There Is A Long Road Ahead So Plan Ahead

Decline starts the day we are born, but evidence isn’t visible until you reach your late thirties. That’s when you begin to see annoying facial changes: puffiness under the eyes; skin texture becomes more coarse and lax; fine lines appear; jawline isn’t as firm as it once was. Much of it reflects how we have been living, although we refuse to believe that simple fact.

Back in the 50s and 60s, I recall the mantra of young, soon-to-be boomers: “We will never get old” they chanted, partying and drinking themselves into a stupor. Another chant was “We live for today,” and indeed they did. Today, they are fat, ailing, and just plain old. They paid the price for youthful arrogant ignorance and lack of foresight.

Is the passage of time the culprit? The passage of time has no power to do anything except keep track of events in our lives. The decline reflects how we live and have lived and begins in earnest the day we decide to retire and start a life of leisure. Here are some significant snares:

1. Most of us don’t understand the value of making lifestyle changes early on to keep what we have.

By age 30, youth is kissing you goodbye with this unspoken message: “Hey babe, I’m leaving. I’ve given you 30 beautiful years, and now it’s up to you to figure out how to keep what I’ve given you.” At age 30, you feel great and assume the “feel good” feeling will last forever. Knowing how and why you are changing at age 30 can exert awesome power over your aging process.

Establishing an exercise regimen early in life and sticking to it will keep you rockin’ and rollin’ as long as you live. Waiting until you are 60 to get into shape doesn’t usually work. If you have a muffin top waist as you head into your sixties, the odds are good that you will have it forever because as the body ages, it resists being pushed around. At age 60 the urge to sit is more compelling than the urge to move.

2. We don’t work to keep what we have because of the seductive nature of youth.

If you understand that youth is a short-term loan, you are ahead of the aging game. Youth is the ultimate con artist. You look in the mirror every day, and youth stares back at you, seemingly unchanged daily. You can’t help but think, “I’m doing great,” It is precisely then that women start to lose what they have. The deceptive and seductive nature of youth is simply conning them.

3. We are unduly influenced by tradition and cultural norms. We unwittingly adopt or accept decline-oriented “senior” ideas and behaviors as early as age thirty.

 

4. We have no idea how the bankrupt diet we’ve been living on since just about birth is slowly eating away at vital organs, impacting the brain, heart, lungs, joints, and overall health. Typical “old age diseases” such as diabetes and arthritis are not normal.

Why do we eat the junk that’s prematurely aging and killing us? Watch commercials on TV for constant ads for nutrition-empty prepared foods and drug company ads. Those ads are compelling and are listened to. Eat enough of the former, and you will become a customer of Big Pharma, hoping for a quick fix. Never mind that the “quick fixes” can cause severe problems, including death.

The deadly disease called “retirement” blossomed in the 1930s when people didn’t live much longer than age 65. However, the lifespan has increased by 30 years in the past century, which means age 40 is no longer middle age, but we still think and behave as if it is.

5. Forty-year-old women claim to have “senior moments” and declare “I must be getting old” at the slightest ache or pain. We have fifty-year-olds moving into “seniors only” communities where they spend the rest of their lives playing and decaying almost exclusively with old people, adopting their old attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

New retirement communities are a lure for energetic new retirees. Full of vim and vigor, many young retirees move into them thinking they’ve hit the lifestyle jackpot. For a couple of years, life is every young retiree’s dream. Travel, games, parties,  golf, and carefree sex is the norm. They don’t envision that in 10-20 years, the once-young, vibrant community will become a stagnant old-age retirement community with residents sharing similar aches and pains that seem to happen to everyone. Residents who avoided the usual old age aches and pains form their cliques apart from the “complainers.”

Think ahead: Major aging mistakes are avoidable when you know they exist, and you have the chutzpah to do what it takes to dodge them.

IS IT TOO LATE FOR YOU?

No, it’s not too late if you can still sit in a chair and move your arms and legs! Watch the video below. An older mom (in a chair) and her daughter exercise together. Hopefully,  It will inspire you to MOVE and feel and look better!