Younger Next Year?  Very Possibly

Yes it is possible to go from tired to energised. From wanting to sleep away the day to wanting to see the sunrise. Read about 'Harry's Rules' and how not being able to get the top off a jar or bend down without groaning can provide the motivation to work at possibly being younger next year rather than just another year older.

Do you remember the day when suddenly it struck you that jar lids have become more difficult to remove? Not to mention the difficulty that arises when you have to remove a cork from a wine bottle, and it is not a screw top. 

It happened to me a while ago and I put up with it for a while until I was looking for a new book to read and came across one called Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond,  Intriguing title I thought.  It was fairly obvious it was about a holistic approach to exercise but as I bought it through an ipad I wasn't able to scan the cover and just started reading.  I thought it might give me an intro into strength training to enable me to regain some body strength.  Well, let me tell you that when I started scanning the table of contents and went into a subsection titled 'the Truth', and another under a chapter called The Science of Aging - 'Normal aging isn't Normal', and then finished reading these sections I was too startled not to be hooked. 

This book started as a wakeup call for men (see book preview later in the newsletter) to get off the couch to avoid heart attacks. However, as the authors - one, a couch potato and the other his learned Doctor who heads a cutting edge 23 doctor practice in Manhattan, took a speaking tour across the U.S. there were many calls from women for a book tailored to them.

What I learned by the time I had finished the book a day later was that it was eminently possible to take charge of one's own body.  I just didn't like the hard work it entailed so put in out of sight for a week or so and tried to ignore it.  Haven't got time for the gym I thought and hate it anyway.  Too tired now to do more exercise.  That reformed couch potato is an exercise freak and one of those typical gym junkies that has to preach about how amazing their bodies look in the gym mirrors.  You've seen them haven't you? Preening to get a look at their back muscles as they lift massive weights the size of boulders. 

Then I started thinking about the description of how frail the couch potato had become as he started to lose his balance walking his dog and how he had tripped on a simple sidewalk nearly leading to both his and his dog's death in the midst of traffic. And what the co-author, the medic has learned from his own profound experience and study from treating patients in their fifties, sixties and seventies of the developments in cellular and evolutionary biology which he is putting into practice.

Okay, just do it I thought.  Not that I am a couch potato as I walk an hour weekdays and sometimes in the weekends and I really hated the gym from past experiences.  But even I know that weights and machines in the home are not a long term proposition having owned everything from rowers to free weights to cycles.  All a good idea at the time.

Then, the solution appeared in consultation with a daughter who gyms before work and a friend who had also finished the same book.  A small women's gym with varied classes.

Hmm, easier said than done when it comes to one's first Zumba class.  However, after warning all other participants in the close vicinity that I have two left feet and to keep their distance, I found it was really a blast.  So much more fun than counting reps.  Same with Yoga and Pilates.  Someone else does all the hard work.

And yes I can hear you all.  Fun for a start you say.  Wait til the winter the rest of you are saying but the pleasure of being fitter is already becoming evident.  Even walking is easier and the flabby bits are hardening.

Who knows?  I might even start to really like the gym. I can't believe the number of women there in their 70's and 80's so perhaps they too feel better.