Face it, inquiring—in athletic terms, 61 is ancient.
I have 5 years on you, so my condition is not necessarily relevant to your situation. I still put on muscle—in fact, I have tried to cut my calories so that I stay lighter, both for better sprints on land, and less resistance/more flexibility in the water. But I’m more or less the same as I ever was, I just don’t want to bulk up.
I understand what you mean when you say you did bodybuilding etc., for sure you had some crazy days in the gym, max pump, huge strength density, rushes of testosterone. I still get that, but not every single time, because some days I dial it back to preserve myself. Also I do only 3 days/week of weights—so while the intensity, strength, and power are still there, the total amount of power and strength work that I do is less than it used to be. I just get the feeling that if I went hard as often as I used to, I would for sure get injured.
To make up for it, I do lower-intensity, longer stuff: swim for an hour 2500m, bike for an afternoon with my wife, bike in the gym for an hour at 170W indicated, etc.. Would ks for me, like an active, medium-hard recovery.
Diet? Everything good, you name it. I have no idea what encourages T production, but if it’s natural, I eat it: fruits, veggies, pasta, buckwheat, muesli, shredded wheat, mushrooms, milk, cheese, eggs, yogurt, beef, chicken, fish both sashimi and cooked, rice, juice, chocolate, nuts, etc. I will say that I am literally the only person I know of my age who still drinks milk—and I drink a lot of it, maybe a gallon every 2-3 days. In europe I drink a bit less, but there I drink whole, unpasteurized, which is a lot thicker.
My only issue is that I feel that I can sometimes eat too much, and I don’t want to stress my pancreas so much. lol nobody understands how I can eat so much and mot get fat, but sometimes after an heroic meal, I am literally incapacitated. Once the roast was so good that I ate it all, and a bunch of carrots, onions, potatoes, milk, etc, and afterwards I thought that I had maybe ruptured my stomach. Contemplated for a few hours going to emerg, but it settled down, and I had an amazing night’s sleep, was boiling hot all night😁.
I also like small glasses of good port, and 2-3 beers on Friday, always a local microbrew. My beer tolerance has gone way down over the years, and I now only very rarely drink wine or alcohol.
Supps and meds: absolutely nothing, ever. I sense no need at all. I only once tried anything, as I have detailed on here before: a bit of creatine, now maybe 28 years ago. The results were insane to the point where I discontinued it very early, fearing that it had roids in it. Have never touched anything since, it freaked me out. My weightroom bests were set long after that experiment, 10 years later. Long, slow, natural progression worked.
re: “disease”. “Low T plus symptoms”. Maybe. How low a “T” and what symptoms are key to determining “disease” vs “normal age-appropriate condition”. Am I diseased because I now might run 12 instead of 11 or 10?
Think of it this way: don’t compare yourself to some 30-yo you used to be, compare yourself to the 60-yo or 58-yo you used to be. Keep the window small, and things will never get away from you. Also compare yourself to other 61-yo’s you know are natural.