I hear it a couple of times every week:
“Getting old is a bitch!”
Or the overworked, less profane version:
“Getting old isn’t for sissies!”
Occasionally, someone will resort to an attempt at the comedic approach and borrow the classic:
“If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
I’m not saying it’s pandemic, but it’s bumping up against it with my demographic peer group. I’m a septuagenarian (for you Pittsburgh Steelers fans, that means I’m in my seventies).
I know, if I don’t like it then stop talking to the complainers. I get it. But that’s not an option for me. I’m out to change attitudes in this demographic, so continued engagement is part of my quest.
I’ll admit, however, there are a few in that ever-widening group that merit reconsideration for future conversations. You know the type – the ones that are so negative about their age-related problems that you come away having a big chunk of the remaining oxygen sucked out of your own dwindling supply of positive about aging.
And then there are conversations about surgeries.
Holy crap, am I the only one that can’t avoid a conversation with a fellow second-halfer that doesn’t evolve into a long litany of completed and/or impending surgeries?
I recently had coffee with a good friend who I hadn’t seen for about 18 months. My hopes for an invigorating conversation of substantive topics – which we have had in the past – quickly slid into a recap of his knee replacement, impending hip surgery, and his wife’s shoulder replacement and a few other physical infirmity issues I don’t recall because I tuned them out.
To top it off, we ran into a mutual friend and that conversation centered totally on his multiple surgeries since we had last seen him.
I came away with nothing more than coffee breath, two lost hours and 15 more miles on my similarly aged Explorer odometer.
Since my last surgery was fifteen years ago and it was just a thumb ligament repair, I find myself on a bit of an island in a lot of conversations when sexagenarians and above get together – or chat it up by phone.
Should I expect different attitudes? Perhaps not. It’s a product of three things, it would seem.
One, our venture beyond middle-age today is putting us into unfamiliar territory. We haven’t been here before – living this much longer. One hundred years ago, we checked out around 50, mostly succumbing to what retired Stanford geriatric physician Dr. Walter Bortz refers to as “lightning events” i.e. infectious diseases, injuries/accidents, malignancies, poisonings, wars.
Not so much today.
Second, that same medical establishment that stamped out many of those lightning events now has gotten really good at propping us up when we slump and extending us on into what is, for many, an extended period of agony and reduced mobility.
Third, much of our boomer and pre-boomer demographic have mental hard-drives crowded with outdated and inaccurate perceptions of the aging process.
To appreciate and realize full-life potential calls for a serious defrag.
Here are three myths, models, and messages that we boomers and pre-boomers seem to cling to that hold us back from making the second-half/third act the most productive and fulfilling time of our lives, including my two-cents worth on each:
- Myth #1: Aging equals infirmity
I’ve written before about the reaction people have when I tell them of my intent to live to 100 (recently revised up to 112 1/2 because my quest is growing and I need more time). Repulsion is the prevalent reaction. The mind’s eye immediately envisions urine-scented nursing homes, degraded function, frailty and loss of independence – at worst, dementia, drool and Depends.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. A Pew Research Group survey revealed that only 8 percent of us show interest in living to 100. Sad.
Pew research, however, also tells us that, despite the disinterest, the centenarian population will grow eightfold by 2050.
Neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez, in the research for his book The Mindbody Code, did extensive analysis of healthy centenarians across varied cultures. His research tells us that we can “ – modify ‘aging consciousness’ in a society that does not support growing older for what it is; an opportunity to increase your value and competence.”
One of the central themes he found among healthy centenarians everywhere was their defiance of disempowering cultural portals (beliefs) and “- a conviction to question what does not personally make sense to them” and to “- choose healthy defiance of the tribe where others opt for unhealthy compliance with it.”
In other words, not going with the crowd while sticking their finger in the eye of automatic senescence.
Our culturally-imbued vision of old age is wrong-headed. Too often, it puts the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy into play and ignores – even denies – the fact that much of how we age is subject to intervention and under our control.
It’s never too late to put life-extending habits in place; it’s always too early to keep the bad ones alive.
Our bodies will respond to proper treatment at any age.
- Myth #2: My DNA is my destiny
My wife and I did a simple exercise about 35 years ago that appeared in the Parade magazine insert in our Sunday newspaper (remember those?). It suggested that we could predict our lifespan by averaging the ages of our parents and grandparents. Based on the results, she’s been dead for seven years and I’ve been dead for eleven.
Currently, neither of us appear close to dead.
That little exercise spoke to the level of scientific understanding of the role of genetics that existed at the time. The belief that genetics drive our health and longevity continues as a common belief.
I’m surprised at how much it still influences our thinking in the face of overwhelming evidence that our fate is not sealed by our DNA – evidence spawned by the information being yielded through, amongst many bio-scientific discoveries, the sequencing of the genome. The idea that we can influence how our genes express themselves continues to be a subject that many of those in my demographic aren’t aware of or are unwilling to accept if they are aware.
An important emerging field in genetics is called “epigenetics” which is the “biological mechanisms that switch genes on and off.”
Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician, offers some insight on genetics and epigenetics from his website MercolaTake Control of Your Health :
Epigenetics is probably the most important biological discovery since DNA. And it is turning the biological sciences upside down.
Now that we realize our fate is not sealed at the twining of our double helix, we avail ourselves to a whole new world of possibilities. There are things we can do to change our genetics, and therefore our health.
But beware — these changes can be good or bad. It works both ways.
You can improve your genetics or you can damage it.
In fact, you ARE changing your genetics daily and perhaps even hourly from the foods you eat, the air you breathe, and even by the thoughts you think.
You are the “caretaker” of your genetic roadmap.
Fundamentally, we’ve been called out if we are trying to hide behind genetics as an excuse for bad lifestyle habits.
- Myth #3: Retirement is a good thing
I’ll be careful – and brief here. Retirement is so entrenched in our culture and psyche I would be foolish to totally condemn it. I have enough trouble sustaining relationships with my hermit qualities as it is.
What I will rail against is off-the-cliff, labor-to-leisure, vocation-to-vacation retirement – the traditional model that emanated from a political decision in 1935, and that grew and became deeply embedded with the help of the financial services industry over the past 40-50 years.
The statistics showing accelerated physical deterioration, depression, suicides, substance abuse, and divorce that accompany this traditional retirement model are too compelling to ignore and to say that it’s the smartest, healthiest thing to do.
