our Facebook page, and let's commit to a future where our health is as fabulous as our laughter.

Got a question or comment? Send us a text message here!

Thank you for listening.

You can continue the conversation with us in the Far 2 Fabulous Facebook group. Come and connect with other women on a journey to empowered health.


For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous, hosted by Julie and Catherine. Join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candy chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered well-being. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to this week's episode.

Speaker 1:

I've got a question for you what do you want to be able to still do when you're 60, 70, 80, 90 years old? A question to ponder, good question what do I don't? What do? What do you want to do? I'd like to. I'd like to still do everything that I'm doing now. Actually, yeah, until until I die. An old lady warm in my bed, exactly that is something that is worth aiming for, I think.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, I wonder if I'll still be able to do a backflip. I mean, I can still do a backflip. I still do backflips every week. So why wouldn't I be able to do it in 10 years time if I just carry on doing what I'm doing? Yeah, yeah, there's no, there's actually no reason. There's no reason why you wouldn't be able to do it. I hope not, but that, I mean, that is a bit extreme. But the reason why I was asking this question is because we take for granted what we can do now. We don't think about the future, do we? No, absolutely, and so our big thing today that we want to talk about is future proofing. What are you doing today that will mean that you can still backflip when you're 65? Yeah, exactly, just yeah, for an example.

Speaker 1:

For an example and that is a bit extreme, but I was talking to Catherine about just being able to do basic things when, when I am older like, if I've fallen over, get up off the floor or being able to open a jar or lift my suitcase into the you know, the overhead compartment in the airport, because I'm determined to still be traveling and stuff. Oh, absolutely, yes, be able to, like, carry your luggage, to be able to bring your shopping in from the car, yeah, or even get out and in and out of the car, because I was saying that I saw a lady really struggling yesterday when I was out in town, just getting out of her car because she was of a certain age and I don't know if she was injured or whatever, but it was. I just felt really sorry for her and then thought to myself am I doing the things now to prevent me from having that experience when I'm older? Yeah, absolutely. And just to say, obviously we are talking in general here.

Speaker 1:

If there are, if there are specific things that prevent you from doing stuff, we're not talking about those. Although if there is something that is specifically preventing you from doing things, are you doing everything that you can around that? Whether it's an injury, whether it's health condition, do you know enough about it? Are you doing as much as you can around it and are you taking ownership of it? Because a lot of the time, with the way that our medical system is set up, we go to them with our quote unquote problem and it's like we hand that over to them for them to fix and we don't take any ownership, we don't do any work in the background. It's great to have that input, but we don't do any work in the background. It's great to have that input, but we don't do anything around that for ourselves.

Speaker 1:

And again, I think that's part of future-proofing. It doesn't matter where your baseline is. It's you making sure that you are your very, very best version of yourself in the future. Yeah, exactly, and I think a lot of the times because we just take it for granted right now that we can just do these things and we don't necessarily think about the future and we might not even consider any, any changes that might come. But as soon as we get ill or we get injured, then suddenly we start to kind of almost go through that regret. I wish I'd done that. I wish I'd done that. You know, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

A lot of the people that I help that are in later life. The big thing for them is their flexibility, how flexible you are. There's a huge correlation between that and and your longevity. We were just talking um about. If you've seen any of the things about the blue regions, they they go to japan quite frequently and they're the way that they live. Everything is very low level and they have to do lots and lots of squatting basically to get onto either onto the floor or onto lower chairs really helps their longevity and and they all have to do that they don't suddenly get higher chairs because they've turned 80. That doesn't happen. Or the mechanical ones, that that you know, that lift up and help you out of the chair, push you out of the chair. I mean, obviously there are people that need them, yeah, but I don't want to be one of those people. I want to be able to get up off my chair or off the floor or put my shoes on. Yes, you know, because you've got to bend down to put your shoes on Right.

Speaker 1:

So all these little things that you think about, that you just again, like I said, take for granted. There's things that you need to be doing now to be to guarantee that you can do those when you're when you are that age. Yeah, absolutely, and it's about consistency. It's about turning, putting these things into your lifestyle and then doing them all the time. Yeah, exactly, I mean balance. I mean some of the things that I do, the crazy things into your lifestyle and then doing them all the time. Yeah, exactly, I mean balance. I mean some of the things that I do, the crazy things that I do and I know you do crazy things too. I fully appreciate that.

