Is Your Last Day On Earth Worth That “Big Mac?”

Twenty-two months ago, I penned out a blog that talked about my Dad’s extended morbidity. And about my intention to not have the same.

You can read the entire article here. Or here are some cliff notes.

My Dad made it to 1998 and age 81 – right on today’s average lifespan. But, a big chunk of the 81 years wasn’t pretty.

Here’s a chronology of his “fourth quarter.”

  • Heart attack – age 59
  • Stopped smoking, ate better, lost some weight
  • Early 70s, diagnosed with COPD – began a restricted life of hoses and oxygen tanks
  • Age 77, falls, breaks a hip
  • Hip replacement
  • Sepsis infection following surgery – extended intubation
  • Extended hospital recovery from intubation; no voice, no sleep
  • Rehab facility
  • A short stint in a small retirement home
  • One year stay in a larger nursing home
  • Second heart attack in the nursing home; dead next day at 81

 

Twenty-two years of insidious, creeping morbidity. And early frailty.

Do you suppose 3-4 eggs with bacon every morning for breakfast, smoking for 40 years, and no exercise outside of work may have played a role?

Today, in America, we do a little better than Dad with our extended morbidity. On average, it’s only 10 1/2 years.

Only 10 1/2 years! Aren’t we lucky?

How about a morbidity curve that’s more like this? My 35-years-to-go plan still calls for going out face-down in a trout stream having fooled another 18″ rainbow.

 

Do we think of such things as we enter a Carl’s Junior drive-up window? Or wolf down that breakfast burrito because we are in a hurry? Or rationalize french fries as a vegetable?

We have a deadly combination working in our culture: food swamps and healthcare illiteracy.

Part of my motivation for writing on this topic came this week after viewing a video podcast by Scott Fulton of The Longevity Advantage in which he interviewed Dr. Saray Stancic,  a triple board-certified physician in internal medicine, infectious disease, and lifestyle medicine.

At age 29, in 1995, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and soon thereafter was negotiating life with the help of a cane.

In 2010, she ran a marathon.

Here’s a link to the interview – I hope you will take 45 minutes and experience her amazing story.

 

I haven’t yet read her book, “What’s Missing from Medicine: Six Lifestyle Changes to Overcome Chronic Illness” but I’m ordering it. She sings my tune when she takes her own profession to task for its disinterest in being a conveyer of good health advice. Hers is a message that needs to be spread.

We all would do well to learn from this expert on the brokenness of our healthcare system and the extraordinary power of nutrition.

Dad didn’t have the benefit of what Dr. Stancic can tell us.

Most of us will ignore the advice.

And we’ll thus hit the CDC’s prediction that 44% of our population will be Type 2 diabetic within the next 30 years.

Can we find anything that will be more effective in bringing our country to its knees financially than that statistic alone?

Dr. Stancic confirms that your primary care provider is the last place to go to get health advice and the first place to go when your lack of health advice has taken your biology off the rails.

Or, when your 997th Big Mac (or equivalent) has some of your parts saying they are ready to be sent back to the universe.

I hope you appreciate the podcast and will share it. Let’s all do our part to get this message out:  be the CEO and arbiter of your health.

Eat your vegetables!!

And tell your friends to join our growing tribe over at www.makeagingwork.com.

Ten Good Habits at 60+ That Can Add Ten or More Healthy Years To Your Life

It may seem a bit crazy to be suggesting ways to add to our lives when we are all caught up in holding on to what we have in this COVID madness.

The evidence seems to clarify that the best defense against this nasty bug is to max out our immune system. That’s not something we do really well here in America with our lifestyle of comfort, convenience, and conformity, especially when we combine that with a healthcare system that can’t spell prevention, a food industry that profits in killing us slowly, and a pharma industry that exploits our self-care illiteracy.

In that spirit, I chose to resurrect and retitle an article from 18 months ago that has been the most popular post over the course of 3 1/2 years of my weekly blog.

Ten Good Habits at 60+ That Can Add Ten or More Healthy Years To Your Life

1. Reconsider retirement. How’s that for a controversial starting point? Retirement, as we’ve known it for several decades, is dying, none too soon. And for good reason. Joint research by the Social Security Administration and the National Institute on Aging indicates that full-stop retirement is associated with a 23-29 percent increase in mobility and daily activity difficulties, an 8 percent increase in illness, and an 11 percent decline in mental health.

