It makes my heart sing to hear that so many ladies 50+ and 60+ are now engaging in Weight Resistance Training (WRT).   WRT is a fantastic vehicle to increase bone density, as well as to increase our overall strength and realise a great body shape.  Engaging in regular WRT can give an incredible inner vibrancy.  It increases our energy level and makes us feel attractive, energetic, desirable and happy with ourselves.

Many older women in the past have suffered psychologically from put downs like, ‘Old Chook, Old Duck, Old Boiler’ and jokes about ‘The Old Girl.’  I remember a cartoon I saw in 1987 which made me very upset at the time.  In the cartoon in question, the setting was a swimming pool scene with young beautiful girls walking around the swimming pool in bikinis. There were also two men standing around the edge of the pool, each with a can of beer in their hands, and each with excessively large stomachs overlapping their swimmers.  These men looked comfortable and confident and were ogling at the young girls.  However what impacted on me was that in this cartoon there was also an older woman who was wearing a one-piece costume and standing in the swimming pool with water up to her neck, looking very uncomfortable with her arms folded around her as if she was trying to hide her body. At the time I thought, “How unfair it seemed that the older woman felt that she had to hide her body whereas, the grossly overweight older males felt comfortable to let their grossly out of shape bodies to be on show.

Now that we ladies are training and getting our bodies into great shape, even at 70+, those days of hiding our older female bodies are fading into the distant past.