Today’s seniors don’t look or act anything like “old people.”
Have you noticed? Seniors are much “younger” these days. And yet, when we reach that age —usually after 60 or 65 —we know there’s a lot of different “stuff” going on in our bodies and brains, and we wonder what we should be doing about it. Or is it too late?
There’s not much good advice or any new guidelines to turn to when it comes to learning how to age well. Our grandparents and parents didn’t have the same possibilities we do. So they just accepted aging and grew older—and usually weaker and sicker—without questioning it.
This is a new era where a percentage of people over 70 and 80, even 90, are still very active, playing sports, living energetically and participating fully in ways not expected by previous generations. Some run marathons, do bodybuilding, write books, participate in arts and entertainment, and are even into online dating.
Seniors today are not giving in to “old age.” Contemporaries and family may tell us we’re too old to do this or that, but we’re not listening. Sure, we’re limited by some physical conditions, but we’re also finding ways to work around obstacles and injuries and stay as active as we can, no matter what.
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The New Senior Imperative
The new imperative is to exercise. Nothing else will do as much to delay the decaying process and eliminate many of the chronic diseases of old age. While aging is inevitable, decay is not. Our bodies and our brains depend on being active. We, the authors, Dr. Patsi and husband Rob Krakoff, both strongly believe that if you start now, you can stay fit for the rest of your life.
If this sounds impossible, perhaps you aren’t aware of some of the awesome medical technologies already in development that will extend our lives and our health. If we can stay alive long enough to benefit from these incredible advances, we can live free of heart problems, diabetes, cancer, bone loss, vision and hearing loss, dementia, and other common causes of misery in old age.
We’ll share what’s happening in medical technology; for example, nanobots are cell-sized computers which can be injected into the blood stream to take care of dysfunctions and disease. This is not science fiction; already Parkinson’s patients are using brain implants.
As seniors, we need to stay alive another decade, long enough for these breakthroughs to become available. They will extend our quality of life and then there will be other inventions. But the key is to stay alive and well-functioning until some of the chronic diseases of aging are eliminated, which is the point of this book.
According to Ray Kurzweil and Dr. Terry Grossman in Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, with the mapping of human genome complete, non-embryonic stem cell therapy, bionic replacement parts, and cloned organs are on track for realization by the early 2020s, and nanotechnology will follow in the 2030s.
| The Future of Healthcare
Did you know that scientists are already working on perfecting nanobots? These cell-sized robots can be injected into your body to seek and destroy harmful pathogens, genetic dysfunctions, and cancer cells. Nanobots could also be used to deliver RNA interference to turn off genes such as the fat insulin receptor, thereby eliminating diabetes and obesity. |
For now, the only solution science currently has for seniors to remain healthy is through exercise, good nutrition, medications, and supplements. Exercise will override the body’s preprogrammed genetic message to decay.
We are convinced that when it comes to senior fitness, attention to physical, emotional, and mental health is the fountain of youth. Especially exercise; staying active is the key to remaining not only youthful, but healthy.
Unfortunately, however, many seniors have bought into the concept that aging equals decay and that all seniors will get ill and disabled, will suffer, and then die. They accept that as inevitable fact, probably because many of them saw their parents and grandparents go through such misery. The idea that we can actually slow down the aging process, and in some cases reverse it to avoid chronic illness, seems unrealistic.
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Mind Shifts for Old Dogs
Before anyone will join the senior fitness revolution they have to believe that it is possible to be healthier. A shift in one’s mental model is required, and some old folks don’t shift easily. In fact, since most of us have been practicing our standard health habits for so long, we resist when told we need to change them.
Why do you think so many seniors ignore good advice about exercise and diet? Because they’re thoroughly entrenched in habits of a lifetime based on incomplete knowledge from medical experts of the past. Today, we know much more about the body and the brain.
We know from brain scans and imaging that you CAN teach old dogs new tricks. But it’s like the old joke about how many psychologists it takes to change a light bulb: it only takes one but she has to want to change it.
We believe you definitely would want to modify some of your health habits if you knew what leading-edge health care specialists now know about aging well. Any senior who wants to age better than their parents can do so by shifting their mental model to what’s possible.
