The looking-my-age thing reminds me of a new book I picked up at Barnes & Noble last night. Addressed to older men. Actually, older than me—late 50s, 60s, written by a 70-year-old lawyer, who got expert counsel from his 46-year-old internist. The book was about health and aging. How do we stay healthy as we get old? It seems as we look around us that it’s an inevitable downward slide beginning at about 55, maybe earlier. But the author points out that it doesn’t have to be. Really, your health if it were charted should reach a plateau and then hardly change until after 85, when it rapidly drops due to inevitable biology. That is, we should not have the many, many disabilities we blame on old age, from high blood pressure, cholesterol, extra weight, join pain, weakness, balance problems, brittle bones, loss of endurance, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, many cancers, and other things that happen primarily to older people.
In fact, this book contends the research clearly that about 70 percent of the diseases of older people we don’t have to get—ever, not even when we’re in our 70s, 80s, even 90s. We should be able to do whatever we want to pretty much throughout our lives. How?
Well, the answer is predictable. Mostly , it’s exercise. Btu the author shows that a little walking now and then isn’t enough. You have to exercise six times a week and exercise hard. Four of those times should be aerobic. The other two should be weight training. A good share of the book was devoted to planning an exercise program for life. Secondly, you have to be carful what you eat. You just can’t eat the junk food that’s all around us in the United States. Diets have to be high in vegetables, fruit and grains, low in processed foods. These two will keep us from getting fat, which is a disaster to the body. Of course, it goes without saying you don’t smoke, drink more than two a day, use drugs, and keeping your stress low is also a good idea….
The book pointed out that while you can maintain a plateau of fitness at least until age 85, you can’t maintain youthful looks. It is biology that makes us look old and wrinkled, and there’s no amount of exercise or diet that can change that. However, fit people tend to look younger at any age.
This is disappointing to hear, although I already suspected it’s true. The book says, what’s the difference if you can do anything you want to physically? The difference doesn’t mean much when you’re married, but looking as young as possible means a great deal when you’re single. We judge by looks. I’m, afraid, especially men. Furthermore, as the book laments, when men reach a certain age (probably 60), younger women look right through them as if they didn’t exist (the same happens a lot earlier for most women).
—Jan. 28, 2006, Fargo, North Dakota
OtD 