How can a 60+ year-old with "issues/disease" safely start a fitness routine?

• Work to change Behavior 1st, Body down the road...
• Work Long before Work Hard…
• Pick Work that You don't Hate…
• Work up a Schedule for Hydration, Nutrition & Recuperation…

NOTE: Yeah, yeah... Please check with your physician before beginning or attempting exercise... Now that we got that out of the way.

So I want you to look at those four steps that were initially listed on how to most safely get involved in or continue with an exercise program… If you're someone with specific diseases or conditions, like those that I work with who've been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease…

There's one word that is the unifying thread woven through the tapestry that all four answers create, and that one word is...
WORK!

Yes the fact that you have been diagnosed with, or perhaps someone that you love and care and hold near and dear to you has been diagnosed with a disease or condition, this fact now changes what tomorrow looks like when compared to who we are, or see ourselves as, in yesterday's rearview mirror.
But that does not prohibit the ethic and the concept that WORK will still be required to make any lasting difference.

Step #1: Work to change your behaviors before working to change your body. Your body can change with surgery, but without the behaviors that got us into the life and the reality, that includes the body that we're trying to get out of, then whatever change we experience will likely not last, and we will not be empowered to do damn much about it.

So, work first to change behaviors, and bring about the habits and implement the systems, that will support the change you're hoping for and sustain what, and who you see in the mirror, for as long as you see fit.

Step #2: Work long before you attempt to work hard. Anyone can over aim, overachieve, and overdo on any given weekend… and then feel laid up and lame through the next Thursday (or possibly longer if a genuine injury occurred). Working long before working hard builds up your physical and cardiovascular endurance to support and sustain harder, more intense, more body changing, and sometimes more rewarding, workouts. You were not born on this planet to be a cheetah; What I mean by that, is a cheetah will run at amazingly fast speeds to achieve what it wants (generally killing something or escaping being killed itself) and then that cat falls flat, and needs to rest for a long time. Humans don't work that way. So initially prioritize your ability to work for a longer period of time, aiming for 45 minutes to an hour, and then ratchet it up by implementing more intense activity towards the beginning, the front end, the front loaded hour, and as you progress, work to make as much of that hour as both intense, yet enjoyable as possible.

Step #3: Pick the work that you don't hate. I remember some 30 years ago, working with a physically gifted client, and she could do things that most other women in the gym could not, or maybe would not attempt, and she had a wonderful work ethic… but she hated push-ups, and anytime they were designed as part of her program, for some reason the workout, and her fighting spirit, seemed to suffer.
Now as her trainer my personal bias slowed the process down, and I apologized to her for that (eventually) because it took about a month when I asked "okay let's get to the bottom of this what's the problem with push-ups? I mean you can do them..."
I'll never forget the look on her face; It was like she had been wanting to say this all along, and just kept it inside, when she told me "My old team coach used to make us to push-ups as punishment and as a penalty... So I just don't like them."

I said "Wow… I get it… push-ups are very valuable, but they are not so uniquely powerful that they need to be what we have to do, to get you where you want to arrive. So, until you tell me that you want to bring them back into the program, they're out, and we will find something else that best serves not just the physique you want, but the person who you are… and that's everything including your likes and dislikes." So let my experience be your wisdom and choose workouts and exercises that you don't hate... Laziness is your choice but preferences are not always your responsibility or fault.

Step #4: Work up a Schedule for Hydration, Nutrition & Recuperation. Almost 30 years ago, I took a couple years away from the fitness industry managing for an up-and-coming, food and beverage provider that I'm sure you'd be familiar with their name... Rather if you are reader of Moby Dick or if you are viewer of Battlestar Galactica (Starbuck’s for both).
Well, fortunately for me, that didn't last more than a couple years, but when I got back into the fitness industry, my systems and my habits had all been abandoned, unhitched, and left in some roadside ditch… And I kind of had to start over.
I had to get my metabolism back up, and with that, would come and increase in energy, and then I knew I'd find an increase in ability, and adesire that would allow me to work harder, but that was going to require the support necessary to keep me from flailing, failing, burning out, or just getting hurt.
Again 30 years ago was before these wonderful little handheld devices that we now have called smartphones, but I did have something known as a PDA, which now, may be best known as a hug between a football tight-end and a pop music superstar (aka public display of affection, ‘Swelcey’) but back then PDA was known as a Personal Digital Assistant… which was a little handheld computer organizer with barely any power or memory, but it helped me with a schedule… It helped me with contacts… and it helped me with an alarm… and I used all three of them to keep me from falling into the same ditch I'd discarded my effective systems and habits into two years prior.
I set a schedule that was changeable, but was visible and achievable.
I manually input every name number and method of contact for people that I had, because again back then we didn't have Google… can you say Rolodex?
And finally I set alarms every 30 minutes, so that I would either be taking in water or nutrition, and this got my body to expect it. Our bodies are trainable, not just by what we do in the gym, but what we put into them, and the more you consistently fuel and hydrate your body on a predictable schedule, the more your body expects it, will come to trust you and will process through what you give it, rather than feeling like feast and famine and hanging on to every last calorie as extra stored body fat.

Are all four of these steps "Work”?
Yes.
Do these four steps work for all people?
Yes... Obviously to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the individual and their circumstances, BUT I promise, You will be more successful with them than without them, because though life can be lived by the seat of our pants, The Extraordinary can rarely be achieved without putting our ass on the line, and getting our butts to do something that we know we need to.

Coach- JiM