I advocate for unretirement or semi-retirement where the talents, skills, experience of 30-40 years of life are carried forward and shared with future generations in a way that pays forward while rewarding the “semi-retiree” a balanced lifestyle of leisure with contribution, service, and production rather than a sedentary, greedy, selfish lifestyle of consumption only.
‘Nough said. Off the soapbox. Thanks for tuning in.
Let me know your thoughts on all this. Leave a comment below – and don’t be shy if I’ve offended you. I grow from your feedback.
Aging Doesn’t Need to Be a B****
I hear it a couple of times every week:
“Getting old is a bitch!”
Or the overworked, less profane version:
“Getting old isn’t for sissies!”
Occasionally, someone will resort to an attempt at the comedic approach and borrow the classic:
“If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
I’m not saying it’s pandemic, but it’s bumping up against it with my demographic peer group. I’m a septuagenarian (for you Pittsburgh Steelers fans, that means I’m in my seventies).
I know, if I don’t like it then stop talking to the complainers. I get it. But that’s not an option for me. I’m out to change attitudes in this demographic, so continued engagement is part of my quest.
I’ll admit, however, there are a few in that ever-widening group that merit reconsideration for future conversations. You know the type – the ones that are so negative about their age-related problems that you come away having a big chunk of the remaining oxygen sucked out of your own dwindling supply of positive about aging.
And then there are conversations about surgeries.
Holy crap, am I the only one that can’t avoid a conversation with a fellow second-halfer that doesn’t evolve into a long litany of completed and/or impending surgeries?
I recently had coffee with a good friend who I hadn’t seen for about 18 months. My hopes for an invigorating conversation of substantive topics – which we have had in the past – quickly slid into a recap of his knee replacement, impending hip surgery, and his wife’s shoulder replacement and a few other physical infirmity issues I don’t recall because I tuned them out.
To top it off, we ran into a mutual friend and that conversation centered totally on his multiple surgeries since we had last seen him.
I came away with nothing more than coffee breath, two lost hours and 15 more miles on my similarly aged Explorer odometer.
Since my last surgery was fifteen years ago and it was just a thumb ligament repair, I find myself on a bit of an island in a lot of conversations when sexagenarians and above get together – or chat it up by phone.
Should I expect different attitudes? Perhaps not. It’s a product of three things, it would seem.
Not so much today.
Second, that same medical establishment that stamped out many of those lightning events now has gotten really good at propping us up when we slump and extending us on into what is, for many, an extended period of agony and reduced mobility.
Third, much of our boomer and pre-boomer demographic have mental hard-drives crowded with outdated and inaccurate perceptions of the aging process.
To appreciate and realize full-life potential calls for a serious defrag.
Here are three myths, models, and messages that we boomers and pre-boomers seem to cling to that hold us back from making the second-half/third act the most productive and fulfilling time of our lives, including my two-cents worth on each:
I’ve written before about the reaction people have when I tell them of my intent to live to 100 (recently revised up to 112 1/2 because my quest is growing and I need more time). Repulsion is the prevalent reaction. The mind’s eye immediately envisions urine-scented nursing homes, degraded function, frailty and loss of independence – at worst, dementia, drool and Depends.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. A Pew Research Group survey revealed that only 8 percent of us show interest in living to 100. Sad.
Pew research, however, also tells us that, despite the disinterest, the centenarian population will grow eightfold by 2050.
Neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez, in the research for his book The Mindbody Code, did extensive analysis of healthy centenarians across varied cultures. His research tells us that we can “ – modify ‘aging consciousness’ in a society that does not support growing older for what it is; an opportunity to increase your value and competence.”
One of the central themes he found among healthy centenarians everywhere was their defiance of disempowering cultural portals (beliefs) and “- a conviction to question what does not personally make sense to them” and to “- choose healthy defiance of the tribe where others opt for unhealthy compliance with it.”
In other words, not going with the crowd while sticking their finger in the eye of automatic senescence.
Our culturally-imbued vision of old age is wrong-headed. Too often, it puts the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy into play and ignores – even denies – the fact that much of how we age is subject to intervention and under our control.
It’s never too late to put life-extending habits in place; it’s always too early to keep the bad ones alive.
Our bodies will respond to proper treatment at any age.
My wife and I did a simple exercise about 35 years ago that appeared in the Parade magazine insert in our Sunday newspaper (remember those?). It suggested that we could predict our lifespan by averaging the ages of our parents and grandparents. Based on the results, she’s been dead for seven years and I’ve been dead for eleven.
Currently, neither of us appear close to dead.
That little exercise spoke to the level of scientific understanding of the role of genetics that existed at the time. The belief that genetics drive our health and longevity continues as a common belief.
I’m surprised at how much it still influences our thinking in the face of overwhelming evidence that our fate is not sealed by our DNA – evidence spawned by the information being yielded through, amongst many bio-scientific discoveries, the sequencing of the genome. The idea that we can influence how our genes express themselves continues to be a subject that many of those in my demographic aren’t aware of or are unwilling to accept if they are aware.
An important emerging field in genetics is called “epigenetics” which is the “biological mechanisms that switch genes on and off.”
Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician, offers some insight on genetics and epigenetics from his website MercolaTake Control of Your Health :
Epigenetics is probably the most important biological discovery since DNA. And it is turning the biological sciences upside down.
Now that we realize our fate is not sealed at the twining of our double helix, we avail ourselves to a whole new world of possibilities. There are things we can do to change our genetics, and therefore our health.
But beware — these changes can be good or bad. It works both ways.
You can improve your genetics or you can damage it.
In fact, you ARE changing your genetics daily and perhaps even hourly from the foods you eat, the air you breathe, and even by the thoughts you think.
You are the “caretaker” of your genetic roadmap.
Fundamentally, we’ve been called out if we are trying to hide behind genetics as an excuse for bad lifestyle habits.
I’ll be careful – and brief here. Retirement is so entrenched in our culture and psyche I would be foolish to totally condemn it. I have enough trouble sustaining relationships with my hermit qualities as it is.
The statistics showing accelerated physical deterioration, depression, suicides, substance abuse, and divorce that accompany this traditional retirement model are too compelling to ignore and to say that it’s the smartest, healthiest thing to do.
