Younger Next Year

Reading an interesting book about ageing, perhaps the best I have run across.   It is about 5 years old but it held my attention because of the science of one of the co-authors, Dr Henry S. Lodge. Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy - Until You're 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge M.D

There is the usual chapters on exercise, although it is explained by the Dr. Lodge in new and profound manners using our three different brains and how we have evolved more the million of years.  The phase 'grow or decay' is used repeatedly.  It seems beyond the age of forty our body is a wash is the tide of aging , slow and steady and we have to stand firm and fight the wash of this aging tide.  We replace 1% of our cells each day we are alive but to help the distant sleepy cells of our body we have to use them.  That is my picture of how it works.  Dr. Lodge uses much more scientific imagine and facts.  I was amazing by the science of this book way beyond the good tides of exercise, eating right and having loving relationships in one's life.  Imagine that every three months all my thigh muscle cells are new!  Imagine that lifestyle diseases kill most people, it is not bacteria or viruses spreading person to person.  As individuals we can live healthy to the end of our lives instead of living years on a slide down hill we can die as a shoting star fast quickly at the very end of our life. 

The messages of the book include six days of week of 45 minute exercise.  Cold turkey start, no excuses and one day off!  Then there is level two and three that move into things that include weight training and heart moderating.

Harry’s Rules
1. Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life.
2. Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life
3. Do serious strength training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life.
4. Spend less than you make.
5. Quit eating crap.
6. Care.
7. Connect and commit.

 

To simply read this rules would short change the message of the book.  The writings of Dr. Lodge should be reread periodically to understand the importance’s of our brain and our function as humans.  His long chapters on caring connecting and committing are so well written, I am changing a few small things in my life.  The heart of old age is living with these activities and it takes work and planning.