Why turning 50 is great

If you're wondering about good things about turning 50 and getting older, remember that everyone deals with aging differently. It's easy enough to get down on yourself, but a brighter perspective can make you realize 50 is a time of celebration and acceptance.

If you've been lucky enough to live a full and enjoyable life, you are fortunate. Turning 50 might mean it's time to create some new goals for the next 50 years. Remember age 40 when all the talk was about being "over the hill? When you're over 50, you can leave many cares and worries behind and embrace life. Of course, new problems and ailments are bound to come your way, but that is the case no matter what your age. A person at age 50 can create better health habits and become even healthier than earlier in life.

After all, "age is just a number. Many people tell jokes about turning 50 , but funny stuff aside, there are a lot of benefits, as well. As you can see, there's an abundance of good things about turning 50, as long as you look for them. As you celebrate age 50 with a big birthday or a quiet celebration, make some lists of your own. From "50 things I know" to "50 things to be grateful for," the number has many possibilities. Senior Citizens Senior Life Good Things About Turning 50 If you're wondering about good things about turning 50 and getting older, remember that everyone deals with aging differently.

The Importance of Turning 50 50 Remember age 40 when all the talk was about being "over the hill? You're less fearful. You're not afraid to have opinions. You know yourself. You have a greater appreciation of life. It's easier to laugh at yourself. It's easier to laugh at others. Nutrition and the things you eat matter. Not just to your size but to your overall looks and health. There is no one perfect way to eat for every person. However, there is clear research that some kinds of food are more inflammatory and that other foods promote health.

Moving our bodies and exercise is good for us, especially if we enjoy it. Long walks and yoga not only help us stay in shape, they reduce harmful stress hormones. You can be beautiful after 50 and at any age. My mom at 87 gets compliments all the time on how beautiful she is. It took me well into my fifties before I discovered my own beauty. When I think of the women that I think are beautiful after turning 50, I think most about their face. Yet the physical part is also important if you want to be beautiful.

Keeping you weight in a good range is important. Too heavy or even too thin can affect how you look. The quality of your skin makes a difference.

Our skin is a result of many things, chief among them, what you eat. The short answer to good skin is to eat real food: protein, vegetables, fruit, and healthy fats. This is a definite yes and probably one of the easiest to achieve. Our bodies were meant to be functional until the end. We were meant to be able to walk and lift things! What I like about being fit is that I can do the things that I want to do. I can lift my grandchildren up.

I can go for long walks or even long hikes in the mountains. I can jump on a bike and go for amazing bike rides. I can walk around in new cities or countries for hours. To achieve this, you have to make some time daily to move your body. Walking, stretch, and strength training are all essential to maintaining a fit and functional body. One of the things I love most are online exercise subscriptions.

There are ones for any kind of exercise you like. Most come with a free trial so you can experiment before you subscribe. I belong to three that I use on a regular basis plus I walk and bike on my own. They commented on how much my life had changed since I turned I had just come back from a trip to Argentina and was preparing to take another trip next week. My life changes are not about just about becoming a traveler. I had become a hiker, a cyclist of sorts , I have made new friends, I am a blogger, and I have had a new career.

I have become a certified life and weight loss coach and I get to help amazing women create lives they love too! Since turning 50, I had been trying lots of new things and discovering that I could do more than I had ever realized I could.

At the same time, my relationships with my grown children have grown and I now have grandchildren that I adore. Being a cool grandmother is super fun!

It was at a rehearsal of the school play, just before I spoke my lines—well, line. But an important line. I just knew the other parts had gone to sixth graders and that I was one of the few Negro children in the school. Motivated by pride, I spent hours practicing my snarling.

But the script called for the Big Bad Wolf to appear in nearly every scene, and as rehearsals grew longer, eventually, almost inevitably, I experienced… a release of dramatic tension. Big Bad Wolf? Big, bad disgrace. Too right. There was that solo I began as a boy soprano and ended sounding like a bullfrog.