I advocate for unretirement or semi-retirement where the talents, skills, experience of 30-40 years of life are carried forward and shared with future generations in a way that pays forward while rewarding the “semi-retiree” a balanced lifestyle of leisure with contribution, service, and production rather than a sedentary, greedy, selfish lifestyle of consumption only.
‘Nough said. Off the soapbox. Thanks for tuning in.
Let me know your thoughts on all this. Leave a comment below – and don’t be shy if I’ve offended you. I grow from your feedback.
Take-off? Or landing? – Time to Decide (an update)
“Life is a fatal disease. Once contracted, there is no hope for survival”
Dr. Walter Bortz, retired Stanford geriatric physician and one my heroes, made that statement in his 1984 book “Dare To Be 100”. It forms a backdrop for his message about our potential to live longer, healthier and more meaningful lives.
Dr. Bortz knows a thing or two (about growing old) because he’s seen a thing or two (thanks, J.K. Simmons). What better source than someone who has 50+ years of observing life, death, and survival?
A Google search today didn’t produce an obit on Dr. Bortz so I’m assuming he is still continuing to set a very active pace, at 89, taking a longevity message to audiences globally. Watch this two-minute video to get a taste of Dr. Bortz’s commitment to full-life potential.
I discovered Dr. Bortz and his book “Dare to Be 100” in 2013. Dr. Bortz was saying three decades ago what we now realize is the truth about what it takes to age successfully.
His seven books were a catalyst for me, providing a sensible “roadmap” to late-life health with facts and advice unencumbered by political or corporate influence.
It’s a deeply ingrained attitude – but it’s naïve. I’ll stake that claim on the fact that we choose not to understand our biology. And because we don’t understand it, we do things that result in us “living too short and dying too long” and robbing ourselves of our full life potential – really the core of Dr. Bortz message.
I started this weekly printed pontification 20 months ago in an attempt to manifest a deepening desire to help people who have passed the 50-year milestone to pivot their attitudes regarding aging and to “Make Aging Work” by thinking and living bigger while slowing the aging process.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said “Many people die with their music still in them. Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it time runs out.“
With boosts from the likes of Dr. Bortz and others that I’ve studied and followed, my hope is to help others live their whole life, sing all their song and to live longer, live better and finish out with vitality and a strong sense of purpose.
Been there – – – –
I passed the over-50 threshold some time ago – I’m a “pre-boomer” by four years, born in 1942. My life experiences and professional experiences as an executive recruiter and career transition coach, coupled with two decades of intense reading and study on human development and the aging process, has led me to two conclusions about how we age in this country.
Gap analysis
A prominent Yale physician, Dr. David Katz, founder of the school’s Prevention Research Center, got my attention a few years ago when I heard him say:
“We know all that we need to know to reduce, by 80%, the five major killing diseases in our culture – heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and dementia. We don’t need more new fancy drugs or expensive new equipment and technology or more Nobel prizes. We already know what we need to know.”
I believe Dr. Katz’ position extends logically to aging: we know all we need to know to live healthier, longer and more productively.
We have a 35-40 year gap between our 80-year average life span and the length of time our bodies appear to be designed to last. The benchmark of 122 ½ years supposedly set by Ms. Jeanne Calment of Paris is currently being debunked by some. So if it turns out to be a myth, that cedes the record to another confirmed record holder at 116 – hardly a difference to get wrapped around the axle about.
Why the gap between our potential and our average, between what we already know and what we do to stay healthy and live longer? Take #2 above and stir in ignorance (as in ignoring best practices), instant gratification, comparison, stress, lack of purpose and I believe we are close to the answer.
Feel free to add your own thoughts to this toxic brew.
Quixotic as it may seem, I’m choosing to join the voices of those who are working to dilute this brew and close this gap.
Granted, this journey may be like “tilting at windmills” but I’m venturing forth nonetheless with my crusade-like mission, sharing what I hope will be valuable, meaningful information and resources.
I’m grateful for the readers that have remained with me and with the growth in readership that is taking place. I’m especially grateful for the feedback readers have been sharing with me, validating my message.
Despite what our society would have us to believe, we can truly make our second-half of life work for us in a big way rather than against us.
Life to 100 and beyond with energy, enthusiasm, and purpose is now one of the fastest growing realities of our age. Centenarians are growing at 8X the rate of any other population demographic in our country. We are learning what it takes to “live longer, die shorter” or “die young, as late as possible” and finish out with a purpose having left a footprint.
I’ve become a fan of neuropsychologist Dr. Mario Martinez. His two books, “The Mindbody Code” and “The Mindbody Self” are challenging projects that are transformational in revealing how our view of the aging process is distorted, demeaning, and destructive.
In “The Mindbody Code”, he says:
“Growing older is a natural process we all experience. Aging, on the other hand, is a dysfunctional concept, an assimilation of cultural portals that define how our biology ‘should’ respond to the passage of time.”
He challenges us to step out of the portals imposed on us by our culture in order to achieve our full life potential, saying:
“- – you can modify ‘aging consciousness’ in a society that does not support growing older for what it is: an opportunity to increase your value and competence.”
Makes a lot of sense to this septuagenarian. How about you?
I invite you to join the conversation and the crusade. Please share your thoughts, insights, experiences – and pin my ears back if you disagree or if you feel I’ve slipped over into hyperbole.
I look forward to your feedback. Please leave a comment below.
P.S. Here’s a link to a very poignant one-minute video from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada that will make you stop and think. Enjoy
Alzheimer’s Reversal – New Hope?
Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay
I’m compelled this week to use my post to provide a shortcut to some important information on the healthcare front.
Recently, Alzheimer’s became a part of my wife’s and my life. Fortunately, not with either of us nor within our immediate family.
We have been witness to the devastating effects of the disease on the wife of a dear friend, half of a couple that we have been very close to for nearly 30 years.
We had read and heard about the ravages of this affliction, but nothing prepared us for witnessing its takeover. Nor could we imagine the extent of the strain that it’s putting on the healthy partner.
No doubt there are a number of you reading this who have been similarly, or more directly, impacted and know of what I speak.
The data on the disease are frightening (Source: Alzheimer’s Association)
I try to stay tuned into developments in the efforts to find a cure. The news just continues to go in the wrong direction. Failed drug tests, major pharmaceutical companies abandoning efforts to find a solution after billions invested. No drug yet has touched it.
That’s why I was roused by an article that was forwarded to me by a friend today that offered perhaps a new glimmer of hope. Clicking this link will take you to the Blue Zones website and a republished article that summarizes a research project done at UCLA that applied a new approach in the treatment of Alzheimer’s with striking results.