Today, the average American endures 10.5 years of illness from multiple chronic conditions before dying, nearly all related to lifestyle decisions. For many, retirement is a lifestyle decision that takes them to the wrong side of the biological ledger – to a decay process rather than a growth process. Growth or decay are the only two options our biology offers us.  Senescence in the later years of life is a choice, not fate.

2. Upgrade your diet away from animal-based and processed foods.

The verdict is in, and has been for a while: a largely plant-based diet is by far the healthiest. The only argument the food industry can take against that – particularly the beef, pork, and poultry industries – is that a plant-based diet doesn’t provide enough protein. Wrong! Most nutrition experts claim we are over-proteined in our culture and feel a plant-based diet offers adequate protein. Follow the money and don’t buy the meat and poultry industry argument.

3. Up your exercise and include strength training.

Less than a quarter of Americans 18 or older met minimum physical activity guidelines for cardiovascular and muscle-strengthening activity in 2017 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On page 56 (adult) and page 68 (older adult) of the downloadable .pdf of the government Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, minimum recommended exercise calls for 2 ½ – 5 hours a week of moderate-intensity or 1 1/4 – 2 ½ hours of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise per week. Muscle-strengthening activities involving all major muscle groups should be added on two or more days a week.

Get your heart rate into the optimal exercise range for your age (220 minus your age times .65 and .85) and sustain it.

Weight training is vital. You are experiencing sarcopenia and probably aren’t aware of it. We all fall victim to it. It’s the loss of muscle mass and it started for us all in our 30s. The only antidote is strength training. Remember this simple mantra: Aerobic exercise will give you life, strength training will make it worth living.

4. Get more sleep.

No magic here. You need a minimum of seven hours a night at this age. Naps count. Research shows that a chronic lack of sleep, or getting poor quality sleep, increases the risk of disorders including high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, and obesity. Don’t be fooled into using over-the-counter sleep medications. They aren’t the solution and have adverse long-term affects.

If you would like a high-level overview of the mechanics and benefits of sleep, spend some time with Dr. Andrew Huberman on YouTube.

5. Challenge your brain.

Don’t believe the myth that brain senescence is automatic. It isn’t. Oh, it can happen if you let it. But we’ve known for years that our brain, regardless of age, can produce new synaptic connections. It’s called neurogenesis. Think of your brain as a muscle. It, too, can atrophy. Use it or lose it.

6. Maintain a high level of social activity.

This critical component has taken a serious hit with COVID. Find a way to max it as much as possible under the conditions. It may never be the same as before going forward, but that doesn’t change the need to be connected, somehow, someway.

AARP says that social isolation is as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Too often, reduced social engagement is a consequence of the retirement phase of life. We now know that being socially active plays a key role in longevity and good health. TV and Lazyboy are deadly combinations.

7. Assess your relationships and do some housecleaning.

Do you have toxic relationships in your life? We benefit by getting rid of negative, draining relationships. Motivational speaker, Jim Rohn, famously said: “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” We are greatly influenced by those closest to us, in the way we think, our self-esteem, our decision making. Severing a relationship can be tough, but vital to avoid the energy drain and excess cortisol production that a bad relationship can cause. Do yourself and your toxic friend(s) a favor – cut the cord.

8. Increase your interaction with younger people.

We seem to be quick to throw rocks at Millenials when we should make an effort to interact more with them. It will be a mutually-beneficial relationship. You feed off their energy, enthusiasm, ideas, and tech-savviness. They gain from your wisdom, steadiness, and common sense. It’s encouraging to see more and more companies discovering this and striving toward multi-generational workforces.

9. Learn something new every day.

Henry Ford said: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” We lament our muscle atrophy as we age but ignore our brain atrophy. One of the greatest old dead white men, Leonardo de Vinci, nailed it: “Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.”

10. Don’t be a dinosaur. Get savvy on basic technology.

Technology development will continue to accelerate. If you are still pondering the purchase of a smartphone, well, you may have some serious catching up to do. Yes, there are downsides to all the tech that surrounds us. But the upsides are much greater.

There may be an organization in your area that specializes in teaching technology to seniors. One good resource is a site called Senior Planet which “celebrates aging by sharing information and resources that support aging with attitude, and helps people who were born long before the digital revolution to stay engaged and active by bringing a digital-technology focus to a range of topics – among them news, health, sex and dating, art and design, senior style, travel, and entertainment.” They have physical locations in New York City. Plattsburgh, NY, San Antonio, TX, Palo Alto, CA and just opened in Denver, CO.

