Be Younger Next Year – Part Two

“You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old!”

– George Burns

As I finished this book today I could not help but be inspired. Most of us have some trepidation about aging. I know I do. But, the authors did an excellent job of showing us a path to a vibrant old age. As George Burns said, we don’t have to get old. 

One of the things that sticks in my memory from the book is two diagrams on aging. 

• Option 1 has you peaking sometime in your 40’s-50’s with a slow decline in health until your death. 
• Option 2 has you hold the line on your health from your 40’s-50’s, with maybe even some increases in your 60’s and 70’s before a quick decline just before you die. 

Option 2 is available to almost all of us. Unless we were Olympic sprinters in our youth, we can all improve our health through diet, exercise, and training our minds. 

This weekend we had the opportunity to get on the Appalachian Trail with my in-laws. My mother-in-law bought a book about “Grandma Gatewood.” Grandma Gatewood was the first female thru-hiker of the 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail. She did that at the age of 68. Two years later she did the hike again. Then she section-hiked the AT at 77 years of age. She died healthy and vibrant at the age of 85, hiking and working hard until the end. 

How can we pull off living vibrant, healthy, and happy until God calls us home? Last week we talked about rules one through three of Harry’s 7-Rules of healthy aging from the book “Younger Next Year” by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge. They were 1 – Exercise six days per week; 2 – Do serious aerobic exercise four days per week; and 3 – Do serious strength training two days per week. Here are the last 4 rules. 

Rule Four – Spend Less Than You Make

It makes sense that financial stress could be a serious detriment to a happy old age. Thanks to the magic of compound interest, the sooner we start living on less than we make and saving the rest the better off we will be. Talk to a good financial planner who gets paid to help you reach your goals, not by the products they sell. Develop a plan. Get after it. Your older self and your kids will thank you. 

Rule Five – Quit Eating Crap

I can personally attest that a bad diet cannot overcome even enormous amounts of exercise. I finished the Florida Ironman in 2010. That event covers 140.6 miles of swimming, biking, and running. The amount of training I did was ridiculous. I was able to easily out-eat that training and finish the race overweight (by triathlon standards). The math is simple. Exercise doesn’t burn that many calories (the average male burns about 100 calories per mile of running) and the food we eat has ridiculous amounts of calories. 

Getting healthy requires eating healthy. I hate it. I struggle with it, but it is the only way. Eat vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, beans, whole grains, fruit, and nuts. Let everything else be an exception. You’ll know you are serious about eating healthy when you start keeping a food journal. Don’t diet. Train yourself to eat healthy foods, keep up the exercise and you will become healthier. 

Eating healthy is the hardest part of the plan. Get yourself an accountability partner, write down what you eat, and stay after it. You’ll fail, but if you don’t quit, you’ll get better every time you get back up. 

Rule Six – Care

Care enough to keep a journal. A commitment to a good life requires an examined life. By writing down what we did each day, what we ate, what exercise we did (if we did any) and anything else we care about we allow ourselves to measure our outcomes against our inputs. This gives us the opportunity to change the inputs (the leading indicators) to improve the outputs (the lagging indicators). 

This works in life and business. Certain inputs drive the best outcomes. We figure out which inputs work best by examining the outputs. 

While you are journaling feel free to mention some of the bad, but don’t dwell on it. Force yourself to remember the bright spots in your day. Remembering the good stuff focuses our minds on “the pure, lovely and praiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8). Focusing our minds on the good leads to joy and happiness. We decide how we feel when we decide what we think about. 

Rule Seven – Connect & Commit

Reconnect and commit yourself to family, friends, and companions. Be involved in your community, volunteer, do good deeds. Do whatever you can to improve the lives of others. Go to church. Be a part of something bigger than yourself. 

Build on the relationships you have. Don’t trash them in hopes of finding something or someone better. You won’t. Make the most of the relationships God puts into your life. The people in our life are not perfect. Thank goodness for that. If they were, they would never put up with me!

Keep working. The authors speak very highly of continuing to work. Not many of us will get to and many will not want to continue with our current careers in retirement. If you love your work and can, stick with it. If you can’t, humble yourself to start something new or take a position that many would call “beneath” someone of your wisdom and experience. Work gives you a schedule, gets you out of bed, keeps you connected, and gives you an opportunity to create value for others. 

Study after study has shown that continuing to work in some capacity will extend the quantity and quality of your life. 

That’s it. Seven rules that can be condensed into three. Work out & eat healthy (take care of your body), live on less than you make, and connect and commit to others. If we keep our bodies going, we will have the power we need to continue to accomplish great things until God calls us home. 

“Even in old age they will still produce fruit; they will remain vital and green.”

– Psalm 92:14 (NLV)

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