Most of the usual advice on lowering visceral fat is the same as for lowering body fat in general (eating and exercise). However, one additional thing mentioned is to try to lower stress, since high stress → cortisol → more visceral fat.
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What kind of stress does one have when one is already retired?
Possible stressors (based on threads on these forums):
- Being a caregiver for spouse or relatives with disabilities or medical issues.
- Not having enough money.
- Seeing relatives you care about get into trouble and feeling that you have to solve the problems created (example).
- Being an executor for a messy estate with a disputed will.
Granted, some of these can be hard to get away from.
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Surgery? OMG, no. I eat less, changed my diet, work out in gym, run, bike and row.
Did they have zero prescriptions/medications? What was their life like at their advanced age. Could they run? Could they lift weight? We can all point to people who lived long lives, but I personally don’t want to be fat/chubby all through my life. I want to look and feel good about myself.
I also like compliments. 
People can have a long life and sit on their butts, but the question is do you want a better chance at living longer, increase the odds? Being able to jump out bed, couch or chair and also not need any sort of help reaching for a stacks of plates from the upper cabinets or squatting with no pain to get housewares out from the lower cabinets is important to me.
Especially in our garden considering we use pony/chicken crap and all sorts of decaying vegetation into our fertilizer. We don’t use any processed fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides.
I’m content. But I still don’t care for oysters, clams, mussels, etc.
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One was a tennis player, he did develop Parkinson’s disease, much much later, in his late 90s, and died at 99. The wife is slightly chubby, but liked to cook a lot, just like myself, but she’s much shorter. She did have to be on a wheelchair starting age 95, and she died at 96. Not too bad of a life. I believe the wife has high cholesterol problem, so not problem free. But I don’t think she ever been to a gym, eat real food, not a vegetarian.
But to answer your question, as long as I’m alive and kicking, not using prescription drugs, I think my health is decent. But I expect when I get to 70 or 80s, I will be on some sort of prescriptions, not serious one like my husband’s dad, he had to take something like an aspirin a day. He lived a decent healthy live until age 92. He did play a lot of crickets and they did a lot of ballroom dancing, but he was not on wheelchair or anything up until age 88.
I eat oysters, clams, mussels all my life. Recently I had 6 1lb lobsters all to myself, my husband did help on 3 tails, but these are all bottom feeders.
One key thing about my health is that I’m reasonably content with most things, I’m also easy going, like my grandfather, who died in his sleep at a really old age.
I can only speak for myself, but if I can help it, I don’t want any health concerns going forward, including, but not limiited to, falls (falling down), diabetes, heart disease, dementia, arthritis, respiratory issues, osteoporosis, obesity, depression, etc.
We all know and see seniors/elderly and, in all honesty, I don’t want to look or perform like them.
That’s a serious prescription?
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I have to see I agree with this ^^. I understand there is a certain inevitability re: aging and we cannot exercise our way out of death! Nor do I want to negatively judge the elderly in any way. But - still! Want to maximize an active stage of life as long as possible.
I’ve seen my muscle mass and flexibility decline during COVID (even though I walked 3 miles 5x a week with friends). Have noticed the very beginnings of some ‘balance awareness issues’ (holding on to handrail when I never thought about it before).
I know I need to get back to more vigorous running and weight lifting. I’ve also started walking on the curb for some of my walks (like a balance beam) LOL. Looks a little odd but does seem to help!
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Given that I have a parent with Alzheimer’s I am right there with you, doing all I can to not follow in her footsteps. And definitely, there’s a lot we can do. But let’s be clear: a lot is also out of our control. You can do everything right, and still develop cancer, or Alzheimer’s etc etc.
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I don’t believe I saw anyone mention the benefits of sleep. I’m mentioning sleep because we recently returned from a 3 week trip to Europe. Adjusting to the time zone on the way over was easy. However, it’s been 5 days and both my DH and I are having trouble getting back on CST. We’re being kind to ourselves and walking outdoors a lot trying to reset our respective body clocks.
However the point I’d like to make is that I believe a lot of people underestimate its importance. A bedtime routine that includes going to sleep and waking up around the same time each day can be beneficial to one’s health.
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Yes, it’s not only diet and exercise! Sleep, being engaged with your community/having connection to people, being cognitively engaged (learning new things), and having an optimistic, happy outlook all contribute to extended good health.
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“being engaged with your community/having connection to people” - as cinnamon1212 wrote, this is so incredibly important. I think for many older people, Covid really interfered with their personal connections and contributed to mental decline. I have started engaging with some activities at my Church and it has made a huge difference for me. Before I was all about work and exercise. I feel as if I have a more positive outlook and connection with both my faith community and the greater community I live in now. Building strong connections with other optimists and service oriented individuals has helped me to rephrase living in terms of what I CAN do instead of what I can’t.
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Agree on sleep - have seen a fair bit of research on how important sleep is to cognitive functioning (and possibly, a way to stave of Alzheimer’s - apparently during sleep the amyloid plaques are cleared) How Sleep Clears the Brain | National Institutes of Health (NIH)
I’ve since purchased a cool, bamboo blanket to enhance sleep, a sleep mask, started taking magnesium at night, gave up coffee, and added a weighted blanked (maybe the two blankets cancel each other out, who knows!).
Edit: I see I was citing from the same website as 88jm19 - a few more details in this article…
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I concur on the importance of a good night’s stressless sleep.
I even notice it short term when I am doing everything right with keto and exercise, if
I am too stressed from work and can’t sleep, I gain a little bit of weight. If I am destressed
the next night and sleep well, I lose that weight and more.
Some of my ex-coworkers had bag of pills when they travelled, 6-7 different types. I think taking an Aspirin a day is nothing.
It’s been almost a week and my husband and I are finally back to our normal routine here. I can’t believe when I was working that I had to recover quickly and go to work the day after.
But I know sleep is very important, my husband and I keep roughly the same time everyday.
I have a sister that she can stay up until 6am to watch something on TV, I can’t do that.
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I noticed you italicized “everything.” While true, we all have different definitions of everything, as mentioned above, it’s about increasing probabilities.
I’d replace “everything” with “doing what’s absolutely necessary.”
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For years my family made fun of me growing vegetables, they said why bother, just go to the shop and buy the vegetables. This farmer girl is actually the healthiest in my family. One of the benefits of growing vegetables is you end up eating a lot of them, plus you get unlimited exercises with fresh air and sunshine, a big stress reliever, and best yet, I’m always happy thinking about my garden flowers. A win win combination.
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