I love your healthy life style routines and tips…I’m 53 and feeling great…I started strength training just before turning 50 and after a rough time due to sudden estrogen crash…I feel better than I did at 30. I practice most of your eating tips. My one struggle is my own mind as I am so afraid of looking too thin and dry up. Your article is refreshingly encouraging.

My chiropractor would “prescribe” walking for almost anything in my body that was hurting. Thanks for sharing how your gentle exercise and walking are helping! I will definitely have to check out the Classical Stretch workouts. P.S. I used to do the Firm workouts too!

I’ve been working out with home videos/DVDs since 1986. I started with the FIRM workouts. I had a bunch. I did them for about 25 years. By 2015, though, they became too tough on the knees and too exhausting and not much fun. I also hit the peri-menopause era and ballooned up. All the strategies I used in my 30s failed to produce results and I figured I’d be stuck at this uncomfortable size forever.

After too much computer time I started getting a chronic sore shoulder. I complained one day to my friend and she recommended Miranda Esmonde-White’s Classical Stretch/Essentrics videos. I tried them and totally revamped my fitness routine. Totally and utterly a 180 from my old workouts because it’s not jumping up and down and I use my own body weight instead of dumbbells. I officially retired and got rid of my old videos and invested in 2 DVDs of Classical Stretch. I alleviated my shoulder pain in about a week.

Meanwhile, Husband developed a pinched nerve that would not go away with chiropractor visits, massages, and Ibuprofen. One day he was seriously considering going to the doctor and I said do the Classica Stretch workouts 3 times a day (23 min workouts) and, oh, yeah, we’re going to go for a walk. I do not know why I said we were going for a walk. I think just to get his bum off the sofa.
So he followed my “prescription” and his shoulder pain disappeared after two weeks. And we kept up the walking.

We’ve been walking every evening for 3 months now. OMG, my tight pants are sliding off! Two people have noticed a body change, though I haven’t lost any weight. Husband and I have worked up to walking 2.5 miles, 4 x a week and one 3 mile-er on Sundays. So we’re getting 45 to an hour workout most days of the week. The beauty is we have built-in high-intensity workouts because we have a hilly neighborhood.

So reading your blog is just reconfirming what I intuitively suspected. The magic is in the consistent walking.

Thanks for the yoga tip! I will check her out. Since I wrote that post, Ellen has changed her site to a subscription site. But you get all her videos plus new ones for the monthly price. I do them regularly, so it’s a good deal for me.

Thanks for reminding me about Ellen Barrett. I actually have several of her workouts on DVD (possibly all the ones you’ve mentioned), but I’ve haven’t done them in a while for some reason.

It’s the only thing that works for me!