How I Keep Up My Activity Level

With the number of times that Stacey and I go out dancing, watching bands, marching in parades, travel, or just my activity level in general with how many things I'm involved with, people often ask me how I stay so active.  Life is short; I want to be able to do as much as possible. The more you stay active, the easier it gets to be active. I feel that keeping up my activity level on a regular basis gives me stamina in what I'm doing so it makes it easier in the long run. Usually I find all of these activities to be invigorating.

I keep pushing myself. I will keep going no matter how tired I am. If I have a goal that I want to meet, I don't let tiredness stop me. It may slow me down but I will keep going until I reach my goal. When I’m at a point when I am totally exhausted, that’s when I will stop whatever it is I'm doing to take a break.  I pace myself, too, so I don’t wear myself out.

Dancing is a form of exercise. So, like jogging, working out, swimming, or whatever, the more you keep up with any form of exercise on a regular basis, the easier it is. But like I said, I do push myself. I'm 58 years old, and my body has its share of aches and pains. I have arthritis in my lower back and in my kneecaps. It often affects my dancing. There was a time when some of the dance moves I was doing became too much for my knees, so my knees were really hurting badly. I bought some knee braces and used those for a while, and it helped a lot. Since then, I have learned what dance moves I can get away with, and I have improvised on other dance moves that I found are not quite so stressful. It also matters what kind of dance surface I am dancing on. For one thing, dancing on concrete is very hard on my knees. If I know I'm going to be dancing on concrete, I wear my padded sole sneakers. If I'm going to be dancing on a wooden floor, or something with a smooth service that's easier to slide on, I wear shoes that have a smooth bottom so I can do some sliding.

I have been doing a construction project remodeling my garage. It involves a lot of bending which is hard on my back. I have a goal that I want to meet so I keep pushing myself to reach the goal of finishing this project. 

So that's my answer in a nutshell. I have goals, I have places I want to go to, and I have things I want to get done.