Should You Be “Training” for Old Age? You Bet! Here’s Why.

Sometimes dots connect.

I wish it happened more often. You’d think they would for someone who spends as much time thinking and trying to unravel the mess that constantly swirls between my temples.

A few dots connected this week after I read another Julia Hubbel article entitled “Are You in Training for Old Age? Or Just Planning to be Elderly?” and then a Bloomberg Opinion article in our local newspaper that my bride alerted me to entitled “Counting calories helps your retirement account.”

My thoughts then rolled to the concept of a 25-year life plan espoused by Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach and one of the foremost executive coaches on the planet.

Hang on – let me try to connect these for you.

Julia is way outside the bell curve in most things, but particularly in the area of fitness.

 

Schlepping wood. Julia Hubbel

At 69, she’s recovering from shoulder surgery which is part of her preparation for her “training to summit Kilimanjaro for the second time the year I turn 70, ten years to the day after I did it at sixty.”

I don’t ‘spect many of you out there have Kili on your bucket list. I certainly don’t.

So, why on earth?

Let me excerpt from her post to make her point (bolding is mine):

“You and I set ourselves up for Early-onset Elderly when we take lousy care of the skinsuit we’re in. Ultra-processed food, no exercise, and lots of ugly self-talk about how old you feel.

Speaking of BHAGs – –

-Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach, has his own version, which he has followed and taught for most of his 40+ years of coaching over 8,000 successful entrepreneurs.

He keeps a rolling 25-year life plan out in front of him – a long game with a motivating, evolving stretch goal always a quarter-century out, regardless of age.

His theory is fundamentally sound. If we set a worthwhile, challenging, and achievable goal, our brain, being a teleological device, will help us get there.

Dan is pretty deep into his 70s which makes his dedication to this plan seem illogical. But, it underscores the fact that goal setting is age-independent. 

The execution of Dan’s plan is where the power and beauty lie. He works backward from the 25-year goal to the current quarter, defines the five things he needs to do that quarter toward that 25-year goal, and then back further to the three things he will do TODAY against those five quarterly goals.

Taking them one at a time, his day is done when those three things are complete, whether it takes an hour or 20 hours.

25 – 5 – 3 – 1 

It’s a beautiful plan for present moment focus that allows one’s brain to work for and not against as it is so inclined to do with fears and regrets as we age.

As an outspoken believer in living well past 100, Dan has been planning for old age most of his life.

Calories and your 401k?

Chew on this:

“A 55-year-old woman with Type 2 diabetes will pay an average of $3,470 more a year in medical-related expenses, or close to $160,000 in total, than if she didn’t have the disease.”

So says the Bloomberg Opinion article 11/28/2021, making the point that “the right food choices over time can have just as much of an impact on retirement savings as market forces and investment decisions.”

The article goes on to emphasize that few retirement planners focus on diet or other lifestyle changes that can help avoid chronic conditions that erode savings.

Medical professionals rarely talk about financial issues related to poor health, let alone any kind of plan. That doesn’t roll up under the prevailing “drug it or cut it out” medical model we inherited.

Both are sadly deficient in helping plan for old age.

Both are content to let becoming elderly be the plan. 

A suggested Early-onset Elderly antidote

Whether you are 50, 60, 70 or beyond, retired or not retired, setting goals still makes sense.

Maybe this will help re-inspire you to keep planning.

Let’s reintroduce the Retirement Planning Wheel. Use it to do an honest assessment of where you are today in each of these 12 areas of your life.

How balanced is your wheel?

Then set a goal in those areas that you feel are out of balance. A weekly goal, an annual goal, and OK – maybe even a 25-year goal.

I’ll let Julia wrap this with a line from her article:

“When life happens, you and I have to happen to life. We can wail woe is me, or we can choose to climb aboard another goal and get going.”

In hopes that I’ve connected some dots, I’m leaving for 24 Hour Fitness. Mondays are 40 minutes of machine circuit and 30 minutes of aerobic with some H-I-I-T.

P.S. I hate it-

-but it’s part of the 25-year plan, I like the results and –

-if I don’t move my body, I can’t really suggest that you move yours. 

