What's the key to better health?

By Susie Black - get free updates of new articles here

(No 1 in a series of 6)

We've just finished a series of articles on adapting exercise for common health conditions. In it we covered:

Osteoarthritis of the knee
Osteoporosis
Bursitis
Fibromyalgia/CFS/Long Covid
Perimenopause
Lower Back Pain

The analytics showed a mixed response. There have never been so many people unsubscribing on reading, yet the numbers for interaction (read, clicked, emailed me) were also much elevated.

Watching how that series was progressing, I thought it might be interesting to ask an AI bot what the top health and fitness-related questions 40 and 50 something women asked online. The results were DEPRESSING! The list that AI delivered looked identical to the advertorial feed on every social media outlet I view. You know these posts:

Oh no no no... I'm not going down that miserable guilt trip into the rabbit hole. So I picked apart the themes of the questions that were being asked, to look for any positive nexus points. Following the Pareto Principle I reckoned that one or two aspects of fitness/health could resolve 80% of the questions being asked and if I could draw out what these areas of need were I'd be able to address everything else from a positive standpoint. Here are some of the topics that are asked about:

How do I stay motivated to work out as life gets busier?
How can I maintain a healthy weight in my fifties?
What should I do about changes in skin, hair, and nails?
What’s the best way to boost metabolism in my 40s?
How can I exercise without hurting my knees or other joints?
What’s the best way to lose weight, especially belly fat?
How do I maintain muscle mass as I age?
How can I improve my sleep quality?

There are two main strands which impact all of these questions.

1. Good quality varied exercise

2. Good quality varied diet

You don't need me to spell this out though, do you?

How do I stay motivated to work out as life gets busier? Eat well and move appropriately
How can I maintain a healthy weight in my fifties? Eat well and move appropriately
What should I do about changes in skin, hair, and nails? Eat well
What’s the best way to boost metabolism in my 40s? Eat well and move appropriately
How can I exercise without hurting my knees or other joints? Move appropriately
What’s the best way to lose weight, especially belly fat? Eat well and move appropriately
How do I maintain muscle mass as I age? Eat well and move appropriately
How can I improve my sleep quality? Eat well and move appropriately

Eating well helps you stay active which helps you sleep which gives you energy which helps you stay active which stabilises your appetite which helps you eat well and on and on in an ouroboros of joy and energy.

Rather than focus on the 'move appropriately' subject which you hear very regularly from me, I thought it might be fun to focus on the 'eating well' aspect of this. For this reason the next few blog posts will concentrate on all things weight-management related. Use it to drop a few kgs, find a few new habits that are easy to install or start moving yourself into a mindset where you can make bigger, longer term changes to your health. Need a focal point for change? Expand the image below and look for the words that jump out at you. They'll tell you what your next big change is going to be.