The treatment? Lifestyle modification.
Yes, you read it right. No drugs. Just a change in lifestyle centered around – wait for it – – – – –diet, exercise, stress management and sleep (sound of mic dropping!).
Have we been stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime for the last several decades with our deeply embedded bent toward pharmaceutical treatment?
Perhaps. This project offers up encouraging possibilities.
You will find a link to the actual research paper in the second line of the article. If you are the type that gets off on reading research papers, you’ll like this one, with its twelve-cylinder words and academia-speak.
I dosed two paragraphs in.
I find the possibilities from this study encouraging, but not so surprising. Dr. Walter Bortz, retired Stanford geriatric physician and a hero of mine on the disease prevention front published a provocative book in 2011 (one of seven he has written) entitled “Next Medicine”. He fundamentally advocates for “lifestyle medicine” to be the “next medicine”.
If you delve into this article and this new development consider his words:
“Man, as a rule, finds it easier to depend on the healer than to attempt the more difficult task of living wisely.”
His position, which I paraphrase, is that “ – – current medicine and capitalism equates to focus on parts and events, episodes and components. Next Medicine (lifestyle medicine) looks at whole processes and systems. Current medicine, when coupled with capitalism, peddles dysfunction, disease, and illness.”
The result, in his view, is the nation’s largest corporation: The Illness Industry.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. I get it if you are skeptical of this study. How can we not be with all the reports/studies that have gone nowhere in the past? It’s a small study. It’s totally contrary to our entrenched medical mindset of “drug it or cut it out.” Big Pharma will, no doubt, tear into it.
But, as a “lifestyle medicine” advocate, I’m encouraged that it seems to further validate lifestyle medicine as the “next medicine.”
Perhaps this research project will represent a breakthrough in acknowledging that the Greeks had it right 2000 years ago with their emphasis on Hygeia (prevention) and not Panacea (cure) and begin to bring lifestyle to the forefront in disease prevention where it belongs.
An Older? Or An Elder? A Question Every Boomer Retiree Needs to Confront.
Photo by Bruce Mars, Pexels
“Those who continue to grow as they grow older can develop long-term vision, whereas most become blinded by near-term needs and common neediness. Growing older happens to everyone. But growing wiser happens to those who awaken to a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life.
Without this added dimension, society produces ‘olders,’ who blindly hold onto life at any cost, rather than seasoned ‘elders,’ who help others find meaningful ways to live.”
That deeply convicting statement was made by the 74-year old author, storyteller, and mythologist Michael Meade in an interview conducted and published in a February Medium.com post by Dr. Connie Zweig, psychotherapist and best-selling author Read it here.
Further in her article, Dr. Zweig suggests that those with visions of becoming an Elder do so because “—a ‘vision’ was calling them, rather than a ‘should’ pushing them.”
Leave it to me to stir up the pot and inject retirement into this esoteric, thought-provoking conversation.
I can’t help it.
In the first sentence of Meade’s statement, he sums up what seems to happen in a typical traditional labor-to-leisure retirement (blinded by near-term needs and common neediness) and what doesn’t happen (growth, long-term vision).
The word retirement is derived from the French verb “retirer” which means to withdraw. Growth is high on the list of things that many retirees withdraw from upon retirement. Well-meaning financial advisors operate more from pushing “shoulds.” They generally advocate for a no-growth, leisure environment and withdrawal from challenges rather than helping underwrite a “calling or vision.”
This reinforces a deeply entrenched retiree mindset that says: “Been there, done that – I’m tired of growing, learning, solving. Time for time off.” The backbone for continued healthy growth gets stripped out.
Without a growth component, a long-term vision – if it even existed – succumbs to no-growth habit patterns and eventually morphs into survival i.e. near-term needs and common neediness.
And becoming an “older.”
We’ll find the “live short, die long” track crowded with “olders” where physical and mental deterioration starts early after retirement, is unnecessarily accelerated through inactivity, and then protracted in its misery by the wonders of modern medical technology. It’s where any kind of a vision or dream will give way to fighting a daily battle against lethargy, lack of purpose, and creeping frailty.
It’s the mindset and path behind the growing depression, suicide and divorce rates amongst retirees, and a contributor to our century-long longevity growth rate now starting to recede.
It’s a one-letter difference
The difference is a one letter change.
We likely will find Elders to be:
But perhaps the biggest “E” of all:
Extending
Extending themselves into their communities, into the lives of others, especially the generations to come. Extending their talents and accumulated wisdom and skills in a “pay-back” and “pay-it-forward” manner.
An Elder will be selfless, giving, producing; an Older will be selfish, greedy, consuming.
An Elder will live in the present unencumbered by fear and regrets. An Older will time travel into the regrets of the past and the fear of the future.
I wonder how much better this country – this globe – would be if we convinced more people to make that one-letter change.
What are your thoughts? Leave us a comment below.
Retirement Planning Done Well.
Dola Handley and Cary Smith in Munich, Germany
Imagine with me that you are working 60 hour weeks, making life-and-death decisions virtually every day, herding cats that are your staff, fighting with superiors for adequate resources, putting up with arrogant personalities, being on call-standby many weekends and operating on less than adequate sleep.
Now imagine that you’ve been doing most or all of the above for 20+ years.
Imagine further that you finally decided you’ve had enough and jumped off the cliff into retirement.
If I then asked you the questions: “How do you come down from that type of intense existence?” “How does it feel?” – what do you think your response might be?
I posed those very questions to a recently retired nurse executive that I had connected with on LinkedIn.
Her name is Dola Handley.
I pushed for a phone conversation with her because I was curious, as part of my overall research into the retirement mindset, why she retired, what the experience has been like for her and what she sees ahead for her and her husband.
In my 17 years as a healthcare recruiter, a high percentage of the hundreds of conversations I’ve had with candidates have been with middle- and executive-level nurses like Dola. Bachelor- or master-degreed RN’s, some even with doctorates.
Dola fits the mold of this very special breed of professionals. Selfless; humbling in the depth of their commitments to care; overworked, underpaid and (colossally) under-appreciated in their work environment.
Dola has “completed” her 22- year nursing career which included 20 years of active military duty with over half of that in a tactical signal officer role then as a nurse and a number of Director-level management positions in large hospitals overseeing women’s services/mother-baby/OB units.