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Aging Does Not Equal Decay
While exercise and diet are super important, there is first a vital need to cultivate the right attitude from which to operate. From what we see, so many people have bought into the “aging = decay” paradigm that they first will have to rewire their thinking alongside tactical actions like exercising most days of the week.
Dr. Christiane Northrup makes this point in her excellent book, Goddesses Never Age:
“Ageless living is what you experience when you engage in life without fear that you’re going to fall – or fall apart…we need to be more aware of our culture’s negative messages about growing older and make a conscious effort to reject them.”
What you believe is critical because it will determine the actions you take. You can’t get fit if you don’t believe exercise is worth it and will pay off. It’s not about looking younger or fitter; it’s about feeling healthy and happy while you age from the inside out. It’s about delaying the decay on a cellular level.
Our goal is to move you out of the old paradigm, of experiencing aging like your parents and grandparents did. We want to see you up and exercising. We’ll show you how to make the time to exercise; improve your strength, endurance, and flexibility; and how to shop for real food and prepare meals that will make you feel and think “fit for life” as you age.
Rob and I both live an active life and strive to motivate others to get on board and ride the exercise train to a longer, wiser, and more fulfilling adventure.
Our promise to you is that, even if you follow only a few of our suggestions, you will benefit from reading this book—and often in ways you don’t expect. You will look better, feel better, and your body and brain will put the brakes on the slide into old age and debilitation.
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A New Age for Seniors
We are entering a new age. There are roughly 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 in the U.S. every day. In the past 100 years, medical science has managed to extend our lifespan from our early 40s to our late 70s. In Japan, life expectancy is already into the 80s.
From a technology standpoint, the next ten years will equal the past 100 in scientific advancements and discoveries. Biomedical advances, public health initiatives, and social changes will reduce mortality and increase longevity.
But a longer life span isn’t necessarily a good thing. How valuable is a longer life if we simply increase the number of years we’re alive? We suggest aiming for longer “health spans.” The goal isn’t to live longer, but to live longer AND extend the number of years you are healthy and active.
How to spend those extra years is in your control to some extent. Will you live your remaining senior years in active, productive, fulfilling endeavors, or will your golden years be dull, overshadowed by declining health, loss of memory, and lingering illness?
Science is most likely going to figure this all out one day and provide some solutions for aging: better functioning, better organs, better replacements and radical treatments of diseases. For all of these reasons, your quality of life is an even greater concern. We need to take charge of our health, exercise, and nutrition if we want to thrive, not just survive.
Our advice? It’s simple but not easy. We, that is Rob and Dr. Patsi, think that physical exercise and healthy eating most days of the week will prevent a huge percentage of chronic diseases of aging. Our ideas are based on having accumulated evidence from:
- Science: Every day, new studies reveal the benefits of exercise and diet for everyone, but particularly for seniors, who can prevent or delay the onset of disabilities and diseases and increase longevity. Some experts say that 50 percent of so-called diseases of aging can be prevented or eliminated altogether by exercise. Scientific research on longevity points to increased exercise as beneficial to both physical and mental health —decreased risk of heart disease, obesity, cancers, diabetes, and osteoporosis, as well as for dementia and Alzheimer’s.
- Evolutionary biology: Our genetics haven’t changed much since we were running, hunting, and gathering food on the savannas of Africa. Humans began to evolve more rapidly with the use of language, tools, and social cooperation only about 10,000 years ago. In only the last 100 years, humans have doubled their average lifespan, but we still have the same basic genetic makeup as when we were primitive. That genetic code tells our body to grow when we move, and to decay when we don’t. To stave off decay you need to do something physical every day. While we can’t stop aging, we can delay and stop the deterioration.