Speaker 1:

When I talk about doing back flips, that that is, there's a very small number of people my age that will be doing that on a regular basis. But the things that I'm doing with regards to balance and coordination I've mentioned about um, taking up karate that is that is being incredible for my brain as well, and my coordination and my core strength and my balance, and last night, we were doing a lot of kicks and turns, and so If I'm able to do that now and I keep doing it, then my balance and my coordination are going to still be there, aren't they when I'm older. Why would they suddenly disappear? They only suddenly disappear when we stop using them. Yeah, yes, absolutely, and what? I know that you're saying that you know we do crazy things and they don't have. People don't have to be as extreme. Why are there not more people of 50 plus doing backflips?

Speaker 1:

What have we bought into that, once we turn 50, 60, 70, 80, that we don't do these things? In actual fact, as we're getting older, we actually need to move, stretch, strengthen and look after ourselves more. Yeah, exactly, we do. I mean, we can't. Aging is inevitable. We can't stop aging, but we can certainly make it easier on ourself, can't we? By doing certain things, like I said, like I'm doing coordination stuff and balance stuff and I know that you do weights and things because we lose muscle mass.

Speaker 1:

We've spoken about that before. Yeah, yeah, there are certain things that are happening in our bodies, but if we do look after ourselves, especially going back to things like diet and movement, that's gonna be a massive help. Yeah, you talk about falling over If you have not used weights. Pilates is an incredible form of exercise for strength, for strengthening your, your muscles and your bones, so that combat against osteoporosis. You know we are getting older and staying alive a lot longer, so these things are are are an increased risk as we get older.

Speaker 1:

But, yeah, making sure that you're doing stuff to future proof yourself. Yeah, exactly that falling over thing is very significant because there's a lot of studies and research around the impact and the repercussions of a fall when you're 60, when you're 70 and the older you are, if you fall, the chances of you recovering get less and less and less. And we hear that a lot, don't we? You know people said, oh, um, she had a fall, yeah, and she never recovered. She wasn't the same. This happened, that happened. It opens up a can of worms, mean, not just like being afraid of falling over again, and then the whole fear, yeah, and then you do less and less and less. I mean, yeah, the NHS has put a lot of money into falls because it costs them a great deal of money.

Speaker 1:

So, yes, I think, think, yeah, like working on your, on your balance is a huge thing to be able to do to future proof yourself? Yeah, exactly, and you know at the moment we could and and you'll. You'll be the same, katherine. If we were to fall over now. We would be. We probably think what an idiot. Yeah, start, we probably have that little conversation with ourselves. Yeah, we might. We might hurt ourself, we might get a bit bruised, or we might have done it in front of some people, that might have been embarrassing or whatever. Or we just thought what an idiot, but the chances are that we will get up and then just get on with our life. But if we have a fall as we get older, the chances of us breaking something or it being a long-term issue is there. So, in order to help prevent that repercussion for us, if we are working on our physical health so that we can fall and get back up, yeah, then that that makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, strengthening your bones with weights, with pilates, with nutrition, is a is a great way to do it, keeping yourself flexible and and if you do hurt yourself because you have looked after your body, you're able to heal quicker. Yeah, and and again, be proactive about it. If you've, if you've hurt yourself, go, go and find somebody that's going to help you get better. If you've injured yourself, go and find someone that's going to help you get better. Don't just settle and go. Oh, you know, that's one of those things that happens to me as I get older. That infuriates me more than anything. Yeah, the mindset thing. We just refuse to grow up me and you don't. We Absolutely yeah, adulting's for losers, yeah, adulting, don't want to do that right? So I think one of the things that you can do and I and I have been aware of this myself recently I don't know why, but I just have I think, when you go through your day and you just note some of the things that you do and then just think of yourself being 20, 30 years older and then think I still want to be able to, to do these, these things, like open a jar, it sounds really silly, but you know we do, um, we do have the potential to lose that strength as we get older. So we got to work on it now and then think, right, am I actually helping myself?

Speaker 1:

We were talking about posture, um, not on on the recording. We were talking about it beforehand and the importance of of posture, and you brought that up slightly when you talked about the japanese and that squatting position. Um, again, as we get, as we get older, a lot of people not us, because we're, we're not, we're going to keep active but a lot of people end up sitting more, don't they? Yeah, and they're sitting in a position that's not good for them, yeah, and maybe they're looking at devices and things, and then that change in posture can have an impact on joints, your ankles and your knees, and then suddenly you find that I used to be able to walk to town and now I can't. Yeah, I would be devastated if I couldn't walk down the street. Yeah, and it's that. It's that awareness. Um, I've one of my older clients that I train was talking about.

