A lot of younger people have no idea what aging actually looks and feels like, and the reasons behind it. That ignorance is so dangerous. If you don’t want to “be old,” you aren’t talking about a number of years. I have patients in their late 80s who could still handily beat me in a race—one couple still runs marathons together, in their late 80s—and I lost someone who was in her early 60s to COPD last year. What you want is not youth, it is health.
If you want to still be able to enjoy doing things in your 60s and 70s and 80s and even 90s, what you want to do, right now, is quit smoking, get some activity on a regular basis (a couple of walks a week is WAY better for you than nothing; increasing from 1 hour a day of cardio to 1.5 will buy you very little), and eat some plants. That’s it. No magic to it. No secret weird tricks. Don’t poison yourself, move around so your body doesn’t forget how, and eat plants.
If you have trouble moving around now because of mobility limitations, bad news: you still need to move around, not because it’s immoral not to, but because that’s still the best advice we have. I highly recommend looking up the Sit and Be Fit series; it is freely available and has exercises that can be done in a chair, which are suitable for people with limited mobility or poor balance. POTS sufferers, I’m looking at you.
If you have trouble eating plants because of dietary issues (they cause gas, etc.) or just because they’re bitter (super taster with texture issues here!), bad news. You still want to find a way to get some plants into your body on a regular basis. I know. It sucks. The only way I can do it is restaurants—they can make salads taste like food. I can also tolerate some bagged salads. On bad weeks, the OCD with contamination focus gets so bad I just can’t. However, canned beans always seem “safe,” and they taste a bit like candy, so they’re a good fallback.
If you smoke and you have tried quitting a million times and you’re just not ready to, bad news. You still need to quit. Your body needs you to try and keep trying. Your brain needs it, too. Damaging small blood vessels racks up cumulative damage over time that your body can start trying to reverse as soon as you quit. I know it’s insanely, absurdly addictive. You still need to.
You cannot rules lawyer your way past your body’s basic needs. It needs food, sleep, activity, and the absence of poison. Those are both small things and big asks. You cannot sustain a routine based on punishment, so don’t punish your body. Find ways to include these things that are enjoyable and rewarding instead. Experiment. There is no reason not to experiment—you don’t have to know instantly what’s going to work for you and what won’t, you just need to be willing to try things and make changes when things aren’t working for you.
You will still age. Your body will stop making collagen and elastin. Tissues you can see and tissues you can’t see will both sag. Cushioning tissues under your skin will get thinner. You’ll bruise more easily. Skin will tear more easily. Accumulated sun damage will start to show more and more. Joints will begin to show arthritis. Tendons and ligaments will get weaker and get injured more easily, as will muscles. Bones will lose mass and get easier to break. You’ll get tired more easily.
But you know what makes the difference between being dead, or as good as, in your 60s vs your 90s? Activity, plants, and quitting smoking. And don’t do meth. Saw a 58-year-old guy this week who is going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t quit whatever stimulant he’s on. I pretended to believe it was just the cigarettes, and maybe it is, but meth and cocaine will kill you quicker. Stop poisoning yourself.
Baby steps; take it one step at a time; you don’t need to have everything figured out right now. But you do need to be working on figuring things out.
You will be unsurprised to learn that someone already accused me of ableism for suggesting that people not smoke, move regularly in ways their body can tolerate, and eat plants.
Do NONE of you eat canned beans with maple and ham? This is at every Safeway on Earth as far as I can tell, and if you hate most vegetables, these are a lot sweeter because of, you know, the added sugar. Eat candied plants—glazed Brussels sprouts, candied yams—if you can’t stand the regular kind.
Oh, this is true, but you aren’t familiar with how lazy I am. I will work 36 hours straight for WORK—I’ve done it before and god willing I will never have to do it again—but cooking or preparing food has never been something I’ve devoted time to. (Partly because of hours and demands of work.) I wasn’t taught to cook because (explanation of my mother) and I didn’t even scramble eggs until I was 19, and then I set them on fire the first time I tried. I gave myself nutritional deficiencies twice during residency. The prospect of having to know what’s in my crisper AND use it before it goes bad despite the attentional difficulties, when my contamination OCD focus is already very bad, and KNOW when it’s gone bad when my only reference point is my also extremely OCD father, is untenable. I don’t enjoy cooking or making salads, and they’re pretty affordable at local places (in the sticks), so for me the math maths. However, it is definitely a good idea to learn to prepare salads and those of you with less baggage than me should definitely give it a shot! Salads can and should taste good! Raspberry vinaigrette and some candied walnuts or pecans plus some blue cheese crumbles = good shit. Who cares what plants you put it on. Except not iceberg lettuce.
I once saw it observed on Tumblr that adding good tasting things you like to a salad you're making does not cancel out the nutrition in the vegetable matter
(might've been OP. sounds like the kind of thing you post)
That wasn’t me, but I co-sign it 100%. I’d rather have patients eating salads that are completely covered in those “high fat!!!!” salad dressings that news programs love to freak out about than not eating plants. Do what you need to do to the plant to make it enjoyable to eat. Caramelize your onions. Put hollandaise sauce on your asparagus. Glaze your Brussels sprouts. Make! Life! Worth! Living! And make it possible to keep living it.
Penitence as a lifestyle is both unnecessary and often actively harmful.
All good advice, just wanted to add a movement resource I’ve found lately that has been REALLY helpful with getting my highly fatigued disabled ass moving.
Justin Augustin on TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@justin_agustin?_t=8mWP0bn9nVm&_r=1
He does all kinds of work out videos, but the ones I’m interested in are specifically the ones he made for chair exercises (not just stretches) and exercises you can do while sitting in bed and while laying down in bed. That last was a GAME CHANGER because some days I literally cannot get out of bed or only for extremely short times to pee and let the dog pee. But I’m still able to do some movements in bed. And they really help make me feel better! He also has done some for people with various pain I think too. And all of them are presented in a cheerful nonjudgmental manner. He looks like a gym bro but doesn’t act like he expects everyone to get on his level, and I appreciate that.
Anyway. Yea. Great resource.
I am just here to plug chair workouts. When I had foot surgery a couple of years ago I did some thinking they would be easy. LOL. Joke was on me. There are easy ones of course, but some of these workouts are H A R D. I would sweat and huff and puff as hard as I ever did doing power yoga or whatever. I still do these workouts sometimes if I’m feeling extra draggy. My kids like joining in on them too.