I found her answers to those questions to be insightful:
I probed both responses.
“Active stillness” for Dola is a throwback to her Appalachian farm upbringing where there was a lot of downtime and one learned to “relax into non-stressful activity but staying active” For her, that currently includes satisfying her love of the outdoors by doing volunteer outdoor work with the state parks department here in Colorado. She also walks 3-4 miles a day with a friend. She likes to mentor and finds that people she worked with are calling her for advice which she unselfishly provides. She also meets monthly with a group of five nurses on a social basis where, not surprisingly, she has become the de-facto leader.
Also, in typical nurse fashion, she couldn’t turn aside a request to do some voluntary consulting work for a local hospital that was setting up a new mother/baby unit. She got that out of her system – it was a good reminder of why she had retired.
Being “wonderfully bored” means she no longer needs to dread the ringing phone, the pressure of someone in a health crisis, the weekend on-call inconvenience and, most of all, the 12-hour days.
Her work “filled her up” for years and she is proud that she impacted a lot of people.
She doesn’t miss it.
She is a doer, a server who is now freer and hasn’t lost anything. She revels in being able to now set her own schedule. She knows what is right for her and that includes peace every day, comfortable in being financially secure and not worrying about where she is mentally, emotionally, physically.
Dola is less than a year into her retirement so the bloom is still on the rose, so to speak. How will she feel, how will all of this play out say 1,2,3 years from now? That’s part of the adventure.
Something tells me that Dola will somehow just go deeper and wider in her active stillness and stay wonderfully bored but busier in her service to others. I’m suggesting that because, if I may paraphrase, you can take the nurse out of nursing but you can’t take the nurse out of a nurse.
Oh, did you catch the financially secure part?
I wonder how many couples start serious retirement planning discussions ten years before their targeted retirement date.
I believe one would need to sort through a trainload of couples to find one or two.
Dola and her husband, Cary Smith, are married with a blended family of four grown daughters and would be one of those rare finds.
This couple doesn’t fit the mold in this area. They have their proverbial you-know-what together in this department.
Dola shared with me that she and Cary began retirement discussion together over 10 years ago. They are both planners. Cary, also a military retiree (they met in the military) is a skilled program manager still gainfully employed, by choice.
They both have military pensions and the accompanying health care coverage. She didn’t reveal what they have stashed away beyond that but what I did find unusual, impressive and prescient is what they have done with real estate as they have gone through a number of job changes and relocations.
Within the last decade, they have lived in four homes. Three of those (two in N. Carolina, one in Colorado) they have kept and are renting out, thus adding a nice equity component to the portfolio. The fourth is their current residence in Colorado Springs.
Cary is keying his retirement date to the day they write the last mortgage payment check for the house they are in – which is two years out.
The retirement discussions that began 10 years ago focused on:
Listening to Dola, you’ll get the impression that the what, where and how are pretty well set. And the when is on the radar.
The initial “what” sounds exciting. They both have spent extended periods of time working abroad. They are doing a “pre-retirement” trip to Scotland next year and have agreed that, upon retirement, they will pick and move to a location (TBD), most likely in Europe, and go, “not as tourists”, for an extended stay.
And then determine the next step.
Dola and Cary present a stark contrast to the route most couples take to retirement, particularly on the non-financial side. Research has shown that 2 of 3 couples go into retirement without a semblance of a non-financial plan. As a Retirement Coach, I’m discovering that a surprising number of couples wait until the retirement of one or the other of the partnership to get on the same page, adjusting to the changed environment and sorting out what they want retirement life to look like.
It results in the loss of precious retirement years where resources and physical vitality are higher
It may help explain why the divorce rate of couples over 50 has been skyrocketing while overall divorce rates have leveled off.
The takeaway from Dora’s and Cary’s retirement story is clear: start early, agree on what you want it to look like, put a plan together but be flexible and willing to compromise and respect the interests and desire of the other.
Theirs may seem like a retirement heavily tilted to a “life of leisure”. I ‘spect not. I doubt this nurse and these two military veterans will ever give up an opportunity to continue to serve in some way.
Aging Without Frailty – A Series (Part 3)
Welcome to Part 3 of this series on avoiding extended late life frailty.
In Part 1, we looked at frailty with the intent of establishing that it isn’t synonymous with aging and that it is not a disease but rather a condition related to disuse. I also introduced a clinical term often associated with this condition – sarcopenia – which the dictionary defines as “loss of muscle tissue as a natural part of the aging process.”
In Part 2, I took the position that debilitating loss of muscle mass as we age is a major contributor to our loss of independence but is, for most, an insidiously debilitating lifestyle choice. And that our medical community is doing little to raise our awareness of how we can reduce the effects of sarcopenia.
What I hope to accomplish with the series is to elevate awareness and motivate and persuade readers to take a new understanding of this self-inflicted malady and make changes that will enable them to dodge some bullets later in life.
In other words, avoid the “frail trail”.
Really our choices are to confront it or let it continue to take us slowly, gradually, to an extended and miserable, costly late life – “living too short and dying too long.”
There are few givens when it comes to what happens to us in this second half/third stage of life –loss of muscle mass is one of them. We cannot predict with certainty what other maladies may befall us in these later stages – and it’s likely some will.
But this one we can predict and proactively make some allowances for.
And we must because it is the most prevalent condition that robs us of the vitality we deserve to live an active, fulfilling late life.
We don’t need more Nobel prizes
In the words of Dr. David Katz, a physician at the Yale School of Medicine, and founder of an organization called the Academy of Lifestyle Medicine:
“We already know all that we need to know to reduce, by 80%, the five major killers in our country. We don’t need more fancy drugs or equipment or more Nobel Prizes. We know all we need to know today.”
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reminds us that four risky behaviors – lack of physical activity, poor nutrition, smoking, and excess alcohol consumption – are responsible for much of the suffering and early death related to chronic diseases. These chronic diseases are also among the most preventable and regular physical exercise is one of the most important remedies.
The CDC also informs us that, in 2012, only 7.9 percent of those 75 or older engaged in aerobic and strength-training that met the 2008 federal physical activity guidelines for that age group. Yikes!!
By allowing our musculoskeletal resources to decline, we practically guarantee the onset of any of a number of potential calamities.