Speaker 1:

Suddenly you've got a lot more time on your hands as you get older and so the potential for sitting longer is more. So, being aware of that, even like setting an alarm, like I don't know about, about you, but my watch, every now and again, just prompts me to move. And, hilariously, uh, my sister's watch did that after the marathon when, really, yeah, we sat down for dinner and after we've been sat down for an hour or something, it prompted her to move. I don't know how she didn't throw it across the room. However, if you haven't just done a marathon, having something like that to remind you to move might be a really a really simple thing to do, because the danger is that you just sit. I mean, especially if you are tired more frequently then then it is really tempting to sit there. That said, if you are not moving around, you are going to feel more tired.

Speaker 1:

It's that that vicious cycle, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely, and that you know, use it or lose. It is such a big thing. It's yeah, if, if we don't, if we don't keep doing things, then you know, if I stop doing a backflip now, yeah, and I didn't do it for a few years well, I might be able to get it back, but it's gonna be, it's gonna be hard, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and all the mindset stuff like you'd be buying into that you're a little bit older and you might injure yourself and I can't do this, and maybe, ladies of a certain to, not to, yeah, yeah, that it does come up sometimes, especially when I am doing gymnastics, because it is a little bit out there. I suppose to be doing some of this stuff. Sometimes I do think should I be doing this, but then I have so much fun it doesn't matter, and then that thought goes away anyway. But yeah, when I'm normally, when I'm standing at the end of the vault you know, I've had conversations about that before because it's very scary, yeah. But again, doing things that scare you, yeah, is actually a good thing, absolutely, yeah, every day, just pushing that comfort zone just a little bit more and we're talking about this from a from a like a fair and able-bodied perspective absolutely. However, if that is not your situation, I I don't even think it's that. I think it's the attitude. So, if you are coming from a disability or an illness or something like that, I think it's the attitude behind it that we're talking about more than anything else the fact that it's not going to define you and that still, in 20, 30 years, you are going to be doing the very, very most that you possibly can out of your physical and mental body.

Speaker 1:

Tagged as a longevity exercise. But it is a good one, because it does give you an indication of where you are and you can compare yourself to younger people, even kids, and how they do this exercise. But you basically have to get up off the floor without using hands, or using one hand, or using two hands, or not being able to get up off the floor without using a piece of furniture next to you, or that is a strong indication of where you're at with your health. Yeah, absolutely, I didn't realize before I started teaching Pilates. I didn't realize that me being able to crouch down with both feet firmly on the floor and not fall backwards was a skill, was a skill, yeah, was something that actually not a lot of people can do. And again, that is that's a real sign of that flexibility, is real sign of longevity. Yes, so if you can do that test and then come over onto our far too fabulous facebook page and let us know whether you could get up without any hands, with one hand, with two hands, or if you're still on the floor, um, send us a message and we'll come and send someone to come and get you off the floor again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then, how much uh sound effects you have to make, oh, to do that as well. No, mummy noises, no, no, mummy noises are totally allowed. Yeah, that, that, oh that, those noises as you get out of bed, that's, that's one thing now, since I've not been doing as much, um, training, because I've done the marathon. Now it's uh, it's a little bit easier to get out of bed, unless it's been a puloxen or a hit day before. Yeah, yeah, I bet. Yeah, just getting out of bed and things like that.

Speaker 1:

Getting in and out of the bath, yeah, you know, when you start, I find it incredible that, because I'm over 50, that I get these brochures that come through that will show you these these things. Like I need one of those you-in. You've not got bars on your bath. Now I need the walk-in thing. Now it's yeah, all these things that you get.

Speaker 1:

But again now, we've done an episode on this before when we talked about living in a society where we make things easy for ourselves. Yes, that is not helping future-proof ourselves at all, because if the chap is bringing, as lovely as it is for the chap to bring your shopping into the kitchen, that's like a little mini wait session. Yes, exactly, if you're taking your bath away and you've got a lovely walking shower, I have a lovely walking shower. I do have a bath as well, if you. But if you're doing that to make things easy for yourself when you don't need them, I mean if, if, uh, you've got problems with your mobility and you need a walk-in shower, then absolutely. But if you don't need that and you're just making things easy for yourself actually you might be making things easy now, but in the long term that won't be any good for you. No, no, exactly.

Speaker 1:

So, looking at things that you want to do, that you're doing on a regular basis, that you think I still want to be able to do that, like get in and out of the bath, get up off the toilet, whatever it is, put your shoes on yeah, no, you're talking about getting out of bed. That's a huge thing to be able to do. Uh, what, essentially, is a pilates roll up as you sit up out of bed? That's a huge thing to be able to do. Uh, what, essentially, is a pilates roll up as you sit up out of bed? There are plenty of people that can't do that, that need to roll onto their side and push themselves up, and if, again, if you have got problems with your physical body that stop you from doing that, that's absolutely fine.