Is there a 1,3,5,10, or 25-year plan in your head? Let us know what you think about all this. You can leave a comment below or email us with your thoughts at gary@makeagingwork.com.

Are You Inviting the “Pity” of Younger People?

 

“Worrying about getting old makes us old. Being terrified of aging ages us perhaps more swiftly than anything. Research shows time and time again that our attitudes about how we age have a huge influence on how we age. When we constantly complain about how old we feel, how decrepit we are, we bring those truths into being. We stoop, slow down, give up, and talk ourselves into an early grave.”

That’s a quote from a recent article written by Julia Hubbell, a prolific and talented writer and 68-year-old self-proclaimed “bad-a**” who lives life continuously messing around at, or just beyond, the far edges of her mental and physical comfort zone.  I’ve followed her on Medium.com for a couple of years, from when she was a fellow Coloradoan to now as she’s “escaped” to Oregon.

I guess I enjoy her edgy writing style because she doesn’t suffer fools, sorts out truth better than most people I know, and isn’t afraid to deliver a gut punch.

Hence, this article caught my eye: Terrified of Deteriorating and Dying Young? How to Avoid Early-Onset Elderly

How does the word “pity” resonate with you?

Julia references a study of Princeton students that found that “the students, by and large, clung to common stereotypes about the elderly, most notably those pertaining to the elderly being incompetent and less ambitious. Although their findings were mixed in regard to general discrimination and prejudice toward the elderly (e.g., both positive and negative feelings were present), they found that although most students felt a sense of warmth toward the elderly the most common sentiment involved feelings of pity toward them.“

Sorry, but I don’t think “sense of warmth” is an adequate offset to pity.

Pity gets my 80-year old hackles up!

Just don’t, please.

Why didn’t I think of that?

I don’t know if Julia originated the term “early-onset elderly” (I’ll give her credit for it) but I’m stealing it. Writers do that a lot.

It’s a perfect description of a self-inflicted condition that is still way too prevalent in our culture.

We of advancing age are often guilty of bringing on the ageism we are so quick to condemn.

We can point at our youth-oriented society, media, advertising agencies, the entertainment industry, and legitimately claim that we’re up against formidable forces to gain respect. But we mustn’t forget that when we point, we have three digits pointed back at us.

Given that, then what are three things that we overlook that contribute to making it easy for our youngers to drag out the pitying attitude.

1. Our physical appearance.

There’s nothing that says “geezer” or “biddy” more clearly than bad clothes hanging on a body that has been allowed to deteriorate.  And nothing sets one apart amongst our demographic better than a fit body appropriately attired with clothes that are properly fitted and fashionably current.

One of the physical traits that become prevalent as we age is poor posture.  Our age group tends to become “commas” instead of “exclamation points.”  Stooped shoulders, slouching – traits that belay our age.  But these are traits that are addressable.

We weren’t born with poor posture – we’ve trained ourselves into it.  And we have to work hard to get our good posture back.

Dr. Walter Bortz, in his book “Dare To Be 100” puts it into a good perspective:

“Some of the bad news about aging derives simply from the way many older people look. They look bent and spent. Their posture seems to tell the story of their lives, as drooping slowly to the grave. Or course, almost all of this is preventable, and much of it is reversible.  The dowager hump comes from decades of conceding to gravity – and just plain laziness.  You have to work hard to have good posture.”

2. Our isolation and failure to engage.

We don’t disengage because we are old. We become old because we disengage.

Fifty years ago, disengagement was the dominant theory of the psychology of aging. Aging people were expected to loosen their bonds with society, falling away from the environment and the environment falling away from them.

Retirement and other social cues and institutional practices still come into play that pull us away from engagement with those younger. We isolate and escape to “elder warehouses” where we congregate, commiserate, and commune with only those like us, failing to engage those younger.

Younger people aren’t going to seek us ought. It’s on us to be proactive in engaging younger people, share our wisdom, listen to their concerns, and learn from them.

3. Our rigid thinking.

Are we listening to the concerns that the 2-3 generations behind us are expressing? Do we demonstrate “I’ve got mine, so don’t bother me with your whining about climate change, planet destruction, income inequality, unaffordable housing, et.al.?

