The Senior War on Aging:
Stories from the Front Lines

There’s a Senior War on Aging being fought by seniors who don’t want to give in to decrepitude. One of the prime reasons we wrote the book Senior-Fitness-4-Life and started this blog is that we see some seniors thriving and others quickly deteriorating. What makes the difference?

We know that aging is tough, so what can we do to make the best of what’s left? Our job isn’t to preach to you or to promote any one thing as the fountain of youth; but we do want you to know about what works best, knowing full well that each person must find their own ways.

We welcome your comments and emails and stories. Here are some of our favorite stories from the front lines of the Senior War on Aging.

Skiing to Quadruple By-Pass Surgery:
The Story of Art Wannlund

June 23, 2016

Hi Robert,

What a pleasure it was to meet you and spend some time sharing our experiences. I want to thank you for the copy of your book. I finished it the other day and found it to be a great sequel to Younger Next Year. The experiences and the paths that you and Patsi shared resonated with me, as I had many of the same experiences.

When the book is released, I would like to buy a few copies for a couple of friends and my personal trainer.

As I read the book, I found that my path fell somewhere between you and Patsi. I too tried and failed to stay with it a number of times. Whereas you gravitated toward the strength training, I gravitated toward the endurance training. For me, a long run, or these days a long bike ride alone, gives me time to meditate, sort through problems, frame thoughts and ideas, and to reflect on the natural surroundings (I like to find quiet roads or trails). When I ran, if I was going to be out for more than an hour and a half, I would run with ear buds and listen to music. For the long rides I have a blue tooth speaker that I use to listen to music.

What your book has encouraged me to do is to suck it up and get back to the gym to work on my strength training. I have about as much passion for strength training as you do for endurance training, but in my head I know I need to do it.

My fun activity is skiing. Unlike tennis, it is seasonal, and unless I am willing to move with the seasons from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere, it will remain a November to April activity, with cycling being my activity from April to November.

As I was reading the book and the parts where you talked about how your commitment to fitness impacted your recovery from the level of damage to your heart after your heart attack, it brought back a flood of memories and emotions related to my experience with coronary artery disease.

My lifestyle both almost killed me and saved my life. I have been active on and off most of my adult life. I tend to gain weight and worked to manage (or not) through physical activity. I ran in my 30’s, played soccer in my 40’s, got back to running in my 50’s, and cycled and skied in my 60’s. I would push myself, and as a result sustain some type of soft tissue injury that would put a halt to my activities, resulting in a long hiatus. While recovering from injuries, what didn’t change was my diet. I loved rich foods in great quantities. My downfall was cheese, butter, prime rib, ice cream, diet sodas, eggs benedict – well you get the idea. While I was physically active, I maintained my weight, which was slightly overweight, and when I wasn’t physically active, I ballooned to full-fledged overweight and into obese. My lowest point, or should I say my largest point, came in my 50’s. While out sailing in a small sailboat with a friend, we, or should I say I, capsized the boat. We got it upright, and my friend got back in, and I struggled to get in myself. Finally, with a lot of help from my friend, I got back in, prompting him to say, “Geez, you look like a beached whale.” Ouch! My friend and his wife had been my running buddies back in the day, and they both continued and were annually running marathons.

I got back home and made the decision to start running again. I went out for my first run, and after about 200 yards I couldn’t run any farther and had to walk. That first time I struggled to walk run a mile, but I kept at it until I was running three miles a day, four times a week. I got a call from my friend and his wife who invited me to run the Tucson Marathon with them the next year. Well that gave me a goal. I kept up the three miles a day until my weight came down from about 215 to 190 before I began to run longer distances (I figured I was carrying too much weight for my knees to handle long runs on a consistent basis). I followed a standard marathon-training program and ran Tucson. Of course my old habits of pushing it kicked in, and I went out way too fast, hit the wall at mile 20, ran walked the last 6.2 miles, and ended up being taken by ambulance to the ER totally dehydrated. After two liters of fluids, I was as good as new.

My time and experience in Tucson prompted another friend, who had run a number of marathons, to offer to train me with a goal of qualifying for Boston. He said my time of 4:22 with the struggles I had endured suggested that with good training, better race strategy, and proper hydration, I could hit the qualifying time for my age group of 3:57. So it was game on. I trained and ran St. George, qualified for Boston, trained, ran Boston, trained, and ran the Marine Corps, where I blew out my hamstring from over training. I had been training hard or running marathons for 24 months without taking any time for recovery.

Through all of this my weight came down to 175. My diet didn’t change; in fact, with all of the running and training, I paid little attention to how much I ate.

After the Marine Corps, I went on hiatus and my weight climbed to 200. We moved to Colorado and I started skiing. That became my activity. I started volunteering as a Mountain Host and I joined a group ski club to ski with an instructor and a small group of skiers of the same ability. All was going well, so I thought, until March 2013.

I was reading by the fire when I experienced tightness on both sides of my neck. I didn’t think much of it, other than it was uncomfortable. Rachel (my wife) and I went up to bed and I couldn’t get to sleep as the neck was really bothering me. Fortunately, our little mountain town added a hospital a couple of years earlier, so I decided I’d better go to the ER. Had the ER still been in Colorado Springs, I would have chosen to just ride out the night. I got to the ER and after some Nitro the stiffness subsided, and all of my tests came back negative. I figured I was good to go, but the ER doc thought otherwise and kept me overnight for observation. He released me in the morning, but said he still wasn’t comfortable, and wanted to set me up with the cardiologist for a stress test. I had a trip to Arizona planned later in the week, and I told him I’d get to it when I got back. He didn’t like that, and worked to get me in to see the cardiologist the day before I was scheduled to leave.

