When my mother turned 40, she said, "Everything works fine until you turn 40. Then everything starts falling apart." She stuck with that theory until she turned 50, which was when she said, "Did I say 40 was the end? Because that was nothing. It's 50 when your body really goes down hill." At 60, she became more philosophical about aging, saying, "Appreciate what you have when you have it."
While there isn't necessarily one age where you wake up feeling old, 45 does seem to be an important age when it comes to cardio fitness. In one study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers studied over 20,000 men and women from 1974 to 2006. They looked at lifestyle variables such as body mass index, self-reported aerobic exercise, and smoking while measuring their cardio fitness by using a treadmill test. Researchers found that cardio fitness declines over time, but goes down hill at a faster rate after 45 years of age, at least for those participants who didn't exercise.
The bottom line is that how healthy we are as we age is directly related to how much physical activity we get and there are too many people who think it's too late to turn things around. It's never too late to change how you live, something our readers prove time after time. Just check out this post, Live Better as You Age and read the comments and you'll see what I mean.