We pre-boomer, boomers, early GenXers have been pretty harsh on the late GenXer, millennials, Gen Y’s.

It’s time we listen and be open-minded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Hot Dogs, Senators, and Prescriptions for Beans, Broccoli, Bananas, and Blueberries.

 

Photo by call me hangry on Unsplash

What’s your reaction when you look at this picture?

My reaction? I’m like a Pavlov dog – I start salivating. Put a brat with mustard on a white bun within a city block of me and I’m off my heath-and-wellness rails in a heartbeat in my clamor to indulge – and I can’t stop at one.

Hey, I’m a health and wellness advocate with an above-average awareness of the ills embedded in our profit-driven food system and an understanding of the long-term ill effects of eating garbage.

OK – yeah! I’m a weak hypocrite!

That picture above, folks, can be found right next to Webster’s definition of garbage in the dictionary. It’s typical of  the garbage that props up the shareholder value of the giants of our presumably benevolent food industry.

What’s happening here?

Aside from my inherent lack of self-discipline, a collection of cells at the back of my tongue were captured and kept captive years ago as I innocently, naively allowed creative food engineers to seize my taste buds with scientifically-crafted, addictive combinations of fat, salt, and sugar.

Home Depot shortened my life!

You’ve probably come across the media announcement that consuming a hot dog takes 36 minutes off your life.

Bummer! There’s goes my goal to hit 112 1/2.

I luv hot dogs!

Especially Home Depot hot dogs.

I went through a multiyear spell of finding any excuse – legit or lame – to visit Home Depot. Often multiple times a week.

You should see my collection of screws and mollies.

Every trip ended with two mustard-lathered hot dogs from the street vendor they allowed at one of the main exits.

They were cheap – $1.50 each. Just good ‘ol plain Hormel tubes of you-don’t-want-to-know ingredients generously injected with salt.

My captive taste buds overrode any semblance of knowledge and common sense!!

Each trip = over an hour off my life.

Washington is coming – fear not!

What are we to do to protect weaklings like me from ourselves?

Why, of course, we call in the politicians. Let’s sic Congress on this one also.

It appears that Senator Cory Booker believes so. I quote the distinguished Senator from a recent article in MedPage Today:

“Currently in the United States, half of the U.S. population is pre-diabetic, or has type 2 diabetes. In 1960, approximately 3% of the U.S. population was obese. Today, more than 40% of Americans are obese and more than 70% of Americans are either obese or overweight.”

“–now we face that second food crisis — one of nutrition insecurity where too many Americans are overfed but undernourished and are seeing these staggering rates of disease and early death.” Although the U.S. is the world’s wealthiest nation, “we have created a food system that relentlessly encourages the overeating of empty calories, literally making us sick and causing us to spend an ever-increasing amount of our taxpayer dollars … on healthcare costs to treat diet-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, certain types of cancer, and chronic kidney disease.”

Don’t you love it – this bandwagon game?

And we wonder why Congress has a 27% approval rating.

I’m biting my tongue –

Excuse me, Senator, but how long have we known all this? How long have legions of respected physicians and nutritionists been beating this drum?

How long has our government been issuing unhealthy nutritional guidelines that are heavily influenced by the same food industry that is killing us slowly?

Oh, maybe like nearly forever – or at least a couple of decades.

But that doesn’t deter any able politician from jumping on another band wagon even when the wagon is really late.

Simple – slap a fancy name on the issue, call it nutrition insecurity, and rage against the machine – a machine that fakes its concern about our health and nutrition and rakes in billions by exploiting our biological affinity for sugar, salt, and fat and our bent toward comfort and convenience.

-but, not holding my breath.

We did effect major behavioral change through government action driving smoking cessation.

But, not everybody smoked.

Everybody eats.

Picture warning labels on every Big Mac or bag of fries. Or Big Gulp. Or Hormel hot dog or Johnsonville brat.

Maybe there’s an easier way to turn this messiness around.

Just suppose we started teaching physicians how and why to write prescriptions for beans, broccoli, bananas, and blueberries.

Can you imagine?