11. Find someone to help or mentor.

OK, so I don’t count well. Here’s a bonus. There is often a serendipitous effect of mentoring someone that goes beyond helping. Mentors typically improve their own skills by being inspired by new ideas, expanding their network, and learning new strategies, technologies, and methods.

Up the ante!

Wait a minute! We are shooting too low! Why 10 years? GO FOR 20 – OR 30. You deserve it!

Will Your Retirement Make You a Victim of Newton’s First Law of Motion?

What are the chances that your Certified Financial Planner would have learned about Newton’s First Law of Motion in insurance sales school?  You know, the Law that says ” -an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion with the same velocity unless acted upon by an unbalancing force.”

Do you suppose that any financial advisor has thought of himself or herself as an “unbalancing force?”

One could argue the case, I suppose, considering that so much of what a good financial planner does is help people put the brakes on.

“Here, let’s work on this plan so we can get you from doing 110 mph down to near zero. It’s the ‘natural’ thing to do because that’s what they taught me in life insurance school. Plus, you’ve earned it. You’ve worked hard and are entitled to fade away.”

OK – a bit melodramatic, I know – and I just pissed off the entirety of one of the largest components of the massive financial services industry.

But, isn’t there a modicum of truth in there somewhere?

Don’t we innocently buy into an unnatural concept that says it’s a logical and pre-destined thing to put the brakes on the body and mind at a certain (and equally illogical) age?

“OK, look, you’re almost 65. You know, it’s time to accept the fact that you’re starting to crumble and for you to start building safeguards against that, like a safe and comfortable retirement community where you can crumble together with other similarly brainwashed ‘seniors’.”

I’ve been sleeping with my “financial adviser” for 50 years and 2 months now. She avoids dropping the “R-word” into a conversation because (1) she knows where my short fuses are and (2) she doesn’t buy the concept either. Too much kid and grandkid work to do; too much connecting-with-siblings to do; too many Jack Reacher and C.J. Box novels to read; too big a fight for traditional values left to do; too many friendships that need massaging and deepening.

No kicking her to the curb! Or the park bench! (She’s zumba-ing in the kitchen as I write this).

I like to think it’s been my tremendous influence on her but, truth be known, submissive is not in her vocabulary.

I do believe, though, that enduring the sudden death of her 67-year-old father only ten months into his retirement after 46 years with one company left an indelible impression. Here one day, gone the next with no hint of physical problems. After 46 years of motion, an “unbalancing force” called retirement, wrapped nicely in a send-off dinner and a gold watch (seriously!), sent him home to become something he’d never been and wasn’t prepared to become – unchallenged, unstructured, unplanned.

Mo’ doesn’t need to leave the house!

Are we starting to rewrite some chapters in the life manual? Like the ones about how nirvana exists on the other side of 65 with the opportunity to wind down, come in for a landing, turn off the mind, and luxuriate in self-indulgence.

We can only hope we’re doing some serious editing.

I believe we are.

Momentum in life doesn’t have to – and shouldn’t – stop because a politician, big business, and union officials carved out an artificial finish line 86 years ago for purely political purposes with no humanitarian intent. Unfortunately, that act spawned an industry that has been incredibly successful for over five decades convincing us to do something that is unnatural and, ultimately, unhealthy.

It’s not realistic to expect a financial planner to fully understand or be inspired to explain that moving toward zero momentum is a violation of our very biology with its bilateral option of growth or decay. Folks, they are salespeople!  Can we really expect them to have an understanding of our cellular composition and the impact of their guidance on the same?

However, I do sense that there are financial planners becoming more sensitive to the “soft skill” sides of retirement and including more dialog about planning beyond just the numbers. In fact, Mitch Anthony, financial planning consultant and author of the excellent book entitled “The New Retirementality” has launched a program entitled “Life Centered Financial Planning” with the goal of equipping financial planning firms with tools to better address nonfinancial retirement challenges – or, as he calls them “the realistic, existential risks of retirement that humans must wrestle with.”

Part of his message to planners is to raise their sensitivity to the fact that “more and more people are coming to the same conclusion – it works to work. Working doesn’t have to mean all-in, but instead as needed to meet emotional, social, and intellectual stimulation needs.”

That’s a message I hope you may be hearing from your planner if you are working with one. If you aren’t working with one but plan to (P.S. you definitely should), watch for an attitude that goes beyond the charts and graphs and shows respect for the physical, social, mental, psychological, spiritual side of retirement.