Here are just a few from a long list of conditions that medical professionals have observed that result from sarcopenia:
Stop the death spiral
All of these contribute to the mountain of demoralizing statistics about where this is taking us in terms of living conditions and health care costs. There are some who predict that the care of the elderly, as the ranks swell, could bankrupt our economy.
We can each do our part to stop this death spiral and take advantage of the longevity bonus that most of us will experience.
So, let’s cut through it all and get to a solution.
I’ll stand by my claim in Part 2 that sarcopenia is reversible and that the solution is:
Simple
Lift weights. If you haven’t lifted a weight since Apollo 13, consult with your physician, start small and build up. Learn proper techniques early to avoid injury as you proceed.
Inexpensive
Join a local gym. If you are over 65 and have a Medicare Advantage plan, you are probably eligible for the very popular Silver Sneakers program. I frequent a 24-hour Fitness facility six days a week under this program and don’t spend a nickel.
Immediate
With a consistent, disciplined strength training routine, you will feel and see significant results as soon as two weeks. You’ll feel better, have more energy, sleep better and may even look better almost immediately. It’s not about weight loss but, depending on your starting point, that may be a serendipitous result.
Drug-free
Aside from an occasional Advil early on as your muscles respond and grow from the new stress, there are no drugs needed to reverse this condition.
It really is that simple. So why do so few of us do it? Why is it so difficult?
The answer to that is simple also. Attitude and habits.
The biggest battle is mental, not physical. Attacking and reversing a condition like sarcopenia requires a commitment to hard physical work. It requires a commitment to an activity that most in the middle-age group and beyond don’t care for, think about or relate to.
This simple plan requires an attitude that accepts and understands the downside of inaction and commits to doing something about it. But it must go beyond willpower because willpower alone doesn’t work. We have broken New Year’s resolutions as ongoing proof of that. Without a total commitment to reversal, this effort too will fail.
Our lives are driven by habits. Many of the habits we’ve adopted directly contribute to the decline of our musculoskeletal resources (need I mention TV, snow blowers, electric knives, elevators, etc.?) An effective battle against sarcopenia will mean replacing some deeply entrenched lifestyle habits with habits that are, for most, uncomfortable and unfamiliar in the short term.
Notice I said replace. We really can’t effectively change habits. We must replace them.
My own sarcopenia battle
I think I’ve mentioned in previous articles that I’ve been a gym rat for over 30 years. When I cold-turkeyed off of cigarettes on June 6, 1979, I took up running. Then, in 1987, I joined a new athletic club and began a 17-year run of pickup basketball five days a week. I also began taking advantage of the weight room at the same time and thus put in place an aerobic and strength-training habit that I haven’t broken since.
Although my knees don’t permit basketball, at age 77 I still do 45 minutes of aerobic (upright bike, elliptical or treadmill) six days a week with three of those days including 30-40 minutes of weight training.
Nothing gets in the way of my dedication of 3-4% of my week to this habit. If I can’t stay with it because of calendar issues or illness, I’m difficult to be around.
A resource to get you started
Recently I stumbled across Fred Bartlit, 87-year old attorney, West Pointer/Army Ranger, strength trainer extraordinaire. I’ve referred to Fred’s campaign against sarcopenia in Part 1 and 2 of this series.
Time, space and your attention span prevents me from laying out a detailed sarcopenia reversal plan in a single article. So, I’m going to leave that to Fred and his co-writers and recommend an investment in his book: “Choosing the Strong Path: Reversing the Downward Spiral of Aging”. (Note: I have no affiliate arrangement with Fred. He doesn’t know I exist – yet.)
Fred’s book will do two things:
You will also find excellent resources at his website www.strongpath.com including some really outstanding brief videos demonstrating proper techniques for starting exercises.
This book and website can get you started right with a new motivational understanding of why you should be doing it. We don’t need to be a part of the depressing statistics of what is happening to our demographic.
When we take this seriously, we can, in fact, “die young, as late as possible.”
I hope this series has been helpful. It’s a huge topic to which one can’t do justice in 3,000 words. Fred’s resources can.
We’d love to hear your story about your journey in this area. Leave a comment for us below.
Aging Without Frailty – A Series (Part 2)
Avoid the “frail trail”, get on the “strong path”.
I wish I had thought of those words. They belong to 87-year old Fred Bartlit, the West Pointer/Army Ranger/Attorney/bowl skier/strength-training gonzo I referenced in last week’s blog. Those words are his mantra and they describe his mission.
Not being the most creative person around, and not above abject pilfery, I’m borrowing the words and jumping on Fred’s coattails. And, believe me, they are worthy coattails to be on because he, more than anyone I’ve run across, is doing more to call attention to the biggest threat to living a healthy, meaningful second half of life.
Chances are you haven’t heard of it. All of us have some degree of it if we are over 30.
And we didn’t “catch it”. It’s not an air-borne or body-fluid-transmitted affliction. We are self-inflicted.
It’s called sarcopenia. The dictionary defines it as a “loss of muscle tissue as a natural part of the aging process.”
It started when we were thirty or so. We didn’t really notice it because it’s stealthily insidious, creeping up on us very slowly. We reach 50 and the drives are shorter, the handicap higher, the waistline larger. We hit 60 and find we can’t get up easily off the floor when trying to play with our four-year-old grandchild. At 70, the back goes out, the pickle jar lid won’t budge. Or – well, you get the point.
After 75, the loss of lean tissue increases exponentially if not remedied.
Sounds like a death spiral, doesn’t it? It can be just that, accelerating the journey to debilitating frailty.
Perhaps it’s no surprise if you’ve never heard the word from your primary care doc. The name, sarcopenia, didn’t even exist until invented in 1989 by Irwin Rosenberg by combining the Greek word for “flesh” (sarx) with the Greek word for “loss” (penia) to describe the loss of skeletal muscle mass and size. The meaning wasn’t even codified into the International Classification of Diseases code until 2016 despite being a condition that has existed as long as mankind.
In fact, Mr. Bartlit, in his efforts to get the word out about sarcopenia, found that many – maybe even most – practicing physicians are stumped by the word. Most medical professionals simply think of it as an inevitable part of the aging process. Staying strong and vibrant into old age is a very dissonant thought for physicians only trained to prescribe or scalpel. Considering that 85% of physicians never take a single class in geriatrics in medical school, this perhaps isn’t so surprising.
It’s no mystery then that few are providing a remedy for this looming health crisis.