Speaker 1:

I'm talking about the people that don't have but can't roll up and sit out of bed. Have a look at what you can and you can't do because, and empower yourself to be able to do it. Yeah, I think, look where you're at now. Yeah, because there'll be people of all sorts of ages that are that will be listening. I know we have people listening who are in their 70s and maybe they are struggling a bit. Yeah, but there's still things that they can do. You know, exercises, for sure, they can be doing on a daily basis, looking at how often they are sitting in the chair, looking at the position of that chair, because our yeah, like I said, the positioning of our chairs aren't great these days, are they all of those kind of things and then, yeah, look at where you're at now. And then, even to maintain where you're at now, what do you need to be doing now to maintain? Yeah, because I don't think we think about it. Actually, it's like you said we take it for granted what we can do now, when we think that we're going to be able to do this forever until suddenly we can't, and and then yeah, and then we panic, and then there's there's guilt and all sorts of stuff involved. So let's, let's not go through that at all and do as much as we possibly possibly can.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, to future proof our I can't. Why can't I say that word. What future? Proofing? Somebody stick my teeth in future, there we go. Future proofing, yeah, future proofing. What do you? What would you say that your key things are that you do now to future proof your health?

Speaker 1:

So, obviously, I do a lot of exercise. I, I really enjoy it. I I don't know if that is lucky I, I don't know what it is, I don't know why it's. It's part of my identity, yeah, that I exercise. I want to be strong. Um, I think there's certainly, there's certainly a story or a weakness in me that I don't want to be weak, I want to be, yeah, I want to be strong. I just I love that, that feeling.

Speaker 1:

I will take people back to that episode where we talked about the four legs of the chair. Yeah, those are part of my identity. I'm still a bit rubbish at sleep, but you're sleeping. Your nutrition, your hydration and your movement, those things every single day, and my mindset. So the meditation, not buying into any of this ageist bs really put the brakes on my swear words. Not buying into any of that. I appreciate that. That things I mean. As I'm getting older, I appreciate that things are getting harder to do. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing them. No, exactly. So exercise is a big one for you, like you said, the four legs of the chair, yeah, absolutely, I think for me I'm. I make I make sure that I'm doing things that are improving my balance and my coordination, because I do think that's important.

Speaker 1:

When you get older, muscle strength is definitely a key one. So I want to be able to lift my own body weight, because if I can lift my own body weight now in my 50s, then the chances of me being able to lift my suitcase up how heavy is your suitcase? I don't care. I just I just want to be able to do these things. But you know what I mean. Yeah, you know. So, yeah, if I can lift my, my body, my whole body weight, not meant, not many people can lift their whole body weight, can they? No, if there's nothing there, because we don't really use our arms fully, I don't think so. I think working on those things and then the mental challenges I think are important. So learning new skills, keeping up with reading and things like that, I think your mental capacity is very, very important and then fueling that through what you eat and your sleep and everything else, I think is key, but I think movement is a massive one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for this I am quite fueled also, um, by disproving the whole ageism yeah, me too thing, yeah, and being a shining light for what people can continue to do, and just not buying into any of that societal bs that we have to slow down or, yeah, any of that stuff actually. And and talking about things about age I was we talked earlier about, um, the menopause and future-proofing yourself that word, why can't I say it? Future-proofing yourself. It sounds like you're saying it fine to me, but I do feel, I just feel like I'm tripping over it. Don't wait for any of these signs and symptoms to start coming upon you. Make sure that you are doing all the things that you know how to do anyway before you get these signs and symptoms, and then, chances are, you won't have as many. And if you really don't know how to do these things or you're really stuck, then you've got people like myself and Catherineatherine who can help you with these things. Yes, happily, happily, help you, okay.

Speaker 1:

So here's to staying young as long as possible, even when we're old. Staying young even when we're old goodness, yeah, full moon parties, dancing, we like dancing, dancing in the moonlight, lots, lots of dancing. I think actually, that needs to be one of the top things. Dancing, laughing, yeah, community, that's another thing. That's definitely we're. We're disappearing down longevity now, aren't we? Yes, but all of these, all of these things are absolutely massive.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so find some Looney Tunes, people that are willing to keep their bodies and their minds going for as long as we possibly can and do it all together. Absolutely Love that Nice message, yeah, so do come and talk to us on our Facebook page. Do come and talk to us on our Facebook page, and if you've got any questions or you don't know how to do some things, then we are so up for helping you. Absolutely, take it easy Bye. Thank you for keeping us company today. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps us on our mission to reach a thousand women in our first year. So share with your friends and family. You might just change a life. Connect with us on social media and make your life easier by joining our podcast mailing list. You'll find the links in the show notes. Your weekly episode will be delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday morning. Make it a fabulous week and we'll catch you in the next episode.