Your Primary Care Physician looking up your nose, in your ears, tapping your knees for reflex, doing the deep breaths and the “turn your head and cough” and the rubber glove digital exam thing (sorry ladies – I can’t speak to your physicals – I haven’t been allowed in the room when in progress) then looking up from his computer (if you are lucky) and writing a prescription to fill at your local super market.

No, not at the pharmacy or the middle aisles – along the perimeter in the produce section.

“Here”, he or she says, “fill this list and take several days a week – for the rest of your life. No, your insurance won’t cover the beans, brocolli, bananas, blueberries. But, there’s a good chance you won’t be needing insurance much if you take this prescription as directed.”

Who do we respect and trust more – senators or doctors?

Suppose, instead of trying to legislate behavior change, we legislate change at the medical school level and require nutritional training that forces doctors to be honest about their oath to “do no harm” by being proactive in counseling patients on proper diet and the consequences of a poor diet.

I wrote about this a few months back (see the article here) and included a video by one of the greatest champions of good nutrition, Dr. Michael Greber, that documents the shortfall in nutritional training in our medical schools.

It’s an outrage.

This could be a culture change that could beget another – and huge – culture change.

Maybe you are lucky and have connected with a physician who is nutrition savvy and proactive in nutrition counseling.

They are out there – and growing in numbers, slowly.

But, we need to find a way to increase the numbers faster – fast enough to prevent the Cory Bookers from grabbing the spotlight and sending the issue into neverland.

What are your thoughts on this? Anybody have a magic formula for retraining taste buds? Leave a comment below and tell your friends to join the tribe/diatribe at www.makeagingwork.com.

Oops. I Screwed Up!

 

Well, I screwed up.

This week’s post is going out next week. I hit the wrong send button in Mailchimp at midnight last night, obviously in a fog from a long day.

So, I’m filling in this week with a funny (as opposed to the usual run of unfunny stuff you are so kind to read).

I just wrapped up a season of golf playing in a senior men’s golf league. This is a seriously geratric league and, on Wednesday mornings, is the largest concentration of artificial knees, hips, and 55″ waistlines in the Denver metro area.

Good group of guys. No serious golf prowess is demonstrated between 7 a.m. and noon on league day.

I’m a poster child for poor golf. Despite playing over 30 rounds this summer, practicing a couple days a week, I didn’t move my handicap one iota.

Clubs are in timeout – and I’ve got my Wednesday’s back.

I’m admonished by my wife (and some friends) for being too serious about wanting to get better.

You know, the bit about “just enjoying nature and being in the outdoors.” To which I say, if that’s your thing, try bird watching.

Golf is intentionally designed to weed out the bird watchers and drag in guys like me with the ridiculous notion that they can get really good at the game.

I remain undettered in my commitment to shoot my age. I know it’s achievable but it means I will still need to be able to swing the club at age 100 because that’s where my score has been stuck for years now.

So, as a goodbye to the golf season and to fill in for my posting mess-up, I’m sharing this collection of exchanges that have been detected between golfer and caddy.

Enjoy. I don’t think you have to be a golfer to laugh a little at this.

Number:10
Golfer: “I think I’m going to drown myself in the lake.”
Caddy: “Think you can keep your head down that long?”

Number: 9

Golfer: “I’d move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course.”
Caddy: “Try heaven, you’ve already moved most of the earth.”

Number: 8
Golfer: “Do you think my game is improving?”
Caddy: “Yes . . . You miss the ball much closer now.”

Number: 7
Golfer: “Do you think I can get there with a 5 iron?”
Caddy: “Eventually.”

Number: 6
Golfer: “You’ve got to be the worst caddy in the world.”
Caddy: “I don’t think so . . .that would be too much of a coincidence.”

Number: 5
Golfer: “Please stop checking your watch all the time. It’s too much of a distraction.”
Caddy: “It’s not a watch – it’s a compass.”

Number: 4
Golfer: “How do you like my game?”
Caddy: “It’s very good – personally, I prefer golf.”

Number : 3
Golfer: “Do you think it’s a sin to play on Sunday?
Caddy: “The way you play, it’s a sin on any day.”