It’s a lifestyle malady
Sad to say, we are weaker by the day and we are wasting our lives away unnecessarily.
With all our striving for convenience and comfort, we’re paying a price by way of extended frailty in late life. Our bodies are not designed for today’s lifestyle. We are built to move. Escaping saber-tooths or bringing down mastodons has given way to binge watching Game of Thrones. Chasing a gazelle or forging for tubers has given way to a table at Applebees. The heaviest thing many of us lift in a day may be the TV remote or that plate loaded with lasagna. The only time we get our heart rate above normal is running to catch the last bus/subway home or trudging upstairs to bed.
My neighbor just bought a 700 horsepower snowblower that would clear Independence Pass above Aspen in a weekend to clear his driveway of the typical 3-inch snowfalls we get here in Denver.
Consider the ridiculous concept of the Rumba. My wife regularly clocks half of her daily 10,000 Fitbit step goal when she vacuums our unnecessarily large suburban home. (I help occasionally, honest!)
I could go on and on.
I hope we’re waking up.
I mentioned last week that one of the biggest fears we have as we age is losing our independence. Sarcopenia is THE major contributor to loss of independence.
Think about it. What is the ultimate loss of independence? Would you agree it’s being warehoused in an under-staffed, urine-scented nursing home? Where dementia, drool and Depends prevail. Where you may be one of the fortunate few who can get to mealtime without help.
What is typically the key criteria for being pushed into that environment? It’s the loss of ability to perform basic bodily functions, due, in large part, to physical weakness – loss of muscle power. Showering, toileting, dressing, walking – all require muscle strength and balance.
Most of us just simply let it get away from us and accept it as inevitable.
Sarcopenia is treatable – in fact, reversible. At any age.
Fact is, sarcopenia is a choice. Muscle loss can be reversed starting today. No, if you are 60, don’t expect to be or look like the tattooed and tank-topped or lululemon-clad 30-somethings at the gym that work 52×7 to improve their mirror-muscles. But you also don’t need to look like the pencil-thin, stooped, slow-gaited “geezer” or “hag” that you swore 30 years ago you would never become.
Embrace the gift of longevity
We hear a lot about how we are all living longer. About this “gift of longevity”. Our average lifespan has nearly doubled since 1910. Most of it is due to the profound medical advances that we’ve experienced in the last several decades.
It’s not true, however, that quality of life has kept pace.
Technology is adding years to our life. For most of us, it isn’t adding life to our years. Today, medical science can do a marvelous job of keeping people alive in what writer Douglas Adams called “the long, dark teatime of the soul”. The words used by 15th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes to describe the life of man seem appropriate to describe the life many experience in our culture in their later years: “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish. And long”.
One simply needs to look at the exploding growth of assisted living facilities and the drugs advertised to treat chronic illnesses to understand that the quality of our later years isn’t what it could be. And that we aren’t embracing this gift of longevity.
For years now, I have publicly and openly expressed my intent to live to 100 or beyond. I’ve shared with you that, without fail, my proclamation is met with repulsion. The sole reason for the repulsion is both honest and ignorant. It’s based on the fear of frailty, on the effects of sarcopenia. It’s expressed in a void of understanding the causes and that it needn’t be.
The solution
Reversing sarcopenia is:
Reversing sarcopenia requires:
I hope, b y this point, we’ve established the “why” of overcoming sarcopenia. I’ll conclude the series next week by touching on the “how”.
Let me wrap this week with this quote from Fred Bartlit’s book “Choosing the Strong Path: Reversing the Downward Spiral of Aging”
“The crucial takeaway here is that for almost all of us, the last 15 to 30 years of our lives bear no resemblance to what we expected. And, by far, the major reason for this end-of-life disappointment is our loss of strength with age.”
Stay tuned. And leave a comment if you are on a “strong path”, what your path looks like, and what effect it has had.
Aging Without Frailty – A Series
Fred Bartlit really lit me up!!
Fred’s story showed up in a recent Sunday issue of our local newspaper. My wife found it, brought it to me and said: “This guy is singing your song!”.
She was absolutely right. Fred is an 86-year old West Point grad, former Army Ranger, founder and practicing attorney in a hugely successful law firm, back-bowl skier, a golfer who shoots his age in summer, and a strength-trainer extraordinaire.
All that is impressive and inspiring in its own right, but what lit me up most is Fred’s vigorous campaign against one of the most damaging myths of aging that we allow to penetrate our psyche.
That myth? That we are all destined to get frail as we get old. To that, Fred says “horsefeathers” – or a more pejorative version of the word. He’s chosen to walk his talk.
He’s taking his message to the masses, not only by example but by speaking out publicly and co-authoring a book “Choosing the StrongPath: Reversing the Downward Spiral of Aging”. He’s not shy about holding our healthcare industry responsible for perpetuating the myth through their inaction and not educating patients on the ways to avoid early and long-term frailty.
Our two greatest fears
Research has shown that the two greatest fears we face as we age are:
Frailty is how we lose our independence.
But what is frailty?
Six years ago, I stumbled into a book entitled “Dare to Be 100”, one of seven books written by Dr. Walter Bortz, 88-year-old retired Stanford geriatric physician and one of my heroes in this battle against the mythical stigmas of aging. Dr. Bortz put frailty into perspective for me and helped me make some needed changes in my lifestyle.
Dr. Bortz points out that frailty has lacked a conceptual framework. He poses interesting questions like:
So his position is that frailty is NOT synonymous with aging. Rather, “it is the reciprocal of vitality, robustness, and healthiness. It is a predisposition to failure. It is a disconnectedness, a weakness, an infirmity.” So an 86-year old Fred Bartlit can be totally unfrail while your 57-year old neighbor can be near totally frail.
More explicitly, and more profoundly, Dr. Bortz goes on to say:
“—frailty is a downward drift of matter from a more highly organized state of order, structure, and function to a state of increased disorder, instability, and susceptibility. The cause of this total decay is the loss of contact of the system from its environment, with its ordering capacity.”
Did I lose you there? Sorry. He finally drops the formal classroom jargon and says bluntly: “Frailty is not aging. Frailty results from disuse – even more than it does from aging. It is not a disease. It is a condition.”
And it’s reversible – NO MATTER THE AGE!
Dr. Bortz helped me understand that a body, or an organ within it, reaches clinical frailty when it reaches 70% loss of functionality. Falling below that 30% threshold is almost certain death of the organ or the body.
