TIME FOR A NEW PROGRAM

Planning for Longevity Early

When I was 12, I was cutting out pictures of models in magazines and learning to dress and do my makeup like Jean Shrimpton, Cheryl Tiegs, Cybill Shephard….. I had models of beauty, not intelligence, health or sports like today’s girls.

I turned 59 this week.  I’ve been able to see things evolve to the point where the girls have more to model than a model.  It’s cool to be smart, athletic and funny.  It’s still cool to be pretty.  At least we’re moving in the right direction.

The problem when you turn 59 is that youth is gone and if you haven’t been lucky or incredibly diligent, some health problems have popped up to make matters worse. If you’ve modeled youth and beauty all your life, you’re in for a rude awakening.

In this day and age, with everything we have at our fingertips, we don’t have to be afraid of aging.  We can celebrate our age, because we’ve learned more and become smarter, wiser, stronger and more accomplished with every year.  This program I’ll be creating for you will give you a roadmap to age, it will not be anti-aging at all.

We’ll start out by studying some of the people who’ve aged beautifully.  Their life’s gotten better with each year.  We’ll look at lifestyle changes that can take place starting around 40 and see how aging can be graceful, comfortable and beautiful.

Better yet, instilling lifelong practices from a younger age, but the problem is, for my age group, I don’t think we really had clarity on what all was unhealthy without a lot of research and learning the hard way.

We’ll also look at reality and see that health can fail and how to deal with it if that happens.

Secrets to Happy, Healthy Longevity

There are a lot of factors that go into longevity.  There’s not nearly enough room in a blog to cover them all.  Activity is a big one.

Activity

If you look at people who are 70, 80, 90 and look happy and healthy, it’s activity.  Keeps your weight leveled off and your blood pumping.

Cardiovascular exercise keeps your heart healthy.  Heart Disease is the number one killer of American women.  Cardiovascular exercise deserves our attention.

It can be any exercise.  Stop right now and think, what would be an enjoyable way to keep your blood pumping?  Make it fun so you look forward to it every day.

• walk with your friends
• walk alone and listen to  a course
• strength train with friends or alone
• take a body pump class (combines strength and cardio)
• do body pump to a video
• run if your joints are still up for it

True Secrets to Aging Gracefully

The truth is, aging gracefully is as dependent on happiness as health and a lot of times, unhappy people give up everything because of loneliness, frustration, despair and even just lack of motivation.  Many people have lost their life’s partner, the career that’s defined them and families who’ve moved away or gotten busy doing their own thing.  As you age, you sometimes have to redefine yourself and take another look at your values.

• you don’t have to be part of a couple to be valuable
• it’s okay to do things alone
• it’s okay to be an old woman with a cat
• sexy is not about youth
• it’s okay to travel alone or with girlfriends
• you’re never too old to make new friends
• you’re not too old to start a new book, career, course
• the number of wrinkles you have may define you in a good way – are they smile lines?

Your Destiny is Negotiable

Genetic Predisposition

You can have all kinds of hereditary predispositions, and if you make the lifestyle changes early enough, you can avoid suffering from them.

A genetic predisposition (sometimes also called genetic susceptibility) is an increased likelihood of developing a particular disease based on a person’s genetic makeup. A genetic predisposition results from specific genetic variations that are often inherited from a parent. These genetic changes contribute to the development of a disease but do not directly cause it. Some people with a predisposing genetic variation will never get the disease while others will, even within the same family. ~ US National Library of Medicine

Lifestyle can determine whether you deal with the same diseases or maladies as your grandparents, aunts or uncles or parents.  Siblings can have the same genetic predisposition but factors like stress, smoking, drinking alcohol or taking drugs, or even living a sedentary life will help in determining the outcome.

In people with a genetic predisposition, the risk of disease can depend on multiple factors in addition to an identified genetic change. These include other genetic factors (sometimes called modifiers) as well as lifestyle and environmental factors. Diseases that are caused by a combination of factors are described as multifactorial. Although a person’s genetic makeup cannot be altered, some lifestyle and environmental modifications (such as having more frequent disease screenings and maintaining a healthy weight) may be able to reduce disease risk in people with a genetic predisposition. ~ US National Library of Medicine

With the new program we’ve started working on, we’ll help guide many people to the right lifestyle choices.

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