As we conducted our research for this fitness issue, we discovered not only some individuals who have defied the norms of what one would expect a senior to be doing, but we hit upon some health professionals whose own research has shown that being fit not only helps you live stronger and longer, but it can actually turn back the biological time clock.

None seemed to have as direct a message as Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D., authors of the book Younger Next Year for Women. (All of this advice applies to men too!)

Chris is described as “a recovery case, years younger at 70 than when he retired from a Wall Street law firm and began wondering who the hell he would be, once stripped of his professional status.” He found himself sliding into “flab and foolishness” before he caught himself and reversed direction.

Dr. Harry Lodge is 47, a medical practitioner, teacher and man of science. His message is simple: After 50 we start to decay. Unless we signal our bodies to keep growing by exercising six days a week, our bodies head downhill after 50.

“There is an immutable biology of aging, and you can’t do anything about it,” says Dr. Harry. “Hair gets grey, gravity takes its toll. Your maximum heart rate declines steadily over time, regardless of how active you are. Your skin degenerates, regardless of lifestyle. You will look old, no matter what. But you do not have to act old or feel old.

He says exercise provides the signal that jolts our cells into repairing and renewing themselves and releases the chemicals that bathe our brains in positive feelings. Seventy per cent of aging after 50 is governed by our lifestyle. Half of all sickness and serious accidents expected after age 50 can be virtually eliminated if we learn how to live younger.

“Aging can be a slow, minimal and surprisingly graceful process. Even on the appearances front, there is a huge difference between a great-looking healthy older person and one who has let go.”

In our 40s and 50s, our bodies switch into a “default to decay” mode, says Dr. Harry. There is only growth or decay. Your body looks to you to choose between them and the keys to overriding decay are daily exercise, emotional commitment, reasonable nutrition and a real engagement with living. But it starts with exercise.

Dr. Harry puts much of the blame for our decay on our modern lifestyle - junk food, too much TV, long commutes, job stress, marital stress, family stress, poor sleep, artificial light, noise and no exercise.

Exercise is the only way to engage your body and your physical brain, but if you do it, you will get “younger,” says Dr. Harry.

Chris tells us how. “After age 50, six days of exercise is mandatory. No negotiations. No give. No excuses. Six days, serious exercise, until you die.” 

Chris and Harry are constantly asked why it has to be six days. Isn’t some exercise better than none? Chris pulls no punches with his response.

“No,” he says. “It’s not better than nothing! We don’t even want you to think about it. It will sap your strength and drain your resolve. It will put you on the beach. It’s six days because it has to be. Actually, it should be seven.”

Relaxing our vigilance toward exercise is like being squeezed by a boa constrictor. People think boa constrictors squeeze, but they don’t, says Chris. “They just wrap around you and wait. You let out a breath... they take up the slack. Do it again... they take up the slack again.

Until you’re dead.” Not exercising religiously acts like the boa. Relax and decay will take up the slack, every time. 

So how does one maintain such vigilance? Chris offers some sage advice. 

1. Join a gym. There’s a structure of routine and accountability that nothing else provides. Even if you love exercising outdoors, join a gym anyway. You need it for rainy days. For winter. For the group classes and the weight machines. You need a place to go, every day.
2. Find a gym with a decent mix of young people and some your own age.
3. Get a trainer. Find one whom you like but who’s a real motivator.
4. Try to do at least 20 minutes of aerobic training, 20 minutes of strength training, with proper warm-up and cool-down periods at the beginning and end.
5. Classes or group activities are great motivators: spinning class, step class, aerobic dance, yoga, Pilates. You’re more likely to go because there’s a set time for class and that creates a certain discipline. You’re far less likely to dog it once you get there.
6. It’s a lot easier to exercise if you have a regular time. Same time every day, so there’s not a new decision every time. No one has the character to make the fresh decision every day to go to the gym. Go on “automatic” or you’ll quit.
7. Don’t miss a single chance to make this fun and close to enjoyable.

But Dr. Harry said you could get “younger.” How does that work?

Your body is made of meat, sinew, fat and many other parts that break down over time and have to be constantly renewed. The muscle cells in your thigh are completely replaced, one at a time, day and night, about every four months. Brand-new muscles, three times a year.

The solid leg you’ve stood on so securely since childhood is mostly new since last summer. Your blood cells are replaced every three months, your platelets every 10 days, your bones every couple of years. Your taste buds are replaced every day. In other words, your body is renewing itself all the time.

Exercise is the foundation of positive brain chemistry. And that leads directly to the younger life Dr. Harry promises, including heightened immune system, better sleep, weight loss, insulin regulation and fat burning, improved sexuality, dramatic resistance to heart attack, stroke, hypertension, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, high cholesterol and depression.

Cardiovascular disease kills more women than breast cancer and the next seven leading causes of death combined, but most cardiovascular disease is preventable. Seventy to 80 per cent of heart attacks and strokes are caused by lifestyle, which means that making different choices, starting with exercise, will greatly reduce the chances of getting any of these diseases.

Do something every day, six days a week for at least 45 minutes. Out of the six days of exercise per week, four need to be devoted mostly to aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is anything that uses the large muscle groups, rhythmically, maintaining your heart rate at 60-80 per cent of your maximum (see Sidebar or visit www.seniorlivingmag.com/exercise). Aerobic activities include walking, biking, jogging, swimming, aerobic classes and cross-country skiing.  

Never quit early. And never stay home. Ever. Or you’ll start to slack off completely.

Make a realistic assessment of the shape you’re in today and then make a start that matches your condition. Start too easy and you’ll get bored. Start too hard and you’ll quit or hurt yourself.

See your doctor before embarking on any exercise. It is possible, at your age, that you have a condition you’re totally unaware of that could make a sudden, new exercise program a grave threat. Don’t take the chance. By now, you should be seeing your doctor once a year anyway.

Fast-forward 10, 20 or 40 years, and visualize yourself as old and fit: hiking with your grandchildren or your friends, active and appealing.

Now visualize yourself as old and frail. Bent over a walker. Tentative, passive, dependent.

You really are likely to live long enough for one of those two scenarios to come true. Active or dependent. You pick. Aerobic exercise saves your life; strength training makes it worth living.

Your personal best is still ahead and you have years and years of getting Younger Every Year.

Buy a heart rate monitor.
After a warm-up, slowly increase the intensity of whatever you’re doing and get your heart rate up to 60-65 per cent of your max and level off. Work up (as slowly as you need to) to a 45-60 minute workout including warm-up and cool-down.

Think of exercise as a one-a-day pill.
Think of doing exercise as sending a constant “grow” message, telling your body to get stronger, more limber, functionally younger, in the only language your body understands.

Living past 100.
Studies predict that of the 70 million boomers born between 1946 and 1964, approximately three million will live to the age of 100, or beyond. The question is: What shape do you want your body to be in, if you are one of those three million?

Thank you to the authors of Younger Next Year for Women whose book I used to develop most of the content for this article. I encourage you to buy a copy. You’ll learn much more about the scientific reasons behind exercise and how much it can benefit you as you age. If you are one of those over 50 persons who is giving in to steady decay caused by inactivity, it’s never too late to move in a new direction.

To calculate your target heart rate, visit www.seniorlivingmag.com/heartrate

JANUARY 2011 SENIOR LIVING MAGAZINE VANCOUVER ISLAND
JANUARY 2011 SENIOR LIVING MAGAZINE VANCOUVER & LOWER MAINLAND