We have a “health space” with 70% to work with. Graphically, it would look like the graph below. Our mission should be to stay as high in the 70% space for as long as we can. We have much we can do to make that happen, far much more than we are showing the drive to do in our culture.
I’ve borrowed another one of Dr. Bortz’s graphs to illustrate further how frailty works if intervention doesn’t take place. If we just let life take its sedentary, convenience and comfort-seeking way without the intervention of proper diet and exercise, we are going to decline at a rate of about 2% /year after age 30, which is when our bodily decline begins to accelerate. By 65 or 70, at that rate, we are in trouble.
On the other hand, if we were to “intervene” with appropriate health-inducing activities and reduced that decline rate to, say, 1% or 0.5%, perhaps that 100 year threshold I profess would easily be in reach – at least theoretically, notwithstanding the possibility of some form of disease or event that changes that decline rate.
And that’s where Fred Bartlit comes into the picture. I haven’t spoken with Fred but I think he would agree with all this. I’ve asked for the opportunity to interview him so I can feature him in a future personal-interest article, but I suspect he is too busy to bother with that right now. Regardless, Fred and I are very much on the same wavelength – and mission – in terms of crusading for the avoidance and/or reversal of frailty.
I have witnessed too many friends, relatives, neighbors – as I’m sure you have – who are stooped, immobile and old before their time. Some may be disease related, but most of it is due to inactivity.
There is a rampant, but undiscussed, condition with a big, scary-sounding name associated with that. It’s called “sarcopenia”. Fred is on a campaign against sarcopenia – as I am. Because it doesn’t have to develop – and it is reversible.
I’m going to dedicate next week’s article to fleshing out and flushing out sarcopenia. Because somebody needs to – our medical community isn’t.
Stayed tuned – hang with me next week.
This is getting to be the “berries”!
Seriously. We need to get real about meat.
Well, Nebraska is angry.
That probably doesn’t tip your attention meter unless you are into college football and/or John Deere mega-tractors.
Seems that Nebraska has its knickers in knots over people considering as meat anything other than muscle, gristle, and fat that has been extracted above four legs.
Our recent Sunday paper Business Section gave the story front-page position complete with color photos of a “real meat” and a “fake meat” burger.
For the record, the fake-meat patty is wheat protein, coconut oil, potato protein plus other plant-based ingredients.
I hope you meat-lovers can contain the nausea
It’s easy to see why Nebraska is upset. The state led the nation in commercial red meat production in 2017, had the most feed cows as of last year and realized $12.1 billion in “livestock and livestock product related sales” in 2016.
I’d be upset too if I saw a wheat protein/coconut oil assault coming. It must feel like the music industry did when the I-pod emerged, or like the publishing world watching Jeff Bezos and his troops.
OK, that may be a bit of stretch. However, I believe that the meat industry has more to fear from the growing global awareness of the health- and environment-destroying nature of their product than from fake meat.
Before you tag me as a tree-hugger/environmental whacko, please know that I have a love-hate relationship with meat.
I grew up on it. My taste buds remain captive to the taste of a burger or a brat although they pass through my gullet very rarely these days.
I knew nothing of the ill effects of a meat-based diet growing up in the ’40s and ’50s. No one that I knew did either. In the tiny, rural, agrarian Wyoming community I grew up in (which was one-half mile from the Nebraska state line), slaughtering and butchering a cow and/or hog was an annual or semi-annual ritual for many families.
Meat and potatoes were truly the normal dinner fare.
But this was also an era when doctors were advertising the health benefits of cigarettes.
We were more than a little short on important biological data back then.
If you’ve hung with me through my many rants over the last year or so, you know that, at 73, a routine heart scan (my first ever) revealed significant artery blockage, putting me, at least on paper, in the high-risk category for cardiovascular disease.
My 50+ years of meat and dairy consumption carried a price – it had clogged my pipes. Just as it does for most of us.
Heart disease remains our biggest killer, and a meat- and dairy-based diet plays a big role in that.
Fortunately, subsequent echo and treadmill stress tests indicate that my blockage is distributed and blood flow is near normal. So I proceed with my six-times-a-week aerobic and three-times-a-week weight lifting routine as if nothing is wrong.
So far, so good.
And I’ve become a “flexitarian”, meaning I’m mostly a vegetarian with an occasional blunder into a burger or brat. I’m pleased to say that I haven’t set foot in a fast-food joint or received a meal through the side-window of my car in three years.
Meat deserves a double rap
Helping us die early isn’t the only rap on meat. There’s another, even bigger, issue with meat.
It’s killing our planet.
The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest, most prestigious, and best known peer-reviewed general medical journals, published the following on 11/24/18:
“The emotionally charged debate over the ethical suitability of meat consumption may never reach a conclusion, but it is only comparatively recently that the climate impact of livestock rearing and the nutritional and health issues caused by meat have become a pressing concern.
The global ecological sustainability of farming habits has not been a major topic of conversation until the last few decades. It’s only now that we’re beginning to have a conversation about the role of meat in both of these debates, and the evidence suggests a reckoning with our habits is long overdue.
Meat production doesn’t just affect the ecosystem by production of gases, and studies now question the system of production’s direct effect on global freshwater use, change in land use, and ocean acidification. A recent paper in Science claims that even the lowest-impact meat causes “much more” environmental impact than the least sustainable forms of plant and vegetable production.”
Hey, I know that’s a mouthful. But then these are serious considerations. Since my heartscan scare, I’ve become a bit of a student of the role of meat in our overall health. In that discovery process, I was shocked to learn of the depths of the ecological impact of the livestock industry. It’s pretty shocking – both in magnitude and how little is ever said about it.
The negative impact on our health is a given and well-publicized so no need to go there. But I want to share some snippets of what I’ve read and learned about the silent side of the destructive power of the livestock industry.
Here are a few eye-openers to consider:
If you are a Californian, you can save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you can by not showering for six months. Do both, and you fully qualify as a whacko.
Well, I’ve stepped on the toes of a lot of hard-working farm folks – people that made up my heritage. Sorry, but at some point, don’t we need to get real? Our planet can’t continue to sustain this type of imbalance.
That’s the intent of this article/rant. This information is never going to be revealed by the powerful livestock industry. Do me a favor and share some or all – and maybe start reconsidering what ends up on your dinner plate.
For your health’s sake – and for my grandchildren’s planet.