Signs and Habits for Longevity

Recently, I was going through some old files, and I came across notes I wrote about living a very long life. I wrote it in 2008, but as I reread what I’m calling the “12 Signs and Habits for Longevity”, I was re-motivated to pay more attention to those 12 signs.

I thought I’d share them with you as well and I hope that they are as helpful to you as they were, and still are, to me.

1. Drink 2 cups of green or white tea every day.

2. Take 30 minutes each day to walk, bike, or run.

3. Don’t drink a lot of soda.

4. Work out your lower body and legs to give you more strength.

5. Eat more blueberries and red grapes as well as having a little of red wine here and there to reduce the risk of heart disease and Alzheimer.

6. Eat little or no beef to reduce your risk of colorectal cancer.

7. Get a college education if you can. Statistically, it increases your life expectancy by 18 months or more.

8. Reduce or try to eliminate chronic stress as it weakens the immune system and increases cellular aging, shorting life expectancy by 4 to 8 years.

9. Hang out with more healthy people.

10. Work on keeping your weight down. Don’t use housekeepers or gardeners to maintain your house, but do it yourself to burn more calories and help control your weight.

11. Work on having a very positive outlook and sense of purpose.

12. Give yourself over to helping other people, not just your family, but old friends and new friends as well.

If there are things on this list, you can do or change in your life to live better and longer, now is the time to do it!

Before We Lose It

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I had no idea how important the social aspect of my life was until the pandemic hit. That made me realize just how much I valued my face-to-face conversations and hanging out with my friends. It also hurt that our annual trip to Europe and other counties was gone. We’ve met so many wonderful people and made so many new friends on those trips as well.

Most of us take way too much for granted and don’t take the time to be as grateful as we should be for what we have. But when one of those great things in our lives is suddenly taken away… wow, we certainly notice how much we appreciate those things when they are gone. 

Something that I took for granted for far too long was my daily long walk and comparing my daily steps total to my previous daily steps. As I’ve written before, I have given myself a minimum goal of 20,000 steps a day, although I usually go well over that. I use a super great gift my wife gave me years ago, a Fitbit, that counts each step I take and gives me weekly totals. That little device enhanced and lifted my life. It’s helped me stay fit, even now as the ripe age of 80 approaches, less than 3 years away.

Well, that little device that pushed me to regularly walk my 20,000 plus steps a day was a big deal and I totally took for granted what it was pushing me to do until recently. I got hit in the head several months back, which laid me up for a while. 

Then, just this last week, I had a big trip and fall at 2:30 in the morning. I hit my right knee so hard that I could hardly walk the next day and for many days to follow. The few steps I did try to take were too painful, so I would find myself in bed or sitting in a chair all day long. Ugh. Even taking a pain pill didn’t help much. Double ugh! 

That is when it hit me like a brick that I’ve taken the ability to walk without pain totally for granted. I know this happens to many of us when we get injured, but shouldn’t we start to appreciate what we have before we lose it?

I think all of us should take time to consider all the great things in our lives that we are just taking for granted. I talked about that here on my blog before. Back then, I made a list of the many things that I was taking for granted, but perhaps it’s time for an update.

I suggest now, as I did then, that all of us consider making or updating a list of that kind so we have time to enjoy and appreciate what we have while we have it. Doing so has the potential to make us more content as we begin to truly recognize all the great things we have in our lives. 

You can look at my prior list to help you start building your own. It’s in my post from 4/16/2020. You might also want to read or re-read what I posted on 11/29/2020 for an additional reminder. 

ALMOST 5 MILLION

I got a bit of a shock via an email I received last week. It came from “Fitbit”. It was a summary report of my fitness for the year 2014. It said, “Whoa, take a look back at everything you accomplished in 2014!” And I did.

The shocker was my Fitbit recorded me taking 4,980,169 steps in just one year. That’s 2,341 miles. The message went on to say, “You might not have noticed when you were running errands, chasing the bus or hitting the gym after a long day, but every single step you took added up to something big. Something really big. It’s a year to be proud of and we’re pumped to be a part of it.”

I would have never guessed a year ago, when my wife gave me this little tiny thing called a Fitbit that I ever could or would take almost 5 million steps in a single year!

I wrote about my Fitbit in a blog early in 2014 saying that when we take time to measure and keep track of most anything, we tend to get better at whatever we are measuring. This is because we are competing against ourselves and we can see our progress. We just want to do better or do more today than we did yesterday and with those records to keep reminding us, we then are driven to continue improving each day after that.

After getting the summary report from Fitbit I am certainly even more motivated to continue improving my fitness and have challenged myself to do much better in 2015. In fact my goal is now 7 million steps for this year.

As all of us begin this new year, I want to push and challenge you to start measuring whatever it is that you want improve upon. It could be your wealth, your health, your donations of time and or money to others or anything you would like to be doing more of or be better at. Start today to keep track and I promise that ‘keeping track’ will to keep you ‘on track’ and you will get better and better at whatever you are measuring.

144 Years … or Close to it!

“Multi-Millionaire dies at Age 144!”

