
O.K. It’s 2025 - do you want the good news or the bad news? I prefer to get the bad news out of the way first, possibly because I am an eternal optimist. So, the bad news is that however many aches and pains you have, however much you detest exercise, however slothful you feel after the usual Christmas and New Year indulgences (it was the two boxes of Hotel Chocolat that did it for me), there is no way round the fact that older bodies like yours and mine absolutely must get the right amount of exercise, done in the right way.
The good news is that I have some truly brilliant ideas for how you might fit a lot more effective exercise into your life with my new mantra of minimum effort; maximum results.
As you know last year I had a health scare that has led to a serious appraisal of my diet and the subsequent loss of 10kgs. I have started the new year by briefly going back to Michael Mosley’s Fast 800 way of eating and hopefully I will soon have undone the damage caused by those two boxes of chocolate. But that is only one aspect of feeling and looking better, and the other is the one that I have always struggled with but, again, thanks to the late, and very much lamented Dr. Mosley, I now have several quick, simple and easy ways to ensure my long term fitness.
Sit for no longer than 30 minutes without standing.
There used to be a saying ‘never stand when you can sit, and never sit when you can lie down’. Turns out that this is the equivalent of doctors who used to recommend smoking to clear your nasal passages, among other benefits of nicotine inhalation. Sitting is the new smoking, so maybe there will come a time when they’ll remove the seats from cinemas and theatres on public health grounds.
I was also reminded of this recently when watching old episodes of Portrait Artist of the Year on Sky Arts. The famous sitters have to more or less hold the same pose whilst in a chair for four hours. Most joke that they usually sit still for no more than four minutes. All but Rory Stewart, who insisted on standing for his portrait. Wise man, because sitting continually for four hours is very bad for you. The solution? Set the timer on your phone whenever you sit down and stand up after 30 minutes if, like me, you tend to have long sedentary periods.
Walking but not 10,000 steps
It’s free and freely available and dead easy if you have a dog, but, even without a pooch, walking is still the quickest and simplest way to get more active, but (controversially) Mosley does not recommend using an activity monitor, nor aiming to do 10,000 steps a day. Why? Because of a research study that showed that people lost less weight whilst on a diet with an activity monitor than those who didn’t use one.
Again - why? Mosley’s theory is that people may reward themselves with food if they do their 10,000 steps and become demotivated and eat more if they fail to do their steps!
Mosley set up some research with Professor Copeland at Sheffield Hallam and measured the success of two different approaches. One group was tasked with 10,000 steps a day and the other had to do just 10 minutes of brisk walking three times a day. The result? The ‘Active 10’ group spent 30% more time in the ‘moderate to vigorous’ physical activity zone, making this a more effective way to get fitter.
HIIT= High Intensity Interval Training
This is my new favourite thing on my little pink Opti exercise bike, which I know several of you have too. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. This is a way to get most of the major benefits of exercise in very little time. Dr. Neils Vollard, a lecturer in health and exercise science at Stirling University has shown that as little as two minutes of HIIT a week will give your body a significant boost. However, if you are unfit you must start more slowly and if you are on medication, injured or have heart concerns, please talk to a doctor first.
Here’s the HIIT that I do two or three times a week on my exercise bike:
1- Warm up with gentle cycling for a couple of minutes
2- Start cycling as fast as you can and crank up the resistance to the maximum you can manage - depending on your strength and fitness. It should noticeably fatigue your thigh muscles after about 15 seconds. Experiment to get it right for you - too high and you’ll grind to a halt, too low and you’ll easily do more than 15-20 seconds.
3- After your first 20 seconds of fast, hard sprinting, drop the resistance and do 3 minutes of gentle cycling.
4- Then do the 20 second sprint again, drop the resistance once more and resume the gentle cycling until your heart rate and blood pressure have returned to normal.
5- I have now built up to three bursts of HIIT per session, but two can be enough.
Strength Training
All of these suggestions will maintain heart and lung health, but what about your muscles? How easy do you find it to get up from the floor without holding onto anything? Can you stand up from a chair whilst holding a tray in both hands? Can you use your arms to lift your upper body in order to get out of the bath? You need sufficient lower and upper body strength in order to be able to do all of these things.
And the only way to maintain that strength is by exercising the relevant muscles very regularly. Push-ups, squats, bicep curls (with weights or tins of beans) and holding your body in a plank position will all help you to maintain that vital functional fitness.
I have made two videos with Lindsay Burrows to help you with this:
See the one on Lower Body Strength here
Upper Body Strength here
Dr. Mosley’s 12 ways to get more exercise every day.
1- Buy a bike and cycle when you can. However there is no way I am going to bike in London, so I have an exercise bike and still surprise myself that I use it regularly, now mostly for HIIT as described above.
2- If your destination is less than a mile away, walk. Better for the planet and better for you.
3- Stand whilst talking on the phone. Makes you sound more assertive whilst you burn extra calories.
4- Use a basket in shops rather than a shopping trolley. Strength and resistance training, especially if, like me, you buy a pack of 6 large bottles of San Pellegrino every week.
5- Which helps me to drink lots of water. Hydration is important to health and that also means lots of getting out of the chair to go to the loo.
6- Take the stairs rather than the lift and walk up escalators.
7- Get off the bus or (underground) train a stop earlier and walk the rest of the way. I often go to the theatre for a matinee performance and walk either there or back from Waterloo station over the river and into theatreland. A good way to counteract three hours of sitting both on a train and watching a play.
8- Always park at the far end of the supermarket car park if you have to drive there.
9- Buy some resistance bands and small weights and keep them to hand. Use throughout the day to do some resistance stretches and arm curls to tone muscles.
10- Organise or join a walking group, or even better a Nordic walking group. Great exercise and nice to get out in the fresh air and meet new people.
11- If travelling, join a walking tour of the city. These are cheap and the perfect way to get to know a new place and its history.
12- Join a dancing class. This is mentally as well as physically challenging - great for both body and mind.
In my local mall, a large gym has opened to replace the three shops which used to be there. Sign of the times. And now, as I walk past the huge tinted windows, I can just about make out the shapes of youthful lycra-clad men and women pushing and punishing themselves on various state of the art exercise machines. It almost looks like a mediaeval torture chamber, and that’s how I think of the kind of exercise which involves lots of stretchy fabrics and sweat.
Fortunately the kind of activities that older bodies need doesn’t have to involve either. The good news for 2025 is that remembering to incorporate these small adjustments into your daily life is enough to maintain the level of physical fitness that we all need to live our best lives.
Happy New Year to you all!
Tricia x
Watch Our Latest Video...
5-minute eye makeup look for older women
Sally shows you how to create an easy, everyday 5-minute eye makeup look...