Let's get physical

Taking care of yourself-physically will have a positive impact on how you feel, as well as how you look. As you reach midlife and beyond, it's time to focus on getting stronger, feeling sexier and prioritising self-care - what's not to love about that?

STRONGER

If you want to look and feel your best as you age, then you'll need to exercise, and increasingly experts are recommending strength training (lifting weights) to hold off muscle mass loss and protect your bones. Celebrity trainer Matt Roberts explains: 'As we get older, we lose pounds of muscle every decade. We need to reverse this trend in order to stave off the conditions that occur when we lose fitness due to a lack of ability to exercise. In short, we need to give our body the chance to fight, because it will and it does!' To prevent and reverse muscle loss, Roberts recommends lifting heavy weights but, importantly, aim for strength, not size. He refers to research showing that lifting heavy items regularly slows down the ageing process by altering DNA strands and increasing the length of telomeres, part of our chromosomes that are vital to our wellbeing. So, in effect, we become genetically younger.