Number: 2
Golfer: “This is the worst course I’ve ever played on.”
Caddy: “This isn’t the golf course. We left that an hour ago.”

And the Number: 1 . . . . Best Caddy Comment:
Golfer: “That can’t be my ball, it’s too old.”
Caddy: “It’s been a long time since we teed off, sir.”

What is the best, free natural anti-aging technique? (Can we get over this rant?)

I get a daily feed of dozens of questions being asked by Quora.com subscribers that fall in the area of retirement, health and wellness, aging, and career transition.

I try to respond to one or two of those questions daily.

Most questions are worthy of attention, but every day produces some doozies. For example, here’s a sampling from the last couple of days:

  • What are some reasons not to live to be 100?
  • At what point did you start feeling old, and how did you get over it?
  • How does it feel to be old (Ex: 40)?
  • Why can’t I find a career I like? I just got my mortgage license at the age of 40 it’s been a year and now I hate my job. I’ve spent so much time and $ on getting licensed. I feel too old to keep doing this.
  • Been self-employed for nearly a decade, desperate times, going back to having a second job, been long since I’ve worked in a supermarket, lots has changed, I’m in my mid 30s, scared and nervous as hell, how to handle my nerves? Also feel so old.

By far, the most common question revolves around the topic of “anti-aging.”

I grind my teeth every time I see one.

Where do we get this idea that we can “anti-age?” Last I heard, we don’t come out of this thing alive.

Well, rather than grind, I decided to fire off a response to one and it seemed to kick up quite a few views.  So I’ll share it with you.

Here was the question :

What is the best, free natural anti-aging technique?

– and my response

Golly, folks – can we give “anti-aging” a rest??

Seriously, we’re making it way too easy for all these wonder cream and untested supplement manufacturers to laugh all the way to the bank.

May I quote Dr. Walter Bortz, retired Stanford geriatric physician from his book “Dare to Be 100”?

“Life is a fatal disease. Once contracted, there is no known cure.”

The rude, unassailable truth is that you and I are going to get wrinkly, creaky, and then die.

How ’bout we get rid of “anti-aging” – because it isn’t possible – and substitute it with something like “slower aging” or “decelerated aging.”

I know – really clunky.

Anti-aging is so easy and has a natural appeal even though it’s bunk, creating a hopeful image of something that isn’t possible.

We can’t stop the aging process – but we can slow its momentum.

Perhaps that’s a more reasonable, attainable goal. Given that we are going to grow old, let’s avoid GETTING OLD as long as possible.

OK, you can call it anti-aging or whatever you like, but I’m going to call it removing the accelerants of aging and suggest that you work toward eliminating those accelerants first.

Then maybe consideration of some of those wonder creams and supplements can come into play.

There are more than a few “accelerants.”

Let’s take a look at a dozen:

1. No exercise. I know, you’re tired of hearing it. And I know it’s likely you will buck it up at some point and renew that gym membership and just as likely you will fall off again six weeks later. It’s just not built into your lifestyle and it won’t sustain until you build it in. Think of it this way. Can you find 2.6% of your week that is going to unhealthy activities (TV, barstools, Facebook, etc.) and convert that to 45 minutes of combined aerobic and strength training six days of the week? That’s only 10% of the time the average American male spends each week watching TV (49 hours).

The potential ROI: living longer, dying shorter; more vitality longer; look better, feel better; amaze your overweight, sedentary, deteriorating friends; lower healthcare costs.

Perhaps this admonition from Dr. Henry Lodge in the book “Younger Next Year” will help:

“Aerobic exercise will give you life; strength-training will make it worth living.”

2. Diet heavy in animal products. Heart disease remains the number one killer in our culture. The link between heart disease and a diet heavy in animal products i.e. meat and dairy is indisputable despite all the claims to the contrary by those industries. A whole-food, plant-heavy diet brings with it a long list of benefits, only one of which is the reduced likelihood of heart disease. It also reduces the possibility of cancer, stroke, diabetes, and dementia which round out the rest of the top five killers in our culture.

3. Mindset. It’s amazing and disturbing to me how many of my generation are still of the mindset that senescence and frailty are automatic when we have so much evidence and knowledge to the contrary and many weapons against both.

