Proven Tips on Staying Fit Post Retirement
When age catches up, immunity recedes. Your body’s in-built defense mechanism might loose the ability to fight infections and diseases once you reach the retirement age. That means you get sick more often and take longer to recover fully as compared to your younger days.
As an elderly, you need to take extra care of yourself to keep your immune system alive and well. Here’s your checklist of a few immunity management strategies that work.
- Eat right:
Nutritional requirements change with age, and so should the diet. A balanced diet will ensure enough calories for your body to function and produce immune cells in desired numbers.
- What to eat: Your diet should have a fair share of whole grains, millets, ghee, vegetable oils, and other energy foods for adequate supply of calories. Preventive foods, such as vegetables, fruits, milk and milk derivatives, fish, and poultry are required to maintain overall health and immunity. Certain green leafy vegetables and citrus fruits supply your body with vitamins C and vitamin E and minerals that are proven foods for immunity.
- What to avoid: Good health and immunity is not all about what you eat. What you avoid is equally important. Ageing may leave the body unable to synthesize insulin, exposing you to diabetes. To avoid this, cut down your sugar intake. Avoid smoking, as it impacts your immune system. Take alcohol in moderation, if at all. Don’t give up saturated and trans fats, as the body needs fat reserves for lean phases. Instead, limit their intake.
- Work out:
In younger days, tight schedules might have prevented you from regular workouts. But not any more, as retirement affords you the luxury of time. Its time to active to boost your immune function, sleep quality and ward off cancers, cardiac issues and other serious conditions.
However, avoid strenuous exercises and heavy weights that can backfire. Rather, indulge in lighter routines like jogging, cycling, aerobics, and swimming that can rev up your immunity. Certain yogic practices, notably Pranayama, Surya Namaskar and cleansing techniques also strengthen your defense mechanism and promote overall health and longevity.
- Stay hydrated:
Aging also brings down your thirst considerably. Studies suggest that with age, the body is rendered incapable of generating strong thirst signals for the brain to act upon. Irrespective of your age, your body loses a significant amount of water when you breathe, perspire or urinate.
Males need at least 3.5 liters of water intake daily to replenish the water loss and keep the mucus membrane hydrated. A moist mucus membrane means better protection against cold and flu. For females, the minimum requirement is 2.8 liters, however. Drink a lot of water and incorporate water-rich foods in your diet. Beverages like tea, coffee and soups all count.
- Probiotics are the way to go:
A healthy gut means strong immunity. About 80 percent of your immune cells are found here. The gut needs friendly bacteria to stay healthy and function well. But with age, the bad bacteria might outpace the growth of friendly bacteria, exposing you to various conditions and issues.
It makes sense to maintain the balance of good and bad bacteria in your gut. Probiotics are an ideal way to achieve it. These are immunity booster foods with live strains of friendly bacteria. Some researches even link Probiotics to immunity development and enrichment.
