Life Is A Long Time - You Are Responsible for Making It A Healthy Time!

Joshua Rosenthal, founder of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition where I received my Health Coach training, likes to say, "Life is a Long Time." He says it to encourage us to be patient with ourselves and to internalize the idea that there's time to do everything, but maybe not all at the same time!
 

I recently devoured a book called Younger Next Year - For Women, by Chris Crowley & Henry S. Lodge, M.D., and it provides another take on life expectancy and quality.  (Their original book was directed at men; I chose to read the subsequent female-oriented edition, and it is smart and insightful despite being written by two guys!)  Have you ever taken a quiz to predict your life expectancy based on your current age, gender, weight, and basic diet & health behaviors?  There’s a thorough one in the Younger Next Year books and a variety of other quizzes online, and I invite you to complete one of them.  You will (hopefully) find that you are likely to live to be 90+ years old.  Mr. Crowley and Dr. Lodge’s book is all about how to make that outcome more likely, and more importantly, to have a healthy and active life for as long as possible. 

Imagine a curve with time on the x-axis and health level on the y-axis.  Some of us are resigned to the idea that once we hit “middle age” (whatever that means these days… isn’t 60 the new 40?) we start to gradually decline – a downward curve until we die.  The authors of Younger Next Year argue that this does NOT have to be the case.  Our actions (and I do mean actions) influence the quality of our lives more than we realize, and we have the power to maintain our health and vibrancy well into our later years, so that our personal age X health chart can register health at a steady high level until we are well advanced in age, with a quick decline at the very end.  Isn’t that better for us and our loved ones, not to mention the healthcare system?

The key to healthy aging is to promote growth in the body & mind, not decay.  The authors argue that there really is no middle ground.  This is programmed into our genes from prehistoric times and is based on the earth’s seasonal cycles – we are either in spring/summer “growth” mode when we are energetic and active and our body is building muscle, or we are in fall/winter “decay” mode when we slow down and store fat preparing for food scarcity and a hard winter.  I’m sure you know where this is headed… today we have no food scarcity and we spend most of our time being sedentary, so our bodies move into constant storage/hibernation mode – in a word, decay. 

What to do?  The authors advocate EXERCISE, virtually every day, and including both moderate and high intensity workouts each week.  Exercise boosts your metabolism, it reduces stress, it improves your mood, and it is believed to offer protection against development of Alzheimer’s disease.  As you know, we recently got a puppy whose pictures are regularly featured in my newsletter and on Facebook.  My husband, Randy, spends hours each day training and briskly walking Foxy either on the beach in Hilton Head or here in Cincinnati.  He enjoys every outing with his dog – rain or shine, hot or cold – and he has lost weight and feels fit and energized.  And, as a bonus, we have a very well-trained dog!

It is critical to your health and well-being that you establish some sort of fitness routine, whether it involves a dog, a running or workout buddy, a spinning class schedule, a favorite yoga instructor or DVD, or any other vigorous activity.  The important thing is to do something physically intense nearly every day, for the rest of your life.  Your body, mind, and loved ones will thank you.

http://www.youngernextyear.com/