CHALLENGE Strengthen Your Bones

It's time to double down on the habits that will keep your skeleton sturdy.

- BY GINA WAY

You may think of weak bones as something only the elderly need to worry about, but by the time you turn the big 4-0, your bone density starts to decline, says Vonda Wright, M.D., a double-board-certified orthopedic sports surgeon in Orlando, FL, and the author of Unbreakable: A Woman's Guide to Aging With Power. "Women are four times as likely to experience bone loss as men, and up to 15% of that loss can happen during perimenopause," she says.

A steady process of bone renewal and remodeling is critical to maintaining bone strength: Osteoclast cells inside bones break down and dissolve old or damaged bone tissue so osteoblast cells can build strong new bone to replace it, explains Dr. Wright. Estrogen is critical for the balance of building and breakdown of bones; without much estrogen, breakdown outpaces building, which significantly speeds up bone loss.

But here's the empowering part: "Bones are dynamic and adaptive, so there are lots of ways to make them stronger, depending on what you eat and the physical impact you subject them to," says Dr. Wright. They are not static structural I-beams, she adds, but "living metabolic structures that are remodeled continuously." And while having strong bones won't stop you from tripping and falling, it can hopefully protect you from fractures if you do.

THE BUILD-STRONGER-BONES CHALLENGE

1 DO HIGH-IMPACT CARDIO.