There was that jump shot at the buzzer that swished through the wrong net. And after I left home in rural Pennsylvania for college, there were all those city customs I never got right. I practiced public obtuseness, ignoring astonished looks when my savoir fell behind my faire.

As the years passed, I learned to check my facts, and also my fly—better to be caught at that than with my zipper down. But when the Beatles arrived onstage, we were swept away by the hysteria. We screamed, we jumped, we cried, we shook—we even tried climbing the chainlink fence that surrounded the stage.

We were gasping for breath the entire show, slightly lightheaded, tears streaming down our faces. In March , Saoul Mamby, age 60, became the oldest boxer to compete in a pro bout, going ten rounds with year-old fighter Anthony Osborne. So what. The guy is doing what he loves: punching other guys in the face until they drool. Since turning pro in , the Bronx-born fighter has held the World Boxing Council WBC junior-welterweight title, amassed 56 wins plus 11 grandchildren , and fought on the same card as Muhammad Ali.

In the early days it was all about him. His favorite foods, favorite color, favorite flavor of ice cream, and whether he liked my hair up or down. I loved to make him laugh, and worked hard not to cry in front of him. I cleaned my house before he came over, always wore mascara, always had champagne in the fridge. Marriage changes that, of course. Artifice goes, as it should. Love deepens, maybe even relaxes a little. Physically ill, emotionally grief-stunned, job-panicked, or angry enough to throw crockery at the wall and then do it again.

Red-faced, blotchy, hoarse from yelling. Our parents grow old, and ill, or nutty; our children make mistakes that drop us to our knees. Through it all, how on earth can he love me, given what a flawed, messy, moody person I am? The artifice is long gone; he sees me. Well, as it turns out, maybe he is. But lately, when he puts his arm around me in the movie line, or takes my hand as we cross the street, my heart jumps as it did in the beginning. She is working on her first novel.

But I never do exactly what I did last night or the night before. I tell my band to play it as they feel it each night. I like that. It keeps it fresh. I have a motto: Always do your best. When I was in grade school there was a poem a teacher used to tell us. Every day I learn something. At age 50, with lots of energy and two children out of the toddler stage, I longed to have a third baby. What we may lack in vigor we make up for in desire.

Most of us have been through miscarriages, infertility, in vitro, surrogacy, adoption, or just a lot of trying. To us, becoming parents was a miracle. Exhaustion we take for granted; having children we do not. Yesterday Jessica went on a class field trip. She had begged me to chaperone. Daughter: ecstatic.

Mom: business travel postponed. We relish changing smelly diapers, schlepping kids to play dates, and tending to runny noses and bloody knees. Lately Jessica has started talking about boys—specifically, about kissing boys.

But then came this upstart pool shark with cobalt-blue eyes yes, The Hustler was in black and white, but somehow the blue still showed. By the time he turned 50 in , Paul Newman could have coasted. But the actor rewrote his career with one breakaway role after another: there he is barreling across the ice in Slap Shot Then he solemnly offers a summation to the jury in The Verdict Here are my top 10 reasons:.

Get out of a lot of unpleasant stuff by saying "I'm too old. I'm too old. If you say this to someone older than you, however, you run the risk of getting a "you're full of shit" response. Start getting carded again. When you turn 50, you become eligible for some pretty sweet senior discounts through AARP who must have decided you become a "senior" at age 50 during the Stone Age when the average life expectancy was about 70 years less than it is now.

Apparently, though, there is a rash of rogue younger people who look really bad for their age abusing the privilege of that 10 cents off a crappy cup of coffee so be prepared to show your ID. See your kids turn into really cool people. After all the years of worrying if your kids would turn out alright and, if not, would you have enough bail money, it is an amazing thing to see them become people you actually like and admire.

Resist the temptation to remind them you invested every penny you ever earned and acquired high blood pressure in the process of their becoming so awesome.

It will be a nice surprise for them when they have their own children. Start cultivating your quirkiness. After age 50, "She should probably be on medication" becomes "Isn't she wonderfully unique?