| Eye-Opening Research
Medical research has shown that physical exercise and healthy habits can prevent 50-70% of chronic conditions of aging and reduce 50% of injuries and illnesses common to seniors. For example, when a group of seniors participated in a moderate amount of cardio activity each week, one study showed new growth of brain cells in MRI imaging. Other studies show a correlation between exercise and reduced risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s. |
Anecdotal personal experiences: The authors’ personal experiences from two different perspectives—Rob’s as a male former professional athlete, and Patsi’s as a female non-athletic motivational psychologist—represent two approaches to fitness that readers can use to find their own path to a longer, healthier lifestyle. In addition, we spotlight the stories of other people over 60 who have joined the senior fitness revolution and show how their exercise and nutritional programs work for them. The more we’ve delved into the research and the more we’ve interviewed healthy seniors, the more evident it has become to us that senior fitness isn’t just a good idea, but an urgent necessity for enjoying a longer life. While individual cases aren’t used as scientific proof, they certainly go a long way toward motivating others who may be inspired to say, “Hey, if he can do this, I can too!”
We can extend our health spans by paying attention to the key factors that cause health. We can live longer, have more fun, love more people, and truly age well.
If those aren’t good reasons for adopting exercise as a regular part of your daily living, then you aren’t paying attention. You are admitting defeat before the battle begins. Aging is inevitable; decay is not. You don’t have to act your age. You do not have to act and feel old.
We are genetically programmed to age once we’ve passed the child-bearing years. Our cells are either growing or decaying, depending on the message you send them. Exercise tells cells to grow. This is reversed with sedentary habits.
“If you don’t send any signals to grow, decay will win, but even a modest signal to grow—a decent workout, even a good, stiff walk—will drown out the noise. Thing is, you need to do something every day to tell your body it’s springtime. …you have to work at it every day.” ~ Dr. Henry S. Lodge, coauthor of Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond, 2007
It is not inevitable that you will get old and die. More than likely you will get old and live. Because of today’s advanced health care, you will live a long time whether you like it or not.
How you live as you age is your choice. Perhaps you didn’t know it, but you have more control over the aging process than you realize. The question is, are you up for it? Because YOU are responsible for the quality of your life. And the good news is the exercise and eating program we recommend is mostly fun, with some work, but we try to make that work more like play.
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Why Should Anyone Listen to Us?
Admittedly, we are not longevity specialists, medical doctors, nutritionists or physical exercise trainers. You should know that we’re not giving anyone individual advice; just because we do something doesn’t mean you should. Everyone’s different, and even more so when it comes to seniors.
We’ve seen too many of our friends get old before our eyes. They didn’t believe that vigorous exercise was something they could do as an aging senior. Their doctors wrote them many prescriptions, but not many spoke of prevention or insisted upon daily exercise. That has to stop.
There is plenty of information available for everyone to start advocating health for themselves and their friends. Everyone should know that exercise isn’t “nice-to-do,” but rather a requirement for all seniors.
That’s why we were compelled to write this book. We are merely practitioners of healthy habits, two educated professionals* who are in our 70s and who have learned a lot about exercise and nutrition over our lifetimes. We would really like to see more of our friends and fellow seniors get the amazing, miraculous benefits from exercise and good mental habits that we have. As you will read, we both have had our health challenges, and we use them not to give up but to motivate us.
A word of caution: Just because we set a standard of two hours of exercise a day doesn’t mean you should. Today, we enjoy that on most days and some days even three hours. But only five years ago, the thought of a half hour in the gym seemed to me like a climb up Mt. Everest. Some days it still does, but I use mental tricks to get going.
As for Rob, he’s been at it his whole life, so two hours of tennis and an hour in the gym is not unusual. And yes, there are days when he doesn’t feel like it and a few when he’s so tired afterward that he doesn’t do much else. Nevertheless, we do something, whatever we can, and try to make it fun. And it’s paying off.
The key messages we advocate in this book are:
- You don’t have to be a lifelong athlete to adopt a healthy exercise habit.
- If you aren’t using your muscles, you are losing your muscles… and brain cells.
- Anyone can and should start at a comfortable level and build up.
- You start now, do a little bit on two, then three, then four to six days a week, and you keep accumulating health benefits.
- You make it fun and social by playing sports or training with friends.
- If you maintain more healthy than unhealthy days, you will get fit, be happy, and live longer.
- All exercise requires healthy food for the body and brain, and one without the other doesn’t work.