That was the audacious headline of a full page article in Denver’s Rocky Mountain News that ran many years ago. It was not exactly an article but it looked like one. It actually was an advertisement of mine. The very first response I received was from the Federal Trade Commission giving me a “cease and desist” order. They said it was false advertising. I responded back to them that they needed to read the entire ad. Yes, the headline was a bit misleading but in the body copy that followed I made it very clear that the 144 year age thing had not been achieved yet, but was my goal. Although I lost the argument and never ran the ad again, the point I was making was, and still is, valid.

What was the ad all about? It was about goal setting and more importantly setting goals for great health and a very long life. And think about it–you can’t prove that I won’t reach this lofty goal as long as I am still alive so as far as we’re all concerned, it’s still a possibility. I agree that hitting age 144 is not very likely, especially since no one in earth’s history has come anywhere close to that. The oldest verified person on record was Jeanne Calment of France, who made it to 122.But whether I get there or not is not the point. The point is I have a goal that is going to drive me to do the best I can.

So, you see, this goal is not about feeding some delusion but rather it is about setting a goal that acts as a constant reminder to choose paths that will move one towards that goal or at least get one close to it. The 144 year goal, for me, is a constant reminder and pointer to eat the best foods, stay physically active, read the best books on health and longevity, and hang around people that have good health goals as well.

So, that’s my message for this week. It’s a short message but I think you get it. So, regardless of how lofty they may be, why not set health and longevity goals for yourself right now!

 

Fitness Every Day, Starting Right Now

Last week I told you about my goal to work out every single day and do that at least until my 70th birthday which is now 347 days. (I’m pretty sure when I hit 70 I won’t stop then either!) So far so good–I haven’t missed a day in the last 45 days! I sure could have used the fact that I hurt my back one day as an excuse to skip a day but I didn’t. I was in a lot of pain then but I sure felt terrific when I finished. I mean, physically I was totally beat and in a world of hurt but mentally, I felt like a champion. And, wow … that felt great!

One big discovery I made with my “every single day” workout goal was that we are more likely to succeed at it because unlike a goal to work out 4 or 5 days a week, an “every single day” goal doesn’t tempt you to skip today’s workout. You can’t say “Oh, I’ll feel better tomorrow and I can still get in my 4 or 5 days this week.” The thing is, if you do procrastinate you may well find yourself skipping and pushing your work out until you run out of days in the week and miss your target. With an “every single day” goal you know procrastination or skipping days is simply not an option.

If this simple goal hasn’t motivated you to start your own health and work out program by now, then I think I need to tempt you by giving you a list of huge benefits or as I call these lists in my book “How To Ignite Your Passion For Living”, B-RAM. B-RAM stands for Benefits, Reasons, and Motivations. These are the things that will keep you chasing your goal if your keep them in the forefront of your mind. (See Chapter 7 entitled “The Sure Fire Way to Stick with Every Goal” on page 71 for more on how to benefit from B-RAM.)

Here are 7 huge benefits of setting unshakable fitness goals as given by Dr. Daniel G. Amen in his book “Use Your Brain to Change Your Age”. Print out this B-RAM (adding more reasons to it if you like) and post it somewhere to keep reminding yourself how wonderful this goal will be for you:

1. Those with pep in their step stay younger.

2. Aerobics will help you keep more brain tissue.

3. Balance exercises help you age gracefully.

4. Active seniors look years younger than their couch potato friends.

5. Resistance exercises keep you stronger to live longer.

6. The greater your muscle strength, the less risk of Alzheimer’s.

7. Those who exercise slow down their biological clock.

By the way Dr. Amen documents the evidence behind each of these 7 benefits starting on page 123 under the heading of “Exercise and Longevity”. He introduces this section by saying “New research seems to be popping up every day proving that exercise will not only increase how long you live but also the quality of life in those years.”

What else do you need to get you up and working on fitness? If you haven’t started, why not start RIGHT NOW! Take five minutes and briskly walk, dance, stretch, lift a few weights … and think about how you’ll do this every day so you can get all these great benefits, starting right now!

 

A Picture of Greatest Health

Back in 1998 I saw a picture of a man that really shocked me. It was the picture of an African American man posing in a swim suit as he flexed his rather well defined muscles. The headline below it read “can you guess this guy’s age?” i took up the challenge. I saw that he was in great shape and his skin looked pretty wrinkle free so i guessed 45 or 50 years old at most. I wasn’t even close.

Harry Scott was actually 65 years old which, of course, made me ask if just anyone, myself in particular, could look that good at age 65! I tore that page out of the magazine (sorry about that my good doctor’s office!) And have carried that now very tattered page with me ever since. It was and is such a great inspiration to me to not just look good and be in good shape but more importantly, to strive to be in the greatest health that is possible at every age!!

I am 67 now and near my high school. The things I’ve done to keep in shape are likely stuff you already know but let me give you some critical keys to put what you know into practice but may not do consistently. Remember that old great saying “To know and not to do, is not yet to know.”

So I would suggest you start thinking about what you’d like to improve in your health, fitness routine, and energy level. Over the next few weeks, I will cover what it takes to stick with a program that will get you in shape and keep you in the best health possible.

If you want to see this great picture of Harry Scott, it’s in the picture center of my re-written book “The Next Step To Waking Up The Financial Genius Inside You”