Finding a path through age

I’ve been thinking a lot about my age lately.
One would think I still have a solid 30 years or so left, based on some unverified numbers on some random database that aren’t attributable to anyone.
Of the 333 million people in the United States, the average lifespan for a male is 74.8 years. That cuts me short of the 30 years, but I try to eat right, intermittently fast, and move around. I just figured, by now, they would have a cure for death.
But they won’t reveal that until we’ve colonized Mars and Venus.
Regularly I find myself evaluating my personal inputs for longevity vs. the friction of simply having a good time.
Vegetables, fruits, greens, exercise, reading, fish, fasts, regular checkups, and therapy are all the things that have at least some evidence of slowing the decay of the body. Then you stack all that up against the things that can make us age faster, e.g. being sedentary, alcohol, drugs, bad relationships, processed foods, stress in any form, pizza (and that’s been a more prominent dinner option than it should be, right.)
When we stack all these things up, you better be heavier on one side than the other, or this age that some of us fight and some of us just accept, comes on faster.
Health of the mind is an important part of not feeling the age as quickly. That’s why I spend my first hour or so in the morning with my glasses on reading everything I can. Not only does it provide fodder for local news coverage, but it keeps things a bit sharper.
Take care of your mind, because in the truest physiological sense, that’s where it all starts. Typically we don’t get to that point until we’re well into our careers.
Anyone who knows me would tell you I didn’t put too much value in taking care of my mind when I was younger. I was very, very spontaneous with my time. If it was fun, that’s where I was.
Now I think my way through things a lot more than I used to and probably still less than I need to. I have a conviction problem, too. I know where the line is drawn, I just sometimes do not care. When I was younger, that was way more prevalent and that’s probably the case with most of us.
But most of us chill out a bit as we get older and that’s a good part of age.
So we get the diet and the mental acuity back in line, the next thing to get after, in my case, is the dad bod. I honestly believe I’d be okay there if I could ditch the beer. I just love a cold beer, even in the winter. And there’s nothing wrong with A cold beer. You run into trouble when it comes A night of cold beer. Then you have to crash in the guest room and the next morning’s out of whack.
The real battle against the dad bod is the exercise. And I like to throw weight around. I hate the treadmill, it bores the crap out of me.
I get bored quickly with exercise routines, so they change all the time. My biggest problem is that panic still teases me when I get short of breath working out. That’s a byproduct of tragedy and heartbreak and what’s been labled PTSD. I’ve learned some tools that Dr. Mike (Maher, if you haven’t been reading) has taught me in trusting my instincts in those situations and understanding that it’s a mental beginning that transitions to a physical state. If we understand that process, we can actually break the link before it becomes physical, but that’s playing the game at expert level. So I extend my exercise to get more time rather than ramp up intensity. I think my body appreciates that a little, too.
When I climb the 16 stairs to the upper floor of my home, I hear the click, click in my knees. I’m just waiting for the boom.
I’m dabbling with these body weight exercises that Facebook reels focus on because getting to the gym gets in the way of work. These are kinetic things where you use your body as your weight. You just have to position your hands, arms, and legs precisely to take full advantage. It’s the workout of choice now and clearly it’s the cheaper option. I sprinkle in some tricks with resistance bands that I learned when my lower back made me rethink the value of mobility.
But the point it is to try and stunt the aging process. You can’t stop getting older numerically, but there’s some great endorphins and self-satisfaction that show up after putting in 45 minutes or so a day. What you do it for is completely up to you.
A good segue here lies in the fact that I had my front yard trees trimmed back by Troy Thacher over the weekend. This guy works a chainsaw better than I work a keyboard and now I don’t have to worry as much about branches from a very aged oak tree hitting someone walking down the sidewalk anymore. And when I got home Friday night, you couldn’t even tell he’d been there except for my new-look yard – But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is the editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.