If You Want to Age Well

Ya Gotta' Start Now

Dan had his first angioplasty at age 50. He was recovering at home, and I was at work. I called to see how he was doing. He said, “Just fine. I’m in the kitchen, throwing out all the junk food, ice cream, and chips. I’m never going through that again.”

Those words set the stage for life changes, including healthier eating and exercise—from walking to participating in 3 and 5-K races.

We began ways of being that kept us going for another 25-30 years. Yes, we made additional efforts to remain healthy, but cleaning the kitchen was the first step.

It seems that those wishing to age well must make choices early in life to support that goal. They can’t consume cheeseburgers, french fries, and milkshakes, spend all day watching TV or at the computer, and expect to walk a mile when they’re 90. It doesn’t work that way.

There is an aging process, and we may not be able to do what we did when we were 20, but we can start at an early age to make choices that support us as we get older.

I took two points to heart from Peter Attia's book about longevity.

Point 1. I control four areas of my health that can help me reach my goals: exercise, diet, sleep, and emotional wellness.

• Exercise - He says, “I now consider exercise the most potent longevity drug in our arsenal in terms of lifespan and health span.”

• Diet - He suggests that the standard American diet is junk food.

• Sleep - He sees good sleep, in terms of quantity and quality, as critical to cognitive function, memory, and emotional equilibrium.

• Emotional Wellness - He feels that many folks slow-roll into misery and early death via various roundabout routes, letting stress and anger erode their healing, falling into self-medicating addictions to alcohol and drugs, or engaging in other life-endangering behaviors.

Point 2. If the goal is to live a long and healthy life, the next logical question is, how can people accomplish it? In other words, what is their strategy - what do they want to be doing in the last decade of their life, and what must they do now to support it?

Attia introduces the idea of a centenarian decathlon - choosing ten physical tasks one would like to do during the last ten years of life and then determining what the necessary actions are now to achieve that in the future.

If, at age 95, I want to walk a mile daily, I must be walking now to be in shape.

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