Well I went in and failed the stress test. The cardiologist wanted me to have a heart catheterization to determine the cause. I was still in total denial and said “great, let’s schedule it for my return.” He said there was no way he would clear me to fly, and he scheduled the catheterization for the following morning. The doc said that based on the stress test, it probably wouldn’t be more than opening up some arteries and at worst, a stent.

Ok, so in I go, and when I wake up I am faced with my wife and cardiologist telling me that I am scheduled for quadruple by-pass surgery the next morning, and I am not leaving the hospital. It turns out my Left Anterior Descending (LAD) artery was 90% blocked, and three others were 80%. The blockage in the LAD is called the “widow maker,” and causes the sudden death heart attacks.

It was my marathon training and the activity level that saved me from having a fatal heart attack, or any heart attack for that matter. The cardiac surgeon, who got a first hand look at my heart, told me that with all of my physical activity, I had built a large network of capillaries that were providing a natural bypass. They had reached their max capacity, so it was only a matter of time before the blockage would be greater than the ability of the capillaries to handle the blood flow.

I was very fortunate in that I had no heart damage, and my plumbing was restored. It was also a wake up call to get back to vigorous exercise, and to clean up my diet. Fortunately, after the surgery, I completely lost my appetite so cutting back on portions and watching my calorie intake, as well as my saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol intake was easier.

Reading your book brought back this experience. It has been very cathartic for me to write it down and go back over events that both led to the surgery, and the events that prevented this from being catastrophic.

While volunteering at Breckenridge as a Mountain Host, and also while skiing with a group of folks in their 60’s and 70’s, I see more and more seniors on the mountain. Some are there for the season, and some for trips with their adult children and grandkids. Too often I see some of these older folks spending their days shopping, in the lodge, at the bars, or just not getting out. Yes, when in cold weather and especially at altitude (the Breckenridge base is over 9,000 ft. and the slopes go up to almost 13,000ft) you need to take precautions and have the right gear. That being said, there are a variety of activities available for everyone from the first timer to the very experienced.

I think that some time in your book dedicated to cold weather activities would provide some motivation to that part of the population living in cold weather climates.

In closing, I do want share with you an example of someone who is very active and has had two knees replaced, as well as one of her hips. In your book, you mentioned that you have some knee issues.

One of the women in my ski group is in her early 60’s. She is one of the smoothest skiers in our group and tackles the most aggressive terrain with great form (we ski primarily double black diamond terrain). When it comes to skiing the moguls, she glides through them rather than bumps down them. With proper form and technique, both part of the current instruction, seniors are able to ski and reduce the impact on the older or replacement joints.

Thanks for allowing me to read your book, and kudos to you and Patsi for taking on this project.

Carpe Diem,

Art

“The Food Industry is Killing Us”

June 13, 2016

Hi Rob,

Thank you so much for the book Senior Fitness 4 Life. I have been an advocate for exercise including weights as we age for a number of years. Your book re-enforces my determination and presents new information and suggestions.

I was especially interested in the section on the benefits to the brain. I have been studying the brain and aging recently as I am experiencing concern about my forgetfulness etc. I understand you are going to complete a book on nutrition.

I often comment that the food industry is killing us, even to the point that they should be held accountable like tobacco companies were. Living in Mexico does give us the opportunity to eat very healthy although we do not know what pesticides etc. are in our fruits and vegetables and organic is not readily available.

I eat multiple times per day and large quantities. I am studying healthy options for putting weight on with good fats like avocado, walnuts etc.

Thanks once again. I cannot imagine the amount of work to produce such a book.

Bruce Pinder

Broaden Your Focus

June 25, 2016

Dear Patsi,

Peter is steadily improving physically which (thankfully) means he is also maintaining a mostly positive outlook on life!  Your book helped quite a bit as it encouraged him to broaden his focus from simply improving his tennis game to attending to his overall fitness.  He has been working hard to increase his upper body and core strength and to lose those extra pounds.  I’ve happily collaborated by ensuring our diet consists of only clean, very healthy foods and I’ve ramped up my own exercise routine which is beneficial to both of us.

So, we owe you two much thanks!

Candace

Walking the Mediterranean with Joel Stratte-McClure

June 25, 2016

Dear Dr. Patsi,

I’m enjoying your fact-filled, fun and instructive book. Absolutely amazed by the small number of people who, as I prepare to head out at 5:30 am for my four-mile walk on the Sacramento River Trail followed by a swim at the Y, exercise.

Just a couple quick thoughts.

You could expand your audience by lowering the age of seniors from 65 to a slightly younger age. AARP, of course, takes members at 50.

I could do with a few more “how to” (walking, yoga, etc.) and “how to look good” (posture etc.) photos spread throughout the book. You’re both supermodels and I look forward to seeing you in person again and meeting Rob.

The trick to selling the book, of course, is tapping into that senior market through AARP, the YMCA, senior centers, etc. I was interviewed for AARP but the story never ran. However, a paragraph there is worth 10,000 books.

I’m only on Page 108 and may have some more comments later.

Omward,

Joel Stratte-McClure, author of “The Idiot and the Odyssey: Walking the Mediterranean”