Any personal move to add years to your life and life to your years has to start with a mindset that doesn’t accept this old thinking.

4. Healthcare illiteracy. We’ve allowed our personal healthcare to become a $35 co-pay experience with a physician who is entrenched in a disease-care system focused on cure and not on prevention. As such we put our self-care in a reactive mode versus a proactive mode. We think health only when something skids off the rails and then face a system that only knows drug it or cut it out.

One of the major keys to longevity is “self-efficacy” i.e. taking control of your own health destiny by understanding how your biology works, knowing where you stand against the key biomarkers of good health (see Key Step #2 in my free e-book Achieve_Your_Full-Life_Potential), and taking charge of your own health through increased knowledge and proactive action.

5. Conformity. Sir Walter Scott said he would trade whole years filled with mindless conformity for “one hour of life crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks.”

When dying people in a hospice are asked about any regrets they had about their lives, by far the most common regret is “I wish I had pursued my dreams and aspirations, and not the life others expected of me.” ‘Nough said. Conformity involves comparison. Comparison is one of the biggest killers of happiness.  Don’t believe that?  Check out what Facebook is doing to our younger generations.

6. Suppressing courage. In the same hospice study, the second most common regret was “I wish I had the courage to express my feelings and speak my mind.” The author of the study, an Australian palliative care nurse by the name of Bronnie Ware learned that “many of her dying patients believed they suppressed their true feelings and didn’t speak their mind when they should have because they wanted to keep peace with others.”

Most of them chose not to confront difficult situations and people, even when it offended them. By suppressing their anger, they built up a lot of bitterness and resentment which ultimately affected their health. See the complete article here.

7. Toxic relationships. Jim Rohn, the renowned businessman and motivational speaker, famously said that “we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.” Relationships with toxic people steal away life-giving energy while being around positive, encouraging, supportive people who are continuing to grow can restore energy. Choose your relationships wisely and dissolve those that are harmful.

8. Stopping learning. Historian Peter Laslett emphasizes that only by living into our natural lifespan are we able to exploit our true potential. As we age, our brain cells can become intimately connected with new and emerging realities. A lifelong strategy of learning is a potent force for good. Smart people live longer.

9. Isolation. According to the AARP Foundation, the health risk of prolonged isolation is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Research has shown a 26 percent increased risk of death due to the subjective feelings of loneliness.

10. Not working. Evidence has been in for a long time. Work is necessary for longer, healthier living. Polls of centenarians have revealed that an astonishingly high percentage of them continue to work and that they rank working alongside being able to walk as one of the keys to their longevity.

11. Narrowed comfort zones. As we age, we may tend to narrow our comfort zones. For example “I’ve never done that” or “I don’t know anything about computers” or “I’m too old to start that”. These responses are indicators that the fossilization process is underway. The fact that you hear 50-year olds making these statements is proof that “old” can start at any age. Source: The New Retirementality.

12. Traditional retirement. Going over the cliff from labor-to-leisure, vocation-to-vacation retirement can erode sense of purpose and identity. Without purpose, many of the life-shortening elements of retirement begin to creep in – boredom, increased isolation, declining social engagement, reduced physical activity, depression.

One in five of Americans over 65 suffer from some level of depression. Men aged 75 and older have the highest annual suicide rate of any group.

Calling Dr. Bortz back on stage, we hear him say:

“Our ripples, the energy signature of our life, remain and endure. Rippling exalts Mozart, Buddha, Aristotle, Christ, Einstein, Darwin, to name a few, whose lives’ energies persist and penetrate today in a larger way than they did while alive. Similarly, even the most modest among us leaves ripples behind.”

“Once we confront our own mortality, we find it vastly easier to re-arrange our priorities, communicate more deeply with those we love, appreciate more keenly the beauty of life, and increase our willingness to take the risks necessary for personal fulfillment. And imprint our ripples on the cosmos forever.”

Instead of an anti-aging fixation,

– how about more emphasis on our “ripples” and less on our “wrinkles?”

Mankind can use the help.

Can you add to this list? We’d love your feedback. Leave a comment below.