50+
Can you look good after 50?
I'm not asking about women, they look great regardless of age.
I mean us men. Can us guys look good after 50?
Some received perfect genes from their parents, and girls swooned at the sight of them when they were twenty. Others were deprived of beauty and sentenced to hours of dedication in the gym in order to increase their chances of marriage.
After fifty, however, it doesn't matter at all. Time makes it clear to all of us, equally and clearly, that we were already beautiful. More and more leaden color on the head, more and more irritating swelling under the eyes, more and more rounded belly and more and more breathlessness when climbing even one flight of stairs.
In the fight against baldness, grey hair and puffiness under the eyes we are rather doomed to failure, although I know some who do not give up and try to stop their time with paint or a scalpel. It is surprising, however, how many of us completely forget about the issue of the belly and fitness, and yet a slim and athletic fifty-year-old can turn the heads of many a woman, and grey hair and wrinkles only add to his charm.
We eat too much meat. On average, almost one and a half kilograms are eaten per person in Poland per week – twice as much as the world average. Men eat even more of it, because women underestimate the male statistics. Meat, healthy and nutritious in small quantities, eaten by men in droves has a very negative impact on our health, our appearance and our fitness.
We drink too much alcohol. A Polish woman drinks 5.6 liters of alcohol per year, and a Polish man 18.4 liters, which is almost 4 bottles of wine per week - on average per man. 10% of men in Poland drink every day, and 21% several times a week. Alcohol in such quantities has a terrible effect on our health, appearance and condition.
Our physical activity is low. The World Health Organization recommends that adults (18-64) undertake physical activity whose weekly energy expenditure is equivalent to 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cycling or 75 minutes of brisk running. Only 39% of adult Poles reach this level of activity, and more than half of us do not undertake any physical activity in our free time.
We seek help from dietitians. We look at the graphs they present of our body composition, BMI, fat levels, we listen to their recommendations, which sound the same for every patient – eat less, move more, and then we go back to our habits anyway, having lost our scruples because we were seeing a dietitian.
We look for magic diets. We delude ourselves that for a few months a miracle diet will change our appearance, and then we will calmly return to our habits and continue to lie on the couch and gorge ourselves on our favorite ice cream. We do not accept that there is only one way to permanently reduce your weight and maintain good condition, which is to completely reverse your current lifestyle. A lifestyle that you will accept and maintain until the end of your days.
We fail to realize that our bodies work completely differently in our fifties than they did in our thirties. We used to drink and eat more, but our weight never budged. Today, our metabolism has slowed down, and losing each kilogram is a struggle.
So what can you do to take care of your appearance after 50?
My recipe is simple, although it requires consistency. 1. Eat meat no more than once a day and no more than three times a week. 2. Cut out cold cuts and sweet drinks. 3. Eat vegetables with every meal. 4. Don't drink alcohol from Monday to Thursday. 4. Do some kind of sport four times a week for 45 minutes. 5. From now until the end of your life.
Can you do it?
