By Michael Krueger
If you are in your 20s, you may not think this column is directed at you, but you would be mistaken, unless you don’t plan on getting any older. If you are over 30, you are already acquainted with some of the effects of the passing years. On the other hand, if you are over 40 and have stayed fit and strong, you may be wondering what the big deal is.
If you are over 50 and can honestly say that you are happy, healthy, and in better shape now than when you were 30, skip this article and go enjoy your life.
What Aging Isn’t
If you don’t die young, you will continue to age. That is an obvious fact. As the years roll by, wear and tear on your body will continue to add up. In reality though, very few people in our culture wear out; they rust out and break down from abuse and lack of maintenance. Unfortunately, the cost of that neglect is a fate worse than death. A recent report noted that average Americans live the last ten years of their life in an “unhealthy” state. Unhealthy was defined as being unable to live independently without assistance or participate in normal life activities. I’m sure you’ve responded to more than one call to a nursing home, so you know the type of existence I’m talking about.
Aging doesn’t have to be that way. Aging isn’t disability. Aging isn’t dementia. Aging isn’t isolation. Aging isn’t “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Aging isn’t bad. The only thing that is for sure is that aging is inevitable. There is no reason most people can’t live a long productive life and then die quickly. That sounded a little odd. What I mean is how great it would be to have 90 years of living strong and healthy and finish it up with only a week of dying at the end? Sounds pretty good to me.
Every year, every day, every minute, every second you are aging and it really doesn’t mean a thing. If you fill those moments with new experiences, enjoyable activities, exercise, good food, fulfilling work, learning, friends, and family, you don’t even notice the time going by.
But if you are sick, weak, depressed, and disabled, that’s another thing entirely.
What Getting Old Is
Staying young isn’t possible, but not getting old is. Getting old is a choice, the result of a lifetime of bad habits. If you don’t exercise, your heart and lungs will become more and more inefficient. Soon your heart begins to fail, and you need oxygen just to stay alive. Without strength training, you lose muscle mass, become insulin resistant, develop diabetes, and perhaps go blind or lose a leg or two as a side effect. If you smoke, aside from destroying your lungs and circulatory system, your skin will become tough, leathery, and saggy. Smokeless tobacco will rot your teeth and cause mouth, tongue, and throat cancer. If you don’t eat well, your body will be ravaged by diseases caused by the deficiencies of numerous vitamins and minerals. Without load-bearing activities, your bones will deteriorate; your spine will curve; and your vertebrae will compress, leaving you in pain and with posture and alignment issues that will cause even more problems with your internal organs as well as limit you mobility. Once you can’t get around on your own or take care of yourself, you grow old very quickly. Eventually, you can’t deal with your basic needs, and someone will put you in a nursing home and there you will stay, old and sick, until you finally die. This is now the western model for end of life care.
There is no reason to get old. It’s so easy to avoid the fate of getting old that it is amazing that so many people choose it as their default strategy. I know people who seem to enjoy opting out of life on the pretext that they are too old. Every time you avoid doing something because you are “too old,” you die a little bit faster. Every new experience you avoid because you’re “too old” your mind gets a little duller. Every run you don’t take, every weight you don’t lift just hastens your decline. Soon you really are too old to do much of anything, and that is very unfortunate indeed.
Exercise
Getting and keeping your body moving is the antidote to getting old. Your body wants to move; it was designed to move and it functions best when it’s in motion. Recently it was said that “sitting is the new smoking.” By this they mean that being sedentary inflicts such a huge toll on your body that it’s equal to the ravages of smoking. That is quite an indictment for sitting in front of a TV or computer screen all day.
The disturbing thing about this news is that even if you get enough formal exercise during the day, the excessive amount of time that we spend sitting still inflicts damage. Even regular active exercisers have no cause for being smug, since they sit for about the same number of hours as their nonexercising sedentary peers. It is in part the fault of our heavy reliance on technology to lessen our workload. We have elevators, escalators, and even moving sidewalks; we seem to want to avoid walking whenever possible. We spend a lot of time sitting behind a steering wheel working, commuting, or cruising around parking lots looking for a “good” parking space.
Many high schools and elementary schools no longer have physical education classes. The students sit at desks all day learning to take standardized tests. Perhaps they need to add a fitness component to the required regimen of standardized testing; at least that way they would be forced to include some exercise. When I was college age, everyone rode a bicycle to class and pretty much everywhere else. Now you see a lot more mopeds and scooters than bikes on a typical campus. We have created a society where being sedentary is the norm and the result is that we are unfit, unhappy, sick, old, and tired.
Formal exercise, coupled with everyday activity, is the best way to age with dignity. Get out and go for a walk after every meal. Go for a hike in the woods or if the great outdoors isn’t to your liking, a couple laps around a local mall are better than nothing. I often advise clients who need more activity that whenever they go up a flight of stairs to come back down and do it again. Another way is to park your car as far from your destination as you can. Get a dog (or borrow a neighbor’s sedentary dog; there are a lot of them around) and walk it twice a day. If you have kids, drag them to the park whenever you can and play with them. Creative nonstructured play is another great way to avoid getting old both physically and mentally.
Live Until You Die
What good is living a long life if the last 10 or more years of it is spent unhealthy? Why sit on the sidelines watching life pass you by when you could be an active participant? Why grow old and dull when you have so much to offer in the way of knowledge, wisdom, and experience?
So, if you are still young, institute the habits that will keep you from getting old. If you see yourself as old, perhaps if you got moving you might find out that you’ve got a lot of good living in you yet.
As for me, I’ve been sitting here typing long enough; it’s time for a walk in the hot, humid, mosquito-infested outdoors; hey, it beats getting old.
Michael Krueger is an NSCA-certified personal trainer. He got his start in fitness training while serving in the United States Coast Guard. He works with firefighters and others in and around Madison, Wisconsin. He is available to fire departments, civic organizations, and athletic teams for training, consulting, and speaking engagements. He has published numerous articles on fitness, health, and the mind-body connection and was a featured speaker at the IAFC’s FRI 2009 Health Day in Dallas, Texas. E-mail him at MKPTLLC@gmail.com.