- We encourage you to reject the cultural biases that paint seniors as weak, sick, and irrelevant.
Many of us are finally free of the many responsibilities that consumed our time, focus, and energy for decades, such as raising our families and demanding full-time careers. This truly can be your golden age where you are more creative, alive, and thriving than ever before.
*Rob Krakoff is founder of Razer, the interactive entertainment company and MindFX Science, a nutraceutical company making sports supplements for the brain. Patsi Krakoff is a psychologist, writer, and wellness advocate.
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Be the Tortoise, Not the Hare
Many of our readers will likely be daunted by the prescription in our book. I have seen this over and over: people who injure themselves in an “activity seizure” that comes on when they first decide to make a change. While we mention it in further chapters, I think we really need to emphasize it more. Rest and recovery is vital and so is starting slowly at your own pace to avoid injury.
The road to fitness is strewn with bodies of seniors who thought they could do more. We want you to set up for the long game, not a short approach that leaves you sore and injured.
This is not revolutionary advice. Everyone knows this, at least intellectually. But not everyone knows how significant it is for seniors and aging. These concepts are parallel with how all animals in nature survive and thrive. When we ignore the laws of nature, we die in unnaturally ugly ways.
Of course, there are some very good reasons people ignore these laws of nature. Seniors aren’t sissies; we’re hard workers. But sometimes it just hurts! It’s not easy being a senior. We’ll address some of the obstacles seniors face and help you find ways to surmount the challenges.
Sometimes extreme measures are needed. Rob and I decided more than a couple of decades ago to go all out for health. We don’t smoke, don’t drink any alcohol, and the only drugs we use we buy at Walmart or Walgreen’s. We’re not saints, and we’re not perfect human specimens, for sure.
Rob has a serious heart condition, Patsi’s got mild arrhythmia, and we’ve got the seniors’ medley of bad body parts and surgeries (knees, back, shoulders).
When it comes to life, nobody gets out alive. But there are some better ways to experience this whole old age adventure. If you make life fun and adventuresome, some of the pain gets ignored. AND, here’s one big secret: exercise actually reduces a lot of the causes of pain in joints and muscles.
We decided to write this book because what we’re doing is working. It has been documented by medical experts as the only recommended solution to reverse the aging process: physical exercise will preserve your health and keep your body from weakening and getting sick as you age.
The premise of this book is that you can slow down the biological clock with healthy exercise and good nutrition. Any senior can start a regular program of activities and build up to six days a week at an appropriate level for their condition.
By engaging in movements to build up cardio-respiratory endurance, muscle strength, flexibility, and balance, you will become a stronger, happier senior. You can up the odds that you won’t get so many of the diseases and injuries common to seniors and you won’t have as much pain. You’ll have more energy to do the things you enjoy. You’ll live longer.
It’s a simple program but not easy. If it were, then maybe more seniors would be in the gyms and out on the courts and trails. We don’t sugar coat it, but we will help you find solutions.
This is the challenge: You have to exercise to avoid pain and the consequences of a sedentary life, AND, if you do it wrong or too intensely for your level, you will get injured and have more pain instead of less! Yes, that challenge can be tough; there is a fine line between enough and too much.
Yet exercise is so important to happiness and health in our senior years that you can’t afford not to get active and to even challenge yourself a little. There aren’t any bullet-proof solutions. We suggest getting help when you start, with a trainer or physical therapist (in addition to a check-up with your doctor) so you don’t spoil your good intentions with injuries.
Safety First: You’re going to have to challenge yourself, but be cautious and use common sense at the same time. It’s a bit like learning to drive a car all over again. Don’t drive too fast, follow the rules of the road (posture and form), and STOP before you feel the pain. Don’t spin out and crash because you think you’re smarter, fitter, and younger than you really are. (Actually, that’s something I tend to do more often than I admit!)
You’re old, so you must be wise by now, right? Go get fit then, and Rob and I will see you down the road. You’ll recognize us when you do….we’ll be two of the fittest bodies in the cemetery! (Or with the help of our medical futurologists, maybe not!)
Happy trails,
Dr. Patsi and Rob Krakoff
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