Respect the law

Newton’s first law is often called the Law of Inertia. That’s pretty close to the true definition of retirement which is derived from the French verb “retirer” meaning to “retreat, withdraw, seek a place of safety and security.”

We weren’t meant to be “objects at rest.” In fact, we are designed for the opposite, regardless of age.

Don’t let anybody convince you otherwise.

Thanks for reading. If you have some thoughts on this topic, share them below with a comment. And tell your friends about our weekly articles at www.makeagingwork.com– there’s still lots of room on the mailing list.

 

 

 

Can We Get to 85 Without Any Ailments? An Opinion.

I’m forced to take a shortcut this week because of a tough schedule. So, I’m borrowing an article I posted on Quora a few months ago that garnered over 50,000 views. It was in response to the question:

How can one live 85 years without any ailments?

I offered my opinion:

It’s not likely you will. It’s really more of being able to live with them. Resilience is one of the characteristics found in those who live longer lives.

I’m 78 with the goal of living past 100. I have my share of “ailments”, some of which I’ve had for years. Both knees ache from 20 years of pickup basketball and two “clean up” surgeries; I have an arthritic left-thumb that hinders my love of guitar playing; a CT scan revealed I have significant cardiovascular disease; I have an under-active thyroid that makes weight control difficult and causes tiredness that I’ve medicated for 30+ years; I have atrial flutter (a first-cousin to atrial fib) for which I take a blood thinner.  And my feet hurt about 24 1/2 hours a day.

Having said all that, I stay firm in my conviction that I can live well beyond the average lifespan for men which is 78.9 in America. If I don’t, I will be checking out next Tuesday. I don’t have symptoms of anything that would say that is going to happen.  I’m remaining highly sequestered to increase the odds it won’t.

Here’s the point.

So much of how long we live and how we live long is between the temples. We aren’t likely to avoid ailments, especially if we are an American since our lifestyle preceding our later years was likely – shall I say – less than stellar. We most likely ate badly because we are beholden, out of naivete, to the deplorable Standard American Diet (SAD). And, we are likely on the bell curve of those who exercised far too little.

Also, let’s be honest. We still aren’t good at releasing this 20th-century myth that disease, debilitation, and dementia are automatic, an unalterable phenomenon – the ‘ol fate/God’s-will myth versus choice.

It’s really pretty simple. As a culture, we don’t really know jack about how our bodies and minds work and how to treat them optimally even though the how, what, and why information is massive and at our fingertips. And then we whine when we hit 60+ and some of our parts are acting like they are ready to be sent back to the universe.

I love the golf analogy. Far too many of us have played a pretty crappy “front nine” with our lifestyles of comfort, convenience, and conformity and find ourselves either remorsing through a dismal back-nine or trying to make up for or reverse it on the final nine holes. If I may stretch the analogy (for you golfers), we can find ourselves 175 yards out with only a 60-degree wedge in the bag.

 

 

I’m the poster-child for that.

I smoked until age 37 and ate badly through my first 60 years. Although I have been a gym rat and avid exerciser for over 40 years, the CT scan at age 73 revealed the truth of how those first five decades+ (my front-nine plus a few holes) had slowly, insidiously taken their toll.

So, resilience is part of the backbone of my existence as I march on this “pollyannish mission” to 100+. I work out aggressively, both aerobic and weight lifting, six days a week. It’s painful at every session but I’ve learned to tolerate the pain in favor of the results. I’ve also moved my diet more to a WFPB (whole-food-plant-based) program and away from the SAD C-R-A-P (calorie-rich-and-processed) diet that we Americans are captive to.

I choose to do the things that I know will maximize my chance of hitting my goal while having no illusions that I could be out of here by the end of the day. I’ve learned that all I have is today and have, with difficulty, learned the value of avoiding time travel into the future or the past.

It’s really all about ATTITUDE (see this article) and RESILIENCE as we age. Do some research on the lives of centenarians and you will find that nearly all of them have two consistent characteristics: (1) they have endured and survived numerous health and mental challenges with their resilience and (2) they have kept a sense of purpose and meaning in their lives, with the majority of them avoiding leisure-based retirement and staying engaged in some form of work.

So, if 85 is your goal (P.S. I suggest raising the bar – the human body can last to 112 years, 164 days), be prepared for ailments but adopt a “second half” lifestyle that will help you keep those to a minimum or give you more physical and mental strengths to live with them.

“It’s never too late to start but always too early to quit.”

How are you handling your “ailments?” (C’mon, you have some!) Share your thoughts with a comment below.